Page 21 of Forbidden Empire (Sinful Gods #1)

I stared down at the screen, turning her words over, trying to pin down what the hell she meant.

There was a lot I was protecting these days, and whether any of it belonged to me was debatable.

It could have been a message about anything.

“What is it, boss?”

I looked up at Ares, my pulse pounding, fingers tightening around the phone. “Another threat from Rhea.”

He nodded, shrugged, opened his mouth to speak, and then, just as I’d dreaded, chaos detonated.

The doors to the private club exploded open at the bottom of the stairs.

Two of my men were already down, sprawled in pools of crimson, bleeding out in sick, glossy puddles on the marble.

Masked men flooded inside, a small unit, but armed and trained, their movements sharp and merciless as they swept through the threshold.

Ares and I reached for our guns at the exact same time.

Shouts and screams erupted, a discordant symphony as the masked men unleashed bullets into the crowd. Glass shattered, wood splintered, bodies dove for cover, panic rippling through the room like shockwaves.

People scrambled behind chairs, bolted through side doors, vanished into the back rooms, desperate to escape the slaughter.

“Where’s Aidon?” one of the men shouted.

At the sound of my name, Ares closed the distance, stepping in front of me, a living barricade, as the masked men lunged up the stairs toward my office.

They hit the landing, and gunfire tore through the air again, deafening and relentless.

Ares and I fired back, the strobe of muzzle flashes illuminating the insanity as bullets ricocheted off walls, chewed through furniture, and sent paper snowing from shelves.

We ducked behind my desk, pressed close, but there were too many of them. The odds were ugly and getting worse by the second.

Then I heard it, the pounding boots, the shouts from my guards. Hope clawed its way up my throat.

I risked a glance, catching the epic clash erupting in the hall: my men versus theirs, both sides ruthless, both sides bleeding, neither side willing to yield.

Whoever these fuckers worked for, they had been trained for this. My men fought hard, but they were holding the line.

My mind spun.

I worried about Ares, about whether I could protect myself.

But above all, I worried about Esme. She was right on the other side of this wall.

My reason for every move, every breath.

And I would die before I let anyone touch her.

I searched through the deafening chaos. “I need to get Esme.”

“I’ll cover you,” Ares never hesitated, rising to his feet and unleashing hell in the direction of the men charging our way.

Bullets tore through the air, slamming into two of them.

They dropped, dead weight, but it wasn’t enough. The rest kept coming, relentless, spraying round after round like they had eternity in their magazines.

Ares’s shout ripped through the room, raw and desperate, as he collapsed behind my desk.

Shit.

I was back at his side in an instant, dropping down and meeting his gaze.

Blood soaked through his shirt, blooming fast, dark and ominous. That wound was bad. Really fucking bad.

“Ares! Fuck!” I ripped off my shirt and pressed it hard to his chest.

He grabbed my wrist, shoving the fabric tighter against his wound and shaking his head.

“Go get Esme!” His words were sharp, cutting through the haze. “Go! I’m fine!”

My eyes flicked to the room behind me, the panic, the noise, the violence.

Esme was fighting for her life, locked in brutal combat with a linebacker-sized bastard who hadn’t a clue death was breathing down his neck.

“Fuck,” I spat, pushing off the floor and leaving Ares behind, everything in me surging toward Esme and the man stupid enough to lay hands on her.

I came up behind the man, my hands finding his head with brutal efficiency.

The crack of his neck snapping reverberated through my fingers, a sickeningly familiar jolt.

He dropped to the floor, a dead weight, and there she was.

Esme. Blood smeared across her face, eyes wild as a cornered animal.

“I could have taken him,” she muttered, defiant even in defeat.

“No time to argue,” I ground out, grabbing her hand. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”

Pulling her after me, I leapt over overturned tables and broken furniture.

The bedlam from the floor below faded with every frantic step we took.

My mind spun, rage coursing through my veins, hotter than anything I’d ever felt.

How the fuck had this happened? Was this Rhea’s handiwork? Whoever it was, they wanted to make a statement.

A bloody one.

But whatever message they were sending, I couldn’t give a damn, not right now.

All that mattered was Esme.

Getting her out. Keeping her alive.

We burst out of the office, and I yanked her down a narrow hallway, fury boiling inside me, uncontrollable, volcanic.

I found the hidden door and shoved her through, slamming it behind us. The heavy bulletproof lock clicked into place, sealing us off from the hell outside.

"What the fuck?" she muttered, eyes darting as she scanned the room.

"I like to be prepared," I said, and before she could react, my hands gripped her shoulders.

One hard shove and she hit the wall with a gasp, wide-eyed, her fear bleeding through.

Let her be scared.

If my gut was right, all of this was her fault anyway.

"You tipped them off," I accused, slicing through the space between us.

No mercy, no doubt.

Her green eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second, and her lips twisted into a savage little grin, blood painting her mouth like warpaint, and something inside me snapped.

She was fucked up from the fight, her mouth split, swollen, and seeping red, but worry was the last thing I felt.

She deserved every second of it.

Let her hurt.

She laughed, low and bitter, a sound that scraped along my nerves. "If I wanted to betray you, then you’d already be dead."

The fury inside me turned molten, burning away reason, burning everything.

She kept needling, pushing, tempting fate like she had no fear at all.

Maybe she just liked the battle.

How could she be this way? Reckless, fearless, taunting me even when all I wanted to do was keep her safe.

My anger was a live current, crackling between us, the words unspoken but sharp enough to draw blood.

My fingers dug into her arms, torn between wanting to shake her until her teeth rattled or crush my mouth to hers so she stopped laughing.

The urge to do both warred inside me, raw and primal.

Maddening.

I growled, the sound rough and guttural, before shoving her away so hard she staggered.

She just laughed again, mean and broken, dragging the back of her hand across her bleeding mouth and smearing red across her cheek.

That bloody smirk of hers was enough to drive a man mad.

"Aidon," she drawled, velvet and venom, "you should be asking yourself why they only came for you."