The Marriage Debt (Underworld Kings)

Fuck.

I’m gonna have a tough time replacing these loyal men.

This fucker is gonna pay if Max dies.

But the look on that asshole’s face makes me do a double take. Because he isn’t fucking looking at me … he’s looking at something behind me.

I turn my head only for a moment. Just one fucking moment to see what he’s seeing.

Jill. Staring at him with a wide-open mouth and giant eyes.

“Nick!” Jill yells, right as I turn to face him again.

“Stay back!” I bark.

BANG!

A bullet flies right past my face, grazing my skin until it bleeds. My hand instinctively reaches for my face, touching the red-hot blood and the scar this wound will undoubtedly leave on my face.

He’s got a gun pointed straight at my head.

“I told you, you’d fucking pay for what you did to her,” he growls.

“No, don’t shoot!” Jill’s voice repeats in my head as I point my gun right back at him, her plea fueling me to protect her and kill him.

As he aims, I pluck my knife from my pocket and chuck it right at him.

“Gah!” His groan sounds painful and loud, annoying to the ear.

The knife buried itself into his shin, and he’s collapsed underneath his own weight.

BANG!

The gun goes off.

The bullet misses me by a hair.

It shoots straight down into the penthouse and zooms right past Jill, who ducks for cover on the floor.

Fuck, he almost hit her.

“You motherfucker,” I growl, storming at him so fast it feels as though my muscles are on steroids.

I’ve never felt angrier than I do now as I grab his collar and throw him to the ground so I can knock his gun from his hand.

“You fucking shot at her!” I bark in his face.

“I was aiming at you, motherfucker! Let her go.”

“I told you to fucking run back to your boss. This isn’t a fucking playdate with toy guns,” I say, getting up close and personal. “Did he put you up to this?”

“Easton doesn’t know I’m here,” he says through gritted teeth.

I laugh in his face. “Bad decision. Shouldn’t have come here if you wanted to live.”

I point my gun between his eyes.

“Stop!” Jill’s shriek instantly makes me look at her even though right now I want nothing more than to ace this fucker for even attempting to get close to her, let alone the fact that she almost died.

Fuck, the mere thought of anyone shooting her turns my entire body into pure, seething rage.

I should cut off his fingers, pull out his eyes, feed him his own goddamn tongue for what he did. I want to. More than anything, I want to make this motherfucker pay for murdering my guards, for trying to assassinate me, for almost getting my precious bunny killed.

But something stops me the second my index finger pushes the trigger.

“LUCA!”

Her voice.

“Please.”

Her saying my name, begging.

God.

How I yearned to hear her say those two things.

Just. For. Me.

But she isn’t saying them for me.

She’s saying them to stop me from killing him.

To save him.

Fuck.

“Please, don’t kill him,” she pleads.

I look over my shoulder, unable to ignore her. She’s clutching the shot-up doorpost, her sparkly, golden dress covered in bloodstains from the guard lying on the floor right in my penthouse. She must’ve checked him to see if he was dead. Always so caring, even when she shouldn’t be.

This fucker almost shot her.

He wants to take her from me so badly he’d risk killing her in the process.

And here she is pleading for his life?

“Do it,” Nick growls at me, and when I turn my head, he’s already grabbed ahold of the gun, shoving it even harder into his own damn skin. “Do it then. You want her? I won’t ever fucking stop until she’s safe and away from you.”

Away from me.

Like I’m the most dangerous thing on the planet.

Me.

I should fucking kill him.

Do it and prove to her what kind of monster you really are.

My teeth grit as I bury the gun into his brain, seconds feeling like hours.

“Please!”

Her voice is the only thing that breaks through the barrier and silences the screams in my head.

I hate him. I fucking hate him so much I want to stab him a thousand times just for daring to touch her.

But I don’t fucking hate her, and I don’t want her to fucking hate me.

I grumble out loud as I close my eyes for a second and turn around to rip my knife from his shin. Nick groans in pain, blood pouring from his wound. I bring the knife to his throat as I take the gun away, the blade cutting into his skin until it bleeds.

“You’re going to fucking leave. Right now. And if I ever see your face again, I will scrape it off with this fucking knife and feed it to your fucking mother. Understood?”

He swallows, sweat drops rolling down his forehead.