Page 106 of Poisoned Pawn

“Stop!” I yell, gaining Rook’s attention. “Leave them, and I’ll come with you,” I tell him.

He grins wide. “Oh I know you will. But just to be sure you understand…” He gives a nod, and another shot rings out.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO

CARTER

“I’m going to fucking kill you, Rook! Get your fucking hands off her, you son of a fucking bitch!” My words are like drops of rain in an ocean—meaningless, inconsequential. A drop in the fucking ocean. And right now, Rook is the ocean. He holds something more precious to me than my life. I know there’s a sniper sight on me and Maddox, he knows it too, but it doesn’t stop us from fighting.

“Stop!” I hear Star yell, and it’s like time ceases. “Leave them, and I’ll go with you.”

“Noooo! Star, don’t do this,” I roar, turning and landing a hit to the guy behind me.

Pop!

“Arrrgh!” Maddox bellows, stumbling backward as the bullet connects with his body. The guy he was fighting with releases him, letting him fall to the floor.

“Maddox! Oh my god, Maddox!” Star’s voice echoes around the room as my vision narrows.

“Star! Star!” I watch as she struggles against the hold of the guy behind her, tears streaming down her face.

“I’d say this is checkmate, Carter, but Anastasia’s mate is much more fitting, don’t you think?” Rook laughs as he walks away.

“I’m sorry,” Star sobs as she’s dragged further out of my reach.

I don’t get a chance to go after her as the guy I hit leaps on my back, wrapping an arm around my throat.

I fling my arms up, grabbing the back of his neck, then I bend over, throwing him to the floor. I’m on him in a second, pounding and pummelling my fists into his face until it’s nothing but a bloody pulp attached to his body.

Loud, panicked voices fill the room. Hands touch me, trying to drag me back.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” I growl, jumping to my feet and stepping back from the bloodied mass on the floor.

My eyes dance around the room, taking in Maddox, who is sitting up as Roxanne holds several napkins to his shoulder, to the two dead women on the floor, mother and daughter innocents, to the guy who was fighting Maddox that is now lying in a pool of his own blood.

My chest heaves with exertion, but my heart feels like a lead fucking weight inside my chest.

I throw my head up to the ceiling and roar out an anguished cry.

One filled with pain and anger and so much hate. It fills every empty space it can find inside me.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Zak says as I run out of breath, letting my head drop forward to my chest.

I hear the sirens in the distance, and I wish I didn’t give a fuck. But I can’t do anything from a prison cell.

And I’m going to do something.

I’m going to level this fucking city. I’m going to be the grim reaper, a shadow, the stealer of life and breath.

Manchester is going to become a city of the dead.

* * *

Frankie has just finished dressing Maddox’s gunshot wound as the door slams and pounding footsteps rumble down the corridor. It’s like thunder rolling in.

I turn, preparing for Aidan’s wrath—it’s not a fucking patch on my own—and I’m met with a punch to the face.

And another.