Page 87 of The Verdict

There they were.The words.The ones bleeding from all of my seams. The ones the crazy hope in my heart wanted to hear.

“Rhys.” Tears burned in the corners of my eyes, and as I blinked them free, the bloom of warmth in my chest shriveled into cold when I saw Mercury over Rhys’s shoulder.

“He’s here,” I said low. “I need to go.”

I had to. It was part of the plan.

“I love you.”

If my heart hadn’t heard him say the words one last time before I walked away, I would’ve thought I imagined them as I strode straight for my target. Back straight. Head high.

Mercury spotted me when I was halfway through the room, a slow smile spreading over his face as he casually watched me come closer. I wondered if there was anyone who approached him that he didn’t regard as prey.

“Take me to Jupiter,” I ordered when I reached him, stapling my smile to my cheeks. “Or should I say Miguel?”

His lip curled. “Think you’re so smart, don’t you?” He tipped forward, and then I felt his hand on my waist—right where he’d stabbed me. I grunted as pain rippled through me. Even though the skin had closed, the area was still so tender.And he knew it. “We’ll see how smart you feel when I’m done with you,” he murmured like an endearment and then offered me his arm.

I didn’t have a choice except to swallow down the bile in my throat and place my hand in his elbow, pulling heavily because I knew it was the shoulder where he’d been shot. A jolt of victory surged when he winced.

“How’s your shoulder?”

He didn’t answer. The first speaker at the fundraiser had gone to the podium, the introduction booming through the speakers and drowning out everything else.

Mercury—Morte—led me slowly to the exit like I was a prized animal being brought to slaughter. In the hall, there were a few guests choosing to converse in the quiet, but they grew fewer and farther between as he led me away from the ballroom.

Rhys would find me,I reminded myself.

We came to the very last meeting room in the hallway, and he opened the door, allowing me to enter ahead of him. I moved quickly to create some distance—but not quick enough. I barely started to turn when his fist connected with my wounded side.

I cried out and doubled forward, my knees hitting the wood with a loud crack.

“I think my shoulder is doing well, wouldn’t you agree?” he quipped. “How’s your side?”

“Fine.” I inhaled deeply, pretending to move slowlybecause of the pain, when really, I was reaching for the knife Rhys had strapped to my leg.

“Get up,” he ordered.

Gritting my teeth, I freed the knife and complied slowly, pretending it hurt to move quickly until I was steady enough to face him. Then I moved fast, opening the blade and pointing it straight at him.

“I have what Jupiter wants,” I reminded him, watching his lazy gaze move from where he’d been texting on his phone to look over me and the knife like my defiance bored him. “Kill me, and you’ll never get it.”

He looked back to his phone, finishing his message before addressing me. “And what if I have what you want?”

I jerked. “What?”

He stared at me for a long second—too long—and then smiled in the way I hated most. A second later, the door opened and Rhys stumbled through it, bound and held prisoner by a large tattooed man.

No.My heart might’ve stopped, but I kept going. I ignored the pain. The fear. The hurt. I buried anything but a passing recognition of the man I loved.

“I have what you want,” he repeated. “Maybe I’ll just kill him instead. Make you watch.”

“What do I care what happens to him?” I said slowly.

“Okay then.” Mercury shrugged, and before I could say anything, he pulled out his gun and fired. The silencer muffled the shot, but not my cry as the bullet ripped through Rhys’s shoulder and he made a low noise of pain.

“Stop!” I stumbled in front of Mercury, pain searing through me as though I’d been hit, too.

“Don’t—” Rhys tried to protest.

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