She shakes her head, tears streaking down her cheeks. I’m scaring her.
“It’s a promise that I’ll never be soft again. And ifanyonetries to make me feel anything…” I lean close, my breath brushing her ear. “I’ll fucking kill them for it.”
The words echo between us. I don’t even recognize my own voice. For a moment, we just breathe at each other. Then I stepback, turning away from her to go to the bedroom. I just want to sleep.
But a startled gasp sounds from behind me. “Jude!”
I glance back to see what’s wrong, and a sharp sting pierces my neck. I flinch.
Adriana yelps, and the room sways instantly. My hand flies up to find a dart protruding from my skin.
“Fffuck,” I mutter, my legs giving up on me. The doorway swims into focus, and Erik is standing there with the gun lowered now, watching me. And beside him is Alexei, with an expression of disappointment in his eerily calm features.
I stagger, knees buckling. I can hear Adriana screaming my name. The ground rushes up fast, darkness tunneling my vision. The last thing I hear before my face hits the floor is Alexei’s voice.
“You’re going to pay for losing control.”
And then there is nothing.
Chapter thirty-five
ADRIANA BRITTON
I still see it when I close my eyes, the way Jude lifted the gun with the same detachment for when he does mundane things. But no, he just ended a man’s fucking life without flinching. Aiden didn’t even have time to react before the bullet lodged itself in his brain. What lingers with me is not the blood or the sound, but the way Jude stood afterward, staring at the red spreading across the floor as though he were studying something fascinating.
It terrified me because he looked so absent. And when they came for him, he couldn’t even fight. They just dragged him away while others rushed in to clean up the body and the blood.
That was two days ago.
Two days in which no one has laid a hand on me, which should feel like mercy but instead feels like delay. Every time Erik brings my meals, he studies me in a way that makes my skin crawl. Men like him don’t deny themselves without a reason, and I can’t shake the certainty that Alexei is likely preparing to hand me over to Vlad soon.
When Erik steps inside that evening, I don’t shy away from him. I march right up to the fucker and take the tray, setting it aside. “I want to see him,” I say.
He exhales as if I’m being inconvenient and leans against the wall with amusement. “I’m about to see him again,” he replies with a wicked grin. One I fucking hate.
“Take me with you.”
His gaze sharpens. “You can stand outside the basement door. That’s it.”
Anger flares in my chest, but I nod anyway because scraps are better than nothing, and even a closed door is closer than I have been in forty-eight endless hours. I have no idea what they’ve been doing to him, but I know it’s not fucking good.
He leads me through the house and down the back staircase, where the air grows colder and heavier with each step, as though the walls themselves absorb what happens down here. “This is where you stay,” he tells me, and before I can argue, he slips inside and locks it behind him.
At first, there is only silence, and I press my palm against the metal as if I might feel something through it. Then Alexei’s voice rises with anger. I can’t catch every word, but I hear Jude’s name, and something about discipline. What follows does not sound like a lesson.
It sounds like a person being broken.
A strangled cry rises up, and my stomach lurches into my throat. It sounds like it was forced from somewhere deep inside Jude. I slam my fists against the door, shouting for them to stop,shouting Jude’s name, but my voice feels useless compared to the muffled thud that follows, the sickening impact of something heavy hitting concrete.
I press my ear against the door despite myself, and what I hear next makes my stomach twist. There is another sound, choked and dragged out, not quite a scream and not quite silence, the kind of noise that claws its way out when someone is trying not to give the satisfaction of full agony.
No. No. Stop it. Please…
Tears are flowing down my cheeks, and my heart pounds against my ribcage. Footsteps approach from inside, and when the door swings open, I stagger back. Erik stands in the doorway, a smear of blood darkening his jaw and collar, his hair disordered, his eyes bright in a way that feels sick. He looks exhilarated.
“What are you doing to him?” I demand, my voice shaking despite my effort to steady it.
His smile widens slowly. “You really don’t want to know.”