Iwant to make a grab for something else.
One of his soldiers steps out of the car, pulling out a woman with a bag over her head. A bag that’s saturated in blood. She promptly tips over to the ground. He picks her up; she crumbles back into a heap. So, the motherfucker takes her by the hair, and starts dragging her forward.
I find it odd that there’s a bag over her face. Dagon ought to want to display whatever horrors he’s inflicted, not hide them.
Cain must find it odd, because he shouts. “Bag off! Fuckingcarry her!”
I meet the halfway point at the same moment as the guard. For a breathless, suspended moment, time stands still. Tension snaps the air taut. Reality distorts.
The guard grabs my arm at the same time he drops the girl and tears off the bag.
I catch three more men exiting Dagon’s vehicles from the corner of my eye… and as soon as I see the cruel delight stamped on Dagon’s face, I understand that Cain’s been tricked.
The woman who was being tortured in the SUV, who’s now on the ground, is not Azalea.
My suspicion is confirmed when I hear Cain release a roar of fury, and then, the bullets start flying. I expect to be one of the first to fall, but I’mnot. The guard in front of me is the first to get taken out—the one who unveiled the unknown woman.
I spin around, because the bullets don’t sound like they’re coming from a handgun. Surely enough, I see a flutter of movement in the trees to my left—a sniper who’s picking off Dagon’s men, one by one.
“Ember!” Greyson shouts, firing off a bullet that lands somewhere behind me. “Get back here!”
Did this psychotic fuck actually think I’d listen to his orders?
No. My plans are laid. My hope has vanished. And there’s nothing more dangerous than a woman who’s been stripped of hope, pride, and dignity—because then, the only thing left behind isfury.
But my definition of fury has never been the typical one. I suppose it was once, before I became who I am today. My anger used to burn hot and spike my temper, but now, it runs cold. Not always, but certainly when I need it to. These days, my rage is built on calculation—on playing chess while everyone else is stumbling in the dark, playing checkers.
Greyson calls for me again—evenCaincalls for me. The small army that Dagon brought are all out of the cars and shooting at the two Nighthawks, both of whom are taking cover behind their SUV’s, only peeking out to shout orders at me or fire off a bullet. Dagon’s men are being slowly and methodically picked out by the shooter in the trees, and I have a hunch as to who it is.
I just no longer care. My life has been truly defined by two goals: protect Alina and kill Dagon. I couldn’t do the latter before the former was achieved, butnow… now my hands are no longer tied behind my back.
Noise dulls as I turn back to Dagon. He’s crouched behind the open door of the armored SUV, but as if he can see me coming, he peeks out. Locks eyes with me.
One of his eyebrows raises as he looks me over, and I see a challenge in his expression.Come to me if you dare.
Oh, I’ll come for you, motherfucker. One last time.
I slowly start moving towards him, one step at a time. Both eyebrows lift now—he didn’t anticipate this turn of events. He didn’t bank on Cain andGreyson having a shooter hidden in the forest, either—I expect he didn’t tell them the location of this meet until the last minute.
But Cain’s also very good with strategy, with anticipating people’s moves before they’re made. And I’m the prodigy who learned from Dagon’s years of cruelty.
I duck beneath the car door beside him.
“Viper,” he says, an expression of faint surprise staining his features. He calls me by my callsign rather than my name—because we both know that’s what I am right now. I’m not a human, I’m the killing machine he made me into.
The assassin with a perfect record.
Almost-perfect, thanks to Max.
“Why would you come here?”
No point in lying. “I came here to kill you.”
“Ah.” He smiles a cold, empty smile. “So, you came here to die.”
“I don’t think there can be one without the other.”
“You want to get into a deathmatch with me, Ember?” Menace flashes in his eyes. “Don’t forget, you’re still the same eighteen-year-old little girl I scraped off the pavement and turned into a diamond.”
