Page 62 of Pretty Little Assassin

“I remained in complete control of her. Just as I remained in complete control of you. Just as I still do.”

Rage.

Sheer fucking rage consumes me.

All this time, my mother was suffering, and I didn’t even know. All this time she was trying to get back to me, and I was sitting there cursing her for having abandoned me and for leaving me with him. It was him the whole time. All of it. And now, to get back at me for having thrown his bastard self in jail—this is the kind of sick theatrics he chooses.

Prison wasn’t enough to hold him. He is irredeemable, wicked, and apparently capable of escaping whatever cell I put him in. Which means the only solution for dealing with my stepfather is a permanent one.

My hand slips to my thigh in an instant. Mercy’s cool steel is clenched in my grasp within the space of a breath. I go savagely for my stepfather. Teeth buried, biting into my bottom lip so hard that I can taste the blood.

One plunge. The chest or the jugular. Jugular it is. I don’t want to leave anything to chance. Plus, I really want to watch him bleed out as he chokes for his last gasp of air.

Part of being small and agile means being able to push off the floor like a gazelle, whether I’m wearing heels or combat boots. Speed favours the small. Skill is mine to claim too.

He can’t reach for his weapon fast enough to counter me in time.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t need to.

“Look out!”

My mother’s scream grates against my eardrums.

I never stop counting. Until I did. When I saw my mother for the first time in nine years.

Just outside the open doorway are two Primacy operatives. Both of them are holding guns in their hands. One of those guns has already been fired.

The moment is a blur. Everything happens too quickly to assess in real time.

Was I too distracted emotionally by seeing my mom? Was that my stepdad’s gameplay this whole time?

Afterwards, I replay it over and over. But it doesn’t matter. It only matters how it ends. A bullet, flying out of one of the guns, straight on a trajectory toward me. While I was too busy getting ready to claim Mercy’s victory at my stepdad’s throat, the bullet slipped past.

Time works funny for a second, both racing and standing still simultaneously. I see the bullet; part of me knows I won’t be able to get out of the way in time. I wanted more time to finish the job, to put my stepdad down. To understand what that feeling was about Viktor Petrov when I heard the word mate. I wanted more time with my mom too. But we’re not going to get that.

There’s an instant terrible recognition in that split second when I realize that not only am I going to die, but that it’s going to be at the hands of the one asshole I couldn’t keep behind bars.

Then, something else happens. Something that catches me even more devastatingly by surprise than the bullet itself.

From the corner of my eye, I see her, and I don’t have time to stop her.

My mom steps between me and the bullet.

It hits her, and the force of it sends her backward. I don’t think I’ve ever heard myself scream out loud before. Loud enough to pierce my own eardrums. Loud enough to drown in it. Loud enough that I wish it would tune out the sound of my mother’s last breath as I hold her dying in my arms.

“Mom, no, no, hang on. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“Valentina,” my mom says, reaching up with a shaking hand to touch my cheek.

“It’s okay, Mom, I’ve got you. We’re going to make it out of this, okay. I promise.”

Fuck.

I wish I hadn’t blamed my mom all these years for what I went through.

I wish I had seen the bullet coming.

I wish for a lot of things right now.