Page 177 of Don’t Say Mafia

A low whistle came from the back. Another muttered something crude in a thick Irish accent. One of the men from the elevator licked his lips again, his eyes dark and hungry. The one by the camera adjusted the lens slightly, zooming in as if this were the money shot.

I felt the shake start in my legs, then climb up my spine. My teeth chattered for half a second before I clamped them together. No. They didn’t get to see that. They didn’t get to see me crumble.

I stared straight ahead—at the blinking red light on the camera—and pictured Jagger’s face instead. The way he looked at me, like I was the only thing in his world that made sense. The way he’d whispered I love you against my skin like it was a vow. I clung to that image with everything I had inside me.

Declan tilted his head, studying me as he decided where to start.

“Brave little thing,” he murmured. “I’ll give you that. Most girls would be sobbing by now. Begging. But you . . .” He traced the flat of the blade along my collarbone—cold metal kissing skin, but not yet cutting it. “You’re still fighting. It’s almost sweet.”

He leaned in until his breath brushed my ear. “Jagger’s going to love watching me take that fight away from you. Piece by piece.”

My pulse roared in my ears, and the shaking got worse, but I still refused to look away from the camera. If he was watching—if he could still see me—I wanted him to see I wasn’t broken.

Declan stepped away, the knife still in his hand, and nodded to one of the men. “Turn up the volume,” he said. “I want him to hear every sound she makes for this next part.”

The red light on the camera blinked faster, almost eager.

Declan turned back to me with a cruel smile. The blade hovered near my face for a moment before he pressed it into my cheek, dragging it slowly across my skin without breaking it. “Let’s see how brave you are,” he murmured, “when you’re getting fucked by this blade.”

My stomach dropped as he reached down and shoved my skirt up so that the fabric bunched around my hips, exposing the tops of my thighs and the black lace of my underwear.

I jerked hard against the bindings. The zip ties dug deeper, and pain lanced through my wrists, but I didn’t care. “Get your fucking hands off me,” I spat, my voice shaking with rage more than fear.

He laughed and slowly trailed the flat of the knife up the inside of my thigh. I tried to close my legs, but the ropes held them apart. I thrashed, hips twisting, cursing him with every breath. “Fuck you,” I snarled. “You’re going to die screaming, you piece of shit.”

The knife kept moving higher, until the tip grazed the edge of my underwear, and I froze, every nerve screaming.

Gunfire suddenly erupted outside.

Sharp cracks echoed through the walls, followed by shouts. Something heavy crashed against the door.

Declan’s head snapped up. For one split second, alarm flashed across his face, but he quickly shook it off and grinned. He leaned in close again, the tip of his knife still resting right at the seam of my underwear. “I guess Jagger wanted to see me kill you up close,” he whispered, his voice thick with glee. “How thoughtful.”

A rush of adrenaline hit me as the gunfire grew louder. It now sounded like the automatic weapons I’d seen in movies, with overlapping bursts and men shouting in confusion and pain.

Declan straightened slowly as his men rushed forward.

The door exploded inward with a deafening crash, and smoke began pouring in, thick and white. A canister clattered across the floor and burst with a hiss, and the room filled instantly with choking clouds that burned my eyes and throat.

Shouts turned to coughs, and coughs turned to panicked curses. Declan’s men were swinging their rifles wildly through the haze. They couldn’t see anything by the door, and neither could I.

Gunfire cracked through the smoke.

One of the men dropped instantly, his body hitting the floor with a heavy thud. Another burst followed, and a second body fell somewhere to my left. Declan reacted instantly, fisting my hair and dragging the chair backward as he stepped behind me, hauling me with him so my body blocked his. The movement nearly tipped the chair, the legs screeching across the concrete before he steadied it.

The gunfire slowed as bodies kept falling, their guns clattering uselessly to the floor. The smoke was everywhere now, thick and blinding, but whoever was out there moved through it like they could see perfectly. Every muzzle flash lit up the haze for a split second—red dots dancing, men dropping before they could scream.

One of Declan’s men lunged toward me, and a single shot cracked from the smoke. The man jerked, his head snapping sideways, and collapsed across my lap. Warm blood soaked through my skirt, and I bit back a scream.

Declan’s grip tightened. “Stay still,” he hissed as he released my hair and pushed the body off me in disgust. “They won’t shoot through you.”

The last of his men fell, and then there was silence . . . thick, ringing silence broken only by the low hiss of the dying smoke grenade and my own ragged breathing.

A figure stepped out of the thinning smoke, and I knew immediately it was Jagger. He had on black tactical gear, and his face was streaked with soot and blood that I was hoping wasn’t his. Maddox and Lawson flanked him, rifles up, sweeping the room. Four others fanned out behind them, securing corners.

Declan grabbed my throat, and pressed a knife against my skin until a thin line of blood trickled down my neck. “Stay back,” he called, “or I open her up right here.”

Jagger stopped a few feet away, and his eyes met mine for half a second—fierce and burning and promising—and then shifted to Declan. “Let her go,” he said quietly.