Page 142 of Ugly Beautiful Scars

My mind scrambles for options, for anything. Fuck, Iwon'tlet it end like this! Not when my life has finally started to mean something beyond just surviving, beyond protecting strangers for a paycheck. Not when I've found the one person who fills the emptiness and gives me hope for the future.

I can't fail like this. I can't fail Londyn.

I have to protect her.

Londyn nudges me gently, her fingers brushing mine. The look she gives me is soft but determined—a strange, terrible serenity has settled over her features.

I shake my head again, so she whispers, "Please. I just don't want it to be violent. I want us to hold each other and—" Her words drown in a sob.

Before I can stop her, she's already moving, stepping into the open doorway. She's now in the line of fire. Her hands are raised slightly, empty palms forward. Every instinct screams at me to pull her back, to shield her, to keep fighting. But something in the quiet dignity of her stance stops me.

My fingers loosen around my weapon. I set it on the floor.

This isn't goodbye.

This isn't goodbye.

This isn't goodbye.

With a gentle kick, I send the gun sliding across the bathroom tile into the bedroom.

I won't say goodbye to her.

I just need to fucking think.

I need to get her out of this.

Our fingers intertwine. She squeezes once, and somehow she's the one leading me toward the door. Her spine is straight, her chin lifted, her steps even. I've seen Marines, men with yearsof combat training, face death with less composure than this woman beside me.

We step into the bedroom together. Two men in vests flank Victor, and I realize they're the Navy Caps. Victor is much shorter than the towering men. He can't be more than 5'6", dressed in an impeccable charcoal suit.

But his height and clothes are irrelevant.

The evil he radiates fills the room, crowding every corner, sucking the oxygen from the air so it's like I'm suffocating. His face is angular with only sharp edges and hollows. And he's pale, like a fucking vampire; I half expect him to have red eyes, but they're black as space. They're fixed on me in a way that isn't cold or angry, just… empty. Like looking into a void that stares back.

I'm nothing to him.

But… his left eye twitches. He blinks, slowly, deliberately, the way a predator might study something insignificant crawling across its path.

"You're familiar," he says, causing my stomach to feel like it's emptying its acid into the rest of my body.

He must remember glancing at me when I was at Anthony's. Discovering that he's the type of man who never forgets a face makes this feel worse.

I ignore his statement. "Why are you after Londyn?"

A slight click of his tongue, like a parent disappointed by a child's bad manners. "You're not in a position to ask questions." He gestures to his men with a small flick of his wrist. "Face each other. My men will shoot you at the same time in the back of the neck. They'll sever your spinal cords. Instant death. No pain."

The clinical description turns my stomach. He's offering death like it's a fucking courtesy, a service he's providing.

Londyn begins to turn beside me, her hand slipping from mine as she starts to move into position. My chest constricts, every heartbeat a desperate rebellion against what's happening.

This isn't happening.

"I love you," she whispers. "I hope there's an afterlife where we'll see each other again."

Something in me hardens like concrete setting. I continue to face Victor, my feet planted, shoulders squared, refusing to get into position. Refusing to give up until the last fucking second. If this is how it ends, I won't go quietly, won't go obediently. I won't turn my back on the enemy.

I stare directly into those black, empty eyes.

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