AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Zander,” my bully growls. “Either shut her up or finish what you started.”
Great.
“What did I start?” Zander genuinely asks. His grip on my wrists softened unexpectedly.
I could take this opportunity to turn the tables and get my knife against his throat, but then there’s the understanding that every action I do now will determine whether I get a shot at this role.
Or end up dead. The chances of that possibility are still high.
“You know she can flip you in a heartbeat and have that knife against your throat.”
I move my gaze to the only man sitting like I wasn’t wrestling his mate with a knife a minute ago. His emotionless exterior, matched with how lifeless his eyes are, leaves me in a state of intrigue.
“Last time I checked, you initiated the first move, only to go cold turkey like a dysfunctional cock, leaving me no choice but to act before thinking. Didn’t expect Sweet Dynamite to waltz in here like she owns this joint and catch my blade,” he complains first to his ruthless leader and briefly lowers his eyes on me. “Hot as fuck, by the way,” he has to add a hint of praise.
He proceeds to return his eyes to lifeless 2.0.
“She would have done so already, Ares. Saw it in her eyes, but she’s a smart cookie. Has to be to get all this way to the final boss.”
“Thought the final boss was the guard?” I ask, only now realizing that mass of muscle isn’t on the ground. “Wait. Where…” I trail off, scanning past the royal Kings until my eyes find the very man in question.
With a gun in his grasp.
Aimed our way.
“Fuck!” I curl my legs up and kick Zander right off me, but the sound of a gunshot makes me flinch in wait for the pain that would assault my senses any second from now.
It never arrives.
For a moment, I’m trembling like a fucking leaf, and I’d dare admit the world is nothing but a spinning merry-go-round, but the heavy thump that follows forces us all to concentrate our attention on the guard.
Bleeding out on the cement floor.
Still in fight-or-flight mode, I rush to stand up. Spinning my blade in my grasp with every intention of shooting it at the fourth individual who’s hiding in our midst, I wait for their next move.
I’m only now realizing what a mistake that is, especially when I’ve eaten nothing since breakfast, practically ran a marathon, survived an onslaught of mother fucking assassins, and confronted the very men I’m being forced to sell myself to.
Throbbing pain only forces me to look down at my left thigh.
I can’t see anything with my eyes, but I feel the thick dampness and resonating pain that’s pulsing with every beating second.
When did I get hurt?
I’m trying to figure it out, whether it was from racing through those thug-filled streets or during the multiple confrontationsthrough this warehouse, but my mind becomes sluggish with every second that passes.
“Iva.”
My head shoots up on instinct. Those years of hearing that shortened middle name never cease to awaken that frightened little girl looking like a deer in headlights.
Despite all those years, for a single moment, I’m back to being that little girl. The awkward girl with baggy clothes, massive glasses that barely sat on my face, and extremely short hair because I couldn’t stand watching those beautiful strands fall out from all the anxiety destroying me every day and night.
There before me is the leader of the bullying gang. The one who enjoyed using me as his top emotional punching bag. I was their target practice. The one they threw taunts at, anyway they could, knowing it would break me down to tears, over and over again, before the physical pain even began.
For a second, those merciless black eyes with hints of hazelnut are instilled with nothing but fury. A reminder that my existence has once again played a grand leading role in ruining his fucking life. But as the seconds tick and our standoff thickens, I begin to see something I never once knew this man was capable of.
Concern.
It’s a tiny fraction. A fragment not everyone would be able to distinguish. Yet I see it. Capture its intricate beauty despite being hidden in the blanket of darkness within his pupils. It’s there. Growing. Just like the creases along his forehead that project his understanding that something may be wrong.
