Page 57 of His Queen

“Stop!” I shout into the darkness, feeling a searing pain across my face. His hands are there, rough and smothering, choking me. “Marco,” I gasp. “Stop. You’re hurting me.”

“I won’t stop.” He tightens his grip. “Look at me!”

I can feel the life drain out of me, like Momma’s, when I watched her die, her blood spreading across the floor, coming closer. Closer. Reaching for me.

He’s killing me, too. Marco is killing me…like he killed her.

Anger rushes to the surface, and heat detonates in my veins. The fear is gone. The pain is gone. It’s just this all-consuming rage that’s turning the darkness red—a red fog suffocating the black.

The red haze.

Momma.

“Open your eyes!” Marco yells one last time before a scream tears from my chest and rips through my throat. And I finally open my eyes.

Reality slams into me like a mountain of cemented torments. I jerk awake, and I’m on the floor, sprawled on my side, disoriented. I blink a few times, unsure what the hell just happened. Adrenaline and fear are weaved through my system, and then I see it as I lift my hands in front of me. The blood. My fingers, my nails, my palms, they’re covered in it—thick, sticky, and running down my arms in rivulets of crimson. My stomach lurches, and nausea grips my insides as I stare in horror at my shaking hands. I can’t breathe. My chest is moving, and I’m gasping, but the air isn’t reaching my lungs. There’s a loud voice inside my head urging me to run, but as I press on my palms, I turn and look straight into empty eyes.

“Oh, my God!”

I leap to my feet and dart to the other side of the room, pressing my back against the wall as I stare at the dead body, blood oozing from his neck where a knife is lodged, a pool of red gathering around him.

Panic strikes as everything comes rushing back with a force that kicks my legs from under me, sending me to my ass.

I killed him.

I killed the guard.

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

NICOLI

The gunshot crackingthrough the air sounds fucking beautiful. It’s music to my goddamn ears, soothing the fury that’s infecting me. I take a deep breath, inhaling in the scent of fear. There’s no guilt, only pleasure in the violence. It’s in my blood, and with her gone, there’s nothing to stop it from taking over every ounce of my humanity. In fact, I fucking welcome it.

The lifeless body of a man who got acquainted with a bullet sinks to the ground. Poor bastard got shot simply because I saw his ugly motherfucking face-first. It could have been any of these assholes scrambling throughout the club. But it was—I glance down at the tag on his shirt—Gerhard.Gerhard?What kind of name is Gerhard? That’s probably why fate put him in front of my gun’s barrel first, because of his stupid fucking name.

There’s movement on my left, a glint of steel catching my eyes. I stretch my arms out wide beside me, a gun in each hand, and I close my eyes, squeezing both triggers without hesitation, releasing the bullets of carnage.

“Nicoli!” Alexius yells behind me, and I spot the fucker at the top of the stairs, aiming his gun straight at me. By the time my barrel points in his direction, a gush of blood explodes through his white shirt, and he tumbles over the rail, falling, his head crushed in the center of the dance floor.

I glance over my shoulder, my twin brother’s aim still at the top of the stairs.

I give him a nod to show my appreciation, and he tightens his grip on the weapon in his hands in response.

Caelian and Isaia have two guys on their knees and guns pressed against the backs of their heads.

Caelian looks up at me, his hair in disarray, tiny drops of blood trickling down from his nose, and I’m not sure whether he got hit by a flying bullet or nose smashed into someone’s skull.

A man screams, and I glare in that direction, witnessing Maximo jab his knife in the bastard’s stomach, hacking the blade up toward his lungs, blood gushing everywhere. It’s a fucking bloodbath, but it’s beautiful, my black heart soaking up the chaos. Our other men are scattered throughout, holding fuckers at gunpoint or sending their dead bodies to the ground. This is what happens when you take my Hummingbird from me. A fucking massacre.

I step onto the dance floor, kicking at the dead body as I take the center spot, my heart rushing with adrenaline that feeds the monster prowling in the depths of my soul.

I clear my throat, rage bubbling over. “Where. The fuck.Is she?”

My scream reverberates through the club, ricocheting off the walls. It’s midday. The club is closed but still manned by the fuckers who work for Ferrero, of which there are only a few left breathing.

“I’m going to ask this one more time,” I say, rubbing the muzzle of my gun against my temple. “Where is my goddamn wife?”

Their silence is deafening against the crash of my screams.

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