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"I'm gonna enjoy this," he snarls, pinning my arms.

I buck beneath him, twisting my body. My nails find his face, raking down his cheek. He howls, jerking back, and I use the moment to slam my knee between his legs.

As he doubles over, I scramble away, but he lunges, grabbing my ankle. I kick with my free foot, connecting with his jaw. The impact sends pain shooting up my leg, but his grip loosens.

With heaving breaths, I crawl toward the door, but Axel recovers too quickly. He grabs my hair, yanking me backward. Pain explodes across my scalp, making me groan as he drags me across the floor.

"Enough games," he growls, then slams me against the wall.

Something cracks in my side — a rib, maybe two. I gasp, unable to breathe through the white-hot pain.

Axel pulls a knife from his boot. "Let's see how pretty Costello thinks you are after I'm done."

The blade glints in the dim light as he brings it toward my face. I twist desperately, but the knife slices across my shoulder instead, the pain searing.

Suddenly, gunfire erupts outside, my body freezing at the sound. Axel's head snaps toward the door, his momentary distraction giving me the opening I need.

My hand shoots to his waistband, fingers closing around the cold metal of his gun. Before he can react, I yank it free.

His eyes widen as I press the barrel against his chest.

"Wait—" he starts.

There's no hesitation this time. I pull the trigger.

The gun kicks in my hand. Axel stumbles backward, shock spreading across his face. I fire again. And again. And again.

Each shot reverberates through my bones, but I don't stop. I keep pulling the trigger until the gun clicks empty, my hands shaking violently.

Axel collapses, his body hitting the floor with a dull thud. Blood pools beneath him, spreading across the weathered planks.

The door bursts open. Sam stands there, gun raised, his face a mask of fury and fear. His eyes take in the scene — me standing over Axel's body, the empty gun still clutched in my trembling hands.

"Olivia," he breathes, lowering his weapon and darting toward me. As soon as his arms wrap around me, my legs give out and a sob breaks free.

I'm finally safe.

FORTY-FIVE

Sam

Igrip the steering wheel so tight my knuckles turn white, pushing the SUV to its limits as we race through the outskirts of New Orleans. John sits beside me, methodically checking his weapon, his face set in grim determination. Naz, Donnie, and four more of my most trusted men follow in cars behind us, a small army ready for war.

"Not again," I mutter, the words barely audible over the engine's roar and the blood pounding in my ears.

Memories flood back with brutal clarity — being ten years old, trembling in terror, the smell of damp wood and mildew filling my nostrils, my mother's blood pooling on the rotting floor of that shack in the swamp. The same godforsaken swamp we're heading to now, twenty years later, but feeling exactly the same.

"We'll get her, Sam," John says, but his voice sounds distant, like he's speaking from underwater. His reassurance does nothing to calm me.

I see my mother's face, her eyes wide with fear as she jumped in front of me, using her body as a shield. I hear the deafeninggunshot, feel the warm spray of her blood across my face and hands. The memory is so vivid, I can almost taste the copper in the air.

"I can't lose her too." The words escape before I can stop them, raw and vulnerable in a way I rarely allow myself to be.

The road narrows as we approach the Bayou, civilization giving way to wilderness. Cypress trees loom overhead like ancient sentinels, Spanish moss hanging like funeral shrouds in the humid night air. The headlights cut through the oppressive darkness, illuminating the twisted path to the old hunting grounds where the Serpents have always taken their victims, where they've always executed their enemies.

I park a quarter mile out, killing the lights. We move silently through the undergrowth, the mud sucking at our boots with every step, as if the swamp itself is trying to hold us back. Through the tangle of trees, I spot it, the same weathered shack where my mother died, where Kade has now taken Olivia. My chest tightens at the sight.

Two guards pace outside, rifles slung over their shoulders, cigarettes glowing in the darkness. Three more men are visible through the grimy windows, their shadows moving against the dim light inside. Gun drawn, I signal to John with practiced precision. We've done this a hundred times before, but never with stakes this high.