Page 54 of Monsters Carve Thrones (Crowned Monsters Duet #2)

Laura handed me a file. “The floor plans. Nico cleared the exit tunnels. We’ll have four squads. Front entrance, side, underground, and overwatch. We will be ready to back you up.”

“And us?” Rafe asked.

“We walk in through the front door,” I said, locking eyes with him.

Our guns were laid out on the dresser. My boots were beside his, polished and waiting. There was something unsettling about how intimate the whole thing felt. Like getting ready for a date instead of a bloodbath.

I didn’t hear Rafe come up behind me, but I felt him. His hands slid around my waist and held me there, anchoring me to him, to now. His mouth brushed against my ear, voice soft but dark.

“You ready for tonight, little doe?”

I rested my hands over his. “Yes.”

He exhaled like he’d been waiting to hear that. Maybe he had.

The day passed in pieces. Fast and slow at once. Armor and gear. Phone calls and quiet glances. Kieran checked his rifle as if it were a ritual. Nico sat on the floor in front of the TV, coding something that would help us breach the building’s firewall and reroute the surveillance.

Laura smoked half a pack, pacing with her earpiece, coordinating every moving piece like a general dressed for war.

We didn’t speak much. There wasn’t much to say. Perhaps we were all slightly nervous.

At six, we left the hotel and met the rest of our men outside the perimeter. They’d all stayed nearby in other hotels. Some of them I didn’t know well, but they nodded when they saw me. Rafe’s wife. The woman this whole storm had been conjured for.

The building itself was a fortress. An old embassy converted into a private club. Beautiful. Historic. Secluded. We had ensured no staff would remain after seven. By eight, it would all be fire and ash.

Laura walked beside me, her blue eyes gleaming under the streetlights. “It’s all in place. Doors are set to lock once we’re in. Windows barred. Roof clear. The exits are sealed except for the one we choose.”

I nodded, heart hammering steady and hard. “Good.”

Rafe’s hand brushed against mine as we approached the side street. He didn’t take it. Just enough contact to let me know he was here.

We moved like smoke through the shadows, down the block, past the last streetlamp, until the building loomed in front of us.

My pulse was thunder in my chest. My mouth was dry.

I looked at him. The man who used to be just like them. A monster in a tailored suit. He could have been on my list once. A memory hit me uninvited–his furious yet dead eyes the night he proved to me he was truly a villain.

But now, he wasn’t one of them. Not anymore.

He’d burned every bridge. Bled for me. Killed for me. Nearly died for me.

So I would do this for him.

I’d do it for every scream I choked down. Every bruise. Every memory that clawed through my sleep.

Tonight, we would become monsters again.

***

The surveillance room was dimly lit, illuminated only by the glow of the monitors.

Nico hunched over the keyboard, his tattooed fingers flying.

One by one, the feeds came online. Every angle of the ballroom.

High ceilings, arched windows, velvet drapes.

A scene that tried to look dignified but stank of rot.

I leaned closer to the screen, watching the predators gather. Familiar faces. Men who had built empires from the bones of others. They greeted each other with tight handshakes and fake laughter, whiskey glasses already in hand, their suits sharp and spotless. They had no idea.

They were waiting for Varga.

I smiled to myself.

They’d never see him again.

Because I shot the fucker in the face.

Rafe stood behind me, arms folded across his chest, silent but coiled. There was a tension in the room that pressed against my chest. Every breath I took felt like it echoed.

To our right, Kieran adjusted his earpiece, nodding to Laura who was relaying final confirmations. “Perimeter sealed,” she said, her voice calm. “No exits unless we give the go.”

“Underground’s blocked,” Kieran added. “Snipers ready on signal both inside and out in the unlikely event anyone gets past us.”

Every thread of the plan was tightening. It was happening. Now. My heart thrashed against my ribs. Not from fear, but from fury. From anticipation.

I’d been hunted. Used. Hurt .

But tonight, I was the one stepping into the light with a match in my hand.

“They look relaxed,” Nico muttered, tapping a button. One screen zoomed in. A man who had trafficked girls younger than me. Another who funded militias in exchange for oil. A third who had smiled while watching Waylon leash me like a dog.

“How much longer?” I asked, voice flat.

“Three minutes until we’re scheduled to ‘ arrive ,’” Nico replied. “But they’re all here. It’s your call.”

I looked over my shoulder at Rafe.

His eyes were wild ice. That lethal calm that only cracked when he touched me. “You ready?”

I drew in a slow breath. My fingers curled. The room tilted. I felt like a blade about to be drawn. “I’m ready.”

He stepped toward me, fixing the collar of his jacket. “We walk in slow,” he said, brushing invisible lint from my shoulder. “Let them look. Let them think they still have control.”

“And then?” I asked.

“Oh, baby.” He smiled. “We carve our throne in their blood.”

Laura’s voice buzzed in my ear. “Stage is yours, queen. Go make history.”

I looked back at the screen one last time.

One of the men adjusted his cufflinks. Another checked his watch.

They were growing restless. Arrogant little asses in suits.

I stood tall. My boots clicked as I crossed the room.

Rafe fell in beside me. The silence between us was holy.

We didn’t need words. We were two loaded guns walking toward a room full of targets.

As we reached the hallway, the guards ahead of us stepped back. Kieran gave a single nod, then tapped his comm. Doors unlatched. Systems locked down. Every exit sealed like a tomb.

The doors opened and quiet fell. Every head in the room turned. Eyes widened. Jaws dropped. Confusion twisted into something uglier–disbelief, unease, and dread .

They weren’t looking at Varga.

They were looking at me .

I stepped in first, dressed in black skinny jeans and boots. Beside me, Rafe moved like a predator, terrifying in his silence. His icy stare swept across the room like the scythe of Death himself.

The tension fractured the air.

I grinned. “Zdenek Varga sends his love,” I said sweetly. “Though I had to blow his fucking brains out before we got here.”

A ripple of panic moved across the gathered men. A few exchanged nervous glances. Others stood rigid, eyes flicking to each exit like rats realizing the trap was sprung.

Rafe’s hand brushed mine. Then he stepped forward, slow and calm, that dangerous smile spreading like blood in water.

“You all showed up tonight,” he said, voice smooth as silk and sharp as knives.

“Because you thought you were finally going to bring me down. Maybe even kill me. Maybe carve up the empire I built and split it among yourselves like greedy little pigs at the trough.”

He chuckled, a low, deadly sound that curled up my spine.

“But let me make something very, very clear.” He turned in a slow circle, addressing every face, every suit, every demon in disguise.

“You don’t get to take anything from me.

” His voice dropped, venomous. “You let Waylon keep her in a cage. You watched her get dragged into meetings like a prize dog. You stood there, saying nothing, doing nothing, while she was abused. And raped.”

His hand found my lower back, grounding me. My heart soared at the rage burning in his words–rage for me .

“Tonight,” Rafe said, his voice rising, “you get what you fucking deserve.”

Chairs scraped back. Some of them stood, already reaching for their weapons.

I stepped forward, my voice cold as ice. “ Sit the fuck down. ”

A few did, instincts overriding arrogance.

The others didn’t.

So Rafe’s voice cracked through the room like a whip. “ Sit. ” That tone could command Satan himself. Even the defiant ones stilled, realizing far too late that this wasn’t a business meeting. This was a massacre in formal wear.

I scanned their faces. Fear. Confusion. Rage.

It was a goddamn symphony. “You really thought you could come for us and walk out alive?” I asked, head tilted.

“You underestimated just how deep our vengeance runs. I memorized some of your faces from when Waylon tortured me. You motherfuckers smiled. You liked it.” I took a step forward, heat flaring beneath my skin.

“Just so you know, Waylon and his men are dead because we killed them.”

“Doors are locked,” Rafe said with a grin. “Exits are sealed. And this beautiful place you’re standing in? It goes up in flames in about...” he checked his watch. “Twenty minutes.”

“Long enough for a little fun,” I added.

Their panic was beautiful.

Rafe’s smile turned feral. “Welcome to your reckoning, gentlemen.” And with that, all hell was about to break loose.

The first yell came from the left. Someone had drawn a gun, a man in a gray suit near the edge of the room. Too slow.

Laura dropped him with a bullet to the throat before he could blink.

She was good at that. I watched as she and Nico appeared near two of the exits.

Blood sprayed across the marble floor, splattering his neighbor.

Terror erupted among them, suits toppling chairs, fumbling for guns, crashing into one another like pathetic dominoes.

Kieran lit them up from the balcony above. “Overwatch engaged,” his voice crackled in my earpiece.

I didn’t blink. I raised my Glock and fired three shots into the chest of a man who once told Waylon to keep me muzzled during meetings. He gurgled and dropped, blood seeping into the expensive rug beneath him.

“Five down,” Nico’s voice came through the comms, all business. “Exit squads are in place.”