Page 217 of The Perfect Wrong

“You think that makes me weak? You and your games, you—” His boot swings down again, slamming the cracked cement space next to my head. “She wasn’t home. Nowhere to be found. Your men are smart. They took the little girl before we could—”

“Thought so. You need me, then,” I say, hiding how badly I want to laugh with relief, even if it shatters my body more.

Not that I’m sure he’d recognize happiness on my broken mess of a face anymore.

“I need you to stop fucking lying,” he growls, shoving his face to mine, that cold knife against my throat. “Last chance. Give me everything—your bosses, the Feds’ names, the size of your teams, the plans—or I start carving.”

He pushes that knife down, grazing my skin, waiting for me to shudder or curse him or piss my pants.

As always, I don’t move.

I don’t flinch.

I damn sure don’t breathe a word.

Only, this time he’s onto my diversions. He’ll actually start doing permanent damage soon, but I can take that because he’ll just be hurtingme.

Not Sex again.

Not Gering or Batista or the other guys who are caged up and suffering in a dusty, dark room just like this one.

Not their families. I’m guessing they used resources they couldn’t afford scouring half the Bay for Sexton’s granddaughter thanks to my disinfo. Landon would’ve had the whole family pulled and put under permanent protection the second they found out Sex was captured.

“Might want to get your best minion fuckboys on the case,” I say, fighting back another cough. “You’ve got a fucking lot of my blood staining your expensive shirts this week. That shit can’t come out easy.”

Snarling, he tears himself away, hurling the knife against the wall and draining the last of his tequila glass.

His silver-toed boots glint in the dimness, and I can make out their intricate designs again.

Those coiled serpents devouring their tails.

Ouroboros.

The eternal cycle, life and death and infinity, and it should snap what’s left of my mind.

It doesn’t.

Not while I’m somewhere else.

Not while I’m kissing the woman I’ve waited twenty-four damn years for.

She, who makes me a creature of pure bleeding fire rather than flesh.

She, who holds the only future that’ll ever matter in those caramel eyes.

She, who still makes my heart race only for her, entirely.

There’s no fear left for the maniac who may well kill me tonight.

And when Eladio Joaquin winds up to hit me in a rage—this time with the heavy glass clenched in his hand—I fucking laugh.

Because Delia, sweet Delia, saved my heart even if she can’t help my body.

She made me live more in one summer than every other miserable minute of the shadow existence I lived before.

She made me fall so hard I’m still reeling—and I’ll still be falling if this asshole makes me breathe my last.

“You’re laughing?” he rumbles distantly, the same way thunder echoes before hell descends.

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