Page 129 of Corpse Roads
“I c-c-can’t help you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I know what kind of men run Sabre Security. They won’t give up their latest prize without a fight.”
Tears spill down my cheeks as he cups my left breast through my shirt. Humiliation settles over me in a clinging cloud.
“They have to choose.” He snickers. “Their fucked up little freak or two million pounds. I’m leaving with one.”
“I told you. I’m nothing to them.”
Diablo’s hand slides inside my shirt and pushes the cup of my bra aside. I bite down on a whimper as his fingers pinch my nipple.
“You’re living with them, eating their food, wearing their clothes. I don’t like being lied to, Harlow. You’re one of them.”
As his hand sneaks lower, touching the scars that wrap around my torso, I lose it. Obeying won’t save me. I know that now. The past has taught me something.
Seething, I lunge from my chair and collide with him. Diablo shouts, grabbing me by the hair and smashing my face into the nearby wall. My vision blackens for a stomach-churning second.
“Bad move,” he jeers.
Pinned against the wall, his nails dig into my throat. My windpipe is crushed in his strong hand, tightening, wringing, twisting.
“I’ll send them your fucking corpse if I have to.” Diablo spits in my face. “But not until I’ve had my fun with you. I want to see those scars for myself.”
Leaning close, his tongue flicks across the steady stream of blood soaking my face. I can’t even scream. The violation breaks something in me—a flimsy barrier holding my rabid side back.
Managing to lift my knee, I smash it between his slightly spread legs. Diablo curses, his grip on my throat slackening enough for me to draw in a breath and kick his ball sack again.
“Argh!” he bellows.
Swallowing the blood pooling in my mouth, I advance before he can straighten. My plastered arm collides with his face, his nose exploding with a glorious crack.
I don’t stop. It isn’t enough to satisfy the monster baying for blood inside of me. Diablo’s cupping his broken nose, falling onto his back. I leap on him and straddle his waist.
“I’ll f-fucking kill you,” he garbles.
I hit him again, spraying his blood across my face. “People worse than you have tried and failed.”
Reaching for the knife he dropped on his way down, I hold it over his torso. His life is in my hands, ripe for the taking. I don’t have to let him walk away from this.
I’m the girl that left the darkness behind. The girl who survived the devil himself. I’ve got nothing left to lose and no amount of pain will scare me back into the cage I escaped.
“I don’t need anyone to come and save me,” I spit at him.
“You w-won’t do it.”
His eyes widen through a curtain of blood. Whatever he sees on my face, it unnerves him. I’m not alone. The ghosts of the girls are here, seething and writhing at the back of my mind.
“I’m done spending my life afraid of men like you.”
Time flashes in blinding snapshots. Diablo screams as the knife buries in his stomach, slicing through fat and muscle like butter.
Teeth bared, I twist the blade inside of him, soaking in the spray of blood. His wails of pain are music to my ears.
“Diablo!”
A cigarette hanging from his mouth, Jace steps back inside, paling when he sees the bleeding mess trapped beneath me. He reaches for the gun tucked into his jeans as I wrench the knife out of Diablo.
Plaster shatters above my head as he fires the first shot. I duck and slide through the expanding pool of blood, avoiding the next bullet. As he runs into the room, I dive to the left, letting the knife sail.