I saw Hassan before anyone else did. Watched him step out from the thick cover of trees. Screamed for Eve to drop to the ground. To take cover. But she wasn’t hearing me.

A second bullet sends Ace to the ground. Sends Eve falling off the stage. Hassan is still approaching but guards have seen him now, not the crazed men bidding on Eve’s naked body, but the men beside me. The men by Malik. It’s the moment I need. They should have tied my hands behind my back, not in front of me. Now they’ll pay.

The soldier who raises his machine gun first has my attention. I lunge, throwing my weight against the length of it. He’s not expecting this, not expecting me, and I use surprise to my advantage, relieving him of the weapon, knocking him out with the butt of it before whirling around, using the gun like a baseball bat to knock the knees out from under the second soldier by my side. He screams in pain, falling as I shatter one of his kneecaps. I don’t care about him though.

I stand. Eve’s still on the ground, but she’s moving, watching me. She’s not hurt. Hassan’s been hit, but he’s still walking, and I turn the weapon on the room and open fire and it’s like that night is happening all over again. The sounds, the screams, the tearing flesh and the blood. The past grabs hold of me, ink burning into my back, but I can’t let it have me. Not yet. Not now. I have to stay here for her.

My body vibrates in time to the machine gun I’m emptying. Men drop before they’ve reached for weapons, but bullets are flying toward me as I walk, making my way through the downed men, stepping on bodies, feeling flesh beneath my boots.

I have one target in my sights. One man who, two years ago, escaped. Walked away.

Tonight though, things will go differently.

He’s not walking away. None of them are.

Pain in my left arm momentarily stops me. I look at the circle of blood forming, and turn in the direction from where the bullet came and I mow down the men standing there. I don’t feel a goddamn thing when I do it either. No remorse. Nothing.

Maybe I’ve become like him too. Like Malik.

Ruthless. Insane.

A monster.

I turn to Malik again, find Hassan standing a few feet from him. Hassan’s face is strange. Blood is smeared across it and his pallor is…wrong. But he’s standing. And I realize it’s quiet. I look around me and see only downed bodies. Only one headlight hasn’t been shot out, and that’s the one illuminating Hassan and Malik.

“He’s mine,” I say, my eyes locked on Malik.

Both men turn to me, but Malik is the only one grinning.

I know why in the next second. I know it when he draws the blade out of Hassan’s belly and Hassan stumbles backward, catches the half-wall, falls.

“Mine,” he says, clutching his gut, his hand searching for the wall, finding it, pulling himself up again.

Malik looks behind him and, realizing he’s alone, that grin falters. But only for a moment.

“It’s a good night, isn’t it?” he asks, and I realize he’s holding a pistol in his hand when I hear him cock it. He raises it, but instead of aiming it at me, he aims it behind me to where I know Eve is standing. He returns his gaze to mine. “What do you think, loaded or not?”

But before he can pull the trigger, a shot rings out and Malik stumbles backward, the gun in his hand flying to the ground, lost in the darkness and the overgrowth. I look to find Eve naked, smeared in blood, camouflaged by it almost, and holding a pistol. She takes a step toward us.

“Eve,” I say.

Like before, she doesn’t hear me. I move, but when I do, she looks to me and aims the weapon at me, blinks, then returns her attention to Malik.

He laughs. Clutching his side, he actually laughs.

“Where are my brothers?” Eve asks, her voice stronger than I expect, even as it trembles.

When he doesn’t reply, she fires another bullet, but this one misses him.

“Eve, put the gun down.” I’m walking toward her slowly, my weapon pointing to the ground.

“Where are they?” She cocks it again.

It takes three more steps for me to be beside her. “He’s not going to tell you,” I say, touching her hands, covering them with one of mine, lowering the pistol.

She looks at me, and I see the loss in her eyes. The pain of watching someone you love brutalized before you.

“He’s not worth it,” I say.

A tear slides down her face.

“He’s a monster.”

I take the gun from her and tuck it into the waistband of my jeans before hugging her to me. She’s shivering, even though it’s a warm night. Shock. She’s going into shock.

“Armen,” she says into my chest. “They shot him in the back like cowards.”

“He’s still alive.” Turning us, I hold her so I’m watching the half-brothers on the ground, one nearly dead, the other not close enough to it. She’s looking at Armen. I look at Eve, pull my shirt over my head and slip it over her. “Go to him. Go to Armen,” I say. “And whatever you do, don’t look back.”

She draws away, studies me.

“Understand?”

She nods. She understands. And a moment later, she’s walking across this twice-bloodied field to her brother. I go to where Malik and Hassan lie on the ground.

I take the stained blade, the one Hassan has his hand around. He’s moments from death and he doesn’t fight me for it.

“He destroyed my family,” Hassan says. “I never meant—” There’s a gurgling sound. A sound of dying.

“Shh. Don’t talk now. It’s done.”

“Julia.” It’s barely a whisper.

“I’ll take care of Julia and the baby. Close your eyes, Hassan.”

A chuckle from Malik has me turning, but his wound is worse than I thought. He’ll bleed out. I don’t have to do this. But I want to.

I shift my full attention to him.

“Why all this?” I ask.

“Because you were always too good to waste.”

“You thought I’d come to work for you? After everything you did?”

He tries to shrug.

“You’re stupid too, then.” I hold up the knife. “I can make it quick,” I say. “Tell me where her brothers are.”

One corner of his mouth curves upward. “Hell?”

My eyes narrow. I spare one glance behind me, but Eve’s good. She’s not watching.

When I look back at Malik, it’s me who smiles.

“Then don’t tell me, bastard.”

I tear open his shirt. He grunts, and I glimpse the fear in his eyes now.

“This is for my friends. For the lives you took.” And I slice a line from one side of his gut to the other, deep but not too deep. I do this six times, slowly carving each line into him, watching his eyes, seeing his pain as I feel flesh tear beneath my blade. It’s not as satisfying as I thought it would be as life drains out of him. But I never thought it would be that. It just needed to be done. And I needed to be the one to do it.

“Fuck you, Malik. Fuck you.”