Page 6 of Wild Angel

Nyx shifts in her seat, then sighs and runs her hands over her face and through her hair. Her eyes have dark shadows under them, her movements slower than usual—like her battery is drained.

She also only slept for an hour or so before she left the safe house, so I’m not surprised. Then to come home and find that pseudo-massacre in her room and her sisters gone?

“Donny…he’s like this guy who gives me work every now and then.”

“The kind of work you can’t put on a resume?” Vito chimes in.

“Killing people,” I say.

She drags her hands through the air. “Killingbadpeople.” Her tone is sour, her lips twisting. “Which I’m really fucking good at. Just putting that on the record.”

“What would he want with your sisters?” Vito asks.

“Nyx didn’t do the job,” I say, glancing at Vito in the rearview mirror before locking eyes with Nyx again. “I assume he’s pissed about that.”

“Yeah.” Nyx drops her head, washes her hands over her face again. “I’m such a fucking idiot,” she mutters. “I thought they were safe. I mean, no one fucking knows about the motel.Noone”

She cuts off, looks up at me through her fingers. “But you did.”

Maybe if I hadn’t been so fucking drained myself, I might have caught her in time. But instead, she gets the drop on me. One second, she’s a few feet away, watching me through her fingers like we’re halfway through a game of peek-a-boo, then she’s on me, fingers around my throat, trying to strangle me.

“Should I stop?” Vito calls out, but not sounding too bothered with the fact that Nyx is trying to kill me. I’m too busy trying to breathe to answer him. All I can manage is a grunt.

I shove Nyx away, but she’s clinging onto me so tight, I end up going with her. We tumble into the footwell where I manage to get on top of her, but then she lands a blow to the side of my face.

Lights sparkle. I fall back with a muttered curse, clamping a hand over my aching jaw.

A second later she’s on me again, but this time I manage to grab her wrists and keep her clawing hands away from my face.

“It was you!” she yells, her body shuddering in my grip. “You fucking sold me out!”

“Nyx, calm—”

She spits in my face, and tries to head butt me.

Vito slams on the brakes, sending us both tumbling into the back of the seats in front of us. I lose my grip, but so does Nyx.

“You two behave, or I’m turning this car around!” Vito yells as he sticks his head over the back of his seat and glares at us. He points first at me, then at Nyx. “You idiots realize you’re both on the same side, right?”

Nyx makes an angry sound, but when I shove her away from me, she doesn’t resist. She ends up on her ass in the other footwell, glaring at me and rubbing the back of her head.

“Jesus,” Vito mutters, facing forward again and revving the SUV like we’re about to race a quarter-mile. “Swear you’re five years old.”

Nyx clambers onto the backseat with a wince, and then flops back and watches me as I extricate myself from the narrow footwell.

“I didn’t sell you out,” I tell her, flicking a hand that got crushed against one of the seat mechanisms. That’s gonna leave a fucking bruise.

“Then they followed you here,” she snaps.

I glare at her. “Someone tails us, we’ll know.”

She shows me her teeth, but it’s definitely not a smile. “Then what? Because Donny doesn’t fucking know where I stay.” She points at me. “You’re the only one who does.”

I shift my weight, letting out a long breath through my nose. “How long have you been doing this?”

“What?” She crosses her arms over her chest, making her breasts bulge against the front of her shirt. “Killing monsters?”

I watch her, waiting. It only takes a minute before she deflates and says, “Five years or so.”

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