Page 17 of Sinful Submission

The fourth guy took a knife in the throat, and the fifth tried hand-to-hand, which made me proud.

I caught his punch and drove my knee into his gut. As he doubled over, I grabbed his head, slammed it into a burning beam, and held it there while he thrashed.

“Who sent you?”

His screams said nothing useful. I let him drop and turned to face the last man standing. He had better form than the others with military training in his stance.

“Just us now.” I cracked my neck again. “Do you want to die quick or slow?”

He rushed me with good technique, using a three-strike combo, followed by a leg sweep that I blocked, countered, and drove him back toward the flames.

“He said you’d be good.” Blood stained his teeth as he grinned. “He said you’d come alone because you were too stupid to trust your team.”

I smirked. “He was right about coming alone. But it’s not that I don’t trust my team. It’s that I didn’t need them to take down YOU, pussy.” I caught his next punch and crushed his hand. “My bloodlust powers my thirst for violence. And that’s why your entire team is dead.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He spat blood. “She’s already dead.”

Rage ripped through my veins. I slammed him through a burning door and held him down as flames lit up his clothes. “What did you say?”

His laughter turned to screams as the fire ate his flesh. “You’ll never... find her... in time...”

I left him burning and swept the rest of the floor. It was empty. No Santari. No clues. Just smoke and death and flames climbing higher.

The building shuddered, and the structure began to fail. I headed for the window, recognizing my escape route. Behind me, the military fuck’s screams finally stopped.

The foundation groaned, the interior snapped, and the floor tilted.

I picked up speed and shouldered through the glass as the building collapsed. The fire escape caught my impact, and the metal was hot under my hands.

Smoke and flames belched from broken windows as I slid down the rails. Above, warehouse forty-nine folded in on itself. It was a funeral for the idiots who thought they could trap me.

I hit the ground running and disappeared into the shadows as sirens approached. I eyed my bike where I’d left it and ran through the dark to approach. And while I hadn’t planned to leave the building with anyone alive, the military fuck’s words echoed in my head.

Never find her in time...

Anger moved through me like a living, breathing organism.

I stroked my lighter and watched the flame dance. Whoever this was thought they could separate us, isolate me, wear me down, and kill me.

They didn’t understand that I was someone whose dominance intensified with action the same way fire consumed as it spread. Taking Santari was the biggest mistake they’d made. I was just getting started.

I pulled out my phone and dialed Cruz. “It was a setup.”

“No shit. Where the fuck are you?” He cursed. “Never mind, I see the smoke.”

I gritted my teeth and watched flames reach for the stars. “I lost my earpiece in the chaos. Tell Storm to dig deeper on that account. They know too much. This is personal.”

“I’m fuckin’ you up when you get back.”

“Sure, sure.”

I sparked my lighter again and let the flame calm my rage.

“Fuck!” Cruz yelled.

The warehouse collapsed completely, sending sparks into the night sky. But the murder I bestowed didn’t extinguish my internal fire. Instead, it fueled my insanity.

“What the fuckis wrong with you, man?”

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