A cackle that rides under my skin, pricking at every nerve.
But what he does next is the final straw.
He spits in my face, continuing a sneer.
Draco tenses up, fist clenched, but he doesn’t move. He stalls, as if he’s waiting for something.
My nostrils flare as I yank my hand away from his disgusting balls and swipe the spit off my face with the back of my arm. Heat broils in my veins. I feel my heart rattling, pounding like never before—drowning out all sounds. All of my morals.
That bastard. That fucking bastard!
Furious isn’t the word.
I’ve gone beyond that.
All of my fury comes barreling out at once. All I see is red—flashes of so much red.
Flashes of my body being flung around in the cellar.
Flashes of Axe Man, taking what never belonged to him.
Flashes of Toni being killed—shot for dead.
Flashes of being stared at and disrespected.
Tormented and hounded.
Laughed at and abused.
I rush in Draco’s direction and swipe his knife out of the holder, hurrying back to Bain and lifting the sharp blade in the air.
“Gianna!” Draco bellows, but I don’t look back. I refuse. “Be wise,” he commands. “Do this, and it is something that will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
“Puta!” Bain spits and then lets out another throaty laugh.
The need for revenge is seeping out of my pores now, throttling at the knife in my hands. All I want to do is wipe that stupid fucking smirk off his face.
Before I can bother thinking it through, I do the one thing I’ve wanted most since being here.
I fucking retaliate.
I bring the blade forward and deliver a jagged slice across the middle of Bain’s throat. Blood gushes out, pouring all over my white dress, seeping down my legs, pooling on my shoes.
I don’t even care.
I still see red. So much red. I feel the hotness of it hitting my face, but I don’t back away. I want my face to be the last face he ever sees while his heartbeat slowly fades away and everything becomes dark for him.
His blood is mine. His life is mine. He thought he’d take me down? He was wrong. So very fucking wrong. I would kill a thousand times before I ever let that happen again.
I guess I’m ready for that dirty red devil to welcome me to Hell with open arms, because he’s won. Hell, I’ll sit right by his side, queen of his burning hell. It wouldn’t be long before I ended up owning him too.
That’s how great I feel, doing this, getting rid of this sick bastard.
I wanted to do him a solid, and make it easy by having Draco shoot him once in the skull. Quick and easy. But this fucker doesn’t deserve quick or easy.
He brought out the sinister side of me, a part of me that I never even knew existed. They did this—he and Axe Man.
Odd. I’m not sure if I should thank them for giving me a sense of such power, or curse their names to hell for causing what was left of my humanity to slip away with the single slice of a knife.
“Pinche mamon,” I spit out as he lowers to the ground, falling on his knees. Fucking cocksucker.
I hear Francesca cry out a muffled scream from her end.
“Gianna,” Draco calls again, but I don’t look his way. I keep staring at Bain until he’s on his knees, gurgling for dear life. He can’t grab at his throat to stop the bleeding, can’t do anything to block the pain.
Good.
When his eyelids flutter, I lower to a squat, lean forward, and murmur into his ear, “Who are you gonna sell now, puto?”
An arm grips mine a second later, and Draco pulls me up. I still don’t look at him, not until Bain’s eyes are fully sealed, and I know he’s dead.
I finally peer up at Draco with a clanging heartbeat and his jaw is ticking, eyes hard like stone. I look over at Francesca and she’s panicking, yanking on the chains, begging to be set free, with red running down her chin. She looks like a wild animal.
“Please,” I hear her muffle out, tears thick.
I blink rather slowly and start to go to her, but I can’t. Draco tugs me back, nostrils flaring as he snatches the knife away from me and wipes it off on his pants. He puts it away and then walks past me, bringing the gun up and stepping in front of Francesca.
She’s still begging for her life, even as he lifts the gun and aims the barrel at the center of her forehead. Jaw still tight, he pulls the trigger without hesitation and the gunshot echoes loudly off the walls. Chains rattle, blood spatters on the wall behind her, clumped and thick, and her body drops instantly like dead weight.