Page 128 of Silent Vendetta (Vendetta Duet)

With all my strength, I thrust the knife into Alexander’s right rib cage. The roar of his scream echoed off the clammy walls.

“Luna.” Hunter’s voice was weak.

I turned to him, alarmed at how ashen his face was.

“Hu—”

A strike to my temple made my vision double, my head searing in pain. Growing as light as a helium balloon while the dizziness made me fall next to the love of my life.

Whose eyes widened in alarm, not at me, but at something looming behind.

CHAPTER65

Hunter

Luna pushed herself into a seated position, blinking away the disorientation, but behind her, Alexander knelt, clutching the dagger’s handle he’d slammed against her head.

He turned the blade sideways now, so he’d have the perfect angle to cut her jugular.

It was a haunting mirror image from twenty years ago, a killer lurking toward someone I loved, preparing to slit their throat.

Weakened by blood loss, I tried to shove myself closer but fell back again.

“Luna!” I managed.

But with her unfocused stare and bleeding temple, her movements were too slow.

My uncle slowly drew his arm around her neck and aligned the blade over her jugular.

Luna’s precious eyes widened, locking them with me as time seemed to come to a standstill. It was as if instant clarity came over her, the heartbreaking realization that after all we’d been through, after all we’d survived together, this was it.

The end of our love story.

The end of her life while I lay helpless to stop it.

For the second time in my life.

If she died, I’d welcome the flames of hell to consume me for all my days, because I couldn’t exist without her.

Luna’s lip quivered as she took one last breath and said, “I love you.”

In slow motion, the blade indented against her fragile neck.

No.

The word detonated an explosion of adrenaline through my veins. I shot up and grabbed my uncle’s wrist—pulling the knife safely away from her—before slamming my torso into his shoulders. Hurling him to the ground, his head cracking hard enough against it to stun him.

“Luna.” I crawled to her, drawing my fingers to her neck. “Are you okay?”

“Look out!” she warned.

My uncle tackled me to the ground, the floor grinding into my hip bone as I grabbed his good arm and stopped the knife inches before it sank into my chest. I pulled at his fingertips, his grip weakening until I managed to twist the dagger out of his hand, and wrestled myself above him.

My heartbeat became a deadly rhythm as I looked into his eyes, which were surrounded by faint wrinkles accumulated through the twenty years of life he’d robbed my father of having. His blue eyes once mirrored the ones my loving father had, but now, my uncle’s looked like ice, freezing a path to my soul.

“You were everything to me,” I began, my voice shaking. “When Dad was gone, it was you who stepped in. It was your shoulders that carried my world.”

Tears threatened at the edges of my vision, but I blinked them back, holding his gaze with a newfound determination. His face was a facade, hiding the devil within.

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