Page 114 of Alluring Darkness

With fear washing over her features, she immediately tosses her gun down on the ground and raises her hands. “Wait… Look, I—”

“Raina,” Eli says, cutting her off.

Lethal fury descends on his features like a death mask when he takes in the bruises and blood on my face and the gun that Gabriel is still pressing against my skull. The expression on Eli’s face could have frozen hell itself and set a glacier on fire at the same time. It’s the most terrifyingly beautiful thing I have ever seen.

His dark golden eyes shift to Gabriel. “You.”

Next to him, Shelley is trying to back away as Jace advances on her.

But Connor shoves his gun against the back of her head now that she has turned her back to him instead. “Keys.”

Metallic clinking fills the deadly silence as she fumbles to pull out the keys to his handcuffs. Kaden snatches them from her fingers the moment she holds them out. Moving over to Connor, he takes the gun from my brother’s hands and deftly unlocks the handcuffs.

“You, on your knees and face the wall,” Rico orders.

Connor gives Kaden a nod while Shelley hurries to obey Rico’s orders. While she’s dropping to her knees in front of the wall, Kaden hands my brother his gun back.

Then all five of them turn to face us. Except for Eli, who never took his eyes from me in the first place.

I can feel the violence pulsing from his entire body, and sense the death swirling in his eyes. Blood will be spilled here today.

As if he can feel it too, Gabriel locks his hand harder around the back of my neck and uses it to hold me firmly in front of him as a shield while he declares, “Take one step closer, and I’ll paint the walls of this cave with her brains.”

Across the stone ground, Connor, Eli, Jace, and Rico stand side by side with guns leveled at him. Or rather, at us, since I’m standing in front of him. Kaden is holding a pair of throwing knives while his cold eyes shift over us, as if calculating angles.

“Did he put those marks on your face?” Eli asks with barely restrained anger, his eyes locked on the patchwork of bruises on my face and the dried blood caking my skin.

“One single sound out of your mouth, and I’ll pull the trigger,” Gabriel warns.

I slowly close my mouth again without replying.

“Yes,” Shelley says from her place by the wall. Her gaze is still on the stone before her, and she stays on her knees and keeps her hands behind her head. “When I arrived with Connor, I walked in on him beating her up.”

A humorless laugh threatens to spill from my lips. So, she has quickly switched sides now that she has realized what a huge fucking mistake she has made? Does she really think that anything she says or does now will save her from my wrath once this is all over? Oh, she signed her death warrant the moment she put a gun to my brother’s head.

Jace and Rico glance towards her, but Eli’s gaze stays on me. I dip my chin in a barely perceptible nod, confirming that what Shelley said is true.

Lightning flickers behind Eli’s eyes, and a muscle ticks in his jaw as he tightens his grip on the gun.

“Here’s how this is going to go,” Gabriel says.

“You’re trapped in a cave with four guns pointed at you,” Eli interrupts in a voice that could have made mountains tremble. “Do you really think you’re the one in control here?”

“It doesn’t matter how many guns you have,” Gabriel replies, and I can hear the vicious smirk in his voice. “As long as mine is pointed ather. How the fuck are you top of your class if you don’t even realize that the guy with the hostage is the one in control of the situation?”

I wince as he digs his fingers even harder into the sides of my neck.

Eli’s finger twitches on the trigger. “I will break every one of your fingers and rip your fucking tongue out unless you—”

“No, here’s what you’re going to do,” Gabriel cuts him off. “All five of you are going to put your weapons on the ground. That includes those knives that your psychopath of a brother is holding. And then, all of you are going to back out of this cave. I will follow with Raina. Then you will tie each other to trees outside. And then I will leave. Once I’m safe, I will send Raina back to you.”

“Like hell—”

“Or I shoot her in the head right now and take my chances. Your choice.”

Connor’s eyes meet mine, and we share a look that requires no words. We both know that if Gabriel leaveswith me, I will not make it back. His plan to get us to kill each other failed, but he is still going to try to take his revenge in any way he can. If he disappears with me, he is not going to honor his word and let me go once he’s safe. He’s going to torture me to death for our father’s crimes.

While keeping his eyes on me, Connor says something to Eli in such a quiet voice that we can’t hear it from over here.

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