Chapter 6 Dante
Desert Oasis (Middle East)
The side of my face burns, raw and taut, like leather left baking in the relentless sun, while my fingers tremble and clamp around the binoculars.
The desert air weighs heavily, pressing into my shoulders, constricting my throat.
Anxiety coils in my chest, hot and hollow, ready to tip me over the edge.
Minutes stretch and smear into hours; the SUV no longer feels like a vehicle, but a tomb where time has frozen, refusing to release me.
I draw a slow, deliberate breath through my nose, forcing a shard of control back into my lungs.
My free hand tugs at the hem of my black T-shirt, the sweat-drenched fabric clinging to me as if fused to my skin.
Even peeling it an inch away sends a shock of cold racing up my spine, goosebumps erupting along my arms. I close my eyes, wetting my parched lips with my tongue, silently wishing the chill would linger—a fleeting mercy in the desert’s merciless, sun-baked grip.
“It’s your own fault,” Estella murmurs, her voice soft and intimate, brushing against my ear.
I shift slightly, the binoculars still warm in my grip.
She shrugs, lips pressing thin before quirking at the corners—part scold, part tease—like I’m a child she can’t quite stop pitying.
“I don’t understand why you’re taking this so seriously. ”
“What?” I rasp, my voice cracking in the dry air.
I clear my throat, though it barely makes a difference—the silence between us has grown teeth, snapping at the edges of my patience.
She’s been watching me the entire time, still and quiet, offering no plan, and I can’t bring myself to speak first. Not after everything that happened a few days ago.
A storm of emotions tore through me, with shock leading the charge. The last mission had ripped open a truth I couldn’t deny: Estella was the killer—the shadow we’d trailed for months. Every other assassin whispered her name, feared her from afar, yet none had any clue who she really was.
A faceless shadow.
A local legend in death itself, her reputation stretching even to the highest ranks, sending ripples of fear through those who thought themselves untouchable.
I hadn’t been sure it was really her—until I saw the way she moved, the clothes she wore, and then watched her kill a pedophile through the surveillance cameras.
Only then did the pieces click, two plus two forming a picture I couldn’t unsee.
The Order trained her to perfection. She doesn’t follow a predictable pattern—she can’t—and that’s what makes each kill feel like a separate symphony of death. Yet beneath the chaos, there’s a signature, so distinct that it’s how I realized she was the one we’d been hunting.
She doesn’t just take them out one by one, slitting throats like some mechanical ritual.
No, for her, killing is a meticulously crafted ceremony.
She studies her victims, maps their weaknesses, and selects the perfect outfit for each mission, every choice deliberate, every move executed with precision.
I did my homework on that lawyer—a man whose life was polished to such an obscene sheen it almost hurt to look at.
The deeper you dig, the more layers you uncover: a dozen people working in concert, crafting the illusion of perfection.
Each detail, each nuance, leaving traces that, to someone like her—or me—reeked of cheapness beneath the glitter.
In reality, he was a sick fuck, and I won’t lie, watching her kill him made something inside me feel lighter. Something dark, quiet, almost reverent, stirred as I watched her deliver her version of justice.
But amid the shock of realizing that Estella was the assassin in question, another, stranger feeling cut through.
Impression.
I know how twisted that sounds, but I couldn’t stop feeling it. Every move she made—every careful, patient, calculated action—screamed skill and the relentless effort it takes to become an untraceable shadow. It’s no wonder even seasoned assassins fear her.
And yet, behind it all, lurking quietly at the edges of my mind, a different thought lingered, faint but persistent.
What could she have endured to become so irreparably broken?
I inhale, but the air feels stale, thick, and oppressive.
It presses against my skull until the edges of my vision waver, dizziness licking at me like heat rising off the sand.
This is my first real mission, and today I’m supposed to kill a billionaire oil magnate hosting a meeting in a lavish tented camp.
Simple instructions: kill him, leave no witnesses.
I’ve run through a dozen different scenarios, each more elaborate than the last, and I chose the one that will impress her.
At least, I fucking hope so.
Because so far, Estella has looked at me with nothing but skepticism, as if waiting for me to prove I’m not dead weight. I need her on my side if I want any chance of making this work.
Her finger glides along my arm, tracing a slow, idle circle that pulls me sharply out of my spiraling thoughts.
“I was talking about your clothes,” she says, voice soft but threaded with a scoff. “Why are you wearing a uniform?”
I glance down at my sweat-soaked shirt and cargo pants, shrugging—a motion that barely lifts past the weight pressing on my shoulders. “To be comfortable?”
She snorts, amused, incredulous. “Why?”
Good question.
A small smile tugs at my mouth as my gaze sweeps over her body in a slow, instinctive reconnaissance, taking in her face first, then the clean dip of her collarbone, and finally the effortless fall of her dress.
It’s light and stylish, clinging just enough to imply shape without ever trapping it.
The hood casts half her hair into shadow, huge black sunglasses sit on her nose like armor, and thin olive-colored gloves sheath her hands.
A loose brown belt rests at her waist, careless and perfect at the same time.
She looks so fucking good it almost startles me.
Shame needles through my chest as I glance down at myself, at the sweat-damp fabric clinging to my skin, at the mess I’ve become sitting beside her.
“It’s easy for you to talk,” I mutter. Her expression tightens, and even through those oversized lenses, I catch the ghost of a frown. “You’re a professional. You know what to do better.”
“I travel the globe and kill people,” she replies calmly. “I’d be damned if I didn’t look good doing it.”
A warm amusement ripples through me, and the flush climbs my neck. I fucking hate how reactive my skin is, but at least with the scorching sun pouring through the SUV’s roof, I can hide behind the heat.
“It doesn’t restrict your movements?” I ask. “You don’t ever get annoyed?”
“No. I feel perfectly fine.” Her eyes travel down and up my body in one slow, merciless sweep, a flicker of mockery sharpening her features. “You need to start worrying, Dante,” she adds, drawing out my name with deliberate precision. “If you want to actually survive in this field.”
I tilt my head, pretending her jab lands softer than it actually does. “I can’t figure out whether you like my name or not,” I say, nudging the subject sideways.
“What makes you think I care about your name?”
My lips press together, more heat curling in my chest. “You always emphasize it,” I say quietly. “I can’t tell whether you’re mocking me or savoring it, like you enjoy saying it.”
“Wow,” she drawls, shaking her head slowly. “You’re also so full of yourself. Which means you’re doomed.”
A sudden, fragile light sparks in my chest, and I immediately try to shove it aside, but it refuses to fade. Instead, it blooms, warmth spiraling through me and settling beneath my ribs, amplifying the oppressive heat pressing down from every side.
Any other day, I’d stop and examine the feeling, turn it over, figure out what the fuck it means. But right now, under this murderous sun, I can barely think straight.
“Whatever you say, boss,” I shoot back, my tone balancing between a joke and a provocation.
A sharp sting explodes across my shoulder. I jerk, hand flying up on instinct.
She just slapped me.
“You can joke when you’re home,” she begins, her voice flat, “with a fat stack of cash in your hands. Right now, I need you focused, because so far? I’m not impressed.”
For some reason, amusement flickers through me again, sharp and ill-timed, and I bite down on my lip to stop it from spreading. The woman beside me could kill me the moment I lose focus, and I can’t afford even a second of distraction.
I lift the binoculars again, sweeping the camp in the distance.
Evening seeps across the sky, the bright blue dissolving into dense, layered shadows.
Without the faint glow of the watch on my wrist, I wouldn’t even register the passage of time—the air here is heavy, thick enough to twist thoughts into loops, tangled and slow.
A truck rumbles up to the entrance, and before I can focus on it, Estella snatches the binoculars from my hands. She rips off her sunglasses with sharp impatience, squinting as she peers through the lenses.
“See all those water bottles?” I ask. “It took no effort to tail the van, distract the driver, and swap in bottles laced with a heavy dose of midazolam.”
She lowers the binoculars with slow, deliberate disdain, one eyebrow lifting into a perfectly calibrated scoff. The small, triumphant smile I’d felt rising dies instantly, crumbling before it ever reaches my mouth.
“Seriously?” she snaps, the second brow arching to meet the first. “You had all that time to plan, and this is your execution?” She lets the binoculars fall onto her lap with a theatrical sigh, the sound slicing through the thick desert air. “Did you at least handle the driver?”
“I did,” I admit, careful to keep my voice steady. I truly did—but not in the way she imagines.