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“You promised you wouldn’t hurt him.”
He shrugged a nonchalant shoulder. “I’ve promised a lot of things, but the only one that has ever truly mattered was that you belong to me. You’ve been mine since the first time I saw you when you were seventeen. I knew I had to have you. Knew I was going to carve myself on your flesh, so deep you would never forget me. I couldn’t wait to draw your blood. I’ve missed it so.”
Bile burned my throat, and the horrors of his depravity came rushing up from the recesses where I’d tried to keep them buried. I put a dam around them, refusing the assault.
I wanted to toss it in his face that I’d allowed another man to write himself all over me to replace him. To cover him. To eradicate him.
But I knew that would only enrage him, and it would put Nolan in more danger than he already was.
I had to play this smart.
Frederick lifted his chin and stretched out his hand. “Now, come to me. It’s time for your punishment.”
That must have been the breaking point for River because two men suddenly dropped off the roof.
In an instant, pandemonium broke out. Shouts and gunshots and a flurry of dust.
I watched through the vapor, wide-eyed, shock belting through my consciousness, though it felt as if time had been set to slow, as if I were taking in every movement independently.
Jud was on the left, and he fired two shots as the guard in front of him began to fire. The guard stumbled backward as he was hit, and he toppled to the ground. On the opposite side, Otto was there, though he’d come up from behind, and he rammed a knife into the man’s side.
Over and over.
The guard dropped to his knees.
Oh God. Oh God.
Fury surged out of Frederick, and he ran for the man who heldNolan. He ripped him out of his hold, and in an instant, he had a knife to the child’s throat.
I lurched forward, stumbling a step, the single word a jagged stone that turned in my throat. “No.”
River had dropped from the roof, too, and he was tussling with the man who’d held Nolan. Shots were fired as they struggled to get on top of each other, and horror clutched and gripped, terrified of River being hurt.
The others had gathered behind me.
I could feel their presence like the gathering of a squall.
Theo, Kane, Cash, and Trent.
Their weapons were drawn, though they hesitated, unsure of how to approach since Frederick had the knife to Nolan’s neck.
But I knew.
I knew there was only one thing I could do.
My spirit screamed in resolution.
And I went racing for Frederick, running across the space, my feet pounding on the concrete.
Frederick grinned a maniacal grin as if my surrender was exactly what he wanted. Thinking he had me. That he had me on my knees.
“Frederick,” I begged. Begged in the way I used to do. In the way that he ate up, hungering for my agony.
But this agony?
It was completely different. And I threw myself at him like I was throwing myself into his arms. He didn’t realize until the last moment that I had a knife. I drove it into his stomach. His wicked blue eyes went wide, and he released Nolan.
My instinct was to catch the little boy. To keep him from slamming limp against the ground.
