Page 162 of Reckoning

The door smashes open.

The shock of it makes me jump and my finger pulls the trigger before I even register that it’s moved.

The sound echoes in my head. It’s like it plays out in slow motion, I see the direction of the gun, I know exactly where it’s headed and it hits Martin right between the eyes.

He falls over, landing in a heap, and I train the weapon back on whoever the fuck has now joined us.

Koen

Jesus fucking Christ.

It’s like a blood bath. She’s sat in it, covered in it. Her leggings are by her ankles, her top has been completely sliced into two. She’s as good as naked.

But that’s not what has my attention.

It’s the gun pointed right at me. At us.

“Sofia,” Roman says.

He jumped on the back of one of my men’s bikes, following in my wake from the Governor’s house.

I hold my hand out, stopping him in his tracks. I don’t know where her head is at, I don’t know if she’s lost right now in some traumatic death spiral, but she’d never get over it if she shoots her brother.

She blinks looking between us with a blank expression, like she’s not really aware of what the fuck is actually happening. Perhaps they’ve drugged her. Perhaps she’s had a complete breakdown.

“Put the gun down, Princess.” I say.

She narrows her eyes, shaking her head.

And then movement in the corner makes us turn and look.

There’s one man dead by her feet. The man we witnessed her shooting as we walked in. But another man, an older man is hunched over, holding what looks like his bloodied groin.

Sofia trains the weapon back on him, narrowing her eyes, and then my mind turns to fucking fury as I register what it is lying there, in the blood, in front of all of us.

“He fucking raped you?” I growl because why else would his dick have been out?

Sofia nods, wiping her face on her shoulder but all it does is smear more blood across her skin.

I don’t think, I just cross the room, grabbing the bastard and I haul him up by his throat. As our eyes connect it’s like a knife twists in my heart. That old wound, one I thought was long buried, stirs and it’s so much worse this time.

No.

No fucking way.

“You fucking bastard.” I growl.

I thought I’d gotten them all. I thought I’d given Aaliyah all the justice she’d needed.

He stares back at me, his severed cock still spurting blood everywhere.

I pull my knife from my pocket, flip it open and one by one I cut them out. I cut out his eyes, her eyes technically.

No one says a word as I do it. No one moves.

His howls ring out and I’ll admit I’ll savour that sound, I’ll fucking die a happy man now that I’ve heard it.

Sofia is still there, back pressed against the wall, with that gun held in her hands like she needs to fight.