Page 206 of Rage

My heart cracked at his words, the betrayal slicing through me like a blade. I staggered back, my chest heaving with ragged breaths as every terrible thing that had ever happened to me in my life rushed to the forefront of my mind.

Why did I smile through the pain, instead of embracing that the shit I had gone through had fucked me up in a way that some damage could never be repaired?

Why did I not curse every fucking day about the fact that my mom never did shit for me when she was alive? And just to put the nail in the coffin, she had given me a hereditary gene that I only recently learned had taken the lives of so many women in my family.

And why would I feel even one ounce of sympathy for the first man I ever called uncle?

Key leaned down, his lips brushing against my ear. “This is your moment, Firefly. You’ve spent the past few days taking what you want from us and not apologizing for it. Show him what it means to cross you. Step into your power.”

I looked at him, my eyes wide and my mind racing. “I—I could never?—”

“Yes, you can,” Seb interrupted. “You’ve been surviving men like him your entire life. This is no different. You’re stronger than you think.”

Stronger than I think…Seb’s words washed over me, lacing with the approving nod from Darth and the favorable smirk from Cash.

Mo’s voice broke through, pleading. “I’m sorry, Little Ny Ny. Please—please don’t do this.”

“I told you to stop calling me that shit.” My hands clenched into fists as I stepped forward, my steps on the concrete floor to him slow and purposeful.

Key didn’t follow me to him. None of the Solomon brothers did. They simply watched, their faces unreadable as I approached the man I had once trusted with my life.

Kneeling before him, my unsympathetic eyes met his bloodshot ones. “You were supposed to protect me,” I said, my voice steady despite the storm brewing inside of me. “Yet, yousold me out like I was nothing. Like I was some pawn in your twisted game.”

“I didn’t want to. But I didn’t have a choice,” Mo murmured again, repeating those same weak words.

I laughed bitterly, the sound hollow even to my own ears. “There’s always a choice. You made yours. Now I’ll make mine.”

My trembling hand reached for the knife Cash handed me without a word. The weight of it felt foreign, yet oddly comforting. Mo’s eyes widened, his panic spilling over.

“No—wait, please?—”

I didn’t hesitate. Not even for a second more. The blade pressed against Mo’s throat, my movements confident and deliberate. I didn’t flinch, even as the blood gushed out of his neck, staining my hands.

It was a clean slice, and it wasn’t lost on me that Mo was the first person who ever taught me how to gut my own fish. Now, I was the one cutting into him the way his actions had sliced yet another hole into my heart.

My therapist is about to get paid overtime after this shit.The room seemed to hold its breath as I stepped back, the knife clattering to the floor as I admired my work and relished in watching him struggle to breath past the blood.

There was something so primal about seeing his blood on my hands this way. The warmth lingering as a reminder that I’d crossed into territory most people feared.

I could have stabbed him several times, but I liked this raw, unfiltered display of watching the life slowly leave his body with every second that passed. It was both horrifying and intoxicating that life could be so delicate.

Key was at my side in an instant, his hand on my chin, tilting my face to meet his gaze. “You did so well, Firefly. This is only the beginning of you stepping into your purpose.”

My chest heaved, adrenaline still coursing through my veins. I looked at the blood on my hands, then back at Key, Seb, Darth, and Cash, my voice steady when I said, “And the end of his and everyone else who took advantage of the trust a little girl gave the people who were supposed to love her.”

Cash’s keen smile was predatory. “That’s our girl.”

Our girl.It had such a nice ring to it. I never killed before today, but I could admit that I had thought about it plenty of times. To actually go forth with taking someone’s life was something else entirely.

I shouldn’t like it.

But I did.

I would never be able to unsee his lifeless face.

But I didn’t need to.

I would kill again.

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