Page 58 of Delicious Prey

“Vadim, I need you to tell me exactly what you fucking see so I can prepare myself.”

He’s not used to me having an emotional response to anything. It’s new for me too, and I haven’t quite gotten used to it. He lets out a sigh as I stare at the building in front of me.

“Fucking say it,” I grit out.

She’s naked, hands bound at the wrists and attached to a hook above her. Her toes are barely touching the ground. There’s blood on her face, a few red marks on her body like they’ve hit her. She’s conscious, and she looks scared to death.

While the image forms in my mind, he adds, She’s going to be okay. We’re going to get her out of there. I count twenty men, Enzo included.

“I’m going in,” I repeat, feeling my mind start to close down. I have to become numb to everything. I have to force myself to not feel a damn thing. “If I don’t survive this, tell her I had to do it this way, that there wasn’t another option. Tell her I’m sorry for everything and that I love her.”

You can tell her yourself, man.

When all he gets is silence, he sighs and says, I’ll tell her. You have my word.

With that assurance in place, I get out of the car and walk to the door in front of me. I don’t bother knocking. They already know I’m here anyway. Stepping inside, my eyes immediately dart to Lydia, and the sight nearly ruins my entire plan. She looks so small and fragile, so completely and utterly breakable. I see the humiliation and fear in her eyes, and as soon as she spots me, the rush of hope that mixes with it. I turn away, unable to watch it all change to hurt when she hears what I have to say.

I face Enzo instead and raise my arms in a what the fuck motion. “What the hell’s going on, Enzo?”

Five suited men quickly rush over to me. Three keep their guns raised and pointed at me while the other two start to frisk me. I wink at the man kneeling in front of me, running his hands up my inner thighs. “Careful, that’s not the weapon you’re looking for.” I laugh and add, “Or maybe it is. I’m not one to judge.”

He doesn’t share in my laugh, just glares at me and continues his search. They manage to find everything except the switchblade that’s sitting snuggly in my boot. I try very hard to not gloat about that. Satisfied that I’m no longer a walking arsenal, they step back and I look over at Enzo again. The older man stands and walks over to where Lydia is hanging. He scrubs a hand over his neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard and then lets out a soft laugh that makes my skin crawl. When he runs the back of one hand along the side of her breast, I nearly lose the small grip on my sanity I have left.

“You killed my son,” he says, lazily dragging a finger over her nipple as she tries like hell to get away from him and screams against the duct tape covering her mouth. “And his whore.” He drops his hand and turns his eyes to me. They’re cold and hard, devoid of any and all emotion. The same way mine used to look before I met Lydia. “So that’s exactly what I’m going to do to you, except I’m going to make you watch me fuck her first, and then you’re going to watch all my men fuck her.” He runs a hand down her back, sliding it lower to cup one of her ass cheeks, and I bite my lip so hard I taste blood. “Have you taken her ass yet?” He laughs at the way her eyes widen in horror and gives her ass a sharp smack. “I’m going to kill her very slowly, and then I’ll finally get to you.” He gives another soft laugh. “Eventually.”

Lydia lets out another muffled scream at what Enzo’s just said and begs me with her eyes to do something, so I do the only thing I can do. I make myself as cold and empty as I used to be and let out a harsh laugh of my own.

“Have at it, Enzo. You think I give a fuck what you do to her?” I look around at the warehouse and his men. “If you wanted to hurt me, old man, you should’ve kidnapped one of my dogs.” I let out a good-natured laugh. “I love those fuckers.”

“I think you do care,” Enzo says, gauging my reaction when he takes a knife out and brings the blade to her skin. He drags the blade along her stomach, and her breaths are so fast and erratic that I’m afraid she might make herself pass out. When he runs it along her bottom ribs, he presses in hard enough to cut a thin line of about four inches. Blood immediately beads and spills over.

It’s a shallow cut, Vadim whispers in my ear, trying like hell to keep me calm.

I know this, but it doesn’t make seeing it any easier. I raise a brow at Enzo as if I’m bored. “Ivan put a hit on your son, and I killed him.” I smile and give a small shrug. “I’m a hitman, Enzo. It’s what I do.”

“He told me you did it on your own, that he knew nothing about it.”

“Well, the two million he transferred to my account that night begs to differ. For the record, I did try to talk him out of it. It was a stupid move, and I knew it would start a war, one he would have a hard time winning. He ignored me, so I took out your son. The mistress just happened to be there.”

“He was my only son,” Enzo says, and I can hear the strain in his voice and how badly he’s trying to keep himself under control. You and me both, jackass.

I smile and push him a bit further. “He died like a real pussy, but he should’ve been thanking me. He went out while fucking.” I laugh and look at the armed man next to me like we’re sharing a joke. “If only we could all go out like that, am I right?”

Just as predicted, that comment sends Enzo over the edge, and he puts all his focus on me instead of the woman I love.

Just tell me when, Vadim murmurs in my ear.

I face Enzo, keeping my chin held high, even when his men hold my arms back to give the old man a fighting chance. The punch to the jaw is almost hard enough to break it. Blood fills my mouth from where my teeth have shredded through my gums, and when I spit blood, I look back at him and laugh.

“I smothered him with a pillow while he lay beneath his whore. It was not a dignified death. I think he might’ve shit himself.”

That earns me a rapid-fire round of punches, the last one hitting me in the gut and making my knees buckle. I run with it, letting myself become dead weight in their arms. They grunt at the effort to keep me up and Enzo barks, “Let him fucking fall. It’ll still give him a front-row seat to the show.”

As soon as they let go, I reach for the knife in my boot and say, “Now,” just loud enough for Vadim. I hear several quick shots, and the men closest to me fall to the ground right before I hear another man scream and then the sound of one of my dogs ripping his throat out. Throwing my knife, I hit one of the other men in the chest while I take the gun from the closest dead man, barely noticing the way half his head is missing.

Alerted by the gunshots, more of Enzo’s men come rushing in. The warehouse fills with the sounds of guns firing, snarling growls, and the pained screams of grown men. I start making my way closer to Lydia but keep some distance between us while I fire off several shots, not wanting her to get hit in the crossfire. I yell a quick command to my dogs to guard Lydia and then wait until Vadim’s taken out the other men that I can’t get a clear shot on.

Without anyone shooting, the silence is deafening. My ears ring, my heart races, and all I can think about is getting to Lydia. I scan the warehouse, looking for Enzo, hoping he’s one of the dead men already on the ground. He isn’t. I step closer to Lydia’s hanging body, but I keep my eyes trained on the room around me.

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