Page 174 of The Sinner's Bargain

“You’re my wife. I fucking love you,” he snarled against my bruised and panting mouth. “I love you so much it hurts. Do you actually think I would ever let another man have you? I would kill him. I would skin him alive and hang his body off the fucking roof. You’re mine, Naya. Fucking mine.”

I had no recollection of my fingers finding his hair, or that he’d released my hands, but I pulled him back to me. Relief a tight chokehold on my chest.

“Promise? Promise me,” I begged around the hot tears mixing with the rain. “Promise me.”

“I’m never letting you go, Naya. You’re fucking mine until the day I fucking die. Even then. Mine.” His words reverberated with a primal weight that crashed into me. “And now that I know the bastard who hurt you, I’m going to make it my life’s purpose to destroy everything he’s ever loved.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

THORAN

“Get back to the house and call off the search,” I told Cyrus and the flashlight guiding our way across the yard towards the manor.

He hadn’t spoken a word. Hadn’t even glanced in our direction. He was practically a ghost drifting ahead at a discreet ten feet. But he quickened his pace.

I needed to be alone with my wife. I needed time to process the rage and terror intermingling through my system. A vicious war for dominance.

I needed my wife.

I held Naya’s cold, stiff fingers with much more force than was necessary, but I wasn’t taking any fucking chances. My brain was still having a hard time convincing me that she wasn’t a bloody, splattered mess across the concrete beneath her window. I had to keep glancing at her to make sure I wasn’t imagining her.

But she was there, a small, shivering figure I was never letting out of my sights again. Wherever I went, she would stay with me. Even if I needed to shit, she had to sit and wait with me. At least outside the door.

The point was her actions were reckless. They put her in danger. Any number of awful things could have happened to her.

Wild animals could have eaten her.

She could have fallen into the lake ... again.

She could have found her way to the swamps.

The house could have claimed her.

I must have squeezed too hard because Naya whimpered my name, and I immediately loosened my fingers. I brought hers to my lips. Apologizing without words because if I opened my mouth, I would just keep screaming at her and I knew I couldn’t blame her.

I was pissed but I wasn’t stupid. I got why she ran. I understood. The weeks and days ... since the second Naya fell into my fucking lap, I knew she was running. I knew she was scared. I never imagined the severity, but Jarrett Brixton was a good reason. The man had connections and wealth even if he was a pathetic little weasel with zero common sense. She was right to be scared.

Then.

Back before she had me.

That sick, twisted mother fucker had no idea the level of crazy I was about to go on him and his entire empire.

He could have all the connections and money in the world, but I had a deep, visceral need for blood.

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