Page 51 of Inescapable Darkness

“Please, Hunter. I’m begging you.”

“For what?”

“Mercy.”

Rico only stares him down in silence.

“Please. I’m begging for mercy for my brother.”

Behind the camera, Kaden’s smile widens.

After another few seconds of silence, Rico turns to me. “Did he cut you? With the knife? Did he hurt you?”

Across the warm asphalt, Mikhail’s blue eyes shift to me. We both know that he did. But I can feel him silently imploring me not to say anything. I hold his gaze for a second before looking up at Rico again.

“No,” I lie.

“Good.” He turns back to Mikhail. “Lucky you. I was just about to ask Kaden to carve a pound of flesh from your body in retribution, but it seems you’ll be spared that now.”

Mikhail’s eyes flick to me for just a fraction of a second. And I know that I have just bought myself a truce with the Petrovs. Regardless of what happens in their war with the Hunters, they won’t come after me again. Because Mikhail owes me now.

And thank fuck for that. I have enough enemies as it is.

“But know this,” Rico continues. “If you ever come after Isabella again, I will fucking kill you.”

He puts a little more pressure on Anton’s elbow, making him cry out in pain, as if to really drive the point home.

Despite the raw violence of it all, it makes warmth spread through my stomach.

Part of it is purely sexual heat because of how fucking hot Rico is when he goes all mafia prince and makes his enemies kneel and beg for mercy.

But the rest of it is another kind of warmth. Something unfamiliar. And it comes from realizing that someone just had my back.

I’ve taken part in multiple group assassinations, of course. Like the one we did the night I should have killed Rico. But if shit hits the fan, it’s every man for himself. No one in the Hands of Peace would even consider staying and helping someone else if they were surrounded and outnumbered. Either you’re competent enough to survive on your own, or you die. There is no backup. No comrades-in-arms. Only a mission that needs to be executed at all costs.

But here, Rico and Jace and Kaden came to help me. To back me up. They didn’t need to. It certainly didn’t serve their interests to save me before I could incriminate myself by beating up the Petrovs with skills I’m not supposed to possess. But they did it anyway.

They had my back anyway.

And I’m not sure what to do with that information.

20

RICO

Once the two Petrov brothers have at last gotten the hell out of my sight, I turn to Kaden and Jace. “I’ll meet you back at the house.”

They cast a glance towards Isabella before giving me a nod. Then they start back around the building towards where we left our cars. I don’t watch them leave. Instead, my eyes go straight to Isabella.

She is still sitting on the ground in the empty parking space between two cars. There’s a red mark on her jaw where I assume someone hit her, but apart from that, she appears to be unharmed.

The expression on her face says differently, though. She looks… shocked.

Or that’s the best description I can come up with, at least. She’s just sitting there, staring at the spots where Mikhail and Anton Petrov were kneeling before we allowed them to leave. And there is this strange, stunned expression on her face.

For a moment, that kernel of doubt about her flickers to life again. If she truly was the assassin from that night, she wouldn’t get shellshocked by an ambush like this.

I stamp out that flicker of doubt again. It must be due to something else.

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