Page 54 of Riot

I yanked his wrist sideways. The knife clattered across the floor. My other hand closed around his throat and slammed his head back against the tile. Once. Twice. The third time, something cracked.

Miguel’s smirk finally slipped.

His hands clawed at my arm, fingernails raking furrows in my skin. I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything except the single, crystalline certainty that this man would never look at Calvin again.

The wolf wanted more than a kill. It wanted a reckoning.

I drove my hand through his chest.

The heart pulsed against my palm before I pulled it free. Hot. Wet. Final.

Miguel’s eyes went wide. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. The light in his stare guttered and died.

I let the body drop.

Standing, I looked toward the hallway. The other man lay still, his neck bent at an angle that left no question. Deadeye stood over him, one hand pressed against the wound in his side, breathing hard but steady.

Holler lowered his weapon.

The house settled into silence. The TV still murmured in the other room.

I looked down at Miguel’s body. At the heart still clenched in my fist. I dropped it beside him.

We left through the back door the same way we’d come, disappearing into the shadows.

THE END