Page 96 of Heart of a Villain

Dallas stepped backward, moving her out of the way. Memphis, finally gaining sense, jogged toward them, and over the chaos, it almost sounded as if he was warning Paoli not to touch Mo. At this point, Sayeda figured she’d either gone completely mad, or these two maniacs knew who Mo was for reasons still unknown.

More people continued to descend, and like someone blew a dog whistle, Dallas released Mo. Novi, giggling, released Sayeda. The four of them blended with the bodies and disappeared, Novi the last to vanish due to his white suit. Seconds after he left his spot, a blade sliced through where his neck would have been.

“Hurt,” Giorgio seemed to be asking Mo, but Sayeda detected no inflection in his tone.

Mo grimaced. “No, I’m fine. I got a small cut, but it’s nothing. The one in the white was Novi. The other one, he’s Paoli. The twins call themselves Dallas and Memphis. I didn’t get a good look at Novi’s blade, but I think he cut me when he went for Seda.”

Giorgio’s already blank expression went dead.

An arm wrapped around Sayeda’s waist, and Adrían’s voice sounded in her ear.

“We have to go. The Swedish police are here.”

They followed Mo and Giorgio, Giorgio moving as if he’d spent more than that night in the club. The maze took them to a series of stairs, down to the ground level, but they continued until they were in the middle of an underground tunnel.

Two men stood in their path.

One minute, Adrían’s arm was around her. The next, the men had holes in their throats, and the speed of each bullet reminded her so much of Lorenzo that it made her dizzy. But she didn’t have time to stew in her dizziness. Someone grabbed her from behind, and as if it were instinct, she unstrapped a blade from her other thigh and sank it into their trachea.

Yet, it wasn’t enough.

She turned and watched as they staggered before falling to their knees. She didn’t look away, couldn’t look away until they fell to the ground and took their last breath. Had it not been for Adrían grabbing her, she would have carved a masterpiece in their chest and smeared the blood all over her body like war paint.

“Don’t we have to do something about the bodies?” she asked, her voice foreign, and it had nothing to do with the underground chamber’s echo.

“Nyet,” Giorgio said.

And there was no arguing with a “nyet” from Giorgio.

She followed Giorgio to a spot where the rest of the guys had convened, and it made her wonder if they’d planned for something to happen.

Strangely, although Val and Ant weren’t used to the on-the-run lifestyle, they looked as unfazed as everyone else. The only one clearly unsettled was Wren, who had her arms wrapped around her as she stared into the distance.

Thanasis stared with her.

No one else showed any bit of concern over their situation until they noticed the blood on Mo’s thigh.

Tayler rushed forward to examine the wound, and she let them know that while major structures had been avoided, they needed to get Mo stitched up. Gage and Tayler would go with Mo and Giorgio, and as they walked off into the night, Sayeda overheard them coming up with their cover story about Mo’s injury.

The rest of them headed for the hotel.

Somehow, Adrían expected her to sleep, but she was too wired, though not for the reasons she would have expected. While Adrían lay beside her, his eyes closed and his breaths long and deep, she stared at the ceiling. They’d left on a dim lamp for her sake, but tonight, she no longer believed she needed it. Tonight, something changed. Something snapped.

“Adrían?”

He stirred.

Then, he went right back to sleep.

The look in the eyes of the man from the tunnel came back to her, and a twisted, wicked, morbid wetness built between her legs. As her memory replayed the life going out of his irises, her nipples hardened, and she went hot from inner thigh to inner thigh. The gurgling sounds the man had made had her breaths coming in short and quick, and the moment she realized that he’d stopped moving and wouldn’t move again, she slipped her fingers into her panties.

Power.

He’d tried to take her power.

And, like Rafael, she ended him.

Each time her middle and ring finger passed over her clit, she seized, jackknifing in pure pleasure. When her clit wasn’t enough, she spread her legs wider and entered her body with her other hand, both moving in tandem, her hips writhing to match her movements. Moisture saturated her groin and panties until she had to snatch them off and toss them somewhere in the room.

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