Page 168 of Monsters Wear Crowns
Then, I shifted my aim and pulled the fucking trigger.
***
RAFE
The gunshot cracked through the storm, and Moreau staggered back, a deep, wet gasp leaving his lips as his hand clutched at the growing red stain on his chest. Shock flickered across his face.
For a single, suspended moment, timestopped.
Then–chaos.
Moreau’s men reacted instantly, drawing their weapons, their shouts drowned by the howling wind. I felt the heat of a muzzle flash, the sharpzingof bullets slicing through the air. My restraints dug into my skin as Irippedagainst them, my body thrumming with unrelenting rage.
Adela had done it. She had turned the tables in an instant. But she was still in the open. And these bastards wouldn’t let her walk away alive. A gunman lunged for her, and she barely had time to twist out of the way. My pulse roared as she pivoted, lifting the weapon again. Another shot rang out, and another body dropped. But there were too many.
My muscles burned as I struggled harder against my the cuffs, my teeth bared in a snarl. Iwould notbe kept from her.
Then I saw it–
The knife.
It was a flash of silver in the rain, a shadow moving too fast.
“Adela!”
She turned just as the bladesank into her side. Her sharp gasp cut through the storm as the force of it knocked her back. I saw the way her legs buckled, the way her breath shuddered from her lips.
And then everything inside mesnapped.
A roar ripped from my throat as Iwrenchedfree, breaking from the cuffs. The pain in my raw wrists was meaningless in the face of what I was about to do. The closest man turned, his gunswinging toward me–too slow.
I drove my elbow into his throat, feeling the satisfyingcrunchof his windpipe collapsing. He dropped like a stone, and before his body hit the ground, I already had his weapon in my hands.
And then Iunleashed hell.
I didn’t aim. I didn’t hesitate.
The first shot took a man between the eyes.
The second tore through another’s chest.
I moved like death itself, a force too violent to be contained. Blood sprayed, bodies crumpled. Some tried to run.
I didn’t let them.
One by one, Iendedthem.
It wasn’t just killing–it wasbutchery.
A scream gurgled from a man’s throat as I slammed his head into the concrete until it split open like a melon. Another bastard tried to crawl away, and I put a bullet in his spine, watching him writhe before I finished him off. The storm raged, but I was worse.
And Moreau–
That motherfucker wasmine.
He had managed to drag himself across the rooftop, his body shaking as he tried to press his hand to his wound.
Pathetic.
