Bitter, despite what I assumed.
Wrong.
I swallow involuntarily, my throat working against the intrusion, and feel the poison slide down into my stomach like a cold weight settling into my core.
He throws the empty vial away.
The glass shatters against the stage floor—sharp, final, the sound of something irreversible.
"You weren't supposed to give her the whole fucking bottle!"
One of the minions is shouting, his voice high with panic.
The leader doesn't seem concerned.
"I don't give a damn. If she dies, fuck it. All we need to do is lure the men here, propose the deal, and then kill them."
Kill them.
The words penetrate through the fog ofI just got poisonedwhich is currently clouding my thoughts.
"Wait, what?" I hear myself say. "Kill them?"
They all turn to look at me.
Bored expressions.
Like I'm a particularly slow child who's finally catching up to a conversation that happened hours ago.
"Wait a minute," I continue, my voice climbing despite my best efforts to stay calm. "Aren't you guys just kidnapping me or whatever because I'm bait?"
The leader huffs.
"You're an Eastman, yes?"
I pout.
They know.
I nod slowly.
"Well," the leader says, and there's something almost conversational in his tone now—the satisfaction of a man who's about to deliver a particularly devastating blow, "you're Lawson's enemy. His family ordered him to find you."
Lawson.
The name echoes in my skull.
Kai Lawson.
The heir to the cartel that destroyed my family. The man whose relatives ordered the hit that killed my parents. I’ve never met him face to face before, but if he’s coming here to seal my fate, I may be able to get even in some way…
The leader laughs—an ugly sound that grates against my nerves.
"But they don't know his own father put a hit on him and the pack of gymnastic freaks."
What?
The information lands like a punch.
