Page 108 of Striker

It seems insane, but I get what he’s saying. I was supposed to be their target. They were supposed to be my captors, and instead they saved my best friend from a sick, cruel man. They manipulated my affection, yes, but they ended up earning my trust.

If someone took Cora, hurt her anyway, I’d want to kill them, too. Those first few days, I was too scared to be furious with them. Then, when I knew she was safe, I was just angry that we were apart.

But I understand now why they wanted to steal me, and hurt Rune by never giving me back. By turning me against him.

Now, the fact that they are going against whoever hired them to begin with means everything they’ve said is true.

They want me. Us.

They didn't want to force me. They wanted to earn me they way they did Cora.

I flash on Reaper’s dark glare. His hands on me edged with violence but turning tender at the strangest moments. He hated me that night in the club. He hated me when he took us.

But I didn’t feel that hate when he came barging into the room and I haven’t felt it since. I wonder at what point he stopped despising my existence. Maybe he never really did. Maybe none of them did.

“Breaker,” I whisper, looking over my shoulder and meeting his pale eyes.

I wish I could see his face. I cup his jaw, feeling the hard curve under his mask. The urge to lean in and kiss him until that dark expression leaves his ice-blue eyes makes me want to rip his mask off to I can taste his lips. But I don’t because I understand why he’s still wearing it.

I’m not ready to show him everything there is to know about me, either.

His hand lands on top of mine and I say the one thing I know will break away those shadows in his eyes, “I’m hungry.”

He leans back, gaze dropping to my mouth, and I swear, one day I’m going to see that smile under his mask and I know, deep in the pit of me, it’s going to shatter my heart.

“Then let’s get my pretty, Tiny Thing, something to eat.”

Chapter 42

Cora

Moonlight slants across theherb garden, making the frost on the mint leaves shine like crystalline stars. I pluck a half-dead leaf from the stem and bring it to my nose, crushing it to make the scent bloom between my fingers.

A light gust of wind sends a shiver through my shoulders. I tug Breaker’s black peacoat closed, and I’m glad he never took it back. He’s let me wear it every day since he first put it over my shoulders.

I think that small gesture solidified what I had already guessed. They took us, intending to keep us. But they were prepared to send me away, like all the threats of being owned by them, all the sweetness that bled out of them when they pretended to be mean, meant nothing.

Because of a fuckingorder.

While I understand being forced to do things you don’t want to, I can’t help the anger rippling through me now that my mind has settled.

Reaperwas going to send me back. The other men I know didn’t want to. I could tell by the way they acted when they told me. But Reaper was prepared to follow orders, knowing what I was returning to.

They’ve been saying this entire time, Rune is bad, evil, sick. I already know just how evil he is. Seems they know too, and it’s something worse than getting his kicks from hurting me. There’s something else. Something darker.

Heknew. And still…

God. What would Delly have done without me? She’d have lost her mind being here by herself.

And yet, he was still going to send me back and keep her.

He’s weirdly obsessed with her. All of them are, and I can’t wrap my head around why they’d send me, knowing she’d be so upset. I can’t help but think—part of me hates the thought—that they didn’t send me back solely because she’d be upset.

They took her, after all.

They wanted Delly. Not me.

I was just a bonus.

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