“Don’t listen to her!” my father shouts, panic bleeding into his voice. “Do your jobs! I own your pensions! Shoot her!”
The lead cleaner stares at me. He calculates the risk, betting that a socialite won’t actually pull the trigger.
“Sorry, kid,” he mutters.
His shoulder twitches. He commits to the draw.
“Cassian.”
The false plaster panel behind my father explodes outward.
Cassian erupts from the shadows of the wall void in a blur of black tactical gear and terrifying, fluid violence.
Phut. Phut.
The suppressed gun in Cassian’s right hand cycles twice in a fraction of a second.
The cleaner reaching for his gun takes a hollow-point round directly through his right eye. His skull snaps back with a sickening, wet crack, a spray of dark blood painting the bookshelves, and he drops to the marble floor like a stone.
The second cleaner spins rapidly, his hand flying to his hip holster, but Cassian is already moving. Keeping his injured left arm locked tightly to his ribs, Cassian shifts his aim a fraction of an inch and pulls the trigger again. The second hollow-point catches the man perfectly in the temple.
The second cleaner hits the floor, dead before the first body even settles.
It takes two seconds, and two heavily armed men drop to the Persian rug like they were never there.
My father stumbles backward, his aristocratic composure shattering into sheer, unadulterated terror. He reaches inside his overcoat, clawing for a concealed weapon.
Instead of shooting him, Cassian steps directly over the bleeding bodies. His right hand shoots out, grabbing my father by the lapel of his expensive coat. Using his core and his uninjured arm, Cassian sweeps his combat boot hard against my father’s knees.
Judge Hale hits the floor with a bone-rattling crash. His chin clips the hard edge of the table, splitting the skin wide open. Blood sprays across the Persian rug. He groans, a pathetic, wheezing sound, as the breath is knocked from his lungs.
Cassian isn’t finished. Keeping his torn left arm out of the fight, he grabs my father’s collar with his good right hand and hauls him up onto his knees.
He steps squarely behind him. He drives his knee hard into my father’s spine to pin him to the floor and jams the smoking-hot suppressor of his gun directly into the base of my father’s skull, pressing hard enough to grind against the cervical vertebrae.
The room falls into a sudden, ringing silence, broken only by the wet, terrified gasping of my father.
Cassian looks at me across the desk. His chest is heaving.
“Iris,” Cassian growls, his voice a vibrating rumble. “Give the word.”
I lower my gun, but I don’t drop it. I look at the man on his knees. I look at the blood dripping from his chin, staining his crisp white collar. This is the man who judged the city. This is theman who demanded perfection under the threat of emotional abandonment. This is the man who sold my life for a promotion.
I look at the gun pressed to his head.
Finish it, the dark, broken part of my soul whispers.
But I hesitate. My lungs lock tight.
“Cassian, wait,” I say. My voice trembles, just slightly.
He doesn’t lower the gun, but his eyes lock onto mine, waiting for my lead.
“We have it,” I say, gesturing to the acoustic vent near the ceiling. “We have the confession on tape. He admitted to the hit. He ordered my suicide. Varro has it secured on the servers. Let the FBI rot him in a federal cell. Let him stand trial. Let the entire world see what he is and watch his legacy be dismantled in the public square.”
My father spits a mouthful of blood onto the Persian rug. He tries to laugh, but it comes out as a wet, desperate, bubbling wheeze.
The smooth veneer is gone, but the arrogance is intact. His chest heaves, his blue eyes wide and frantic, darting from the gun to me.
