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But I was being forced to watch the entire thing in Johnny’s embrace with the bloody knife pressed to my throat as he slowly backed me away.
“You should’ve died a long time ago,” he whispered into my ear, his breaths rough.
My heart lurched when Kieran swiped his blade along Dare’s calf, Dare’s roar of pain filling the hallway as he twisted Kieran’s hand backward and slammed it repeatedly against the wall until the knife clattered to the floor.
Johnny’s grip tightened when an anguished cry tumbled from my lips, pressing the blade closer to my throat.
He hushed me, the soft sound that could easily be so comforting held so much warning.
Dare reached for the knife, but Kieran raised his fists above his head, bringing them down hard on his back. Dare stumbled away, releasing Kieran from his caged position against the wall and swiping his gun from the floor to aim at the man I’d spent a lifetime loving.
His chest rose and fell sharply as he stared Kieran down. “I wanted you to know the pain of losing your world. I wanted you to feel it every day. But it wouldn’t have affected you because she was never yours.”
Kieran just stood there with an expression so calm it was unnerving, but his body was tensed and his hand was slowly moving toward one of his pockets.
Dare’s head tilted marginally, a jolt seeming to go through his body when he realized I wasn’t where he’d left me. He turned fully, rage and fear warring on his face as he took a hesitant step in my direction.
“Johnny,” he began, his voice placating. “Johnny, what are you doing?”
“Told you not to trust her,” Johnny snarled. “Told you there was something about her.”
Dare and Kieran were now matching us step for step. Dare’s focus was on Johnny’s shaking hand that held the knife to my throat, his limp growing more prominent with
each step from where Kieran cut him.
Kieran kept to the wall, nearly disappearing in the shadows as he soundlessly stalked us. The easiest way to track him was the moonlight catching on his exposed blade from where it streamed in from the many windows on the wall opposite him.
“Think it’s convenient we find out she’s alive, and not two seconds later she’s crawling into your bed.”
My chest heaved with a sob and my body tried to bend under the weight of my grief. “Dare, n—” My head was wrenched back, a strangled cry catching in my throat when the blade pressed in to the point where it became painful.
“This is why Gia’s gone,” he yelled, forcing my face in Dare’s direction for emphasis before roughly releasing my hair so he was leading me by the blade alone. “Remember her, Dare? Or is a little Holloway pussy all you needed to forget?”
Dare’s lip curled and he rolled his neck, but he kept limping forward, his gun hanging loosely at his side. “Let her go, Johnny.”
“Remember what it felt like to watch her die for the sake of this girl. Remember what it felt like to hold her while her blood ran cold.”
A cry ripped from my lungs, tearing through the hall when the blade pierced my skin.
“Johnny!” Dare started to rush toward where we were, only to stop, his expression panicked.
Johnny’s chest vibrated against my back. “I missed that sound. Isn’t it nice?” he asked loudly, his voice wavering on a growl. “Know you’re there, Nightshade. If you’re smart, you’ll stay back. Fiancée for fiancée. Or did you forget why we’re here, Dare? You realized yet that every time she left you she was back here fucking him?”
Dare’s chest heaved and his armed hand raised slightly. “Let her go.”
“Now that I think about it, you probably like blades against your throat being the assassin’s whore, don’t—”
“Fucking let her go!”
Johnny snarled in pain and his body jerked, the blade twitching against my throat before it fell away along with his hand that now had a knife sticking out of it. I stood there in stunned confusion before I pushed away from him with a strangled sob, my legs automatically taking me to comfort and safety . . .
I staggered backward when Dare suddenly aimed at me, a crippling acceptance washing over me in the split second that seemed to last forever and pass within one last beat of my heart before he fired, sending my world into deafening silence.
Because I knew it would end this way, and I’d been foolish to think it wouldn’t.
I hated that we didn’t have more time and that we’d been raised to hate each other.
But given the chance, I’d do it all over again.
