He writhes under my touch, under the cut of my knife. He’s only making it worse for himself. Only making my rage scream higher. It may not show on my face, but my blood is fucking boiling inside my veins. Burning my insides to a crisp.
Minutes later, I drop the patch of bloody skin onto the floor and turn toward the tool table. My eyes narrow. So many fucking possibilities — but only one calls to me.
The whine of the angle grinder fills the room, high-pitched and electric. A sound that cuts straight into the spine.
Grizz barely has time to register it before I shove it against his cheek.
This isn’t like a knife. There’s no clean cut. No cold shock. Just heat and vibration tearing through flesh, shredding it beneath the sanding disk. Skin blistering and blackening as it vanishes into a fine mist of blood and tissue.
His screams are swallowed by the whirring as I push the grinder up his cheekbone, grit chewing into the soft muscle beneath his eye.
Adora’s face flashes before my eyes, smiling softly and bright as always. It only serves to make my thirst for this fucker’s blood roar louder.
He thrashes, nails clawing uselessly at the wood of the chair. The grinding howl deepens as bone resists, then splinters into chalky dust mixed with blood.
The vibrations rattle through me, turning my thoughts to static. Anchoring my mind to the work.
By the time I tear the grinder away, there’s nothing left but a gouged, smoking ruin of meat and exposed bone.
Grizz’s last breath wheezed out long ago.
“Fuck,” someone mutters softly. I don’t recognize the voice. The whine of the grinder is still echoing through my skull.
I look down at my hands. They’re drenched in red. My face probably is too. And still, the thirst inside me roars.
Grizz’s biggest mistake wasn’t setting me up. Because of his years with the club, he would’ve earned a bullet for that. Nothing more. But he went after Adora. Put a target on her back. He shouldn’t have fucking done that.
“I got too close,” Joker murmurs. “My shirt is ruined.”
“It’s done,” Bones says, stepping forward, a hand landing on my shoulder. “Domino. Fang. Take the body to the oven. Turn it to ash.”
He inhales deeply, fingers tightening.
“Then all of you get ready. We leave in two hours.”
33. Hook
Ghost
“Stop being so fucking twitchy, Dom,” Bones mutters, eyes sweeping the abandoned warehouse we’re using as a meet point.
I take a deep breath, try to calm the fuck down. It doesn’t work. The bad feeling in my gut hasn’t eased for a second. I don’t answer him, just crack my neck and keep my eyes fixed on the entrance.
“Fuck,” he adds under his breath. “Now you’re makingmetwitchy.” Then he turns and heads toward Joker and Luca with a huff.
Less than five minutes later, headlights flood the place as a cage rolls through the main entrance. Idiots. All we’re missing are whistles and flags, and then we can announce to all of Tolden City that we’re here and up to no good.
Three men get out, but only one of them matters. He walks toward us with an easy smile and a spring in his step — too relaxed, too comfortable. Santiago fucking Rivera, the cartel weak-link we’ve been waiting on.
When he stops in front of me, I swear his eyes flash gold for a split second.
Huh. Must be the lighting.
“We finally meet face to face, Fantasma,” he says, cheerful as shit.
I look at his outstretched hand, then at his face. My hands stay right where they are — loose at my sides, close enough to the gun at my back and the blade in my boot.
“Santiago,” I say with a curt nod.
