Page 43 of Now You're Mine

From the corner of my eye, I see Lux lunge forward, and pick something up off the tiled floor. I don’t see what it is until she holds it up. It’s a knife, and I’m betting it’s Nathan’s. And then it hits me—he threatened Lux with a fucking knife.

Pushing off the wall, I stalk toward Nathan, which forces him to take several steps back. All I see is blood right now—hisblood—for fucking with my girl. I’ve tortured people for far,farless.

With one swing, my fist connects with Nathan’s face and I hear a loudcrackas he goes down, falling to his knees. Blood pours from his nose, and he looks dazed like he’s struggling to stay conscious.

I grab a handful of his hair and yank his head back, so he’s looking at me. He blinks rapidly, and I can already see one of his eyes swelling up. Lux walks up next to me, looking down at Nathan with disgust. “He killed Bree,” she says in a voice that’s completely devoid of emotion, almost like she can’t allow herself to feel. “At the Preference Ceremony, she overheard you and the guys talking about your plan for me, and he killed her so she wouldn’t tell me.”

What the fuck? My gaze shifts to Nathan, and I yank his hair back more, forcing his head back at an awkward angle. “It wasyouthis whole fucking time?”

He shrugs as blood continues to stream down his face. “Anything I did, I did to protect the society.”

“That wasn’t your fucking call to make,” I spit back, nearly choking on the hate rising in my throat like bile. This fucking cunt is the reason Lux is grieving, the reason she has a gaping hole in her heart that will never heal.

Lux holds the knife to Nathan’s throat, her face full of the emotion she’s struggling to bite back. The tip of the blade dimples his skin, already drawing a little blood. “What were her last words?”

Instead of answering, he spreads his arms out, palms up, like a fucking martyr waiting for that final blow. “You want to kill me? Then just do it,” he says, his voice calm, his gaze locked on Lux. “But I’m going to guess you don’t have the balls.”

Lux sucks in a deep breath and moves the blade, so it’s resting just below Nathan’s eye. “Her last words,” she repeats slowly.

The strength it takes her to ask that question awes me, no lie. This girl is so fucking resilient, and it just makes me love her more.

Nathan opens his mouth and laughs like this is all just a fucking joke. “She begged me,” he says, his eyes fluttering closed like he’s conjuring up the memory. Reliving it. “She begged me to let her live. She begged me not to go after you.”

Lux goes completely still, her chin trembling, tears streaming silently down her face. “Did—” Her voice catches, and she pauses to collect herself, closing her eyes briefly, before opening them again. “Did she suffer?”

“Oh, yeah,” he laughs. “She kept screa—”

Grabbing him roughly, I haul him up and pull him over to the railing, cutting off his words. I won’t allow him to taunt Lux with the gory details of Bree’s death.

He flails, reaching out for me as I push him up against the metal railing, but I’m stronger than him, so I deflect him easily. My hand tightens in his hair. “You fucked with the wrong girl,” I whisper harshly, then I shove him the rest of the way over the railing.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Lux

Nathan careens over the railing,reaching out to catch the railing, but his fingertips only brush the metal, and he plummets out of view, letting out a brief scream that’s swallowed up by the loud roar of the ocean.

Driven by pure instinct, I gasp and rush to the railing. I wish I hadn’t. Nathan is floating face down in the waves, blood seeping from a serious head wound. There’s a rock jutting up from the surf right next to him, and he must have struck it when he hit the water.

“Oh, my, God.” I reach up to touch my lips, my fingers trembling. I can’t take my eyes off Nathan, his lifeless body shifting subtly with the movement of the water. “What thefuck?”

Roman pulls me against him. I’m so shocked by what I just witnessed, I don’t even fight him. With a choked sob, I melt against him, burrowing my face in his warm chest. And he holds me like that for several long seconds before finally pulling back, and smoothing his thumb over my chin.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yes. No.” I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“We need to leave,” he says softly. “If Nathan knew we were here, then we have to assume my brother does, too.”

I swallow and nod once, numb. I thought I would feel overjoyed once I found Bree’s killer. But in reality, I feel her loss all the more, because killing Nathan didn’t bring her back. Nothing can.

“Where will we go?” I ask.

He shrugs one shoulder, his gaze exploring my face. “We could go anywhere—Big Bear, New York, Italy. Somewhere my brother can’t find us.”

With a sigh, I look away, the crisp ocean breeze whipping through my hair. “No,” I say, glancing up at him. “I want to go home, back to Rush House.”

I’m so tired, and all I want to do is sleep in Roman’s bed, in his arms, surrounded by him, in our own little bubble. If Nathan has taught us anything, it’s that we can’t run from this.

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