Page 71 of When Sinners Dare

“What the hell is this place, and where the fuck is she?” I spit, leaving him to go look another way. “You fucking left her here for a while? Safety? Fucking asshole.” My own body moves through the corridors at speed, pushing on more doors in the gloom to try finding her. She’s nowhere to be seen, but there’s enough going on that I’m pretty damn terrified of what I could find.

Jealousy, possessiveness and rage swarm through me, making me spin back to Dragon and grab at his shirt to send him back to a wall. “WHERE?”

There’s a fraction of a second in that time – me on him, my hatred on him, that makes him stare at me. It’s like looking into hell’s eyes, peering deep into the guts of something that’s ready to kill with no goddamn thought about it. He blinks after that fraction, and shoves me sideways with ease to head off in another direction. It’s that last door he finds that gives me what I’m after.

I barge past him into the space and look at her bent over a desk. Naked ass exposed. Her hand’s held by some cunt in a suit as he leans over her from behind.

“Dragon,” the cunt says. He doesn’t answer. This isn’t a fucking friendly meeting.

“Let her up,” snaps out of me.

His hand goes down on her lower back, pressure making her wince. “No. We haven’t finished yet. You can have her in half an hour.” He looks at Dragon, calm as you like. “She was rude to me, Dante. Your sister needs some manners drilling into her.” The fuck she does.

I’m over and ramming all I’ve got into whoever this guy is before he has a chance to avoid me. She tumbles out of my periphery, and shit starts turning real damn violent the second I see that happen. My fists pound, and I use everything I’ve got to make my damn point felt.

“KAI!” And then there’s a gun.

It gets shoved into my guts, so I spin from it, round over his back, and send it straight out of the damn way across the floor. He’s strong, and quick, and that just goads me into a frenzy of pain and belligerence. Blood starts coming out of his face after fuck knows how many strikes at him, and then it’s just a blur of time where I don’t give any thought to what I’m doing.

His body slides over surfaces in front of me, my own hands pushing him. I can feel it, and see it, but I’m too lost in hatred and possession to care a damn about his life chances at the end of this. In fact, the more I get invested in the thought of her over that desk – his hand holding her down – the more I let loose on him.

Blood splatters up at me, and I end up on the floor with my knees around his chest, but the sudden, sharp sound of gunfire sends me sideways to avoid it. I swing back to look at what’s happened, and immediately find a shot up face looking back at me. The vision makes me spin to look at Dragon, but instead of seeing him, there’s the instant imagery of Mariana with a gun in her hand.

“Asshole,” she spits.

I look back at the bloodied face again, unsure what the hell to think about, and slump back on his waist. Death stares back at me. That’s all there is to him anymore. He’s just a lifeless mass of blood and broken bones, with a blown-out temple and carnage leaking out of it.

Frowning at that, I look at the floor around me and drag my body weight sideways until I’m off him and leaning on the wall nearby.I scan my own hands, trying to comprehend the vision of them covered in blood and split open, and then look at the battered body all fucked up and twisted. I did that. And then she finished it. Rage, hatred. Killers.

She’s in Dragon’s grip when I look back at her, and he’s peeling the gun out of her hand like it's not meant for her. Seems like it is to me. She just handled the situation like that professional Cortez name she’s chasing.

I sneer and tip my head back to the wall. “Let go of her,” snarls out of me.

He doesn’t. He holds firm and keeps looking at me, barely feeling her struggle.

“You cool?” he mutters. Cool? I’ve hardly got enough energy left to move, but if he doesn’t get the fuck off her I’ll find it.

“Get your damn hands off her.”

He nods and let’s go, and she’s across the floor and stepping over a dead body to get to me. Fine clothes, sweet smelling perfume and a warm body sink into my lap. She kicks her heels off and clambers in closer, no care for how trashed her clothes get in the blood covering me.

She picks up one of my hands and studies it, turning it back and forth to look at the damage.

“You okay?” I ask.

She nods, her face looking vulnerable. “You?”

I knock her head into my chest and close my eyes, trying to catch a damn breath. Okay? Not the best word for what I am. I’m in pain from earlier in the day, exhausted, and trying to come to terms with all this shit in my life. All the years, and there’s always been someone to stop me, or a reason to find a way to stop myself. But no one in this room was going to stop me – certainly not Dragon. He would have let me go on until I killed without even thinking about the consequences of that.

My eyes open, and I look back up to him. He’s smoking. Staring at us both.

He tucks the gun into the back of his pants. “Didn't need to kill him,” he murmurs. “Fucker would’ve stopped.”

“Ineeded to kill him,” Mariana murmurs from my chest. “I did.”

He barely looks at her, just glances at Chance again, then back at me. “Yeah, guess so. Better get this cleaned up.”

Part of me wishes I wasn’t half smirking at him, as I watch him get his phone out and call someone. I am, though. All this carnage is where I thrive, despite my trying to avoid it. Add in a woman who’s bitch enough to match that, and one thing's for damn sure – I just worked out how I feel about her.

---