Page 26 of Thrown to the Wolves

“You’ve certainly sharpened your skills since our last meeting,” I acknowledge at last. “Care to tell me who’s been tutoring my would-be killer?”

A muscle cords in her jaw even as she avoids one of my sweeping kicks.

“Seriously, though,” I say, and I let my admiration show through for real this time. “Who are you?”

“You already know who I am,” she spits out, ducking beneath another arcing punch. “I’m vengeance.”

“Well,” I say, backing up a little to reposition, “you’re certainly intense.”

She throws herself forward, and that’s when I decide I’ve had enough. I seize the split second of vulnerability that her recklessness always leaves after each slash with the switchblade, locking her arm across my body and twisting brutally.

The switchblade goes skittering across the dusty floor, coming to rest beside a cement mixer. With a swift move, I whirl to grab her other wrist and wrench it until she opens her fingers with a cry, letting the stiletto dagger fall into my waiting hand.

Disarmed, chest heaving, Scarlett scrambles back from me, but I’m already on her, using her own momentum to slam her back into the rough brick of an unfinished wall, and then, keeping one hand hard against her chest, I bring her own stiletto up underneath her chin.

To her credit, there’s no surrender in her fierce eyes. Only defiance and the glimmer of something…hotter. Darker.

My blood sings with the thrill of the fight, the heady rush of dominance as I close in. I pin her to the rough wall with the long line of my body, but it’s the unyielding press of the blade that has her attention.

“This has been a fun little dance,” I murmur. “But now we’re going to have a friendly chat about exactly who trained you, and why you think I killed this brother of yours.”

She shudders, the motion bringing her flush against me in a maddening slide. I can’t deny the molten desire curling through me now. “Fuck you,” she pants.

I give a low, wicked chuckle. “We already did that, sweetheart. But I’ll tell you what—you answer my questions like a good little girl, and I’ll give you your pig-sticker back for another shot at me. What’ve you got to lose?”

I watch rage and humiliation war across the exquisite planes of her face. And as close as I am to her now, I see the thick layer of makeup she’s applied, and I know what that means. “Who hurt you?” I demand, my eyes narrowing. “Your face, I mean—who hit you?”

“Fuck you,” she says again.

Fine. I need to stay on-mission, anyway. “Tell me who sent you.”

At last, the words grind out from between clenched teeth, “A woman trained me. I don’t know her real name.”

My grip on the knife handle tightens, the tendons in my forearm jumping. “You’re gonna have to do better than that if you want to keep breathing. I want a name.”

A muscle in her jaw tics, the tiny movement captivating. Her lips barely move as she forces out a single word. “Grandmother.”

No. It can’t be.

Scarlett senses my shock, tries to take advantage by struggling again?—

But I recover swiftly, digging the point of the stiletto deeper into her ivory throat until a crimson bead wells up in mocking mirror to her parted lips.

“You’re lying,” I hiss. “Grandmother is dead. I slit the bitch’s throat myself when I left her damn house of nightmares.”

Scarlett shakes her head, a minute motion constrained by the threat of my blade. Her voice is thin, thready with desperation or deception, I can’t tell. “I’m not lying, I swear. I swear on—I swear on my brother’s grave. She’s alive, and she’s the one who sent me to kill you.”

My mind whirls, struggling to reframe reality after this revelation. If Grandmother truly lives, if this is the shape of her vengeance…then I’m in more danger than I realized. And so is the frustrating, fascinating woman pressed up against me.

And so is the Syndicate.

Scarlett must see the decision crystalize in my eyes. Her voice pitches higher, edged with panic. “Lyssa, wait. Don’t do this. You don’t have to?—”

“Oh, but I do,” I cut her off. “See, if Grandmother really is alive, and behind all this, then you’re a threat I can’t afford to leave breathing.”

I lean in closer, until the rise and fall of her chest presses intimately against mine. I can taste the hitching terror of her breath. “I really am sorry, sweetheart. I wish we could’ve had a little more fun together…but it ends here.”

CHAPTER 13

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