Page 41 of Heart of a Villain

“Stab you.”

“Grab me?”

“Assassinate.”

“I’m not touching that one.”

Clearly, she didn’t understand what it had meant for him to see her when he walked through that door. She couldn’t comprehend what it meant for him to have this chance to feel the life in her body as if her blood moved through his very own veins. At present, he didn’t have the words to explain it himself. He’d been preparing to wade his way through a broken heart. Yet, destiny had other plans. It might have had different plans all along.

“Where did you think I was?” he asked, smoothing her brow. “All these years, where did you think I was?”

“Saving the world,” she said.

“But alive?”

“I never imagined you as anything but alive. Still, if you pull something like this again and mess around and die, I’ll revive you and murder you.”

“If it means saving your life, I will die, querida.”

“Don’t,” she swatted him again, “say that. Stop saying shit like that.”

Her voice broke.

It was brief, but he heard it.

“Why can’t I say ‘shit like that’?” He pressed another kiss against the top of her head. “Does it break your heart? Hmm, Sayeda? What’s wrong? You still love me?”

“Cuddle time is over, lovebirds,” Mo called down to them. “Adrían, it’s time to get started.”

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

The course started easily enough—a crawling tunnel with a barbed wire cover, followed by a vertical wall climb and a rope swing over a water pit. Next, they graduated to a log carry, which came after swimming through a virtually lightless underwater tunnel and walking over beams barely wider than a number two pencil suspended above an alligator pit.

They did all this while roped to their partner.

Before diving into the underwater tunnel, they were given no details about its length or depth. Instead, they had to strike out on the faith that they were operating as a team and didn’t intend to let each other die.

Still, death could be incidental.

The goal was to expect it, yet avoid it, all while fastened to another adult male weighing no less than two hundred pounds and carrying less than ten percent body fat.

Now, they were at the last obstacle of the day, an electric maze. Mo had explained that they would receive a minor shock if they touched any wires inside the maze. Yet, he didn’t know what her definition of mild was and what dictionary had lied to her when she looked it up.

“Fuck it to hell,” he groaned, sweat rolling down his temples and dripping onto his T-shirt. “What kind of fucking sadist put this shit together?”

Joel stood from where he’d crouched to either catch his breath or prepare to pass out. “Part of it’s used as a popular obstacle race here in Sweden,” he said. “Mo and Dez just added some shit, like the gators and this fucking electric torture chamber. I love them, but they’re sadists. There, I said it.”

He and Joel were ahead by the one point they earned from the net. With them being the fastest on their respective teams, they were able to create gaps when outmatched by strength, hand-eye coordination, or precision with sharp objects. They’d planned for Julien upon entering the maze, but so far, their speed failed them where they were sure his brain would prevail.

“We’ve gone north and south and got our asses fried,” he prefaced. “East or west?”

Joel looked back and forth between the last two paths. “Man, I don’t know. East.”

“All right. Let’s go.”

“You’re just going to believe me?”

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