Page 80 of Twisted Addiction

“Here.”

The paper was creased, smudged with ink and fingerprints. An address scrawled in hurried Cyrillic letters bled across the page.

“I shouldn’t be giving you this,” she said, lowering her voice. “But I’ve seen the footage. They took your mother alive. They want a confession before they finish the job. If you move now, you might make it in time.”

For a heartbeat, the world stopped moving. I could hear nothing but the faint hum of the fluorescent light above us and the roar of blood in my ears.

Then everything snapped.

I grabbed the paper, my bloody fingers smearing the ink, the letters dissolving into a crimson blur.

My pulse was pounding so hard I could barely breathe.

I turned toward the exit, limping, unsteady. The woman’s voice stopped me.

“Don’t go unarmed,” she said quietly.

I didn’t answer. Didn’t look back.

My broken body moved on instinct — pain was irrelevant now. Rage was stronger. Fear sharper.

I slammed through the doors, into the night, into the downpour that hadn’t stopped since the world began falling apart.

The car door stuck for half a second before giving way, and I fell into the driver’s seat, breath ragged.

The smell of iron filled the cabin — my blood on the upholstery, my sweat on the steering wheel. The engine coughed, then roared.

I reversed hard, tires shrieking, the car fishtailing on slick pavement as I shot out of the garage.

My ribs screamed, my vision wavered, but I kept going.

The city blurred — red lights, headlights, sirens in the distance — all meaningless noise.

“Mom,” I whispered, my voice shaking, my teeth chattering from pain and adrenaline. “Stay alive. Please... just stay alive.”

The paper sat on the dashboard, the ink half washed away by my blood and the rain, but the address burned in my mind.

“I’ll save you,” I swore under my breath, again and again, the words turning to a rhythm that drowned out the pain. “I’ll save you. I’ll fucking save you.”

A car honked. Someone shouted. The light turned red, but I didn’t stop. The city didn’t matter. The cops didn’t matter. My life didn’t matter.

Only she did.

My mother — the only person who had come for me.

And Penelope Romano — the girl I’d loved with every piece of my ruined heart — had betrayed me deeper than anyone ever could.

The road ahead was a black river of rain and vengeance, leading to a reckoning I wasn’t sure I’d survive.

But if I didn’t — I’d make sure she remembered my name before I died.

Chapter 19

PENELOPE (The Present)

Dmitri loomed over me in the kitchen, his polished shoe pinning the gun to the tiled floor.

The soft crunch of metal against ceramic echoed in the tense silence. He was too close, the heat of his body seeping through the cold air that separated us.