Page 156 of Nocturne

“And then what?”

She is quiet for a moment. A moment longer than I’d like it to be.

“Patience, darling.”

Her words sink into me like a cold knife, sharp and unyielding, freezing every corner of my mind with their brutal finality. She isn’t going to make me privy to any details that she doesn’t want me to know. My chest tightens, and an involuntary shudder ripples through me, the weight of her manipulation suffocating in its cold precision. I don’t have a choice. Vir will never stop hunting me. He’ll come for my family first. Iyra, Ivy, Cas…none of them will be safe. If we somehow kill him, I’ll be more than willing for her to kill me. She has every right to do so.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” My voice cracks, my gaze dropping to my hands.

“No,” she says simply, without malice.

I nod, the weight of inevitability settling over me. “What now?”

“We make things interesting,” she says, her voice cold.

She pulls a gun attached to a silencer and fires—five shots, each finding its mark with ruthless precision. The masked men drop like marionettes with their strings cut.

The bald man stares at me, defiant, even in silence.

“Devlin will enjoy making him talk,” Harley says, her smile chilling. “But we cannot make it easy for him.”

I watch, horror-stricken, as Harley crouches down in front of the bald man. She pulls out his tongue, cuts it off with practised precision and throws it away.

Before I can even comprehend what the hell is happening, Vince returns, pale and shaken.

“When Devlin finds me, he is going to kill me.” He gulps.

I see a glint in Harley’s eyes, something far more dangerous than what appeared all this while.

“He will have to cross me, first.” She promises. “Is it done?”

“Yes,” he nods, his face still ashen.

“Good,” Harley replies, her voice steady, too steady.

She claps him on the back and hands him the dismembered organ, her face betraying no hint of disgust, unlike Vince’s grimace as he throws it away. Then, she turns to me, her expression shifting in a way I’ve never seen before—cold, calculating.

“Get ready,” she says, her tone chilling in its finality.

My stomach tightens, and my breath catches halfway. “For what?”

She doesn’t answer—not with words.

The sting of the dart pierces my neck, sharp and unexpected. My hands fly up in instinct, but my limbs betray me. The world tilts, my vision blurs, and I crumble to the floor.

“For the Devil.”

Epilogue

Harley

I have no idea what this tree’s name is, and I don’t care as long as I have clear access to spy the swarm of carnage I’ve unleashed. Vincent wants nothing more than to skip town with how we’ve ruffled the devil’s feathers, but I say we stay put. It is not every day that one gets to see Zagan motherfucking Devlin out of his element.

Losing his shit for a woman. Thundering on the porch steps and knocking the door to the ground.

Fuck.

One fucking kick and a sturdy door literally collapses to the ground! It should scare me. The wrath on his beastly face, the battalion he has brought thinking his woman was harmed, and the absolute promise of vengeance in the way he prowls into the home should all scare me the fuck out.

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