He walks away.
Doesn’t even fucking look at me.
“PRIEST!” My voice breaks as they rip me from the bed. My body barely functions. My legs won’t hold me. My mind won’t process.
He’s already at the door. Already gone.
He knew. He knew who I was. And he still touched me. Still fucked me. Still ruined me.
I scream his name again, but he never looks back.
Not once.
Cheers erupt as I walk into the Command Center. Someone shoves a glass in my hand. Another smacks me on the back.
I drain the whiskey in one pull. Don’t even fucking feel it.
Not the burn.
Not the hands.
Not a damn thing.
Dalton and Alistair were right. The thought is bitter just admitting it. The little bitch was too good to be true. I knew it when I saw her. Eyes full of secrets. Something was off. But I didn’t dig. Didn’t press. I let her lie. Let her get under my skin.
Stupid fucking cunt.
“Now that we’ve got her in the Depths,” Raze says, smirking as he hands me the whole whiskey bottle, “it’s only a matter of time before she gives up the bastards who ambushed us. Lev Voronin’s daughter.” He laughs, shaking his head. “Fucking hell.”
Lev Voronin.
The Fallen Shadow.
One of the deadliest assassins the South Section ever produced—until he snapped. Tried to burn the whole Section to the ground. Take down Sterling. Gut the Commanders. Never said why. Never gave up who else was involved. Just lit the match and let the chaos spread.
He didn’t just turn on Sterling.
He turned on all of us.
Left the Sections bleeding. Paranoid. Killing their own in search of ghosts.
Sterling didn’t even waste a stage on him. Executed him alone in the Depths. Exactly how a traitor should die.
I’d heard rumors that he had a kid. Guess they were true.
I grit my teeth and down another gulp of whiskey. She played it well. Playedme. The whole damn time she was lying. And I let her in. Let her get close enough to try and take me out. Trying to finish what her father started all those years ago.
Now she’s in a cage. Where she belongs.
“Fucking bastard!”
The hit blindsides me. My head whips sideways, teeth crunching, glass exploding as the bottle shatters on the floor. The whole room freezes.
Arsen doesn’t. He’s already on me again.
I catch the second punch, twist his wrist until the tendons grind, and drive my fist into his ribs hard enough to feel something give. He chokes, folds, but keeps swinging.
We go down hard, chairs splintering under the weight of us. We’re torn apart by Raze and half the room.
