pumped some noxious gas into my cell until I’d nearly choked.
I grabbed a fistful of his unruly blonde hair and yanked hard to force his head backwards.
“Please,” he rasped. “I’m sorry for hurting you, it was my job. I can’t be blam-”
I slashed the hunting knife across his throat and blood splashed out into the snow. He thrashed for a minute longer and I watched and waited and yearned for his death.
He thought his crimes would stay hidden in shadow, he’d been wrong. And now he was finding that out in his final, painful moment on earth.
He jerked and fell still and I released his hair, letting him slump forward in the snow. I rose to my feet, my body trembling with adrenaline and I turned to Nicoli behind me, his eyes lit with awe.
Snow was falling, though I hadn’t noticed when it had begun, the flurry growing and thickening as it twisted around him in the air. He looked like a reaper amongst the fluffy white flakes, a bringer of death upon my demons.
As I stared at him, I felt my voice loosening for a moment, the box in my chest starting to crack open. A fire built at the base of my throat, because I didn’t want to hide my voice from him right now. And I shut my eyes, focusing as I dragged up the words from my belly that I needed to give him so deeply.
“Thank you,” I said on a heavy breath, opening my eyes and finding Nicoli with a stunned look on his features.
“Your voice,” he growled. “Fuck, say something else.”
I parted my lips again, but my voice betrayed me once more, burying itself and refusing to come out. My heart twisted with pain at knowing I couldn’t give Nicoli more than that. He deserved so much more. He’d killed with wild abandon just for me. He’d offered me Quentin on a plate. I growled in frustration and he reached forward to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear.
“It’s okay.” His eyes moved to the snowmobiles as he gave up on me saying another word. “We’d better make this seem like a raid on those packages, baby doll.”
A heavy breath left me as I gave up too, looking to whatever these men had been transporting with a frown.
“It’s cannabis,” Nicoli answered my questioning look and I couldn’t say I was surprised.
He started untethering a package from the back of the closest machine and I hurried to untie one of the others. We soon had all the packages unloaded and Nicoli led the way to an old abandoned mine shaft hidden in the trees close by that he said Tyson had chased a rabbit down once.
We tossed them down into the dark, one by one where they tumbled out of sight.
By the time we were done, my hands were frozen to the bone and my sleeves were soaked.
I looked to Nicoli as we arrived back at the snowmobiles and the bodies of the men he’d killed, his face pinched in thought. He was coated in the blood of my enemies, had bathed in it for me, had made them his enemies too. No one had ever done so much for me. It was overwhelming and with my head still spinning in the aftermath of my kill, I strode toward him with a reckless need driving me forward. It was a base desire, one I had to act on or I’d regret it forever. It burned up through my core and set a fire blazing along my flesh.
A blush was spreading everywhere, adrenaline licked the insides of my veins like liquid nitrogen. I was ablaze, hungry, free. But before I made it to him with the wild intentions my mind had conjured, he moved towards the nearest snowmobile and swung his leg over it.
“We need to lay a false trail and cover those tracks to the mine,” he said firmly. “If you’d rather, I can take you back to the cabin first so you can-”
I strode towards him fiercely and his words fell dead on his lips as I climbed onto the back of the snowmobile and wrapped my arms around his waist. No way was I leaving him. I was with him in this no matter what.
He started the engine, taking off down the mountain at high speed. The snow eased as we headed lower and lower and eventually I could see where it disappeared altogether. Beyond the muddy ground ahead was a track