We all have enemies. Hell, the Sovereign as a whole has enemies. But an open assault like this takes fucking balls. So who the hell was worth the risk?
Raze lets out a low chuckle. “Remember that brunette Slut you were railing at my party last month?” He leans back, rubbing at his temple. “Huge tits and that thing she did with her tongue…” His voice trails off.
I don’t even look up, still sorting through the contents of the wallet in my hand. “What about her?”
“Just remembering how one second you were balls-deep in her, and the next? She’s screaming in a puddle of her own piss, her arm shattered under your boot. Because she made you mad.”
I lift my eyes, meeting his smirk. “Your point?”
“Just curious, what the hell happened tonight with you and the little Russian girl? Because I know you, Priest. With her mouth? That bitch should be bleeding out at your feet. So, who the hell is she?”
My jaw tightens, teeth grinding the gum in my mouth until it snaps under the pressure. “Nobody. Just some girl with a stack of fake IDs.”
Alexandra Vance—that’s the name she used to rent her shitty apartment.
Amy Vaughn—her alias at work.
Annabeth Vincent, another one in the pile.
The IDs are garbage, cheap and thrown together. But there’s a pattern. She’s lazy with her aliases, always sticking with the same initials. Makes it easier to forge signatures, I guess. Still, when I’d asked around, it wasn’t any of those names that people remembered.
It was justA.
“Bull-fucking-shit.” Dalton’s voice slices through the room. The bastard can’t shut up to save his miserable life. “I’ve watched you shove a guy’s hand down his own throat for looking at your beer too long. You don’t let anyone touch your shit. Ever. And now I’m supposed to believe you went soft for the little bitch who blew up your mission, stabbed you, stole your truck—your fucking truck—and talks to you like she wants her teeth knocked in?” He laughs. “No. You don’t save people, Priest. You don’t give a single fuck about anyone but yourself. So who the hell is she?”
I say nothing. Just pop another stick of gum and grind it between my teeth.
Ishouldhave shot her. When she grabbed that scalpel. When she stole my truck. When she fucking stabbed me.
But I didn’t.
Pain, death—those are the only things that ever get through the goddamn void in my chest. When I inflict them, when I watch someone break, when I see the light leave their eyes—that’s the closest I get to feeling human.
And yet, tonight…it didn’t work.
I should’ve felt that rush, that fire in my veins, when I thought about putting a bullet between her eyes. The satisfaction of silencing her smart-ass mouth should’ve been electric. Instead, there was nothing. No fire, no rage—just silence.
Scared the hell out of me.
Not because I was soft.
Because it meant something in me was shorting out.
“Maybe all this was her,” Alistair says, his gaze fixed on me. “Her IDs are fake, multiple cell phones. Maybe she’s a spy. Someone’s asset. Sent to target you. She just happened to be there when the warehouse blew up. Maybe that was meant to take you out. And when it failed, she improvised. She’s trying to get close, finding ways to?—”
That does it.
I’m on my feet in a flash, the chair scraping violently across the floor.
“You think this is about me?” I snap, stepping into Alistair’s space. “You think some half-starved stray was sent to seduce a fucking General? She’s not that clever. She’s not that dangerous.”
Dalton snorts. “Then why is she still breathing?”
I grab him by the collar, slam him into the wall hard enough to rattle the cheap drywall. “Keep testing me. See how fast I cut the fat from your ribs and feed it to your fucking dog.”
He freezes. I feel his pulse hammering under my grip.
“You think I’m protecting her?” I lean in closer. “I’mstudyingher. And when I’m done…” I release him and step back. “She won’t need a grave. Just a bucket.”
