Epilogue The Hellcat
Back at the hospital, after The Antihero Syndicate leaves Ren’s room
I watch for a second longer as Aria beams at Ren, who looks wonder-struck at the woman in his arms. The happy couple laugh before Ren pulls her back against his chest, a content smile on his face. Like there’s no place in the world he’d rather be, even injured in a hospital bed.
My chest tightens as I pull out my wallet again and flip it open.
My fingers graze her soft smile. Kind eyes. Then little Summer, cradled in her arms, all rolls and giggles.
Grief lingers.
It rises and recedes like the tide.
It’s been five years now. I’ve forgotten exactly how Allie smells.
The specific flower combo of her fragrance.
Or the precise cadence of her voice. I’m starting to forget how tightly Summer would grip my finger.
How her bubbly laughter would hit me in the heart when I blew raspberries onto her belly.
But one thing remains—the fire burning inside me.
Until I can only see, hear, smell, and taste one thing.
Revenge.
Snapping my wallet shut, I fist it in my grip and stalk down the hallway, not wanting to return to the office yet, to the bureaucratic bullshit and paperwork.
To the very people colluding with The Association—the bastards I’ll wipe from the face of the earth before I die.
Acrid antiseptic stings my nose. Someone cries in the distance. Nurses laugh behind a counter as someone delivers flowers. The beeping. The chaos. The bright fluorescent lights.
I barely pay attention to any of them as I keep walking, not knowing where I’m going, just knowing if I stop, I’ll go insane.
It’s not until the surroundings change—babies crying, pink and blue decorations on the walls—that I realize where I am.
The maternity ward.
An image hits me from a long time ago.
The doctor had just handed me a shrieking Summer—all red face and waving fists—and congratulated me on a healthy daughter.
Allie looked drowsy then, her smile sweet as she stared at us.
Tears had filled my eyes when an unknown barrage of love slammed into me with the force of a sledgehammer.
In that moment, I vowed to protect them as long as I lived.
My steps slow as my head spins. But I keep walking. Forward. One step at a time.
My job’s not done.
The bastards are still alive.
Sounds blur together as if I’m underwater.
Then I stop.
Because before me is a silhouette I recognize. Someone I shouldn’t notice, but do anyway.
Someone who gets under my skin too easily.
Brown hair so dark it’s almost black cascades over her tan sweater dress, which clings to curves made to ruin men. Her ink-tipped nails click against the wall of glass. Those ruby-red lips part, a half-smile warming her normally cold face.
I don’t know why I don’t make my presence known.
I don’t understand why seeing her has chased the monsters in my mind away.
But I stand there, staring.
Telling myself I’m observing the femme fatale of The Antihero Syndicate because she’s been linked to the deaths of many men over the years.
Horrible men, but still.
Sofia taps her index finger on the window. Her lips stretch into a wider smile.
I peer through the glass wall.
She’s looking at babies. I’m standing in front of the nursery.
A baby chortles, and Sofia laughs, that sultry, raspy voice sending shivers across my body.
Then the smile vanishes.
Those startling green eyes she shares with her older brother Elias dim too.
She swallows, her slender throat rippling as she trembles, her hand clutching the spot over her heart.
“You okay?” My voice is rough.
I don’t know why I’m talking to her, the woman who drives me insane.
From the sharp glare she sends my way, the sentiment is returned.
“None of your business, fed.” Her lips curl into a snarl.
“You always this charming in maternity wards?”
“Saving the best for the best.” She smirks.
My fingers twitch. “The best, huh? Didn’t know I ranked that high.”
“At being a rule-following prick who waves a badge like he’s holier than thou.”
“A hellcat in a nursery, who knew?” My feet move before I realize, drawn to her. “Feels like a black widow in a cradle room. What is it? Need newborn energy to supercharge your venom?”
Her eyes flash and nostrils flare.
The hatred in them is so beguiling, it hooks under my skin.
Black widows kill. Don’t bite me until I get my revenge.
“Do you have a death wish, Tristan?” she whispers. “Because I know three hundred and sixteen types of poison that can kill you in less than ten minutes. And I can make it look like an accident.”
I shrink the remaining distance between us.
Her pupils widen. I don’t miss the thorough sweep of her eyes down my face, to my fitted black suit and tie. She exhales, the motion sending a lock of dark hair across her eyes.
“Is that a confession, Sofia?”
Slowly, I drag the tip of my finger across her face, flicking her hair away.
Her chest moves—a sharp inhale—and I ignore the satisfaction flickering through me.
“In your fucking dreams,” she hisses.
I press in. Get into her personal space because it’ll drive her mad.
Then I lean down and whisper, “That’s where you’re mistaken. I don’t get dreams.”
Unable to help myself, I inhale.
Gardenias. Sweet, motherfucking gardenias. But there’s something more.
A kick of spice.
Heat pulls low.
I step back.
“Nightmares are my friends,” I say to her. “So you can’t scare me.”
“Oh, yeah?” A new smile flashes across her face. This one I recognize. The seductress.
I stiffen as she saunters up to me, hips swaying, head tilted, baring her neck like she’s pretending to be vulnerable.
“I don’t scare anyone, Tristan. I find secrets. Then I act on them.” Sofia trails her claws up the lapels of my suit. “And you are full of them. Now what will the FBI think about your little relationship with The Syndicate?”
She slides her palm over my shirt, deliberate and taunting.
“It’s Special Agent Clarke. And they know I’m investigating you guys.”
I clench my hands at my sides, suppressing an absurd impulse that can’t be named.
“Really? I think we’re past ‘investigating.’” She adjusts my tie now. Like a doting wife. “More like sleeping with the enemy. Aiding and abetting.”
The hellcat bites her blood-red lip, her lush green eyes snaring mine the way the serpent did in Eve’s garden. “And I have evidence. Recordings. It’ll be so easy to put you away. But I won’t…because I want to unravel your secrets, Tristan Clarke. What are those nightmares of yours?”
“So you can twist me up? Own me like you own other men?” I press closer. Not quite touching. A hair’s breadth away. “Then when I least suspect it, you’ll plunge the dagger into my heart?”
Time shifts, freezing in the way it shouldn’t.
Every inch of me is buzzing like a downed power line in a thunderstorm.
I drag my gaze away from those plump, intoxicating lips, tell myself not to think about how they might taste.
Unexpectedly sweet or devastatingly spicy.
Then I lock onto her iridescent eyes.
Eyes screaming bloody murder.
Her expression changes. Lashes lowered, smile soft, her entire demeanor morphs from killer to a vulnerable woman.
I flinch at the whiplash.
Until she laughs, then winks. “I don’t need to wait for a moment. I can create my own.”
Sofia nods at what I finally notice is a sharpness pressed against my chest.
I glance down, finding a knife pointed straight at my heart.
“Until the next round, Special Agent Clarke.” She sheathes her knife, pivots, then strolls down the hallway like she owns it, disappearing from view.
The blood roars in my ears.
I find myself whispering, “Next round, Sofia. I won’t let you go so easily.”