Page 86 of Pretty Little Assassin

Madam smiles, and it’s exactly the smile I would have imagined attached to the voice on the other end of all those messages from VEIL.

It’s also the same smile I’m going to wear when I watch the life leave my stepdad’s eyes.

“This way.”

She carefully pushes against the back of one of the steps in the staircase. A new passage opens. Slowly, quietly, without drawing so much as a blink from the Primacy guards standing just on the other side of the wall.

A crawlspace opens up. Madam reaches upward. I follow.

Who knew that the walls inside this hellhole were so full of secrets? Madam is full of even more secrets than I imagined.

The crawlspace spills out into the kitchen, and we both land silently on our feet after making sure the room is empty.

There’s a dirty glass in the sink that wasn’t there before. I know because I combed through every room of this house. He’s still here. And he’s making himself comfortable.

He’s also been surprisingly silent on the intercom. I wonder what he’s up to. I spent so many years of my young life wondering what my stepdad was planning.

The earpiece in my ear is quiet too. Not sure whether Donnie and the others went dark. Whether Viktor and Zero are okay. Whether the omegas have all been rescued or lost. Maybe this house has interrupted the signal boost.

It wouldn’t be the first time my stepfather’s manipulations in this place have screwed with my life.

Outside the doorway, two Primacy guards are just a few feet down the hall. I can hear them talking about their next assignments after they “wrap this one up.”

Fucking fools. They don’t even know their new Director is using them as disposable pawns.

One of them moves toward the doorway. “I’m getting a drink. You thirsty?”

They’re coming in. Good.

The fewer guards to deal with, the better.

I pull the garrote wire hair tie from my hair and twist it around my hand. First one through the door gets his neck tied in a lethal bow. Second one gets Mercy.

Actually, better yet—both at once.

Two black outfits step through almost at the same time. One hesitates just long enough to see Madam standing there against the far counter, which gives me the half second I need to take them both from behind.

Blind spots are a bitch.

The great thing about both the wire and the blade—silence.

The garrote wire cuts through the voice box and strangles speech. That guard makes nothing more than a small gurgling sound.

Mercy slits the throat of the other before his call for backup can escape his mouth.

Done. Two kills in two seconds. My rhythm is coming back now.

“Combat has never been my strength,” Madam says, raising a pleased brow at the way I just slaughtered two men before they made it through the door. “Strategy is.”

“Then it’s lucky for us both that mine is killing.”

“Indeed.”

Now that we have a few clean seconds with no interruption, I want to know more about what the hell is going on.

“Want to tell me how you know the inside and out of this house so well now?”

For the first time since seeing Madam’s real face, her expression softens into something almost familial.