AUTHORS POV

Tessa’s lungs burned with every breath as she scrambled backward from the warehouse door, her aunt Norah’s arm clutched tight in hers. Behind them, Pedro’s voice echoed—a low, cruel rumble as he ordered his men to seize them both. The metallic taste of fear filled Tessa’s mouth, but she tasted something else, too: the bitter tears she refused to shed.

Visual images of george struggling while he was being ripped apart hunted her subconscious.

“Go, Tessa,” George’s final plea rattled in her ears, mingling with the thump of her own heartbeat. “Get your Aunt and run. Don’t look back.”

But now George was dead. Shards of his thorn...