Page 79 of Blackwood

“Zeke!” I yell the name like a curse. “Chicago. Did you send the tip that got my brother killed?”

Something shifts in his face, just for a second. Then the smile creeps back. My stomach drops. My breath catches. That grin, that look,it hits like a fucking freight train.

Panic. Rage.Dylan.

Sabine must see it—or feel it—because she’s suddenly beside me. Calm. Present. She gently slides the knife from my hand and replaces it with cold steel.

A pistol.

My fingers curl around it automatically. Carlos freezes.

“I had no idea the mutt was dead,” he says slowly. Then, that sick, rotten grin widens. “But IwishI’d been the one to kill him.”

My finger grazes the trigger. I raise the gun, the barrel aimed straight at Carlos’s forehead.

“Do it!” he screams, spit flying, eyes wild.

My finger tightens on the trigger.

“Isabella,” Sabine says softly, like a lullaby cutting through a war-zone. “Be smart now, baby. Don’t waste your revenge on a head-shot.”

I glance at her. She winks and dips her eyes toward Carlos’s crotch. I nod. Then I shift my aim down a little lower and pull the trigger. The shot cracks like thunder. Blood sprays. His body jerks against the chair. He howls like an animal caught in a trap.

Sabine laughs behind me. “Good girl.”

“You fucking bitches!” Carlos roars, spit and agony mangling every word.

Sabine clicks her tongue and steps forward, “May I?”

I nod, handing her the gun without a word.

She circles him slowly. “See here, little man,” she says, crouching to eye level. “I don’t take kindly to anyone who hurts babies.”

Carlos trembles.

“And from what I hear?” She tilts her head. “You’re one of the worst. Taking and selling little ones. Letting monsters intoyour house to touch and torture the children you were given to protect.”

He whimpers. Sabine lifts the pistol and takes two shots, quick and precise. Both knees. Carlos’s screams rip through the bayou like a banshee’s wail.

I wince. “Damn.”

Sabine just blows the smoke from the barrel. “Told you not to waste revenge on the head-shot.” She turns me toward the door.

Carlos sobs behind us, his breath catching in ragged gasps. “Please,” he cries. “Please don’t leave me here alone like this.”

Sabine pauses mid-step and turns back slowly, smile curling with venom. “Oh honey,” she says sweetly, “we’re not leaving you here alone.”

The door creaks open again. Two of her men step inside, both dressed in black, faces blank. One’s carrying a can of gasoline. The other’s holding a goddamn industrial torch.

Carlos sees it and loses whatever scrap of sanity he was still clinging to.

“No, no. PLEASE!”

We keep walking.

“Bella, please. Mariela. And my child.”

I stop at the door. Slowly turn. He’s pale now, panicked in a whole new way. “Please, Bella. Please don’t hurt them.”