Chapter 120 - ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY

Chapter 120: Chapter ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY

ANGEL

He tilted his head, his mouth close to her ear in a way that sprang hot undiluted jealousy through me. "You want to play math, Jillian? Let’s play math. In every version of this equation, you die painfully. Tell them to drop their weapons!"

"Hold your positions!" Jillian barked, her voice climbing into something shrill and desperate. "He’s bluffing! He won’t hurt me when—"

Vincenzo sliced her cheek, a thin line that opened her skin from the corner of her mouth toward her ear. Not deep. Just enough to split the surface and release a bright red ribbon of blood that ran down her jaw, and dripped onto the stage floor in rhythmic drops.

"Bastard! Son of a bitch!" Jillian screamed, her hand flying to her face, her fingers coming away red and wet. And then she was cursing hysterically, a stream of filth that would have impressed me under different circumstances.

One of the men shifted in the shadows, raising his gun higher, the barrel finding me on the floor. "Boss, say the word and I’ll—"

"Shoot her and I take off her eyes next,"

Vincenzo said without looking at him. The knife moved from her neck to her eye. The tip found the corner of her eye socket and pressed against the thin skin there, creating a dimple in the flesh. "Then I come for you. And I promise you, whatever she’s paying, it’s not enough for what I’ll do to the man who pulled the trigger on my daughter. You still have the option of dropping your weapon. She can’t protect you if she is dead,"

The man’s gun arm wavered. I could see his fingers loosening on the grip, his resolve crumbling in real time. The other two were watching him, waiting for someone else to make the first move.

"Don’t you dare!" Jillian shrieked at her men, blood dripping from her cheek with each word. "Don’t you fucking dare! I’m the one paying you—"

"And I’m the one who’ll bury you." Vincenzo cut through her voice. Then he addressed the men directly, his tone shifting into something almost friendly. Businesslike.

"How much is she paying you? Whatever the number, I’ll give you ten times of it. Cash. Tonight. Walk away right now, no consequences, no grudges. Take the money and disappear. Start over somewhere warm."

The men looked at each other.

"Don’t you dare listen to him!" Jillian was frantic now, her voice cracking with maniac fury, "He’ll kill you the second I’m dead! He’ll hunt you down and—"

"I don’t kill employees who make smart decisions." Vincenzo cut her off, his tone still conversational, holding the blade against her neck like they were negotiating a real estate deal over cocktails. "I kill people who touch my daughter. Those are two very different categories. Right now, you gentlemen are in the first one. I’d recommend staying there."

"You cowards! I gave you one job! ONE JOB! After everything I—"

The knife pierced deeper into the corner of her socket and pressed harder, until it prickled with blood. A single bead that ran down her cheek like a red tear.

"No — STOP!" Jillian’s scream echoed through the room.

"Tell them to drop the guns."

"You wouldn’t do this to me, we are childhood friends, you married me, we were happy — I already planned our future. She was the one who came between us! Why can’t you see that witch has deceived you!" Her voice broke on the last word.

"You betrayed me first, and even before that you were nothing. You are only a means to keep my daughter safe, just like right now,"

"You’re a monster," she whispered, "Even if you kill me — you can’t undo tonight. She performed for them. Your precious daughter, naked on a floor, touching herself while they watched. Their cocks out. Their eyes on her cunt. That image lives in their heads forever, Vincenzo. Every time you look at her, you’ll wonder who else is picturing her like that. Who else is jerking off to the memory of your little girl’s—"

The knife pierced into her eye.

Hard.

Until what was left was the handle.

Jillian’s scream was something that would live inside my skull for the rest of my life. A sound that went beyond pain and into a territory that the human voice was never meant to reach.

And fuck, my pussy that had been dry sprang with wetness.

I nearly came at the sight of her bleeding face and her hands which were clawing at Vincenzo’s arm with a ferocity that shredded his sleeve and dug red lines into his skin.

And Daddy has never looked so terrifyingly beautiful as he was at this moment.

"Now gentlemen, do we have a deal? Walk away now and get enough money to last you a lifetime," Vincenzo spoke to the men, his voice perfectly smooth despite the woman screaming and bleeding and clawing in his grip. Like this was just another work day.

"DROP THE WEAPONS!" Jillian screamed as Vincenzo withdrew the knife and moved to her good eye. The threat lurking in the blade’s proximity. "DROP THEM! DROP THEM NOW!"

Guns hit the floor. One. Two. Three. The most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. Metal on concrete. Surrender.

"Now walk out through the door," Vincenzo ordered. "Hands where I can see them. Move."

Jillian was still held by Daddy as the men emptied from the room, their footsteps fading into the hallway, the door closing behind them. And at that moment his protective gaze met mine across the stage, and something filled my chest that was too big for my body. A love so violent and so consuming and so completely, irreversibly mine that it could have burned me from within.

That was my daddy. Mine.

That was when my mind recalled the other threat in the room.

Damien hadn’t moved. He hadn’t even lifted a single finger to help his screaming, bleeding, one-eyed sister.

He’d watched the whole thing from where he stood with the detached interest of a man watching wildlife footage on a screen. A lion taking down a gazelle. Nature doing what nature does.

And now his eyes were on me, filled with a calculation that made my heart stutter. That look. I knew that look. The look that said my turn.

My brain was blaring with alarm.

I scrambled for the nearest gun the men had left behind. My hands were slick but the weight was familiar.

I grabbed it and felt the air change even before I turned. A sense of impending doom that my body recognized before my brain could catch up.

I turned slowly.

Damien.

His arm was stretched. A gun.

It was pointed at Vincenzo.

"Put the gun down, Angel."​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​