Chapter 20

ChapterTwenty

ASMODEUS

A twenty-year-old wound is torn open. No warning. It’s fast, it’s brutal, and it’s soul-crushing.

“You had no right!” Eden yells as she rushes for me. She lunges to grab the file I’ve removed from the envelope, but I drop it and grab her throat, driving her to the ground.

“I’m going to kill you,” I spit. She’d be dead already if she were anyone else. That folder she’s been carrying is an automatic death sentence.

Sharp nails dig into my skin as her knees maim any part of my body they come into contact with. Her skin turns a bright shade of red as she struggles to breathe.

“Is that why you were here? Was it all a lie? I’m such an idiot. You should’ve been fucked and hung until you bled dry.”

“Get the fuck off her!” Iblis shouts. His arm wraps around my neck, and he tries to pull me off her. “Mo, you’re gonna kill her. Let go.”

“If you don’t get off me, I’ll gut you like a fish once I’m done with her,” I croak, unconcerned at how hard it’s become to speak, let alone breathe.

“You can’t kill shit if your body’s going cold on the ground. Let her go, Mo!”

Abaddon yells, leaving the man he was playing with screaming on the forest floor and flopping like a fish out of water.

I shove Iblis back and rise from the ground, my eyes never leaving Eden. My fingers are imprinted on her throat as she gasps for breath. The ache of regret grips my heart as I take in the damage to her delicate flesh, but I shove it aside, letting my anger fuel me instead of my affection for her.

Abaddon’s bloody hands grab my collar, and he shakes me. “What the fuck is wrong with you? How could you do that to her?”

I laugh at Abaddon’s words, but I feel nothing, just a void of emptiness. As if what I’ve just done is worse than the sins we’ve already committed.

Abaddon stumbles back as I punch him in the face. Walking over to the discarded file, I pick it up and shove it at him. “I should do worse.”

Abaddon opens the file and squints before gazing up at me. “You expect me to read all this? It’s like a damn novel.”

“Second page. Read the name on the file.”

I turn to Eden, tucked in Iblis’ arms. She doesn’t know that no one can save her once Abaddon sees what’s in the file.

Abaddon swears under his breath before jumping up and heading toward Eden, waving the file in his bloodstained hand. “Why do you have this?”

Eden’s mouth tightens. If she thinks we’ll settle for her silence, she’s sorely mistaken.

Abaddon tugs at her hair, forcing Iblis to let her go so she doesn’t get hurt. He drags her, ripping her hair from her scalp. He drops her by the fire, lifting the hot poker from the flames. “Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll make you. Either way, you’re going to talk.”

Eden lifts her arm, holding it out for Abaddon.

He laughs and grips her throat, holding her still as the poker hovers above her right cheek. “You think I’ll leave you pretty?”

Who sent her? Why, after all these years? What does she want? Can I do what’s necessary and kill her?