Page 87 of Black Heart

Kaden’s thumb strokes my cheek. “I’m sorry I … couldn’t keep my promise.”

“Don’t say that.” I shake my head vehemently, refusing to accept the finality in his tone. “You’re going to be okay. Keep pressure on it. We’ll get you help. We’ll?—”

My conviction dissolves into a sob, the enormity of the situation starting to close in on me.

I glance around frantically, searching for something, anything to stem the flow of blood. But there’s nothing except carnage… and the person who fired the gun.

The acrid scent of gunpowder stings my nostrils.

That shot, it didn’t come from Morelli.

It came from behind me.

I dive for Kaden’s fallen weapon, my fingers closing around the grip. The cool metal slides against my sweaty palms as Iraise it, aiming at the columns of servers, some sparking with broken wires, others blinking frantic green lights. The overhead emergency lights cast an unearthly red over this entire hellscape, and I can’t pinpoint a thing.

I whip the gun to the left, then to the right, my arms trembling as I hold them stiff.

Casual footsteps echo straight ahead. I grip the gun tighter, my gaze darting through the spaces between the servers. My breaths shorten.

A figure steps out of the shadows, the dim light glinting off the barrel of a pistol. Slender fingers wrap around the grip, wisps of smoke curling from the muzzle. Their silhouette becomes clearer as they step directly under an overhead light, and she takes stock of Morelli’s lifeless body.

She.

A woman.

She’s tall and lithe, her stride relaxed yet predatory, and dressed in tactical gear not unlike Kaden’s, her dark hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. She gives a quick survey of Morelli’s corpse with pursed, disappointed lips, then turns to me.

My arms begin to ache from holding the gun steady, but I don’t dare lower it.

“Who are you?” I demand, my voice shaking despite my efforts to keep it level.

The woman stops a few feet away, her head tilting as she regards me with an eerie calm. Her face is angular, all sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin, her features strangely familiar, yet I’ve never seen her before.

“Layla Verona,” she says, her voice a smooth alto. “The innocent little coder caught up in the big, bad world.”

I flinch at the use of my name, my finger tightening on the trigger. “How do you know who Iam?”

Her lips curve into a smile devoid of warmth. “I know everything about you. Just like I know everything about him.”

She nods toward Kaden, who shifts in my lap, groaning in pain as he tries to lift his head. His gaze locks onto the woman, and a tattered sound escapes his lips. “Cassie?”

The name slams into me, the gun nearly slipping from my grasp. “What?”

Kaden struggles to prop himself up, his face ashen. I try to hold him still, terrified he’ll bleed out faster if he moves, but he’s determined.

“Cassandra?” he asks again in a wet whisper.

My head spins as I look between them, the pieces refusing to click into place. This can’t be right. Kaden must be hallucinating. It’s impossible...

Cassie’s grin widens, but there’s no joy in it. “Hey, Dad. It’s been a long time.”

“Cassie … how?” Kaden grits out between labored breaths. “Morelli said…”

“That he buried me?” Cassie finishes, a harsh laugh escaping her. “Oh, he did. In a coffin, with nothing but the dark and the sounds of my own screams for company.”

I stop breathing, horror seizing my lungs at the image she creates in my head. Kaden’s face drains of what little color it had left, his lips parting in a silent cry of anguish.

Cassie continues, her voice flat, detached. “He kept me in that box for days, letting me scream myself hoarse, letting me shit and piss myself, the hunger and thirst gnawing at my insides until I thought I would go mad. And just when I was on the brink, when I thought death would be a mercy, he dug me up.”

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