Page 157 of Cold Mercy

Mercer steps closer, looking down at her screaming, rocking form with cold disdain.

“Enough. Stand up, Sophia, or I’ll put the next bullet in his head just to stop the noise,” he speaks clearly, cutting through her panic.

The effect is instant. Her scream cuts off in her throat, choking into a sob, and she goes completely still.

She rises slowly, her movements fluid but mechanical, like a doll being pulled upright by invisible strings. When she turns her face toward Noah, the agony I saw a moment ago is gone.

“Noah,” she says, her voice hollow, stripped of any tremor. “I’ll go with you. I’ll be whatever you need me to be.”

She steps closer to him, ignoring me entirely, her gaze fixed on him with a terrifying, dead calm. She isn't looking at him with fear anymore, but with recognition. It’s a terrifying intimacy. She is tapping into the years they spent together, weaponizing the fact that she knows exactly how his twisted mind works.

“But if you have plans…if you intend to actually use that power instead of hiding in the dark forever…you need to think. If you kill a fed, the game ends. You know that you’re too smart to make a mistake this sloppy.”

He knows she’s right. He is a textbook example of a calculated psychopath who is always playing the long game.

But every fortress has a crack, and Sophia is his.

I didn't just touch his weak point; I tainted it. I claimed the woman he believes he owns, and looking at him now, I see the logic failing. I see the calculation happening behind his eyes, weighing his empire against his ego. The sirens are getting louder, screaming for him to run, but his gaze is fixed on me with a murderous, jealous hunger.

He knows the risk, he knows the cost. And I can see it in his face that he wants to take it. He wants to end me more than he wants to survive.

He curses under his breath and signals to one of his men. “Prep the helicopter, now.”

They grab her by the arm, dragging her weak, curled-up body that is smeared with a sickening mixture of her blood and mine, and the sight of them taking her away cleaves something deep inside me.

I force the words out through clenched teeth, fighting black spots crawling across my vision.

“Sophia… I’ll find you. Don’t give up, be strong, like you always are. And listen to me… I love you. I love you more than anything.”

Noah stops mid-stride.

“You know what I realized?” he says, voice deadly calm. “There’s one loose end left. One person alive knows I’m not dead.”

Sophia twists toward him, breath breaking. “No, please. Noah, stop. Let’s just go, please.”

He doesn’t listen.

The gun slides into his hand with terrifying ease, muscle memory taking over where reason fails. He brings it up, the barrel rising toward my chest like he’s already decided how this ends.

“Noah,” she says, panic ripping through her voice. “No, please, don’t do this.”

Noah raises the gun, intent on ending me, but Sophia launches herself at him before he can pull the trigger. She grabs his arm, shoving hard to divert his aim, and for a terrifying second, they wrestle for control of the weapon. Then, a deafening crack tears through the air as the gun goes off in the grapple, burying the bullet in her stomach.

“Sophia!” The scream tears from my throat, a ragged, animal sound that scrapes against the raw walls of my windpipe. I thrash against the fading strength of my body, ignoring the blood draining from my leg, screaming her name like a prayer and a curse.

As the recoil jolts his arm, Sophia gasps and crumples, her hands flying to her stomach in a desperate reflex. She stumbles back, knees buckling, and hits the floor hard, the blood already spilling through her fingers and soaking her clothes before she even lands.

That bullet was meant for me. It should have been me.

I roar her name, adrenaline ripping through what’s left of my body. Pain screams through my leg as I wrench my shoulders, shattering the joint in my thumb to slip free. I drag myself across the floor, useless leg trailing behind me, leaving a red smear in my wake. I’m coming for you, baby. Even if I have to crawl.

Noah stumbles, horrified. “What the fuck did you do, Soph—” One of his men grabs him hard.

“Sir, the perimeter is tightening. If you stay, you die. She has a chance with medics, with us, no. We have to move.”

Noah fights him, eyes locked on Sophia with a sick, gutted desperation. “You…you weren’t supposed to…why, Sophia— ”

“Don't you dare speak her name!”