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Words held as he moved through my apartment.

His big body was nothing but a razor as he searched.

While I stood right inside the door with my pulse skidding through my veins and my knees threatening to give out.

All stealth and menacing, he moved through the living area then into the kitchen. He opened the pantry, pushed the curtains aside with the barrel of his gun, peered into every corner and nook.

When he found them empty, he disappeared into my bedroom.

Harsh, volatile energy radiated out.

Thirty seconds later, he reemerged in the doorway.

Muscles bulging and jaw clenched so hard I thought it would pop.

“It’s clear.” The two words were daggers.

“No one was inside?” I didn’t want the question to shake, but I’d learned in my short life that you didn’t always get what you wanted.

“No. Whoever was here was only outside.”

“We don’t know that it is anything bad. I mean, that could be from anyone, right? It’s just a decoration.” I forced what I hoped was a reassuring smile to my face, though I only managed a twitch on one side before it completely faltered.

I might have tried to play it easy, and I did my best at living my life through a lens of hope and belief, but I wasn’t a fool.

I was well aware of the dangers being a part of the Crimson Crows evoked.

The enemies they had made, even though after they finished with their missions, there was rarely anyone left breathing to become a threat.

But I knew what had happened when they had raided Kent Ellison’s compound at the beginning of the summer.

Silas and the rest had wiped out every single one of his vile, malicious army.

Sickness spun my head. The horrors I’d sustained swirling like ghosts through my brain.

The mission had been vengeance for me. Vengeance for our mother from years before. Vengeance for the rest of society who’d been impacted by the corruption that Kent had poured out on the world.

They’d slain them all.

Except for one.

And right then, I knew exactly what Trevan was thinking.

“Retaliation is inevitable.” He snarled it, hatred burning like a black, endless flame.

My stomach bottomed out as he took a foreboding step forward.

One and then another until he was looming over me.

A dark shadow that had only ever felt like comfort.

Maybe I was desensitized.

Brainwashed.

But there was no place I felt safer than under Trevan’s watch.

A killer who would kill for me.