Chapter 265
Chapter 265:
The surrounding men erupted into a chorus of vile, predatory cheers.
June did not close her eyes. She did not cry. A white-hot volcanic fury erupted in her chest, burning through the panic. She snapped her head forward and sank her teeth directly into the thick muscle of his forearm, biting down with the absolute, lethal intent to tear flesh from bone.
The man let out a high-pitched scream and ripped his arm away, leaving a smear of blood across June’s lips.
“You crazy bitch!” he roared.
He pulled back and delivered a brutal open-handed slap across June’s face. The crack echoed off the steel walls like a gunshot. Her head snapped sideways, her cheek swelling instantly, burning with stinging heat. A thin line of blood traced from the corner of her mouth.
𝖸𝗼𝗎r 𝘯𝖾𝘹t f𝘢𝘷o𝗋і𝘁е re𝖺𝖽 i𝗌 𝗼𝗇 ѕ.с𝗼𝘮
When she turned her head back, her dark eyes were completely feral — unbroken, defiant, and burning.
Meanwhile, back in the hotel suite, Cole paced with violent agitation. He had tried to track Crawford’s convoy through the consortium’s intelligence network, only to find the signal was broadcasting a military-grade encryption he had no hope of cracking.
Jealousy and dread gnawed at him in equal measure. He couldn’t tolerate the image of June and Crawford alone in a place like the South Boston docks.
Then it hit him. He opened a discreet tracking application on his phone — a program he had installed on June’s device a year earlier out of sheer paranoia, without her knowledge. A red dot appeared on the screen, representing June’s location. It was completely stationary in a secluded corner of the port terminal.
Cole’s heart seized in his chest. He knew her well enough to understand one thing with absolute certainty — June would never stop moving in the middle of a mission. That stillness meant something had gone catastrophically wrong.
He grabbed his keys and bolted from the suite.
Back in the alley, the blond man raised his hand again, fingers reaching for the collar of June’s blouse.
“I’m going to strip you right here,” he hissed, his breath reeking of stale beer and rot.
June pressed her spine against the steel and prepared to fight until there was nothing left of her.
At that exact moment, a sound tore through the alley — not a voice, but a raw, earth-shattering roar that seemed to claw its way up from somewhere primal and bottomless.
“Get your hands off her p>
Every man in the alley went still. They turned toward the entrance of the dead end.
Cole Compton stood there. His expensive suit was destroyed — soaked with rain and mud — but the aura radiating off his massive frame was something beyond rage. His eyes were completely black, dilated with a psychotic, murderous intensity. His gaze moved to the blond man’s hand near June’s collar, then to the swollen red mark on her pale cheek.
That single image shattered the last barrier inside him.
The leader spat on the wet ground. “Another hero. Kill him p>