“Cover me,” I say into the comms. “I have to get to that other room.”
“Twenty-four men are down,” Rome says in my ear. “You’re clear.”
Sixteen
VIOLET
Christ, this hurts.
Goon Number Two is holding my arms back, and Number One is punching me like ... well, like I just stole his girls.
Because I did.
“I’m going to rape you,” he tells me before he backhands me. “I’m going to fuck every hole you’ve got and make it hurt like fuck before I let you die.”
“You can try,” I reply through swollen lips. My jaw aches, one eye is almost swollen shut, and my ribs sing in horror, likely broken. “You piece of shit.”
He smiles and turns to grab his gun, and with him distracted, I fling my head back again, then grab Number Two’s gun and hold it on both of them as I manage to scramble to the corner of the room.
I’m a shaking, bloody, terrified mess, but right now, I have the gun.
“Are you going to shoot us, little girl?”
These men could have Rosie. They could have raped her and beat her and tortured her over and over again, and I can’t stand it. I can’t fucking stand it.
But before I can take a shot, someone runs into the room and then stops right next to me, andI can smell him.
“Go,” I whisper. “Away.”
“No way, Savage. You don’t get to have all the fun.”
I’m still shaking. I can’t take my eyes off the two that just used me as a punching bag. I can’t breathe.
“Gonna kill them.”
“They deserve it,” he agrees. “But I don’t want you to do that.”
“Because you’re with them.” God, I didn’t want that to be true. There’s a buzzing in my ears as my whole world starts to crumble around me.
“Violet.”
I turn and point the gun at Mateo’s chest, and he doesn’t even flinch.
“I’m not with them,” he says. There’s no humor in his face, no joking around at all. “I came here to stop them.”
“He’s the boss,” Number One says, and it makes a shiver run through me.
I’m shaking so hard, it’s almost laughable.
“I-I don’t kn-know who to trust.”
Mateo licks his lips. “Baby, I need you to give me that gun.”
I shake my head and try to turn away from him.
“What if you’re with?—”
I don’t get the sentence out before he draws a gun from his back and, without even looking away from my eyes, points it and shoots Number One between the eyes.