Emelia hears her cousin's sharp intake of breath and acts before she can scream, slapping a hand over her mouth. If either of them makes a sound, they are as good as dead.

Clutching Sofie tightly, Emelia watches the rest of the carnage takes place. More shots are fired but somehow François remains standing, and in less than five seconds the other two gunmen are lying on the ground with twisted necks. Dead.

"You filthy bloodsucker!" Stanislav roars. "You think you'll get away with this? You think-"

His verbal tirade is interrupted by the man dressed in black. The vicious blow he throws knocks Stanislav to his knees. François advances and grabs him by the lapels of his jacket.

"I'm done listening to your bullshit," he hisses. "Now you're going to listen to me."

He brings Stanislav's face closer to his - the tips of their noses now only a centimetre apart.

"I came here for answers," François continues, "And by trying to slay me you just confirmed my suspicions. Now that I know you're involved, I'm going to end your despicable existence." The corners of his lips pull up into a Joker-like grin. "But I'll restrain myself for a few seconds so you can say your last words."

Stanislav spits out a loose tooth along with a mouthful of blood and sneers at him with pure hatred.

"Fuck you and your family, Dashiell. I would've danced on your mother's grave if her body hadn't been burned to ash."

Any self-control François may have possessed is obliterated at that moment. With an inhuman roar, he slams Stanislav's body down onto the concrete and pummels him with his fists in the most gruesome display of violence Emelia has ever seen.

Only once Stanislav's face is nothing but mush, the bones obliterated, does François halt his assault. With gore covering his clothes and hands, he stands there looking like an angry, wild animal.

Jacques appears beside him, casually glancing down at Stanislav's corpse.

"You weren't going to question him before killing him?" he asks.

"He wouldn't have told me anything," François replies matter-of-factly, a trace of bitterness in his voice. "Too stubborn. His actions told me enough."

His face changes slightly with the last sentence, looking less hateful and more forlorn.

The other man whose name Emelia doesn't know approaches the two, speaking for the first time since warning them about Stanislav's ambush.

"This won't go unnoticed. When the others find out about this they will want to retaliate."

"But they won't," François says.

"You sure about that?" the other man asks, earning him a menacing glare from François who doesn't bother responding to the question.

"Let's go," he says instead, striding towards the car.

Emelia breathes shallowly as she watches, heart beating painfully inside her chest. Sofie's eyes are wide and red-rimmed but her tears are drying and she remains quiet. Neither of them moves a muscle.

Emelia experiences an inkling of hope that they both might walk away from this unscathed when she hears the doors of the car close until a terribly loud and familiar sound perforates the night air; her phone's ringtone.

Horror hits like a ton of bricks. Dammit, Reuben!

Emelia fumbles for her phone, desperate to silence it, but it's too late. A hand reaches around the skip, grabbing a fistful of her hair. She shrieks as she is dragged out from her hiding place, the iPhone slipping and shattering when it hits the concrete.

Fighting to regain her balance, Emelia twists frantically in the grip of her attacker and comes face-to-face with François. Crap.

"Mon Dieu," he says, sounding surprised. "What do we have here?"

"Emmy!" Sofie cries when Jacques grabs her.

"Let her go, you psycho!" Emelia shouts, struggling, the skin on her scalp burning from being held by her hair.

"Oh la la," François says in a light sing-song voice. "Tu es impoli."

Thanks to the French language classes she took in secondary school, Emelia can understand his words and doesn't appreciate being called rude. Especially by the likes of him.

She's about to yell, to demand that he lets her go, her lungs filling with air in preparation to make as much noise as possible. François stops her, however, with a single sentence.

"Scream and I swear I'll kill you."

The sound dies in Emelia's throat as fear chokes her. Despite having contemplated death many times in the past, getting up-close and personal leaves her weak with terror. Her reaction seems to please François.

"Good," he mutters. "You're not as stupid as you look."

Cocking his head to the side, François studies her for a moment as if she's some sort of artefact in a museum, and Emelia stares straight back, noticing things about him that she hadn't before such as the dark circles beneath his eyes - the kind someone only gets when they haven't slept in a very long time.

Maybe he hasn't, she thinks. Maybe he's been too preoccupied with murder to get a good night's sleep.

"You two saw all of that," he speaks again and Emelia isn't sure how to respond because it isn't a question and even if it had been, how could she possibly deny it?

Releasing her hair, François snakes his arm around her waist and pulls her closer to him. So close that she can feel his breath against her shivering skin.

"It looks like you're both coming with us."

His whispered words snap Emelia out of her terror induced stupor and she shouts, "Like bloody hell we are!"

She twists viciously in an attempt to break free but François grip simply tightens, making her ribs ache, as he hauls her towards the car.

"Let go of me," she yells, shocked when he actually does.

Opening the rear door, François levels her with a steady look and says, "Get in."

Pfft, is he mental?

"No way in hell," Emelia refuses and in less than a second her back is up against the car's steal and François' hand is around her throat, his fingers making it difficult to breathe, and she notices instantly how cold his skin is compared to everything else. The metal, the air...

"Listen to me carefully," he growls, no longer sounding human. "You're going to get into the car or I'm going to snap you in half quicker than you can squeal. The choice is yours."

Emelia stares at his face which is now right in front of hers, chills rolling up and down her spine when she sees the sincerity in his emerald green eyes.

Sofie stands off to the side, trembling and terrified in Jacques' clutches. The sight of her helps soften Emelia's resistance.

"Fine," she resigns, voice strained. "I'll get in."

___.___

Damn... Perhaps she should have put her phone on silent 😂 Where do you think they'll take them? Let me know what you think in the comments and thanks again for reading