Concede (The Diamond Empire Book 1) by Kathy Coopmans (bts book recommendations .TXT) 📕

hairs at the nape of my neck. An awareness that prickles at my skin. My gut churns with an instinct that warns something is very wrong, and every muscle in my body locks.

I hear crunching in the snow. Fast-moving feet. Coming closer and closer. Somehow, I know they aren’t friendly. Call it a sixth sense. Call it being around dangerous men and knowing I was safe with them. Whoever is heading this direction, I’m not safe at all, and neither is Alina.

Eyes are on us, eyes that don’t belong.

Evil and vile and harmful.

I start to whirl around. To scream for Theo just as he yells for us to get down. Gunshots go off. Kicking up the snow and causing a blinding white fury that vapors over my eyes. I dive at Alina, toppling us to the ground.

Pain burns at my shoulder, and a shriek warbles from my throat. I’ve been shot. I can feel the blood dripping down my back.

“Help,” I moan and gag. Vomit churning and rising. I’m in a daze. But I keep my arms around Alina. Shielding her from harm the best I can.

“Theo, what’s happening. Oh, God. Alina, are you alright?” The bullets keep coming. So loud, so many, it sounds like a warzone. Deafening enough to ring my ears. My heart is pounding so hard, my pulse racing wild.

Alina doesn’t say anything, but I feel her heart thumping like a frightened rabbit through her back to let me know she’s still alive.

“Oh, God, Alina. I’m so sorry. Please be okay. Please.” I will never forgive myself if she even has a scratch on her.

Keeping my head down, I glance around. I can’t see anything. It’s like a shaken snow globe—nothing except white and tiny dots of red.

So much blood.

I smell it.

I smell death.

It hits me, so fast-burning rage hisses through my body like a deadly poison, screeching a demanding release in the form of payback. If I make it out of here alive, I will kill someone if they’ve hurt Theo.

“Theo,” I yell. “Please don’t be dead. Please. Theo!”

A scream of horror rips from my lungs when arms go around my waist, hoisting me from the ground and dragging me away as the spraying of gunfire suddenly stops, or maybe I’m just too disoriented, to in shock that I can’t hear it.

“You’re coming with me, sweet thing.” The voice chuckles and my mind scrambles to place his heavy accent at the same time, trying to wiggle out of his hold and get a good look at him, but my sight is fuzzy.

“Get your hands off me, you bastard,” I scream, kick and claw, but I’m overpowered and thrown face-first against a tree. Fragments of pain split behind my eyes. Blood pours from my nose. Panic flares as I crash to the ground.

Excruciating pain splintering my shoulder, and terror flashes.

I’m going to die. I can’t, not like this. Not here. Not now.

“Help. Theo, Alina. Anyone.” I scream until my throat hurts.

“They are dead. Christ, you’re a pretty thing,” the man says—his laughter punching through my ears like nails.

“No!” I wail at the top of my lungs. Doing all I can to push up and crawl away. They can’t be dead. I’ll never recover if I survive.

My hope dwindles, and my life flashes before my eyes when a booted foot kicks me several times in the face, another and another at my stomach. So many kicks, I lose count.

I can’t breathe. The air is leaving my lungs.

Hands go around my neck. I gasp, thrash, and try pushing him off me.

His strength, along with my fading breathing, overpowers me.

“The Diamond Empire is on our way to taking over this city. They think they own the underworld. Well, not anymore. Do me a favor and tell the king the best way to bring down an empire is to kill his queen. That’s if I decide to let you live.”

That’s the last thing I hear before he scoops me into his arms, and everything goes black.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Seth

“I don’t care what you have to do or whose throat you cut. You make sure this doesn’t come back to bite the ass of The Diamond Empire. If word gets out, then the feds will crawl all over the place. Don’t make me regret putting this situation in your hands, Dominic. If there’s another mole, you find him. You search everyone’s home. Every car, every office. Nook and cranny. Even their kids’ and wives’ belongings. If you suspect a thing, you bring them to me. Do not disturb my father tonight. Understand?”

My knees bounce a mile a minute as I listen to Aaron bark demands regarding the blood bath at the cemetery. His trust is long gone. The boss in him taking over.

I want to tune him out. That or tell him if he’s afraid history will repeat itself; he needs to relax because he’s putting one of the most trustworthy people in charge. Dominic will get the job done. The man isn’t wired with disloyalty. He’s programmed the same as we are.

Dependable and bloodthirsty.

Or maybe I just want to cut loose on someone. Let my fists fly and tear up some flesh in fury and frustration. Figure that would only find me in a body bag if I took how I’m feeling out on him. So, I bunch my fist on my legs, knowing it’s goddamn hard to have faith in someone after the bullshit that went down with Samuel today. Then shockingly, find another man that pledged an oath fucking you over by letting enemies through the gates of a private cemetery.

Fucking scumbag piece of shit should be thankful he’s dead, or I’d rip his head off.

Blood roars in my ears, trailed by a streak of riled up anger that blisters my skin with one name.

Maxim. The dirty playing parasite with no balls to directly come after the man he wants. Instead, he just keeps on hitting where it hurts the most.

How the hell he’s getting people to turn