Page 150 of Brutal Revenge

Not waiting for the voice to respond, he sinks the headphones over my ears again.

I shake my head violently, sending tears streaming down my face, while pleading through the gag. “No, please, no.” I won’t survive seeing my friend tormented like that again. It’ll kill me more than if I faced the same horrors myself. It will break my heart. “Please?—”

The death metal music slams back into my skull as the footage restarts with Hattie being pinned to the ground by six men.

Her terror and tears and her only way to end the pain replay over and over and over again, for hours on end, until they scoop out my soul and dissolve it in a grief so thick I’ll never be able to swim to the surface.

Chapter 48

Matteo

The compound my brothers follow me out of is nothing but a ruin of smoke, ash, bodies, and silence. We tore through another Adami-friendly zone, the twelfth tonight, and there is still no sign of Azra.

Dante butts shoulders with me. His chest is heaving, and his face is pale beneath the soot. He’s killed dozens of men tonight, yet he eyeballs me like he’s bracing for me to break. Or worse. For me to slit his throat.

Silent apologies have been pouring out of him all night, but I’m not ready to listen to them.

“Not yet,” I tell him before he can utter a single apology blistering through his remorseful eyes. “Don’t apologize for something that hasn’t happened. Just help me get my wife back.”

My voice cracks on the last word, so Giovanni grabs hold of the reins I’m barely clasping.

“Where to next?” he asks Elio, who’s been guiding our raids across Carlisle for the past six or so hours. Azra is still here. I can feel it in my bones. My fear just isn’t allowing me to pinpoint her exact location. “Just point. We’ll burn the whole fucking city to ash if we have to.”

Everyone is here. My brothers. Our cousins. Even my father.

He surveys the wreckage of our latest bloodbath with a grim expression. “This was the last Adami-friendly zone. We need to think outside the box.”

He’s right, but my fear is eating me alive. I can’t think or breathe, but there’s one thing I definitely understand. I can’t lose her.

I won’t survive it.

I won’t be my father.

I won’t move on after losing the love of my life.

Azra isitfor me.

If she isn’t here, I won’t be either. It is that simple.

“Still nothing on the livestream?” I ask.

Nico shakes his head on Elio’s behalf since he’s too focused on the laptop balanced on the hood of the SUV to answer me.

“Nothing yet?—”

“Hold on,” Elio interrupts, raising his pained eyes. “I’ve got new footage.”

We crowd the screen, and my heart stops.

Azra’s dark locks sway against her back as she moves through freestanding black curtains, her steps unsteady.

“She’s outside,” I say when stars flicker above her like a twisted stage set.

As she staggers across a painted concrete floor, I drag my eyes down her body. Restraints mark her wrists and ankles, but the rest of her appears relatively untouched.

Thank fuck.

“No, no, no…la mia tigrotta…” I whisper when she drifts toward the edge of a rooftop.