Page 50 of The Verdict

“Oh, I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to enjoy making you pay for everything you cost us before I bring you to Jupiter. Along with the flash drive,” he drawled.

Dammit.Fear gripped my throat. “In your dreams,” I spat and whipped the book at him.

It cracked across his face, and I tried to lunge past him, but I wasn’t fast enough. He grabbed my arm and yanked me back. The next moments blurred into a symphony of strikes. Fists. Elbows. Knees. We fought like a live chess match. Trained.Decisive. Merciless.Hit. Block. Duck.There was no sensation except adrenaline. Nothing but the will to live.

I stumbled forward from a punch to my face, catching myself from falling on the edge of the desk.Shit.

Mercury came up behind me and pinned me over the desk, fisting his hand in my hair and yanking my head back. A sound of pain bubbled past my lips. My hands fanned out, blindly searching for something—anything that could be a weapon. My fingertips landed on something hard and square.A paperweight.I curled my fingers around it just as Mercury’s low chuckle resonated behind me.

“You’re going to pay for what you did, bitch. Costing me that diamond. And Neptune,” he snarled in my ear.Neptune?Suddenly, the burn on my scalp disappeared along with the rest of my thoughts—swallowed whole by the blinding pain in my stomach as he sank his knife to the hilt into my side.

I screamed, my vision bruising with black and white spots as the blade twisted and became his own personal rudder,forcing me to bend with it rather than have it cut me deeper.

“No,” I groaned, trying to shove the pain into a little box and lock it away so I could keep fighting, knowing what would come next. I could already feel his other hand reaching between my legs.

“You’re mine, Venus. Just like you should’ve been then.”He started to turn the knife.

The pain made my consciousness start to flicker.Fight.

“Merritt!”A single word split through the fog of pain like a bolt of bright white lightning.

No.

My eyes snapped open.Part of me hoped I imagined the smooth, deep voice of the man who’d killed for me, shelteredme, protected me—the man I’d betrayed. He couldn’t be here.Rhys couldn’t have found me.

But he had.

Mercury tensed, his attention suddenly drawn elsewhere. “Who the fuck?—”

A gunshot blistered through the room, and instantly the pressure of the knife let up.

“Fuck!”Mercury roared, and his presence behind me was gone.

I forced air in and out of my lungs. I forced my body to keep fighting. I forced my brain to ignore the pain.Regroup.Pure adrenaline raced through me. I straightened and looked for my attacker, keeping the paperweight tight in my hand just in case.

Mercury clutched his shoulder like a rabid animal, blood oozing through his finger.

“Who the fuck are you?” Rhys demanded low, his weapon steady on Mercury.

I bit into my tongue, drawing blood as I pulled the knife from my side. It fell to the floor as I looked up at Rhys.

He was furious. Handsome and furious. And at least for this moment, his fury wasn’t directed at me.Right now, there was only the look of a man ready to maim, torture, and then kill the man who’d hurt me.

“You’re making a mistake,” Mercury said with a casual smile, releasing his shoulder and running his hand along his jaw, smearing blood into his stubble.

Another boom, and the window shattered. Mercury ducked to the side with a hiss.

“Next one goes through your knee,” Rhys warned.

Mercury’s evil eyes snapped to me, the curl of his lip threatening.“This isn’t over, Venus,” he muttered low, and then turned and leaped through the window.

Rhys swore and lunged forward, firing three more shots after him, but Mercury was already gone. He could’ve chased him—probably caught the other man—but that would’ve meant leaving me.

And I could give him the answers he was looking for.

Rhys faced me, his eyes dragging over me with the precision of a scalpel, peeling away all the layers of lies he thought I’d told him. They weren’t all lies, but neither were they the truth. With every strained second that passed, his jaw tightened, and his gaze grew more unforgiving. Even when he saw the way I clutched the wound at my side, blood oozing between my fingers.

“Who are you?” he growled.

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