Page 42 of Ambition

And I’m so fucking lost in homicidal intentions, in memories ofher,that I don’t notice someone has entered the room until my arm is wrenched painfully backward and I crash to the fucking floor.

Fuck.

A man straddles me immediately after.

Other men pour into the room, guns on their hips, masks on their faces. But the man atop me is unmasked.

Theo Sancte.

White man with dark hair and blue eyes, dressed in a black suit. He must have a ring on his finger because when he hits me, I can feel my fucking cheek bursting open.

I attempt to lift my hips as my fingers dig into his. I try to twist him off, but Theo, though lean, is surprisingly fucking strong. He wraps his fingers around my throat, reaches for something behind him with his free hand, and when I see that hand again, there’s a switchblade in it.

He leans down close, staring at my face, not my eyes.

I grab his wrists, but before I can do anything at all, another person is behind me, twisting my arms free. Whoever it is pulls them over my head, then stands on my goddamn wrists in what feels like thick-soled boots. They use all of their weight, and I can’t help tensing.

My stomach muscles contract from the pain. I think my wrists might break.

I plant my feet on the hardwood floor as Theo stares at me, but when I attempt to buck my hips up, the person standing on my wrists jumps on them.

A groan leaves my lips unwillingly and black and white spots pop in front of my eyes.

“I understand what you wanted,” Theo says softly, like a caress. “You’re my new plaything’s red headed devil.” He laughs like he’s made a joke, but I can barely hear it through the ringing in my fucking ears.

I feel something cold against my cheek and when I snap my eyes open through the pain of blunt pressure on my wrists, I realize Theo is stroking the knife’s thin, silver blade against my face.

With his other hand, he curls his fingers tighter along my neck.

“You are incredibly brave, and incredibly stupid,” he says softly.

He presses his thumb into the hollow of my throat. “And you are going to sit here beneath me while I describe all of the things I did to her. But I want you to know before I start, she adored all of it. She enjoys being broken into pieces, did you know that about her?”

I’m perfectly still.

I cannot move.

I cannotthink.

And before I can even try to do either of those things, Theo curls his fingers into a fist around the handle of the knife, jerks back his hand, and launches it into my face. The tip of the blade slices into my cheek, but I think it’s a shallow wound. What hurts more immediately is the punch.

And there comes another one, but lower, along my chest, just over my heart.

And another.

The fourth hit is still shocking. The fifth is nothing but numbness. The moments between, fire consumes my sternum, there’s a buzzing in my ears, I wonder if my heart will fail, and nausea wells up somewhere low in my stomach, but Theo’s weight there tamps it down, making it worse.

And so do his words. Because between every fist launched, he describes throwing Isadora into the wall. Yanking on her hair. His fingers around her throat. Teeth in her skin. The terrible things he said to her, and he made her say back to him. How wet she was through all of it.

He goes on and on, and my head is fuzzy gray. I can see nothing. I can’t feel the hits now.

But my brain latches onto something near the end before I think I will black out.

“James Mart. Raven River. Tell Mads I owe him no more favors and if he ever sends any connection of his into my den again, I will come for your mother. Besides, this will stop nothing. It’s a fool’s errand to intercept it.”

I don’t fucking know what kind of favor Dad was once owed, but as Theo hits me again, and again in the torso, I don’t care.

James Mart. Raven River.

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