Any other time, I would have bristled at the idea that Hannah would go anywhere near hell if a place like that even existed. But now I’m too focused on the fight.
My gun went skittering across the floor in the struggle, and I don’t see where it went. That leaves me with just my bare hands as I try to fight off Julian. I put a hand on his face and push him away from me, trying to flip our positions so I can get on top.
It takes two tries, but I finally manage to roll us over. I straddle him, grabbing a fistful of his hair and slamming his head into the hard floor with a dull thud. He roars in pain, but instead of leaving him dazed like I hoped it would, the pain just seems to send a wave of adrenaline through him. He lashes out at me, slapping me across the face hard enough that my ears ring.
I jam my knee down, aiming for his groin, and he rolls away just in time to avoid it.
“You fucking bitch!” he screams, sounding wild and unhinged. “You cunt!”
I don’t waste my breath trading insults with him. And I don’t give him a chance to get away from me, grabbing him and putting all my weight into it. He struggles underneath me and ends up elbowing me in the stomach, winding me for long enough that he can flip our positions again and get an advantage over me.
All at once, I’m hit with a vivid flashback, one so real that it’s like I’ve been forced backward in time.
Julian’s face is hovering over mine, twisted into a mask of rage and desperation, and it reminds me of his father and the night I killed him.
Lorenzo and I fought just like this, grappling and trying to get one up on each other, each determined to get the upper hand. All I knew in that moment was that Lorenzo couldn’t live through the fight. He couldn’t be allowed to walk out of that bathroom and go on with his life. I had to kill him. There was no other choice.
It’s the same now.
Julian has to die here. Tonight.
If he gets free, if he manages to get the better of me, he’ll probably kill everyone I love to get away from this. To get his own revenge. And that’s not how this story is going to end.
It can’t be.
A fresh wave of energy pours through my exhausted limbs, and I fight with everything I have, just like I did that night years ago. Squirming on the floor, I keep Julian from getting his hands around my neck, and I try again to knee him in the balls.
But he’s fast. And even more than that, he’s fighting reckless and dirty.
Lorenzo was caught off-guard when I got to him. He was at the top of his game, and he thought he was untouchable. But Julian has already lost everything. The only thing he has left to lose is his life, and it gives him a strength that’s hard to top.
He manages to knock me back against the floor hard enough that I have to blink stars away from my vision, and before I can recover, he gets his hands around my throat.
I thrash under him, trying to kick him, scratch him, anything. But he uses his weight to pin me down and tightens his fingers, choking me.
My breath sputters out, and fear fills me as my lungs burn. For a second, I feel like I’m that helpless little girl I once was again. Trapped somewhere, being hurt and used with no hope of fighting back. Julian’s face blurs as the fear climbs, and he could be his father, leaning over me, whispering shitty little sweet nothings.
It would be easy to give in to that fear and the memories, but it hits me that I’m not that same person anymore. I’m not a helpless little girl, and I’m not in this alone.
I think about Priest, who’s still chained to the wall, watching all of this go down without being able to do anything to help me or stop it. I think about the other Kings, still fighting off the guards from the sounds of the gunshots that are still ringing out around us.
I think about Knox and his lessons on how to inflict pain. How he told me that anything could be a weapon if you know how to make it one.
Hooks.
The hooks.
With a surge of inspiration, I yank one of my earrings out of my ear and stab Julian right in the eye with it.
He shrieks like a wounded animal and reels back, and that’s the opening I need. I break his hold on my neck, gasping for breath and trying to find my footing. I can’t give in now. This might be the only chance I have.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see my gun on the stained and dirty floor nearby. It’s just out of reach, but close enough that I can lunge for it. I look to Julian, and he’s coming for me again, blood pouring down his face from his punctured eye.
My fingers close around the gun.
I swing around and aim in the same gesture, pulling the trigger and shooting Julian Maduro right in the forehead.
Time seems to move in slow motion as his head whips backward from the force of the shot.
Then he drops to the ground.
Dead.
My ears ring from the sound of the gunshot, and my neck aches from where Julian was strangling me, but there’s no time to catch my breath or anything.
The guys are still fighting the guards, and rather than giving up, his security detail kicks up a notch when they realize Julian is down—probably realizing there’s no chance for a cease-fire now, and that this is truly a kill or be killed situation.
I leap back into the fray, shooting one guard in the back before he can lunge for Ash, and then spinning to elbow another one in the face so Knox can come barreling through to take him out.
There aren’t that many left, and we manage to pick them off one by one until we’re the only ones standing.
A sudden quiet falls over the warehouse space when the last guard goes down in a heap.
It feels almost odd, considering how loud it was before. No gunshots, no yelling, none of Julian’s toxic ranting about how he’s going to kill us all.
Just silence and the pounding of my heart.
I don’t look at Julian’s body. I know he’s fucking dead. I saw the bullet hole in his forehead, and that’s good enough for me. He’s not getting up from that.
Instead, my gaze goes right to Priest. And then my feet follow, carrying me toward him as fast as I can go.
37
Priest
My body aches and throbs from everything Julian did to torture me. Cutting me with knives and then digging his fingers into the cuts, punching me, asking me questions and then slapping me hard in the face when he didn’t get the answers he wanted.
I took all of it as silently as I could, not giving him the satisfaction of showing pain while he took his anger and desperation out on me.
But no matter how much agony the injuries to my body have caused, it was nothing compared to being chained to the wall, unable to do anything, while Julian tried to kill River.
As soon as I see her coming toward me, I strain against the restraints, trying to get to her. To touch her and make sure she’s alright. Nothing has ever mattered more.
She grabs the key to the chains down off the wall where Julian stashed it and starts freeing me, her movements jerky and desperate.