Page 7

My voice is deadly calm as I say, “I swear to everything that is holy, I will destroy you if you touched my girl.”

Her answering silence speaks volumes, and everything goes black. My vision snuffs out, and a tsunami of rage crashes through me. I clench my fists, fighting to regain control of myself.

“Zade.”

Urgency gnashes at my patience, screaming at me to get up and find my little mouse. I need to get to her now before they take her too far.

“Zade.”

Who knows how far they’ve taken her already? How badly they’ve hurt her.

My body locks tight from the thought, images flashing through my head of what they could be doing to her. If they touch her…

“Fuck, ZADE! Look at me, man.”

Jay’s voice finally registers, but I can’t see him. I can’t see anything.

The gun is pressed harder into my head as a warning. I don’t remember moving, but I’m on my knees now, my spine straight as I stare ahead. Seeing nothing but a vision of ripping this bitch’s body apart, limb by limb, with my fucking teeth.

“Stay down,” she hisses from behind me.

“Let me… fuck, he’s going to do something stupid,” Jay rushes out, voice pitched in panic. Pain explodes on the side of my head from a fist flying into my temple. My sight comes rushing back in, my right-hand man’s face appearing, his hazel eyes inches away.

“Get it fucking together,” he barks through gritted teeth. The vein on his temple pulsates, sweat pouring down his red face.

My hand is wrapped around the barrel that’s firmly digging into my head, seconds away from pulling it from her grip.

“Let it go,” Jay orders sharply. “You’re lucky you don’t have a goddamn bullet in your head right now. You can’t kill her yet.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she spits, nudging the gun. Setting my jaw, I release it and rest my hands on my knees. My muscles are vibrating so hard—so fast; my body appears to be still. But I can feel every tremor as she continues, “You may think you’re powerful, but whatever scraps of power you have are insignificant to mine. I can make you disappear, and no one will ever have known you existed at all.”

I snarl, on the precipice of demonstrating just how wrong she is, but keep my teeth glued together for the time being. Jay’s right. She’s holding a gun to the back of my head and can end my life in a matter of seconds. A bullet is faster than me, and I have no doubt she would make good on her threat and kill Jay next.

Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply and bring myself to a scary place I’ve rarely had to go in my lifetime. Numbness spreads, and tranquility replaces the white-hot rage. My mind goes silent, and when I reopen my eyes, Jay’s spine snaps straight.

Whatever he sees unnerves him.

I need to get out of this situation in order to find Addie. Only then, will I be more than happy to show this cunt exactly what I’m capable of. This world will fucking smolder, and I will hold her face in the fire and watch her melt in my wrath.

“Did you take her?” I ask. I know she did, but I need to hear the confirmation from her mouth anyway.

I feel her hot breath fan across my ear, followed by her soft, mocking voice. “I did. I took her, and I’m going to sell her only to the ones with the sickest desires. And you can’t do a thing about it.”

One thing I’ve grown to loathe since forming Z—I have an incredibly vivid imagination. In this field of work, it’s a curse. Every time I see a new video posted on the dark web or get intel on a new ring—the first thoughts that come to mind are all the depraved, sick things being done to these women and children.

My own mind tortures me with those images. And later, I’ll be plagued by them, except it’ll be my girl they’re hurting.

But now? I’m fucking glad for it.

Because at this very moment, I am enjoying all of the ways I’m envisioning how I will kill Claire Seinburg.

“So,” I start, grunting when a particularly painful twinge flares in my back. “Mark was never your abuser, was he?”

She titters. “Oh, he was. He just didn’t know what it meant for him every time he laid his hands on me. Idiot never did figure out I was the one pulling all the strings. He was too stupid.”

She circles Jay and me, the gun still pointed at my head while her red lips pull into a snarl. The color staining her mouth rivals her hair. Such a bright red that curls around her face and robed shoulders. During the ritual, she was the mystery person in the hood, offering me a knife that she knew damn well I would never use on that little girl. Instead, it went into another’s throat.

“That’s the best thing about the male species. You all are so far up your own asses, you never thought it could be a woman in charge. Never suspected the meek, abused wife because you all assumed I was