Monster A Dark Arranged Marriage Romance - Vanessa Waltz Page 0,62

in half. The heavy feeling in my gut doubled. I screamed. The agony wounded me from all angles. It was too much. The guilt, hopelessness, and grief—this was the worst torture.

It tore out my insides.

It would end me for good. There was no redemption for a man who failed his wife. I’d tried to protect her. I’d done everything in my power to stop this. Despite that, she was trafficked. And it was my fault because I’d pushed her away.

It shattered me.

I kicked him onto his back and swung the knife. I don’t know how many times I stabbed him. Only that when it was over, he was a pulpy, red mass. My last captive bleated like a terrified sheep. I raised my hand. He would die, too. They all deserved to perish for losing my talented, bright, beautiful wife.

Cainan caught my wrist. His soft look muzzled my rage. “That’s enough, Tony.”

“It’s not nearly enough.”

“This doesn’t help Evie.”

I stood on a canvas of red. Crimson splattered my arms, chest, and face. I must’ve looked insane. I backed away, shaking. I needed to kill the last one.

“Where’s your president?”

“H-hospital. Please don’t.”

As the twenty-something-year-old got to his feet, I pulled out my sidearm.

He raised his hands.

I aimed and fired. The bullet struck him between his pleading eyes. It blew out his skull, and then his body hit the ground.

I stared at the pile of bodies.

I’d never killed three men at once.

I disappeared into the office. Cainan joined me, his gaze sweeping the floor. My boots had tracked biker filth inside. I was messy with my prey.

“How do I save her?”

“Easy. You buy her back.”

I ran a jerky hand through my hair. “He’ll recognize me.”

“Not necessarily. You know how K is. Coked up half the time. It’s wonder he’s still alive. He’ll throw a party just to celebrate stealing the girls he stole from Jett. He’ll probably auction them all. Including your wife.”

I sank into a chair, pain building behind my chest. “You can get me inside.”

Cainan said nothing for a long moment.

I could’ve slashed his throat. “You’re doing this.”

“Since when do I take your orders?”

“Do it, or we’ll have a problem.”

He raised his chin, meeting my glare head-on. “You go in there, you’re one of them. You can’t kill K.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“He’s untouchable. Killing a trafficker is like murdering a prince. They’ll never stop hunting you.”

I rubbed my temples, breathing hard.

“Tony, let me do this for you. I’ll buy the girl and get out.”

“No.”

I didn’t trust him within five hundred yards of Evie.

“Then don’t fuck this up,” he snarled. “No heroics. Or you’ll both be dead.

I kept imagining my wife, whose sunny attitude toward life saw rainbows shooting out of mountains of shit. Where was she? What was K doing to her? My heart thrashed with a deranged fury, strangled by images of Evie suffering.

She needed me.

We belonged together, but I’d been too stupid to see it. She wasn’t penance. She was my redemption, and I’d acted like the drowning man, fighting off my rescue.

If I couldn’t help her…I’d always be a monster.

This was my last chance.

I had to save her.

Twenty-Two

Evie

I’m grateful that I’ve learned the depths of my strength.

Nobody would save me.

Nobody knew I’d been kidnapped and sold to a man with a tiger-slanted gaze. His white card had flashed among the sea of masked men after my captor paraded me onto the stage in lingerie. The bass from the annoying club music pulsed through me, masking my sluggish heartbeat.

Run.

Where would I go?

Guards with guns slung over their backs lined the walls. They covered all the exits. Escape was impossible, and, even if it wasn’t, the cocktail of drugs surging through my veins made action futile. I waded in a frustrating coma of medicated calm. The mental paralysis was as thick as ice over a frozen lake, and it wouldn’t shatter no matter how violent the water underneath. Grasping onto a thought for more than a few seconds was too hard.

I needed help.

I let out a mournful sound. My plea was a candle in a squall, blown out immediately. I clutched at a waiter passing out drinks, but he shook from my grip.

I begged for help, my voice swallowed by the EDM music. The ear-splitting applause and fanfare threw me off-balance. I lacked the energy to scream. The men in the masks did nothing. Not one person looked me in the eye.

Why not?

What’s happening?

“Congratulations again to the gentleman in the back!” The announcer, a dapper man in his late seventies,