Page 130 of For a Price

“You fucking sewer rat,” I howl with both fists raised and ready to knock his teeth out.

“Roman,” Katerina chokes out. She shakes her head. “Don’t.”

“You heard her, beast,” JC taunts, waving the gun. “Don’t… or else somebody’s getting shot and it’s probably going to be your little pet.”

“I’m no one’s pet, JC,” Katerina says. “The only pet here is you. You’re the one who’s the pakhan’slapdog!”

“I’m nobody’s lapdog!”

“Sounds like a lapdog to me.”

“Shut the fuck up!”

I would explode with rage if I didn’t realize what Katerina’s doing. She’s riling JC up even more, distracting him to the point he’s forgotten the situation he’s in. As he yells at her to shut up, he’s waving the gun around so wildly that I take the opening.

I launch myself at him and the little boy he’s holding onto as a human shield like the pussy he is. The boy seems to catch on at the last possible second and slips out of JC’s hold. He notices once it’s too late and I’m already spearing into him.

But he does pull the trigger.

A resounding bang rocks the small apartment. JC and I crash to the ground. Katerina and Rosita scream in horror. My men descend on us as if about to restrain JC themselves if I don’t.

I pin him to the ground with relative ease—our size difference is laughable—but my main concern is where the bullet landed. Looking up and scanning the room, momentary relief fills me at the sight of an unharmed Katerina.

Her best friend isn’t so lucky.

Rosita eyes remain wide, blood everywhere from the shot in the neck she’s sustained.

Katerina and the little boy scream all over again.

“Someone call 911!” Katerina shouts. “This is so much blood.”

But it quickly becomes apparent that her request is in vain.

Rosita’s tan complexion loses much of its color, a sickly gray cast emerging as she makes a gurgling noise and then gradually goes still. The light in her eyes goes out and she lays slumped on the blood-soaked sofa.

The boy is crying hysterically.

Katerina’s begging her best friend to hold on.

And I’m choking out JC like the enraged beast that I am. Now that I’ve confirmed Katerina is unharmed, nothing else is of importance to me in this moment than making him suffer. I draw my fist back and smash it into JC’s face a few times.

It’s like déjà vu. The first time I pummeled him within an inch of his life.

But punches to the face aren’t enough.

I lift him halfway up like a crash test dummy and then drag him toward the kitchen. I snatch a knife off the counter and press it into his throat, glaring into his eyes.

“Who the fuck are you working for?” I grit out, barely holding on. “Tell me now. Tell me who the fuck made you kidnap and sell her to the Midnight Society.”

He spits blood at me. “Don’t you already know?”

My fist slams into his face again, breaking the bone in his skinny nose. “Then you have no fucking use to me, you know that? I get to cut you open like a fucking fish.”

It’s exactly what I do on the kitchen floor of Rosita’s apartment. I carve JC Howell up with the sharp blade of the kitchen knife as he jerks and screams in agony, though refusing to beg for mercy until the very end.

It doesn’t matter either way.

I set out to destroy the fucker who sold Katerina to the Midnight Society, and I have succeeded in doing just that.

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