𝐕𝐈𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐂 ❶

𝟔𝟔. ✭ 𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐈 ✭

Even in moments like this, where he's held back by several men, Torey can't seem to keep his mouth closed. He's taunting my former fiancé asking him if that's all he's got, telling him he's not man enough and I tone out the rest when Torey get's backhanded in the face. I hold our son closer to me and bury my face in his midnight-colored locks, the ones that are just like his father's; soft and comforting to the touch. I'm covering his face and ears because I don't want him to hear the things said to Torey before God only knows what happens to him, to us.

"You will die a no one with no purpose. You will leave behind a child who will carry on the legacy you tried to stop and a tainted woman; a single mother of a bastard child. Go to the grave knowing that." The coldness in his tone and the finality of it was not lost on me. It terrified me.

Silence.

My head snaps up out of my sons hair when I hear the sound of the first knife plunging into Torey's flesh. A piercing sob escapes me, tears itself out of my mouth. The image in front of me is straight out of my worst nightmares, my own personal hell. It rips the air directly from my lungs, sends pain directly to my heart. One after another do multiple blades pierce Torey's flesh in the darkest, most grotesque symphony. The repetitive plunge and repeat of knives gutting the man I love is a torturous sight. The noise something I will never forget.

His eyes hold mine as his blood splatters on my face. Those bright blues communicate everything as he's being brutalized. He loves me. He's sorry. Then they display nothing but pure agony as the arms holding him let go, causing Torey's large, once powerful body drop to the floor like dead weight. All of his cockiness, arrogance, everything that makes Torey the man he is, is stripped from him in this moment. All that's left is a carcass of pure pain.

My eyes rake over him, lingering on the blood seeping from the wounds and I can't control my crying. When I make a move to go to him, hands grip my shoulders fiercely not allowing to move more than the inch I already had. My father's hot breath caresses the side of my face as I watch Torey reach down and clutch his profusely bleeding abdomen in agony.

"Ai e meriton këtë." I choke on my tears at my father's words as they brush against my ear in a sinister fashion. "Sepse nuk te meritonte. After everything you've seen him do, you should've known better than to lie with a man like this. Should've known how this would end for him." He squeezes my shoulders one more time before letting me go. "Even if he wasn't FBI scum he would've met the same fate." Two other sets of hands grab ahold of each of my upper arms then begin to try and drag me away from Torey. I rebel against their grasp with everything in me.

"No! Torey!" I sob and fight, making my feet try to propel me forward, trying to tear free of these men while maintaining a grip on my son. My eyes hold Torey's helpless ones lying there on the floor, just a step away from lifelessness. "Torey! Please—" I'm dragged away from him completely. "Lutem!" I implore Remy and Ram. "Me ler te shkoj. Lutem!" Please don't take me away from him. Please. I'm fighting with everything I have to get back to the man bleeding out in the other room when my father steps forward and rips Wolf out off my arms. "No. No. NO!" I manage to break free of Remy's hold then claw Ram in the face fiercely which makes him let go of me. I take a step forward, lunging and growling at my father like a rabid mountain lion as I try to grab ahold of my son.

"Bitch!" Ram yells as he jerks me back by my ponytail. When I go to turn I'm met with a hard slap from his monstrous hand. "Qetësohu kurvë!"

"I will not calm down, you fucking prick!" I turn back to my father who's walking toward Polat. "GIVE ME MY SON!"  He doesn't even turn back in my direction. No, my father holds my screaming, crying son in his arms while patting his back in a fatherly manner. He's bouncing him up and down, murmuring that everything will be okay in Albanian. He's telling him he's his new father now, that he'll be taken care of.