“Or?” she pressed hopefully. “What else?”
“We let her go and hope she takes seriously our warnin’ to tuck tail and run,” Graham said. “Because if she so much as blinks wrong in our direction, we’ll find her and turn her into fertilizer.” He paused before delivering the coup de gr?ce. “Or we turn her into fertilizer now.”
Sabrina let loose a ragged breath.
She wasn’t an idiot. She knew the Black Knights could be ruthless. But it felt different to be presented with that truth so undeniably.
She turned to Boss, voice barely more than a whisper. “How would you do it?”
“The easy way.” His tone was purposefully devoid of emotion. But she knew him well enough to know he was a far cry from unfeeling.
This act was for Black Widow’s benefit.
“One tap to the brainstem.” He pressed two fingers to the back of his head. “Lights out before she knows what hit her.”
“Fuck you!” Black Widow shrieked, spittle catching the flashlight’s beam. “You know I told you what I told you because I thought you’d let me go!”
Sabrina’s pulse hammered as she stared hard at the blonde. “A quick, painless shot to the brainstem is better than you were going to do to me. If I recall, you promised I would watch them all die.” She waved a hand to indicate the men gathered. “That I would smell their blood, hear their screams, see their final, rattling breaths.”
A muscle twitched in the woman’s cheek. Her nostrils flared with feeling when she snarled, “One bad turn deserves another, I suppose. We’re all just animals scrabbling for scraps in the end.”
“You’re wrong.” Sabrina shook her head. “Some of us take no pleasure in ending a life. Some of us have a heart.”
“Spare me your self-righteous bullshit, Sabrina. You killed Hummer without a second thought.”
“I will use this knife to cut her name off your tongue if ya speak it again,” Hew snarled, having produced a short blade from…
God only knows where.
“Do it! Show her the truth about yourself! Show her you’re all just as bad as I am! You just wrap it up in the flag!” Black Widow’s rage revealed cracks around her edges. Through those cracks, Sabrina saw it.
Fear.
The assassin was afraid.
And that was enough to have her lifting her chin and staring boldly down at the woman.
“If we keep her here, she’ll poison the air,” she mused aloud. “She’ll ruin all sense of safety and security. Plus, it’s a pain in the ass to hold a hostage long term.”
Not that she knew from experience. But logic said she was correct.
“True.” Boss dipped his chin.
“Killing her would mean safety and peace for all of us,” she continued. “A guaranteed end to any danger she poses.”
Again, that chin dip. Again, that single answer, “True.”
She swallowed and felt a line appear between her eyebrows. “But it would also mean blood. Death. A life, however twisted, ended by our hands. And we’re better than that. Better than her.”
She crossed her arms and regarded the assassin. Black Widow’s eyes were gray. But in the tunnel, they looked black.
“Your team is dead,” she told the assassin coolly. “Your mission has failed. So if we let you go, what’s to stop you from trying to exact your revenge on us? On me?”
Black Widow’s throat worked. Sabrina could hear the note of hope in her tone when she said, “Grudges give you wrinkles. Besides, until you guys bring Bishop down, I’ll be too busy finding a deep hole to hide in from him.”
“And when Bishop is no longer a threat?” Sabrina pushed. “What then?”
The blonde’s eyes danced desperately around the group. Her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. “What do you care? I’ll be well and truly out of your hair by then.”
