Page 84 of Crushed Vow
But him.
The one man who used to kill for me.
The man who snapped Nico’s neck with his bare hands.
Like it meant nothing.
Like Nico was just another problem to erase.
All because he tried to force himself on me.
The same man who hunted down the bastards who once held me down and tore my body apart—and made them suffer until even death begged for mercy.
He just stood there. Stone. Silent. Smoke curling lazily from between his fingers like it was any other Tuesday. Like I wasn’t being humiliated for the body he helped shatter.
I looked down. My arms tightened across my chest, but I could still feel their eyes, their words, crawling over my skin like insects.
Someone took a photo.
The click of the camera felt louder than the laughter.
My cheeks burned. My eyes blurred. The pain behind my breastbone felt like someone had jammed a crowbar into my chest and pried it wide open.
More people had gathered now.
Drawn by the boys’ loud, jeering voices like hyenas to a wounded animal.
Their laughter rolled over me in waves—sharp, cruel, and unbearable.
They didn’t see a person.
They saw a spectacle.
And I stood there, the unwilling centerpiece of their mockery.
God, it hurts.
“Let me guess,” one of them said, laughing, “plastic surgery gone wrong, or did cancer do you the favor of taking them for you?”
I could barely see through the hot flood of shame clouding my vision.
My Uber pulled up to the curb with a soft beep.
Relief, sharp and immediate, cut through the fog. I moved quickly—desperately—toward the car. I had just grabbed the handle when a hand snatched my wrist, tight and forceful.
“Who says we’re done with you?”
Something snapped.
I didn’t think.
With a scream caught in my throat, I raised my knee and drove it into his groin with everything I had left.
He dropped, howling.
I shoved open the back door and threw myself inside, slamming it shut so hard the car shook.
“Drive,” I barked, eyes wide with panic.
