Page 96 of An Extraordinary Lord

His heart stopped, the enormity of the moment squeezing around it like a vise. When it jarred to life again a second later, the pain was brutal. So was the need for revenge that consumed him in a wildfire of hatred and grief. He loosened his grip, and Veronica’s arm slipped free of his hold as she walked on toward safety.

He turned back after the man. Each step pounded as fiercely as his pulse, both fueled by murderous intent.

“Merritt?” she called out and stopped to turn back for him. “What’s wrong?”

“Go on without me.”

“No.”

“Go to the Armory, Veronica.”

“Hellno.”

He hurled a quelling look at her but continued to walk away. “You’ll be safe there. I’ll meet up with you later.”

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“Go!” he snapped out the angry order. This wasn’t her fight; it was his alone. It had been simmering for the past five years, but now the need for vengeance boiled inside him. So did the drive to put an end to the years of hunting. And an end to the bastard who’d murdered Joanna. “God damn it, go!”

He turned away from her and the wounded look on her face. Then he broke into a loping jog to move as quickly as he dared after the man without calling attention to himself.

He didn’t look back. Veronica didn’t understand. He didn’t expect her to, but there was no time to explain. He’d promised Joanna that night when he’d held her lifeless body in his arms that he would find the man who killed her, and for every drop of spilt blood, Merritt would cause the bastard pain. Blinding. Insufferable.Damn him to hell.Where he belonged.

He sheathed his sword and pulled out his knife. He kept the blade low and unseen at his side and the handle firmly gripped in his palm as he followed the man down the street. His pulse pounded deafeningly in his ears as he drew nearer, and his blood burned hot as it coursed through his veins. Vengeance drove each breath he took. He moved closer to the man, so close now—

He lunged. He tackled the man around the waist and propelled him forward against the building.

But the man twisted out of his grasp. He slammed Merritt into the wall with a fierce shove, then ducked beneath the sweep of the knife as Merritt struck out in white-hot fury. But the rioter didn’t dodge the hard punch of Merritt’s left fist as he swung it with every ounce of his strength. He caught the man’s jaw and snapped back his head, sending him staggering from the force of the blow toward the doorway where the door lay twisted half-open on its hinges from the mob’s earlier attack.

With no way to escape down the street, the man darted inside the dark building.

Merritt chased after him. He wouldnotget away. Not this time.

Darkness filled the building; the dim morning sunlight and torchlight from the rioters were unable to penetrate through its shuttered windows. Yet the place was alive with shadows and ghosts, and they antagonized him with every step and searching glance he took.

Like the skilled predator he’d become, Merritt tightened his grip on his knife as he moved forward into the darkness. He carefully approached the wooden stairs. The only place the man could have gone was up, and he stalked after him. No capture. No quarter. No trial.I will kill you where you stand…

A shadow darted across the top of the stairs, and a dark object hurtled toward him. Merritt held up his arm but not in time to stop the glancing blow of an old wooden cask. It grazed his temple and cut his brow before it slammed into his shoulder. It wasn’t enough to stop him but more than enough to escalate his anger.

With a growl, he charged up the stairs three at a time.

The man raced up through the warehouse, and Merritt pursued. The door at the top of the stairs slammed shut in front of him, but he dropped back onto his rear foot and kicked as hard as he could in the center of the panel. The kick broke the latch, and the door banged against the wall so hard that the rusted hinges shattered with a pop as loud as gunfire.

Merritt charged through the door, out onto the roof, and directly toward the man. He lowered his shoulder and plowed it into the man’s stomach. He propelled him backward, only for the attacker to find his footing and fight back. They struggled back and forth across the roof with punches landing with dull thuds on each other’s bodies, with Merritt unable to find the space to swing his knife and slice the man’s throat.

“You murdered her, you son of a bitch!” Like a man possessed, Merritt threw punch after punch with his left hand, slash after slash with the knife in his right, and drove the man against the low balustrade framing the edge of the roof.

He charged relentlessly forward on top of him and forced the man to bend backward over the railing. He shoved his right forearm beneath the man’s chin, and his knife blade glinted in the moonlight just inches from the man’s throat.

“You killed her,” he ground out and shoved his forearm against the man’s windpipe. “And now I’m going to kill you.”

The man’s eyes flared wide as he clawed desperately at Merritt’s arm to free himself, but Merritt only stepped closer and forced the man farther back over the balustrade. The man darted a terrified glance over the edge of the roof at the ground two stories below.Good.Let the bastard be afraid. Let him experience the same terror as Joanna when she was ripped from the carriage. Let him feel the same pain she did when his body broke against the stones below.

He pointed his knife at the man’s belly, drew a deep breath—

“Merritt—no.”

The soft voice behind him arrested his hand, and he froze, the tip of the blade poking into the man’s gut.Veronica.