Page 2 of Hunted to the Altar
He looked much healthier than last I saw. His brother punished him for some slight. We all should've seen the Don’s descent into madness. The guards obeyed Silas, dragging Darrius toward the rack. His feet dragged across the floor, leaving streaks of filth in his wake.
The tools waited on a table nearby: a vise, pliers, and a branding iron heating over glowing coals. Each one had been chosen with care, inspired by the grim ingenuity of Italy’s history.
“You think this is enough?” Riccardo’s voice was a low growl, slipping through Don Sebastian’s lips like a blade. “After what he did?”
“No,” I replied, my voice steady as I reached for the branding iron. “But I’d like to give the Don a ‘thank you’ for allowing me to warm him up.”
The metal glowed orange, its heat radiating against my skin. I pressed it to his chest, the scent of burning flesh filling the air as he howled in torment.
By the time I was done, he was a broken heap of flesh and bone, his body trembling with the effort of every shallow breath.
“Bring him to the gallows,” Don Sebastian said, his tone calm but final.
The courtyard was silent as the famiglia gathered beneath the rising sun. Darrius was dragged to the wooden platform, his legs trailing uselessly behind him.
“This is what happens to those who betray the famiglia,”Silas said, his voice low and steady. “This is what happens when you hurt what’s ours.”
The lever was pulled.
Darrius’s body fell, the snap of his neck echoing like a gunshot.
I didn’t stay to watch the men disperse. The minute it was over, my phone buzzed in my pocket. The message on the screen made my blood turn to ice:
Your girl Nina is gone. A call was placed from a smart pair of glasses to Dr. Mya from The Stables.
Gone. I couldn’t even wrap my head around those words. Ever since I dove into Eden and Dr. Mya’s background, I’d found pictures of Nina. She was Dr. Mya’s friend, an addiction I’d kept secret. Someone I kept tabs on, but never approached.
For a moment, my hand trembled—just once—as if my body betrayed the storm inside me. My knees nearly faltered, a wave of nausea cresting in my gut. Not from weakness. From the realization that if I had lost her... I might never be whole again.
I could’ve checked on her. She’d been searching for Dr. Mya for so long. She looked in the seediest of places. Nina hadn’t stopped looking for her friend. She was relentless in her pursuit.
Now, it seemed as if she’d finally asked questions somewhere she shouldn’t have.
I left as soon as I could. I didn’t bother saying goodbye to thefamiglia. Within the hour, I was on a plane back to the States, my mind a cyclone of rage and fear.
Nina didn’t belong to anyone else.
She was mine—my obsession, my purpose.
It wasn’t just the way she existed in stillness, always cautious, always listening. It was the silence in her eyes when she movedthrough the world like she didn’t belong to it. The way she flinched at kindness, never expecting it to last. I watched her from afar—through cracked doorways, broken locks, and shadows. She didn’t know how much of herself she’d already given me, piece by piece, just by surviving in that silence I’d come to crave.
I could still smell her—lavender and rain, soft and fleeting. Her voice echoed in my ears, that fragile whisper when she first said my name like it meant something. I remembered the first time I touched her wrist, how she flinched like I was on fire and her skin burned into mine. That memory lived in me now, more real than breathing.
Whoever had taken her would regret it.
They didn’t know what I was capable of, but they were about to learn.
Because I wasn’t just going to find her.
I was going to hunt them down, one by one, until there was nothing left but blood and ash.
CHAPTER ONE
Samuel
The glowof the monitors bathed the dark room in a faint, eerie light. Casting shadows that flickered across the walls like restless spirits. I leaned back in my chair, fingers steepled, eyes fixed on the screen in front of me. She was there again. Nina Torres. Petite, fragile, and utterly unaware of the predator tracking her every move.
I watched her all the time, keeping my eye on the situation back in Dr. Mya’s hometown. All these women seemed to have a connection, and after what Nina lived through, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
