CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
AXEL
“And why would Keller be the object of such?” Zara’s face is devoid of her usual rosy coloring, a hint of panic creeping through her polished mask.
Much of that is due to the death sentence her father likely just delivered to her, but some of it is because she doesn’t believe I want her.
She’s obviously not absorbing how she’s infected me.
I can’t fault her for that. Between all the pressure on our unlikely union, death hovering outside the door, and of course, my own reluctance to commit to someone—especially a woman so young, who deserves so much more—I haven’t been forthright with my feelings.
I’m still not sold on claiming her because I’m not confident she’d pass the loyalty test, but I’m convinced I can’t live without her, so that’s a problem we need to solve.
As it is, the only thing that’s been keeping me sane has been following her on the security cameras—catching glimpses of her laughing or confidently navigating a conversation with an employee or member she was likely trying to extract intel from.
She’s enchanting. A perplexing blend of warmth and glacial determination.
Even on this duplicitous mission, she’s authentically compassionate in her interactions.
I haven’t been able to take my eyes off her, searching for the smallest of gestures.
The way she subtly plays with her hair when she thinks no one is watching, or her inability to stay out of the libraries no matter how busy her day is, or how she wrinkles her adorable celestial nose when she’s translating—her mind somewhere far away as her polyglot reasoning is put to work.
I’ve turned into a stalker. Like fucking Ryker.
Speaking of the obsessed man, his attention ping-pongs between Zara and me with rapt interest. Maddox and Cash are seconds away from bursting into hysteria. And Jax soaks it all in, somehow looking both anxious and content.
I spin my watch, feigning disinterest in this discussion—for their benefit and hers—as I explain myself, something I rarely do.
“He hurt and manipulated someone I care about, so he earned being torn limb from limb for that alone. He was shown far more mercy than he deserved, if that’s your concern. ”
“Someone you care about?” Her gorgeous green eyes drift around the room, gauging how my brothers react to that.
They give her nothing. Not outside their sheer amusement. This is a tennis match for them, so their interest lies with who has the next serve, which is me.
“That’s what I said. Is there a question in there, Zara?”
She nearly knocked me over with that crawling stunt she pulled earlier.
It was brilliant and bratty and had me instantly hard in the middle of my resort.
I wanted to ignore everyone and take her right there, to spank her ass in front of the whole goddamn city and shout that she was mine.
It wouldn’t have even been a punishment because the flush on her cheeks made it clear she’d enjoy it as much as I would.
So, while I intend to devote all the tender reassurance she needs, I’m going to play for a minute.
Taking a gold coin out of my pocket, I twirl it on the table, like a top. Her lips pop open with either levity or indignation.
“Since you don’t seem to have a question, I’ll go.” I pause for the coin’s whirring to morph into a purling and eventually to a rattle as it peters out. “Do you trust me?”
She crosses her arms, still standing at the other end of the table for our boardroom war. “You destroyed my career. No one will hire me after this, which is only one of the many issues I’m facing because of your hasty actions. Why would I trust you?”
Her father informed her about the order of protection, and he’s pissed. Good. He should have killed that asshole ten years ago.
I’d been waiting for them to speak, assuming it would be him who delivered the blow.
That was suspected when I heard a bit of emotion seeping into her tone, but confirmed when she called him Tato—Dad in Ukrainian.
I’m not fluent in as many languages as Zara, but I have pieces of well over a dozen to pull from.
And I’d been watching, worried. I didn’t listen until she snuck into the pool area and pulled out her burner, and even then, I only understood tidbits.
This wasn’t about invading her privacy—something I won’t make a habit of.
I expected this to be painful, and I detest seeing her in pain, but there’s a bigger picture she doesn’t have.
She asked me to find a solution, and I did. Her client might still be threatening to neutralize her, but now they know it means war.
“Nothing I do is hasty. I didn’t destroy your career. You can complete jobs for anyone I do business with. That’s arguably a far larger pool to gain clients from than your father has access to. If anything, you’ve been granted a promotion.”
We’ve never discussed his training camp, but she’s realizing I know that too.
I don’t want her to be intimidated, but I do want her to understand that there is no one I can’t go up against. And for her, that will include anyone in existence.
We’ll take on the world if we must, as soon as I know she’s in. But it will be treacherous.
“My brothers and I have been discussing a greater promotion for you too. We will need a president of operations for our satellite facilities, someone to devise the full conception of those sites, someone who understands our clientele.”
She battles her curiosity about my offer and instead scoffs, her eyes glazed with righteous fury. “You’ve turned me into a double agent against my will.”
“Against your will is debatable.” I shrug one shoulder and remove my glasses. “You never answered my question. Do you trust me?”
Her well-crafted, impervious veneer begins to crack—wrath and fear and deeper wounds seeping through.
She shakes her head in despondency. “After you brutally murdered my ex from a decade ago? And your reasoning is vengeance, which makes no sense. I was the one he did it to, and, yes, I resented him. But he actually made it out. Why go after him?”
She’s upset because his death represents what all assassins must accept—that their sins always come for them. Despite her hatred, his peaceful life was a symbol of hope.
I didn’t factor that in. It nearly has me insisting that she climb onto my lap, but we aren’t there yet.
“I’m not like your father, Zara—be that good or bad.
Caring about someone or loving them …” I stall there, holding her gaze, but then I amend the insinuation so I don’t scare her off or inadvertently use my feelings to manipulate her.
“Like I do my family. That’s why I do everything.
And anyone who fucks with the people under my care—regardless of what they’ve done—will be burned to ash. ”
That’s my life story in a nutshell, and even if she missed the relevance to my father’s death at first, the solemnness that has fallen over my brothers should drive it home. I did it for them. I’ll do it for her.
This is what sets her apart from other assassins. That’s what I need her to see. I bring an insurmountable danger to her life with my KORT seat, but I will lay mine down for hers. With any luck, they’ll cancel each other out.
But aside from me, she’ll have my family. How could we not come out ahead? That was what I was hoping she’d sense during breakfast with them yesterday. I couldn’t be with her, but they could. She never has to be alone again.
“It’s intense,” I acknowledge, mindful that a relationship with me still isn’t ideal. “Being the object of my … care is probably more of a burden than a gift, but it’s who I am.”
“Valid,” Maddox quips with a flick of his butterfly knife.
Cash throws up his hands in surrender. “I made five hundred grand with a few text messages to Papa Axe, so I’m going with gift.”
“Two fifty,” Maddox corrects him with a menacing glower.
Ryker casts them a stern warning while shuffling his dice in his palm.
But when Jax starts to squabble about how he should get a cut, I know we’re going to spiral quickly into jackass territory.
It’s likely by design. Their way of cushioning all of this in warmth, but we need to proceed.
Zara deduces that, too, her lips warring with her glee over their antics, but she knows precisely how to quiet them.
“So, you’re crazy.” She’s all fierce green eyes and wild mahogany hair with that proclamation, utter exhaustion and unwavering fortitude.
Even defeated, she’s so radiant. Regal. It almost hurts to look at her.
My brothers laugh and sling some quippy barbs about her assessment, but it all fades into a cacophony of background hubbub, sound effects for the lines that will mold our story.
And that is how it will always be. I’m doing this in front of them because she’s accustomed to clinging to shadows, but if she is to be mine, she’ll need to exude her darkness in the spotlight. So, I don’t hold back.
“When it comes to you, my little Thorn, it would seem I’m a fucking lunatic.” I hold up the coin between my fingers—her safe word. Her out. “You should take any chance you have to leave this all behind.”
She stares at it, her chest heaving, her racing thoughts skulking around her—like a thief in the night, prepared to steal everything I never believed I deserved, but can’t fathom surviving without.
And the conference room, the resort, the whole goddamn earth waits on bated breath through her silent deliberation.
I like that she’s giving this serious consideration, but I’m impatient, so that doesn’t prevent me from taunting.
“It’s rare. A 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle.
It was never released into circulation because President Roosevelt recalled gold.
Most were melted. Some escaped, becoming the object of legal battles.
And now? This one is worth about thirty-six of Cash’s text messages—eighteen million, last I checked. Enough to provide a great escape.”
Tossing it in the air, I catch it in my palm, letting it capture the diffused light from the dreary skyline and tempt the greediness inside all of us. “Would you like to use it, Zara? All you have to do is ask.”
Ryker doesn’t understand the safe-word correlation, but he does grasp that I’m assessing where her head is at, that this is as necessary as all the other steps I’ll be taking to guide us through this harrowing nightmare.
So, he sweetens the deal. “If there were ever a time to take that offer, it would be now. While the exit in the South Tower, near the overflow parking lot, is unmanned and the best eraser we know will be waiting there in thirty minutes.”
None of that is planned, but it is doable with a few simple texts.
And while a part of me hates him for giving her such a complete road map out of here, the rest of me knows it’s vital.
We have to conduct our own tests to evaluate whether there’s any chance of her passing more wretched ones.
Not that this comes close to what she could expect with KORT.
Jax stares at her with an expression that is composed of compassion but borders on maniacal. “Staying provides a greater return.”
Since he understands our need to test her, it’s unclear why he added that. Maybe for my benefit or Zara’s or his. We’d all suffer if she chose to brave an ill-fated future on her own rather than facing it with us as her army.
Either way, she fights for her life. Since she’s been abandoned by her family, we are the only thing she’ll give up by assuming a new identity.
Her shallow breaths rip through me, rougher than the breeze that expedited the flames on my childhood home, when I realized that by killing a monster, I robbed the world of light—a beautiful, flawed, yet angelic light, who sang and danced and smiled for the souls she loved, even when it hurt.
So, while there is a ceaseless urge to outfit Zara with a collar and leash—to chain her to me for all time—I won’t do it unless she offers that power to me. Even knowing that if she chooses to snatch the coin, that unused leash will become my noose.
My brothers recognize this. Their typical, flippant humor is yoked to our simpler exchanges. They see what I tried so hard to overlook—that she came to conquer something at La Lune Noire, and whether or not I was her intended mark, she succeeded. I’m utterly entranced.
She licks her bottom lip, relaxes her shoulders, and exhales tranquility—which washes over me from the other side of the room. “No thank you, Mr. Noire. I would have no use for it.”
Thank fuck.
“Leave us,” I order my brothers, and all of them stand and chuckle and hug Zara on their way out.
Until we’re finally alone.
And it isn’t red or black or green or a lucky number that will determine the trajectory of our path.
It’s three harried heartbeats.
Three tattered breaths.
Three seconds when all the unspoken between us becomes more than I can bear.