Page 1 of Desperate Actions

Prologue-Sammy

They say the pain of losing a limb is nothing in the moment when compared to the pain of its ghost.

It’s called having a phantom limb.

Now, I don’t know what gives people with all their fucking parts the right to make such statements, but it doesn’t seem to stop them.

I guess I’m a hypocrite because I am one of them.

See, my body might be whole, but there’s a part of me that’s been missing, maybe since the day I was born.

A wound I can’t see, can’t stitch up, can’t bandage.

And just like a phantom limb, that missing piece has haunted me for most of my life.

But I never realized what it was—whatshewas—until the summer she turned sixteen.

Aella Fury.

Her name alone sounds like the whisper of a storm, and Jesus, did she ever hit me like one.

Her sweet sixteen party was one of those extravagant, Gatsby-level affairs—chandeliers dripping with crystal, gold-rimmed champagne flutes, a live orchestra playing under the stars.

The kind of party that only serious money can throw.

The kind where everyone sips, smiles, and pretends there aren’t bodies buried in the family name.

I have no problem with that.

How could I when I was a Volkov for all intents and purposes?

Vipers and Wolves.

That’s what we are.

And I never felt more like a Wolf than I did the day she turned sixteen.

I can still see her on that day in my mind’s eye.

Her pale green dress was so pretty and fresh, fluttering around her soft, youthful body.

The color made her unusually light eyes glow like fireflies in the dark.

Aella Fury.

Untouchable, ethereal, andminein some unspoken way I had no right to claim.

When I took a turn with her around the dance floor, I knew I was in trouble.

So I did the only thing I could.

I left town the next morning.

Packed a bag,enlisted, and threw myself into the kind of violence that carves a man hollow.

I spent seven years overseas, getting good at killing, getting worse at feeling.

MARSOC—the Marine Forces Special Operations Command—turned me into a weapon, honed to precision, sharpened with blood.

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