Afterward
Tête de Chien, France—Dusk, the Evening After the Gala Disaster in Monaco
The wind claws at my coat as I stare down from the edge of the limestone cliff. The lights of Monaco blink through the mist as dusk drags in the unwilling night, the last vestiges of the sunset swallowed up by the dark sky.
Those people down there are living life like normal, totally unaware of the dangers around them.
The sheer evil in this world.
The weathered stones crunch beneath my boots as I check my watch.
Ren is late. Which can mean he’s careful or something’s wrong.
Judging from what happened last night at the gala, how Bree barely escaped with her life, it could be either.
A twig snaps behind me. I draw my gun and cock it in a matter of seconds.
Whipping around, I aim at the intruder. My pulse pounds in my ears.
Ren, the bastard, stands before me, dressed in all black, his black hair draping over the black mask he has on.
The man rarely shows his face.
“You’re losing your touch,” I murmur as the wind kicks up. “I heard you coming.”
His lips, one of the two features showing on his face, curl into a slight smile. He signs with his hands because besides not liking to show his face, the man also doesn’t speak.
“What made you think I was trying to hide? Maybe the sound was to alert you to my presence and to let you know you’re losing your touch.”
“Asshole,” I mutter, putting my gun back into my holster.
He’s been with me since the beginning and is part of our team of equals, united by one purpose.
To end The Association.
“Is she safe?”
He cocks his brow, and I don’t explain because he doesn’t need to know. But Ren is smart. He knows I’m not talking about Bree, who he personally delivered to a safe house last night.
He knows I’m talking about her.
Lana.
Dark brown hair. Mischievous smile. Gray eyes blazing with hatred when they meet mine.
She didn’t use to look at me that way.
Too bad she doesn’t know who you really are. And she’ll never know.
Ren signs, “Rattled but safe. I trailed her back to the cruise after the gala.”
I nod. “Make sure the paparazzi don’t bother her. If they come a foot near her, cut off their hands.”
The damn bastard arches his brow again and I get annoyed.
“Seriously, if you want to wear a mask, get one that covers your entire damn face. I don’t need your judgment. Any more of it and I’ll personally carve your brows off.”
The grin makes a reappearance, and madness reflects in his eyes—the same madness I have inside me.
This is what years of killing will do to you—make you laugh at the most morbid jokes.
Exhaling sharply, I clench my fists and finally ask the question I’ve been waiting to ask my entire life.
“Do you have it?”
He nods and pulls a laptop from his messenger bag. He powers it up, and the blue light slices through the darkness like a knife.
Then he hands it to me.
My hands tremble. I bite my tongue to distract myself with the pain and the metallic taste of blood.
Years—fifteen fucking years.
I’ve waited for this moment for that long.
Bree’s blood unlocked a drive to a ledger holding the next clue to my search for the identity of the man who killed my parents and little Beatrice. The man who made my sister Sofia and me orphans.
The man who destroyed our lives.
The name burns into my memory, and violence teems in my blood.
But I don’t let it out. Not yet.
A bitter smile curves my lips as I snap the laptop shut.
“Let’s go wreak some havoc, shall we, Ren?”
They will all die a painful death.
Vengeance will be mine.
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