I step across the marble floor toward her, even as she hurries in my direction. She’s dressed in a black suit that matches the inky darkness of her short-cut hair.
Her heels tap the floor, and her voice is sharp as she snaps at the guard with the gun. “Put that away. If Striker wanted to kill you, he already would have.”
In the next second, she reaches for me, her voice lowering to a whisper as she pulls me into a hug. “You shouldn’t be here. Not right now. Dad’s in the middle of a board meeting, and he’sfucking furious. A weapons cache was stolen last night, right out from under his nose here in New York City, and?—”
At that moment, the nearby doors slam open.
“Zara!” Oliver steps from the next room, his face twisting as the door closes behind him, leaving me with only a glimpse of the boardroom members within it. “Step away from that pathetic beast.”
Zara stays right where she is, although she lets go of my arm and edges in front of me as if she intends to protect me.
I can’t stop my eyes from widening. It’s the first time she’s ever acted to defend me.
The last time I saw Zara was at the Academy, right after Peyton gave her a verbal dressing down for allowing me to be imprisoned and leaving me in a cage.
Zara didn’t try to free me while I was there, but she would bring me healing gel that she procured from an apothecary on Saber Lane in Boston. I used that medicine on Peyton to help her wounds to heal. Peyton was enraged by the fact that none of the other students received help like that, and it seems she held nothing back when she told Zara so.
My heart squeezes at the thought of Peyton, but I push away my sadness. She’s free now, and the loss I feel is only mine.
Focusing on the danger in front of me, I prepare to pull Zara out of the way. There’s no need for her to defend me.
I have a secret weapon in this situation, which I’ll reveal very soon.
At the same time, I’m aware of the way that Seb has angled in toward my sister’s other side. His body language telegraphs his intention to pull her away from me. It makes me wonder if he’s my father’s guard or Zara’s, but I don’t have time to ponder it.
Oliver rages toward me. He’s even thinner than the last time I saw him at the Academy, his hair whiter at the temples and hischeekbones somehow sharper. Stress radiates out from him like a palpable force.
“I’ll give you ten seconds to walk away, Striker,” he snarls. “Crawl back into whatever hole you came from. You aren’t wanted here. In fact, there isn’t a person on this Earth who wants you around.”
He knows exactly how to hurt me.
A year ago, I would have believed him.
Hell, he would have been telling the truth. I hit back at anyone who ever got close to me. I broke and stabbed and destroyed anyone who even tried.
Iwasbroken. I had been stabbed. I was destroyed.
But now I stand my ground, my heartbeats calm and measured. “I’m here for what’s mine.”
Oliver pulls to a stop five paces away from me, laughing so loudly that his spittle flies across the space between us. “You’re here for what’s yours? And what do you think that could be?”
“My company. My life.”
He laughs even harder, but I don’t rise to the bait.
I consider how lined his face is, how wrinkled, but it’s not the lines that disgust me. It’s all the evil packed in between them.
If Peyton was here, she’d strike him down without giving him the chance to talk.
Again, my heart hurts at the thought of her, but my memories also give me strength. She fought for what she believed in. She gave everything for what was in her heart.
Well, I fucking will, too. But this time, I’m certain that I’m not alone.
Oliver’s laughter fades when I don’t respond with anger like I would have before.
“You’re serious,” he says, before he snarls a command at the guard with the gun. “Fill Striker’s body with bullets. Make him bleed.”
I’m done listening to Oliver.
