Page 19 of Emerald

Mikhail heard it too. I saw it in the way his eyes widened, the way his head whipped around towards the door. For a second he looked almost afraid, but then his face hardened, a cruel, ugly smile twisting his lips. He turned back to me, his hand tightening in my hair until I thought he might rip it out by the roots.

"Well, well. It seems someone has come to save you after all." His voice was a low, mocking purr, his breath hot and rancid against my face. "Too bad he's too late. Too bad he'll find nothing but a broken body when he gets here." He yanked me forward, bringing his face inches from mine. "I'm going to shatter you into so many pieces that not even your precious Finn will be able to put you back together again. And when he gets here, when he sees the ruin I've made of you, I’m going to tell him everything we did to you. And that you liked it and begged for more."

My heart seized in my chest, a cold sweat breaking out on my brow. No. I could endure any pain, any humiliation, but the thought of Finn knowing, of him hearing every depraved detail of what had been done to me. It would break him. It would fucking destroy him, to know the horrors I'd endured.

"You stupid, arrogant fuck," I spat, grinning up at him through the blood and the bruises. " You think you can use me to hurt him?" I leaned forward as far as my body would allow, my voice dropping to a low, venomous hiss. "I am going to watch you die, Mikhail Sokolov. I am going to watch the life fade from your eyes, and I am going to smile as I do it. Because you, and your pathetic brothers. You're all fucking going to die soon.”

Mikhail’s eyes narrowed, his lips peeling back from his teeth in a snarl of pure, unadulterated hatred. "You fucking b-"

Before he could finish, the door exploded inward, and blinding light, silhouetted a figure that stood tall in the doorway. Even with my vision blurred by blood and swollen flesh I knew who it was.

Finn.

As he locked eyes with me across the room, as I saw the anguish and the bone-deep relief in his gaze. I smiled. A first true smile since I’d saw him last. These fuckers were going to die.

Chapter 15: Finn

The basement door exploded inward under the force of my kick, my entire being focused on the scene in front of me. Cara. Naked. Her once flawless skin now bloodied, cut and bruised. The light in her eyes, once fierce and bright, was dimmed. She hung limply in Mikhail Sokolov's grasp, his meaty arm wrapped around her throat, a wicked-looking knife pressed to the delicate skin under her jaw.

For a moment, the world stopped. That space between one heartbeat and the next, something in me snapped. I felt it happen, felt something in me shatter and realign into something new. Something hard and cruel and utterly fucking merciless. These men, these pathetic excuses for human beings who had dared to lay hands on what was mine, they had signed their own death warrants.

"Let her go, Sokolov." My voice was calm. "It's over. Your brothers are dead, your compound is ashes. There's nowhere left to run."

Mikhail's piggy eyes darted from side to side, a trickle of sweat oozing down his temple. He was afraid, I realized with a distant sort of satisfaction. Afraid of me, of the reckoning he could see in my eyes.

Good. He fucking should be.

"You think you've won, Gallagher?" he spat, his hand tightening on the knife until a thin line of red appeared on Cara's throat. "You think this changes anything? I still have her, still hold all the power here. One wrong move and I'll slit her throat."

"You've already lost, Sokolov. You're just too stupid to see it." Then I was moving. I saw Mikhail's eyes widen, saw his arm jerk as he tried to bring the knife slashing across Cara's throat.

But he never got the chance. Because in that same instant, Cara moved. A sinuous twist of her hips, a lightning-fast jab of her elbow into Mikhail's gut. It was enough to loosen his grip, to send her tumbling out of his grasp and across the filthy concrete floor.

I didn't hesitate. Didn't falter in my headlong charge, even as every instinct screamed at me to go to her, to gather her up and shield her from any further harm. The threat still needed to be eliminated.

Mikhail met me head-on, a roar of fury ripping from his throat. He slashed at me with the knife, a wild, uncoordinated strike that I dodged with ease. And then my hands were on him, slamming him back against the wall with enough force to rattle his teeth in his skull.

"You fucked up, Sokolov," I growled, my forearm pressing against his windpipe. "You fucked up the second you touched her, the second you thought you could break her. Because now? Now I'm going to show you what real pain is. Now I'm going to make you wish you'd never been fucking born."

Mikhail thrashed in my grip, his eyes bulging and his face turning a mottled shade of purple. His strength no match for the icy fury pouring through my veins. I slammed him against the wall again, watching with grim satisfaction as his head cracked against the damp stone.

"Finn..."

Cara's voice, weak and thready called to me. I risked a glance over my shoulder, my heart clenching at the sight of her trying to push herself up on trembling arms.

"He won’t live. It's going to be alright." I told her.

She shook her head, her tangled strawberry hair falling around her face in a blood-matted curtain. "No. Not alright. Not until..." She trailed off, her gaze locking onto Mikhail with an intensity that sent a chill racing down my spine. Slowly, painfully, she dragged herself to her feet, one arm wrapped around her middle like she was trying to hold herself together.

"Finn," she said again, and this time there was no weakness in her voice. This time it was pure hate. "Give me the knife."

I stared at her. "What?"

"The knife. Give it to me." She held out a hand, palm up, fingers steady despite the livid bruises encircling her wrists. "Now."

I knew she had to do this. She had to take back the power that had been so brutally ripped away. She was a fucking warrior. A queen, in every sense of the word. And it was time for her to claim her throne, to take her vengeance with her own two hands.

Never taking my eyes off Mikhail's snarling face, I handed her the knife, the same one I'd used to end Declan Maguire's miserable life. Cara's fingers closed around the hilt, her knuckles white with the force of her grip. And then she was moving, a slow, deliberate stalk. She came to a stop in front of Mikhail, the point of the knife resting almost gently against his bobbing Adam's apple.

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