Booted (Trails of Sin 3)

Pain ricochets through my skull, and I nod again.

He uncurls his grip from my lips and quietly opens the door.

I wait until he steps into the hall. I wait until he leads me out with a possessive hand on my ass.

I wait until he convinces himself I’m going to cooperate.

Each step away from Lorne ratchets my blood pressure. My skin loses warmth. My stomach turns to lead, and a primal scream builds in my throat.

Ten steps from the bathroom, my nerves take over. My hand flies, and the heel of my palm crashes against his upper lip.

“Lorne!” I scream at the top of my lungs as my strike forces John’s head back. “Lorne! Lorrrrrrrne!”

John doesn’t stumble the way I expected. He’s too strong, too fucking relentless as he bows back into me. The look on his face is a death threat, signed in Tiana’s blood.

I throw myself at him with fists and teeth, heedless in my attempt to stop him from escaping.

A crash sounds in the bathroom. The door?

Please, please, please let it be Lorne.

John’s eyes dart toward the noise, and he pushes away with evil fuming in his black eyes.

I grip his shirt, and he whirls on me, ramming a fist into my gut so violently it feels like the slow rip of lining tearing away from my stomach.

I can’t breathe, can’t think past the pain.

“Raina!” Lorne bellows from the bathroom.

Don’t let John escape. Don’t let him get to Tiana.

The agony in my belly crashes me to my knees. I crawl, dragging my legs, reaching. But the monster’s already gone.

I’ve never felt so much rage. It bundles in my chest as I race toward the open closet. It flares through my fists at the sight of Raina crawling down a corridor I didn’t know existed. It incinerates my breaths as she grips her stomach and tries to stand.

I lurch to her side, but I can’t touch her. I’m shaking too badly, seething with the need to reduce the world to rubble.

“Was it John?” I stare down the empty hallway.

It veers off in multiple directions with no signs of danger and no clear shot of an exit.

“Yes.” She staggers to her feet and bends over in pain, hugging her waist.

He put his hands on her.

He fucking hurt her.

I roar with all the fury of a wildfire. Flames engulf my vision. Gasoline replaces my blood. I punch a hole in the wall and burst down the hall, burning to ignite everything I come in contact with.

“Which way?” I swing in all directions, scouring for a throat to carve open.

Raina stumbles forward and grips the wall, her face contorting in an expression she’s never worn. “Tiana…”

Tiana? What the fuck did he say about her sister?

“Which way?” My voice explodes like shrapnel in my ears.

She winces, and a sob tumbles out. Then more sobbing as she tries to speak. I can’t make out her distressed words, but I catch kitchen and back door.

I take off down the corridor, leaving her hurt and alone. Her cries chase me as she calls out her sister’s name. But I can’t comfort her, not right now, for what I’m feeling isn’t human.

As I stalk into the kitchen, someone steps into my path.

“Sir?” A server in a suit holds up his hands. “You can’t be in here.”

I knock him out of the way without a backward glance.

My insides twist and distort around the instinct to destroy. The knife from my boot warms my hand, and I don’t know how it got there. The boom of my heartbeat doesn’t sound like my own.

My wrath is a soulless executioner, stretching beneath my skin, tightening, scorching, and ordering me toward the slaughter.

I weave around employees and steel tables, searching, hunting, eyes fully open, and posture bowing into the flames of violence.

Then I see it. On the far side of the kitchen, the mocking white glow of a Stetson slips out the back door. Anger unleashes without thought of consequence, and I run, shove, and swerve, locked in tunnel vision and intent on blood.

He booted me off my own land, hired the men who raped my sister, and dared to come after my girl.

I killed before. For Raina, I’ll kill again.

When I reach a long row of gas stoves, I wildly grope for a way around. The surface sizzles with fire and seared meat. The length of it extends from one wall to another, and the back door waits on the other side.

Panic rises. I’m caught in a goddamn maze, and he’s getting away!

Doubling back costs me precious seconds. I dart around a food prep table and sprint toward the exit, pulse hammering and fingers flexing against the knife handle.

My shoulder collides with the door, crashing it open. Outside, the parking lot glints with cars under the streetlights and fades into the surrounding darkness.