Finally, Giancarlo seized his moment.
He ripped the mask from Seijcut’s face, and even the darkness of the night held its breath as if even it dared not disturb the moment.
Why must it be you?
Chapter Two
THE BEST TIME TO LEARNabout pain was when you were hurting too much to feel anything.
When your heart was torn out of your chest, there was nothing else for the enemy to target.
Nothing in your body that knew what it meant to fear.
All you had left was a brain that calculated the odds...plus a body that had been trainednonstopin the past three months by none other than the Prince of Killers himself.
The man had been merciless even as she had cried and screamed in front of him. But she realized now that all those seemingly endless hours of combat training were worth every second. If not for his brutal conditioning (and reconditioning), she would have been dead a long, long time ago.
Then again, maybe death was already knocking on her door, with how tonight was currently shaping up.
Every strike of her opponent was like an echo from the past—frustratingly fluid, eerily precise, and devastatingly familiar.
The way this person anticipated her every move, even the way he deflected her attacks with an almost taunting style of grace—-
She had seen someone move like this just once, when she had snuck inside the Marchettis' warehouse in downtown Boston. Her sole purpose at that time had been to cause trouble. She hadwanted to give them another reason to admit they had made a mistake in taking her in.
But instead, it was the opposite, and what she had seen that day made her realize she and Giancarlo had more in common than she was willing to admit.
That was the only time she had seen Giancarlo fight.
The only time she had seen him draw and shed blood.
But instead of fearing him, she had wanted to copy his every move—possess the same icy composure he had displayed even when the odds were stacked against him.
Once was all it took, and Sarica knew she wanted to be exactly like Giancarlo when facing death.
And what she had seen that day—
No.
Don't go there.
Just don't.
This had to be someone who knew him well and long enough to mimic the way he fought.
But why, though?
Was it to simply mess with her mind?
Or could it be this person didn't even realize what they revealed with every swing of their fist?
Viktor Biancardi.
Her body shook with rage as soon as the name flashed in her mind, and the more she thought of it, the more it made terrible sense.
The Marchettis had all treated Viktor as one of them.
She herself had looked upon him as a brother.
