Page 128 of Punish Me, Daddy

“You have three seconds to open that door,” I growled. “Or I paint this fucking hallway with your blood.”

Stillwell raised an eyebrow, hands still in his pockets.

“Relax,” he said. “She’s fine.”

Wrong answer.

I stepped forward, fast, grabbed him by the throat, and slammed him into the wall. The crack of his spine against concrete echoed down the corridor. My gun pressed under his jaw, hard enough to bruise.

“You think this is a game?” I growled. “You think you’re untouchable?”

Stillwell tried to speak, but I didn’t let him.

My forearm pressed across his throat, pinning him harder to the concrete wall behind him. I leaned in closer, pressing my weight forward until his breath came in short, shallow gasps.

“I want you to know,” I whispered, “that when they find your body, it’ll be wrapped in your campaign banner.”

He struggled, but only slightly, hands raised, palms open. Fake composure.

“You kill me,” he rasped, “you prove everything they say about you.”

I smiled, but it was as cold as ice.

“I don’t care what they say,” I said, pressing the barrel of the gun under his chin. I braced my grip, my finger curling over the trigger.

And then?—

The door behind us burst open and slammed into the wall next to it.

The sound cracked through the hallway like a gunshot and Sloane stumbled through the doorway. Her dress—ivory silk now gray at the hem—was torn across one thigh, streaked with grime and dirt. One heel was gone. Her hair, pinned so carefully that morning, was a tangled ruin, loose strands plastered to her cheek with sweat. There was blood on her chin and God fucking help us all if it was hers.

But her eyes…

God, her beautiful green eyes.

They were wide. Blazing. Alive.

They locked on mine like they’d never left me.

“Stop,”she said, her voice hoarse but clear.

Stillwell exhaled like he thought that meant I was done.

Wrong.

My woman strode forward, her head held high. Her arms were ramrod straight at her sides, fingers curled like she was ready to walk straight into a fight.

“Don’t give him that. Not yet,” she ordered, her voice stronger now.

I looked at her, seeing the way she stood there in a ruined wedding dress like some war-born goddess who’d clawed her way back from the dark just to look me in the eye and remind me who the fuck I was.

A king who was here to rescue his queen.

Hesitantly, I stepped back from Stillwell. It took more effort to stop than it would have taken to shoot him. He sagged against the wall with a breathless wheeze and went to run, but he didn’t get far because Sergei and Aleksei were already there.

Sergei grabbed Stillwell by the collar and slammed him against the wall hard enough that we heard something crack, one hand fisting in his jacket, the other pressing a gun between his ribs. Aleksei stepped beside the two of them, pressing his knife against Stillwell’s throat, daring him to twitch even an inch.

I didn’t look at them. I was already moving. I pushed everything away, holstered my gun, and closed the space between Sloane and me in two massive steps.

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