The plunger sinks.
I feel the cold first—liquid ice threading through my veins, wrapping around my spine. And then comes the warmth, syrupy and thick, seducing every nerve into surrender. My limbs go slack. My lungs forget how to breathe.
“There we go,” he purrs, sickly sweet as he slides the needle free. “Much better. Now we can start fixing all the little pieces you broke.”
Reality fractures. Light smears across my vision like blood on glass. I blink, and his face splits into three, then two, then one again. A monster in triplicate.
“You won’t get… away with this,” I slur, tongue heavy, numb. “Thor… will find me.”
Terrance chuckles—low and cold, like it’s been aging in the back of his throat. “Let him come. I’ll peel the skin from his fucking bones and make you watch. And you? You’ll smile for me while I do it. Maybe even beg me not to stop.”
“I only need…one man. One man who… loves me more… than he fears you.”
“Oh, princess.” He leans in, lips brushing my ear like a mockery of a kiss. “Still clinging to that bleeding little heart of yours. Still dreaming someone gives a fuck about saving you.”
His breath is humid against my cheek.
“Here’s what you really need to remember,” he hisses, venom lacing every word. “You’re not a woman anymore. You’re a product. And I’m going to make sure you’re my best seller.”
Then he steps back, unbuckling his belt slowly, deliberately, like this is just another business transaction.
“Be a good girl, Charlotte, and spread your fucking legs for your husband.”
The last thing I see is the cold detachment in his eyes—empty, hollow.
And then nothing.
The drugs pull me under, thick and choking, dragging me into the dark.
But even as my mind fractures and my body turns to stone, I cling to one thing like a blade in my fist.
Thor.
He’ll come.
He’ll burn this place to the ground.
And when he does, he won’t stop until there’s nothing left of Terrance but blood and ash.
THOR
The world stopsspinning when I see the first bullet hole in our front door.
“No, no, no,” I choke out, leaping from the van before Ratchet has fully stopped. The rental house looks like it's been through a war zone, windows shattered, siding splintered, my Harley lying in a twisted heap of metal and chrome in the driveway. They didn't just shoot it. They fucking executed it.
“Charlotte!” I roar, kicking in what's left of the front door. The stench hits me first, gunpowder and blood, thick enough to taste. “V!”
The living room is a massacre scene. Furniture overturned, walls perforated with bullet holes, and in the center, a dark pool of congealing blood spreading across the hardwood like spilled wine.
“Check the perimeter,” I bark at Ratchet, who's frozen in the doorway, taking in the carnage. “Make sure they're gone.”
I move through the wreckage, stepping over shattered glass and splintered wood. “Charlotte!” My voice bounces off the walls, returning to me hollow and unanswered.
The kitchen is worse—cabinets blown apart, dishes in fragments across the floor. V's laptop lies in pieces, screen shattered beyond repair. I find his phone crushed under the table, the screen still illuminated with my missed calls.
“Clear outside,” Ratchet calls out before meeting me in the kitchen. “We need to check the basement.”
I take the stairs two at a time, Ratchet close behind me. The door hangs from a single hinge, blasted apart by what looks like shotgun fire.
