Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
With Tusk secured, I begin struggling against Victor again, trying to get closer to the stall. Victor still doesn’t relax or let me go. “Feet.”
The guards don’t always bother with the ankle restraints when they have to enter a fighter’s stall, but they don’t leave anything to chance with Tusk. A slot in the bottom of the wooden door slides open, giving Charlie access to the big man’s ankles. It seems an eternity passes before he fastens the chain links with a steel carabiner.
“Go unlock the door,” Victor tells him next—and releases my arm.
Jolting forward, I slam against the front of the stall. I grip the bars and my gaze frantically searches the small space…not seeing her. Not on the bed or under it, not on the floor.
Then I crane my neck and rise up onto my toes, so I can peer straight down. A cry breaks from me when I spot tangled auburn hair. She’s crammed against the solid wood of the door, less than an inch from my knees.
“Lissa!” I shout but she doesn’t move, doesn’t respond. “Hurry, Charlie! She’s here against the door, right here—”
The clunk sounds. I shove the sliding door open and Lissa slumps into the aisle, her red hair spilling over my feet.
And we’re too late. I know it even before I see the bruises around her neck or press my fingers to her inner wrist, praying for a pulse.
“How is she?” Victor crouches beside me, holstering his Taser, but not even looking at the lifeless woman on the concrete floor. Instead his watchful gaze remains on Tusk. “Cherry?”
“She’s gone,” I tell him, my voice a broken rasp. “She’s already cold.”
Tusk’s grating laugh answers me. “Cold now. But you’d be surprised how long that cunt stayed warm.”
My head jerks up, grief and horror lodged like a sharp, hot stone in my throat.
“Shut your goddamn mouth,” Victor warns him.
But that warning doesn’t mean a thing. We all know it. Victor won’t touch Papa’s prize fighter.
And Tusk is getting off on this. Papa didn’t even have to threaten any family members before Tusk agreed to fight in the Cage. He likes killing. But until this moment, I didn’t realize how much he relishes grief and pain, too. He’s staring at me now as if my agony is an arousing feast, his eyes gleaming hungrily and bloodlust engorging his dick.
“But there’s a downside to killing her so quick and keeping her quiet,” he continues with undisguised glee, and I try not to listen to him, my hands shaking and tears blurring my vision as I attempt to straighten her torn clothes. “I didn’t get to hear her scream—”
“Enough!” Victor snaps.
“—and without her heart pumping she didn’t bleed as much as I’d hoped. Not like Cherry’ll scream and bleed when I pop that—”
Everything seems to slow. It doesn’t, of course. It’s just adrenaline charging through my body and changing my perception, so that every step I take seems diamond-sharp and clear, as if formed by an eon of intense heat and pressure. Yet the change only takes an instant, a nuclear blast that transforms grief to rage, and action is the fallout.
I snatch the Taser from Victor’s holster and launch myself at Tusk. In the split second that it takes me to close the distance, his eyes flare wide with surprise, his naked body tensing. But despite that involuntary reaction, no fear fills his expression—instead he grins, as if my attack amuses him.
Then he’ll really enjoy this. I jam the stun gun against his testicles. “How about you scream for me?” I coldly suggest and pull the trigger.
He doesn’t scream. He can’t. His teeth snap together and his muscles contract as the electrical current surges through his balls.
Only a second passes before Victor rips the weapon from my hand, but the icy satisfaction of witnessing his agony seems to last for another crystalline eon—and I only pray that it feels like an eternity to Tusk. His body sags against the restraints as Victor roughly drags me back, then Tusk snaps back to enraged motion—roaring my name, fighting against the manacles, murderous intent in the gaze he fixes on me.
Victor shoves me through the stall door. I stumble over Lissa’s body and renewed pain tears through me, overwhelming the burning rage that briefly cauterized the bleeding wound that her death had ripped open inside me.
“Jesus, Cherry.” That disbelieving comment comes from Charlie, but I barely hear him as I sink to the concrete next to Lissa and lift her head onto my lap. I know I should be afraid of how Papa will punish me—or Matt—for what I just did to his most valuable fighter. I should be terrified. But there’s no room for fear in me, not while I hold her as close as I can, my hot tears falling on her cold skin. There’s only room for pain and grief. Then Tusk begins laughing and loudly singing along with Elton.