Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Before the bottle shatters, Cavin lunges with a vicious scream of rage, taking the attacker to the ground with him. Lorcan reaches for me and pulls me away from the ring, shielding me with his body.
“Let me watch!” I scream. “Let me watch, Lorcan!”
“Stay behind me,” he growls, but he doesn’t pull me away.
Ashland shakes it off and shoves himself to his feet. Hope surges in me again. No one will keep my man down. No one.
I was never going to stay home. He will lose his ever-loving mind on me, but as long as he's alive, it'll be worth it.
Kyla drove me in. She didn't want to—kept saying Ashland would fucking kill her if anything happened to me. But I begged her. Pleaded. Told her I'd go alone if she didn't help me.
And now that I’m here, my heart is trying to claw its way out of my chest.
I can't move. Can't breathe. Can't do anything but stare at the ring. At Ashland. Nausea roils in my belly.
He's covered in blood. His knuckles are split open, white bone visible through torn skin. His face is bruised and swollen, and there's a cut above his eyebrow, streaming red down the side of his face. But god, his eyes—gunmetal silver. Cold and focused. Utterly merciless.
The monster from that night six years ago. The killer.
And he's mine.
Marcus barely manages to stand. His face is a mess of blood and bruises, and he's holding his side. His nose is definitely broken, and one eye is swollen completely shut. He's swaying on his feet, trying to lift his fists to protect himself, but Ashland stalks forward like death incarnate.
Marcus gets him with a good hook.
Ashland falls to one knee.
And I can't help it. I scream out to him, my voice raw and desperate. “You've got this, Ashland! Do it!”
Because ending Marcus Crowning is the only way this all ends. This isn't just about Ashland and me. It's not just about me becoming a McCarthy. This is about everything that needs to end. No other woman will ever be his victim again.
Ashland shakes it off, blinks, and holds my gaze across the blood-soaked canvas. Then he pushes to his feet.
He surges forward like a man possessed. I crave the show of violence like I crave air.
“Finish him,” I whisper. “Ashland.”
Every punch lands like thunder. I can hear the impact of fists meeting flesh. Bone breaking. Marcus's gasps and groans, and then his pleas for mercy.
But there will be none tonight.
Above the crowd, I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. Ashland hooks his fist into Crowning's ribs. Once. Twice. The third hit makes Crowning double over, retching for a second time.
One of Marcus’s men tries to enter the ring, but Cavin grabs the back of his shirt, yanking him back and shoving him to the ground. “This is their fight.”
Ashland grabs him by the throat. Lifts him—fucking lifts him clean off the ground—and slams him down on the canvas so hard the whole ring shakes.
I should look away. I will see this in my dreams for the rest of my life, hear the wet crack of bone and the spray of blood, the animal sounds of a man being beaten to death.
I should close my eyes—cover them, run out of here screaming, and never look back.
But I can't. I won’t.
Because this savage, terrible, beautiful violence… it’s all for me.
Ashland hauls Marcus up by his hair, and Marcus's face is unrecognizable now. Blood pours from his nose and mouth, running in rivers down his neck. I hope the bastard’s choking on his own teeth.
Ashland slams him down again. The ring shakes. Marcus convulses, trying to curl into himself, but Ashland kicks his arms away, brutal and methodical, then drops his full weight onto Marcus's chest. I hear ribs crack like dry kindling.
Marcus screams. It's a wet, gurgling sound. There's blood in his lungs now.
“You killed them,” Ashland growls, driving his fist into Marcus's already-destroyed face. “And she was next.”
Each word is punctuated by another blow. Marcus's head snaps back with each impact, bouncing off the blood-slicked canvas. His arms flail weakly, uselessly. One of them is bent wrong, broken at the elbow from when Ashland stomped on it earlier.
This is old justice, witnessed and binding.
Ashland grabs Marcus's jaw, the part that isn't shattered, and forces his head to the side. “Look at her,” he snarls. “Look at the woman you thought you'd kill. Look at her, alive.”
Marcus's one good eye—swollen nearly shut, filled with blood—tries to find me. A wet, rattling sound comes from his throat. Not words, just the desperate wheeze of a dying man.
Ashland releases him and stands. Marcus curls in on himself, nothing but shattered bone and torn flesh. His chest rises and falls in shallow, irregular gasps. He's drowning in his own blood.