every inch of my flesh. It was drumming out its final beats, fighting harder than ever to keep going, but no more oxygen was making it into my blood. I was running out of time to fulfil the vow I’d made for Nicoli, to destroy this monster for taking him from me.
I fisted my hands in the sheets, clawing and tugging at them and Ramon's eyes lit up hungrily as he watched me beginning to lose this fight. Somewhere in the distance was a rattling of gunfire, but I couldn’t focus on it to wonder what it meant.
"Look at me," he purred again. "Look at the man who owns you."
My ears popped and darkness was shading my vision. My lungs burned for air and my body was getting heavy. I couldn’t die without taking Ramon with me. If an afterlife existed, he needed to burn in it for the rest of eternity. And if it didn’t, then I had to ensure he suffered, he had to pay for what he’d done to Nicoli. But my hope of that was failing by the second and my heart shattered all over again and as the strength in my body gave way. I’d dreamed of a life with my mountain man beside me, dared to hope that happiness could belong to us both, that I could know a world where no enemies lurked in the shadows, no one sought to own me, no one wished to see me bleed. Where it was just me and him and a sea of possibilities. But he was gone. And now I couldn’t even give him the revenge he so deeply deserved.
Tears slipped from my eyes over my loss of him, of everything we could have had, of Ramon winning, evil prevailing. All I could hope for was that Nicoli was waiting for me beyond this cruel and brutal world. That there might be a place for me yet where peace was waiting for us.
My fingers grazed the fluffy edge of a towel and in the darkening haze of my mind, I managed to force myself to pull on it, reeling it closer, feeling the soft material pass beneath my palm. Then something sharp and cold touched my fingertips and a final ray of hope found me in the endless dark.
I tugged the towel once more and the shard of glass slid into my palm. I wrapped my fingers around it as my eyes fluttered closed and Ramon breathed heavily over my face.
His grip eased as he presumed I was dead and the animal in me coiled.
I heaved down a breath the same moment as I flung my hand toward his side and the shard slid into soft flesh, making him wail as he reared back. I lunged upwards with a gasp of hope, yanking it free and stabbing again. And again. And again. Blood spattered me as he crumpled backwards onto the bed and I scrambled up and over him.
He was still fighting, throwing punches as he tried to get me off, but I latched my thighs around his waist and screamed as I stabbed and stabbed, falling into the bloodlust as I took my revenge, destroying my final demon and freeing myself in the same moment.
"Please no - please!" Ramon begged as I buried the glass in him once more, my own hand bleeding where I gripped it so tightly. I couldn't even feel the pain as I drove it into him without mercy. He had offered Nicoli none and I would give him the same courtesy.
He should have known this day would come. There was only one possible fate for men who chained monsters. Sooner or later, they’d fall prey to their claws and teeth.
The upper deck was a chaos of carnage and bloodshed as shots were fired from all sides and men lay dead or dying across the gleaming floor and cream leather seats that filled the open space at the top of the stairs we were using for cover.
But despite the sound of the returning fire from the cartel making my head ring and my own pulse pounding violently in my ears, above all of it I heard one sound which tore me in two. Winter’s screams were full of fear and rage and pain and fury and my muscles bunched with tension as my gaze fixed on the door to the rear of the yacht where they originated from.
“Cover me,” I barked at my brothers, preparing myself to dash through the