“Get it fucking together,” he barks through gritted teeth. The vein on his temple pulsates, sweat pouring down his red face.
My hand is wrapped around the barrel that’s firmly digging into my head, seconds away from pulling it from her grip.
“Let it go,” Jay orders sharply. “You’re lucky you don’t have a goddamn bullet in your head right now. You can’t kill her yet.”
“I’d like to see you try,” she spits, nudging the gun. Setting my jaw, I release it and rest my hands on my knees. My muscles are vibrating so hard—so fast; my body appears to be still. But I can feel every tremor as she continues, “You may think you’re powerful, but whatever scraps of power you have are insignificant to mine. I can make you disappear, and no one will ever have known you existed at all.”
I snarl, on the precipice of demonstrating just how wrong she is, but keep my teeth glued together for the time being. Jay’s right. She’s holding a gun to the back of my head and can end my life in a matter of seconds. A bullet is faster than me, and I have no doubt she would make good on her threat and kill Jay next.
Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply and bring myself to a scary place I’ve rarely had to go in my lifetime. Numbness spreads, and tranquility replaces the white-hot rage. My mind goes silent, and when I reopen my eyes, Jay’s spine snaps straight.
Whatever he sees unnerves him.
I need to get out of this situation in order to find Addie. Only then, will I be more than happy to show this cunt exactly what I’m capable of. This world will fucking smolder, and I will hold her face in the fire and watch her melt in my wrath.
“Did you take her?” I ask. I know she did, but I need to hear the confirmation from her mouth anyway.
I feel her hot breath fan across my ear, followed by her soft, mocking voice. “I did. I took her, and I’m going to sell her only to the ones with the sickest desires. And you can’t do a thing about it.”
One thing I’ve grown to loathe since forming Z—I have an incredibly vivid imagination. In this field of work, it’s a curse. Every time I see a new video posted on the dark web or get intel on a new ring—the first thoughts that come to mind are all the depraved, sick things being done to these women and children.
My own mind tortures me with those images. And later, I’ll be plagued by them, except it’ll be my girl they’re hurting.
But now? I’m fucking glad for it.
Because at this very moment, I am enjoying all of the ways I’m envisioning how I will kill Claire Seinburg.
“So,” I start, grunting when a particularly painful twinge flares in my back. “Mark was never your abuser, was he?”
She titters. “Oh, he was. He just didn’t know what it meant for him every time he laid his hands on me. Idiot never did figure out I was the one pulling all the strings. He was too stupid.”
She circles Jay and me, the gun still pointed at my head while her red lips pull into a snarl. The color staining her mouth rivals her hair. Such a bright red that curls around her face and robed shoulders. During the ritual, she was the mystery person in the hood, offering me a knife that she knew damn well I would never use on that little girl. Instead, it went into another’s throat.
“That’s the best thing about the male species. You all are so far up your own asses, you never thought it could be a woman in charge. Never suspected the meek, abused wife because you all assumed I was weak.”
I huff out a dry laugh. “Wrong. I didn’t suspect the abused wife only because I couldn’t imagine one victim actively victimizing other innocent women and children.”
She smiles wickedly and bends at the waist, leveling her green eyes with mine.
“And I can’t imagine a man that puts his life on the line to save these victims forcing an innocent woman into a relationship.”
She assesses me closely while I stare at her, searching for any emotion. I only give her one—I tip my head back and laugh.
“Have you been stalking me, Claire?” I ask with mirth, meeting her glare once more.
Her lips tip up further. “We’re all hypocrites, Z,” she says, ignoring my taunt and straightening. “The only difference between you and me is that I chose to profit off of the pathetic men in this world. They’re never going to stop abusing those they deem weaker. And they’ll never stop raping and killing them. So, I decided that if that’s the world we're going to live in, then I’ll be damned if I don’t gain something from it.”