Page 150 of Desperate People

Everyone is armed.

Everyone is ready.

And me?

I’m already gone.

Behind the wheel, I shatter every traffic law written and unwritten.

Red lights, one-way streets, sidewalks—none of it matters.

I need my Lucy back.

Unhurt.

Unharmed.

Now.

Pedal to the metal, tires screaming, we race through the Lower East Side, the building in question a decaying husk at the end of a forgotten block—part warehouse, part tomb.

I hacked my way into the city grid, tracked it through traffic cameras.

She’s here.

I can feel her inside.

And God help the motherfucker who touched her.

Because I won’t stop at pain.

I won’t stop until his screams are the last thing he hears before I silence him for good.

Chapter Thirty-Nine-Lucy

A scream tears through the air, breaking through my own terror.

And it—it’s a sound so savage, so guttural, it drowns out everything.

Even my own cries.

Even the pain burning through my shoulder where the knife just sliced into me.

Even the weight of him, of Daniel fucking Matheson—El Tigre’s manager, my stalker, soon-to-be dead man—pressing me into the filthy floor.

And then, suddenly, he’s gone.

Ripped away from me like trash caught in a hurricane.

“Lucy! Sweetheart! Don’t look,” he says.

It’s my father’s voice. Sharp. Commanding. Choked with rage.

“I got her! Handle that!” he shouts to someone.

And then I see him.

Balor.

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