Page 177 of Hidden

“Fair enough.” I bared my teeth, not a smile, nothing even close to a smile. “I’ve given people reason. I’ve been the fuck-up. The waster. The idiot brother people laugh at when he stumbles in late and pissed. No use. No discipline. No fucking sense.”

My eyes dropped briefly to Natalie’s body, then lifted back to Nico’s face.

“But I love people.”

That changed the room. I saw it happen. Men like these didn’t know what to do with that kind of honesty. Didn’t know what to do with a man who could admit to love while dripping blood onto their floor.

“I love my brothers. I love my club.” My voice dropped then, and somehow that was worse. “And I loved her enough to walk into this place and let you kill me for it.”

My wrists twisted again, making the hook above me creak. Nico took a step back, eyeing me warily.

“That,” I said softly, “was your mistake.”

The laugh that tore out of me then was all teeth and madness and grief sharpened into something lethal.

“Because the man who came in here with no fight left in him?” I shook my head once. “He was already dead.”

My muscles flexed and the rope bit into my skin. But bit by bit, something was beginning to give.

“You took the only thing in this world that ever made me want to be better than what I am.”

The first strand snapped, making a few of the men jump. I smiled at Nico then, and this time there was nothing human in it.

“Now I get to be exactly what you made me.”

The second restraint tore free.

“You think you know death, but you don’t. Not until it's someone you care about. You kill those you deem beneath you. I’ve experienced loss. The kind that gets under your skin and lives inside you.”

I stepped forward.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

And when I spoke again, my voice was low enough to make the whole room lean in.

“You never, ever should have stopped remembering who I was. What I’m capable of. You may have been her executioner. But I am your judge and jury. Your final maker.”

I looked up at him, blood dripping from my face, my breathing ragged.

“I,” I said, panting through my rage, “am Vienna.”

I grinned my final grin.

“I am fucking Vienna!”

And then I launched—not just at him.

But into death.

Chapter 47

Gabriella

Now

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that Natalie wasn’t there.