Page 133

“This has nothing to do with you, man. Just turn around and walk out.”

Whatever expression Takeshi wore made the man pale further.

“Nothing to do with me?” Takeshi’s voice was so deep it was unrecognizable. “The moment you laid a hand on her, you chose death.”

The prisoner scrambled for the door and Takeshi lunged. He grabbed a fistful of the prisoner’s hair, driving his knee into the man’s stomach.

The prisoner doubled over, heaving before Takeshi gripped his neck and slammed the man’s head into the floor with enough force to crack the tile beneath them.

The prisoner’s head lifted, the front of his face completely smashed and broken. Takeshi flipped him over and straddled him, just as the man had done to Khalani.

Takeshi proceeded to punch him in the face. Over and over.

He took his time between each hit, relishing the blood that splattered across the white tile, studying the areas on his face that hurt the most and relentlessly attacking those weaknesses.

Between punches, the prisoner twisted his head to find Khalani standing in the corner, frozen and completely hypnotized by the scene before her.

“Help…me,” he rasped through missing teeth.

His words only served to stoke Takeshi’s fury further.

“You don’t deserve to look at something beautiful before you die,” Takeshi growled.

With chilling detachment, he bent forward. The prisoner’s whole body flailed as Takeshi plucked out his eyes.

Khalani found her back sliding down the tile as screamsechoed around her. Her vision blurred, and the ache in her head intensified.

Three Dealers suddenly barged into the building, their eyes widening as Takeshi went back to savagely punching the prisoner into a bloody pulp.

“Stop!” one of them yelled, but Takeshi ignored the newcomers, continuing to inflict his deadly punishment.

The Dealers scrambled for their pads and Takeshi immediately started seizing as they shocked him. But Takeshi’s upper lip curled and he kept hitting the prisoner on the floor,ignoringthe pain.

“What the…” The Dealers cranked up the voltage. Takeshi shook uncontrollably but his fists remained clenched as he fell to the floor. Khalani’s heart raced in sheer panic as they kept shocking him.

Watching Takeshi suffer stirred something deep within her. She thought she was vulnerable to pain before, but this hit her with the strength of a mountain.

“Don’t hurt him!” she yelled, but the Dealers ignored her.

“Get them to their cells!”

A hand wrapped around her arm, hoisting Khalani to her feet.

The Dealer motioned her toward the exit, and she wobbled, holding her hands out to steady herself. The guard grunted at her slow pace and shoved her forward.

Takeshi snarled something behind her, but she couldn’t make out the words as she was escorted out of the building.

She reared back when she saw two prisoners lying on the floor right outside the door. Their chests moved, so they weren’t dead, but they must’ve been the ones guarding the door for the man who tried to rape and kill her.

Judging by their unconscious state, they encountered the menacing Captain of Braderhelm Prison.

“Big fucking mess,” the Dealer snarled, tightening his griparound her arm as he pulled her toward the barracks.

The pounding in her head intensified, and she leaned into the officer’s grip to keep moving. A flash of blonde hair appeared in her vision, and her heavy gaze flickered up to see Elise with her jaw hung open.

“Are you okay? I heard a shout from the shower building and got worried…Khalani?” The lines contorting her face deepened as Khalani’s head tilted.

All she wanted to do was lie down—