Page 64 of The Piece You Stole

Nathan loops an arm around my waist, hauling me back against his chest. He laughs in my ear. “Going somewhere, sweetheart?”

I fight harder, and I scream louder.

“What was she doing in there?” Tyler yells from the living room.

“Trying to throw herself out,” Nathan calls back, still chuckling into my ear.

He eases his grip a little. I fling myself back to the window, catch the edge of the frame with my left hand, and hold on.

But I never stop screaming. It feels too good to stop.

“Told you she would,” Tyler responds. “So, I’m the one who should have won her for the week.”

“What is that screaming?” Rylan calls out, sounding like he’s left the office.

I risk a quick peek through my hair as I battle with Nathan to throw my leg back out of the window. The doorway is rapidly filling with the rest of the pack. From their laughter and drinking, watching me trying and failing to throw myself out of a penthouse window just became more enjoyable than shopping in Louis Vuitton.

Nathan drags me away from the window. I fight myself back to it.

“Just your mate eager for some attention,” Nathan replies, continuing his game of snatch and release.

I let go of the window frame at the same time he drags me back. He couldn’t have been expecting it because he stumbles back a step when I crash into his chest.

He catches me with that hated sneering smile curving his lips.

Die.

I slash at his throat with the glass shard in my right hand. Blood sprays me in the face. So much of it that, for a second, I’m blinded. But only for a second.

He releases me and stumbles back another step, clamping his hand to the ragged tear in his throat.

I stare at him, my heart pounding so hard I don’t realize I’ve stopped screaming until someone swears, and I can hear them.

“Fuck.”

Chance. It sounds like Chance.

Nathan stares back at me with a look in his piercing blue eyes I’ve never seen before.

Surprise.

Blood just keeps on pumping from between his fingers as he drops heavily to his knees.

He slowly falls to his side, his hand slipping from the wound in his neck. It gapes open, so deep…so much deeper than I thought a small piece of glass could do.

I want to throw up when I see the mess I’ve made of his throat.

I did that.

Me.

I swallow even harder.

Some internal alarm makes me raise my head from the blood creeping toward me.

Rylan stands in the doorway, his cell phone still in his hand. His eyes burn with a fury so bitterly cold that it eats through the sick feeling in my belly, only, it doesn’t leave it empty. It replaces it with panic.Desperatepanic.

And then I remember the open window at my back.

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