Page 66 of Forbidden Boss
His smile twitches, confused. Then I drop the weapon and grab him by the throat. He chokes, clawing at my hand, but I’ve got him pinned against a tree before he can fight back. His face purples as I press harder. He kicks, catches my ribs, but I don’t let go. I want him to feel the same helplessness he made her feel.
“You think I’m going to make it quick?” I snarl. “You threatened the woman carrying my child. You made her run through a forest bleeding and terrified. You don’t get mercy.”
He wheezes, “You don’t really care about her.”
I slam him into the tree again, so hard the bark splinters. “She’s everything you’ll never understand.”
“Lev!” Mari’s voice cuts through the fog. She’s still on the ground, holding her arm where it scraped the rocks, eyes wide with fear. Not of Marcus, I realize, but of me. “Don’t do this. Please.”
I hear her, but her words are too far to reach me. My hand is shaking with rage. I let go of Marcus’s throat long enough to punch him. Once. Twice. Then again. Bone cracks under my knuckles. His face is a ruin, blood streaming from his nose and mouth.
Yuri pulls up beside me. “Lev. Enough.”
I don’t stop. I grab Marcus’s collar and drag him up again.
“You think you can scare her? You think you can take what’s mine?”
Another punch. He tries to cover his face, but I rip his hands down and drive my fist into his gut. He folds over, gasping. I let him fall to his knees.
“Lev, she’s watching,” Yuri says quietly. “You don’t want her to see this.”
I turn my head just enough to meet Mari’s eyes. She’s pale, trembling. Her lip is bleeding where he hit her.
When she speaks, her voice breaks. “Please. Don’t become him.”
Her words land somewhere deep. I draw a slow breath, then look down at Marcus again. He’s coughing blood onto the dirt.
“Yuri,” I say, my voice low and steady now. “Get her out of here now. She needs medical attention.”
She shakes her head. “No, please don’t do this,” she pleads, her voice raw.
“Now,” I order.
Yuri nods and moves to her side. He helps her up gently. She sways but stays upright. Her eyes are locked on me.
“Lev,” she groans, “please.”
But she’s already being pulled away. I watch them disappear into the trees before I look back at Marcus. He’s still breathing. Not for long.
I crouch in front of him, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at me.
“Whatever the hell you had planned, you’ve failed,” I say quietly. “After all that damn work, all those distractions and allies, you’re going to die here without accomplishing any of it.”
He tries to speak, but it comes out as a gurgle. I pull the knife from my belt. The silver glints faintly in the moonlight. His eyes widen.
“You don’t deserve a quick death,” I tell him. “You deserve to feel every second you stole from her.”
He starts begging me with broken words, half-choked with blood. I don’t hear them. I see Mari’s face in my mind, her eyes wet and afraid, her voice pleading with me to stop. But I can’t stop. Not this time. If I let him live, he’ll crawl back out of whatever hole he came from and try again. Men like him don’t change. They rot.
I press the knife against his throat, not deep enough to kill. Just enough for him to understand what’s coming. His breath comes out in short, panicked bursts. I lean closer until my voice is the only thing he hears.
“She’s alive because she’s stronger than you ever were. And you’re going to die knowing that.”
He mutters something, a curse or a prayer, but I don’t give him time to finish. The knife slides in clean and deliberate, and his breath catches in a wet gasp.
He doesn’t die right away. I make sure of that. He gurgles and thrashes, and I hold him down until the fight drains out of him.The blood seeps into the dirt between us, dark and warm. I wait until he stops moving before I finally step back.
The forest goes quiet again. Just the hum of wind through the branches, the drip of water somewhere near the creek. My hands are slick. My chest feels hollow.