Page 153 of Phantom Mine

I freeze. I recognize that voice even in a scream.

Enzo peers through the window. “What the fuck was tha—”

A second, louder scream tears through the quiet evening.

“Aurora!” I shout, reaching for the door handle.

“Valentina,no!” Matteo bellows after me, fumbling for the buttons that allow him to lock the backseat from the front.

He’s not fast enough.

I’m pushing the door open and scrambling out of the car before he’s even turned away. I stumble and my knee hits the asphalt, hard. Pain explodes up my femur, but I push to my feet and run.

Behind me, I hear two doors hurtle open as both men come flying after me. “Fuck,” Matteo curses.

“Aurora!” I scream again, rounding the street corner.

When I cross the flower adorned doorway into the side alley, I see her. She’s being dragged kicking and screaming towards one of the black vans we saw earlier. It takes two men to hold her arms, a third to shove her forward, each a full head taller than her.

I can hardly believe that it’s her, that we arrived just in time before she was moved to another location, but I don’t stop running. Aurora’s head whips around when she hears me shout her name a third time. Her eyes go from wide and terrified to relieved and full of hope.

My arrival surprises the men enough that they stop moving. There’s no sign of Guido. Of the three, the only one I recognize is Amadeo. He stands furthest away from me, so even though he’s the one I want to kill first, he’s not the one I go for.

With a practiced flick of my forearm, my blade slips out of my sleeve and into my palm. I grasp it in my rage-filled fist and hoist it above my head as I leap for the man closest to me. He stares up at me with a still shocked expression on his face as he watches me descend towards him. I’m not sure what surprises him more, my appearance or my knife.

Either way, he doesn’t react until I hit his chest and wrap my legs around his waist. Even then, all he does is look down in shock. By the time he looks back up at me, I’ve already stabbed him twice.

He releases Aurora and stumbles backwards, taking me with him. I roar in his face like a crazed woman as I keep stabbing him. Blood explodes from his veins towards me. Warm and sticky, it coats my face and my clothes.

It takes him a while to realize he should be screaming. I don’t think Mensa will find any of its members missing after I’m through with him.

Grasping the hilt of the knife with both hands, I lift it above my head, gather all the rage thrashing through my body and useit to plunge the blade into the middle of his throat. It pierces through his trachea and larynx and comes out the other side. The man falls backwards and hits the ground with me on top of him.

His eyes are wide, glassy, and frozen in fear.

Dead.

Dispatched back down to Hell where he came from. One down, two to go.

I’m ripped off the dead man and slammed so hard into the alley wall, my vision goes temporarily black. I blink until I can see again, finding the other man that was holding Aurora before me. He crushes my throat in his fist and uses it to slide me up the wall until my legs dangle off the ground. I’m immediately choking, the airway to my lungs entirely cut off.

“You’re a pretty little thing,” he coos. His other hand finds my waist and slides upwards towards my breasts. “I think we’ll take you too.”

His height puts his body completely out of my reach. I try stabbing at him, but he slaps the knife clean out of my hand. My eyes bulge as my brain becomes deprived of oxygen, my vision turning spotty.

Pop.

Pop.

I hear what sounds like two quiet puffs of air and then half his face just…disappears.

One second he’s entirely there, the next the right side of his skull is missing. His lifeless body crumples to the ground and his hand loosens from around my throat in the process.

I collapse to my knees, retching and coughing and sucking air desperately back into my lungs.

Hands grip my upper arms and yank me roughly to my feet before I’m engulfed in a pair of strong, familiar arms. I don’t need to see his face to know it’s him. I couldn’t even if I wantedto. Matteo crushes me into his chest, his heart beating wildly against mine.

“I’m going to whip your ass black and blue for this when we get home,” he whispers harshly, squeezing me tighter.

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