Chapter 47
My back pocket buzzes.
I freeze for half a second, then pull out the stolen phone and stare at it like it just grew teeth.
“I’ll be damned.”
I swipe it open.
Grim’s voice hits my ear immediately. “I’m calling about your car’s extended warranty.”
A laugh punches out of me, short and surprised. “You’re an asshole.”
“Alive asshole,” he says. “Which I’ll take as a win.”
I flip to the home screen and open the Guild app.
Tex’s face is… a mess.
I crouch, grab a fistful of his hair, and wrench his head out of the camel shit. One eye is swollen nearly shut. The other I pry open just enough and hold the phone close.
The app chimes.
Unlocked.
“Grim,” I say quietly. “Get in. Take everything. Files. Rosters. Dead drops. Contracts. Payment trails. I want every secret they ever buried.”
“Oh hell yes,” he says, practically vibrating. “That’s right, fools. The Guild is ours now. Well—yours. I can’t legally own anything until I’m eighteen.”
I glance up at the hotel grounds beyond the wreckage.
Perfectly manicured. Soft lighting. Flowing water. Cherry blossom trees shedding petals into carefully raked gravel.
Calm enough to be insulting.
“It’s not mine yet,” I murmur.
Pain flares hot along my side. I hiss, straighten, and spit blood onto the pavement.
“But give me a few minutes,” I add. “I’m about to fix that.”
I slide the phone back into my pocket and dig into the bottom of my book bag, fingers closing around cold metal. My last gun. I load the final clip with practiced ease, lift my shirt, and tuck it against my lower back.
Then I step into the gardens.
The contrast is almost surreal.
Behind me, smoke claws at the sky and sirens wail through the night. Ahead, water trickles softly over stone. Lanterns glow low and warm. Cherry blossoms drift down in lazy spirals, catching in my hair, sticking to the blood on my skin.
The stillness feels staged.
Designed.
Like a set built for something ceremonial.
I move deeper, boots silent on the gravel path, senses stretched tight. Somewhere ahead, someone is breathing easily. Waiting.
A man stands near the water.
Back to me.
Dark hair. Straight posture. Hands clasped loosely behind him like he’s admiring the view instead of standing at the end of a very long mistake. He’s tall. Broad-shouldered. Calm in a way that used to make me feel safe.
Someone I trusted.
Someone I shouldn’t have.
He turns at the sound of my footsteps.
Strong jaw. Familiar face. That gentle smile that used to mean everything was under control. He inclines his head in a small, respectful bow.
I return it without thinking.
The habit lands like a bruise.
“Kenji,” I say softly.
The night seems to hold its breath.
Kenji doesn’t rush to fill the silence. He lets it stretch, savoring the moment the way men like him always do. The gardens glow softly around us, water murmuring over stone, petals drifting lazily through the air like nothing in the world is about to break.
“You always did have a talent for making an entrance,” he says at last. Calm. Almost fond. “I wondered how long it would take you to put the pieces together.”
“I didn’t come for conversation,” I reply. “I came for answers.”
His smile deepens. “And you deserve them. You earned that much.”
“It would be rude to spill all the secrets before everyone is here.” I shift my weight, keeping my hands loose at my sides. “Let’s bring out your partner, shall we?”
Something flickers in his eyes. Not fear. Surprise.
I tilt my head toward the shadows beyond the lantern light. “Alejandro?”
The name hangs there before footsteps emerge from the dark.
Slow and unhurried.
He steps into the light with his hands in his pockets, posture easy, expression unreadable. The sight of him lands wrong in my chest, sharp and sour all at once.
Kenji chuckles, genuinely amused. “Well. Isn’t that something.”
He looks between us, reassessing. “I’ll give you this, Saint. You never were predictable.”
“Now that we’re all here,” I say, “let’s introduce everyone properly.”
My gaze returns to Kenji first. “The Guildmaster, I presume?”
He spreads his hands and bows, elegant and practiced. “At your service. Though I suppose introductions are a bit late for that.”
I turn to Alejandro.
The smirk that curves my mouth isn’t fond. It isn’t amused.
It’s disgust.
“Then I suppose that makes you El Fantasma.”
He doesn’t react.
He doesn’t need to.
I already know.
“Saint,” he says instead, like it’s a greeting and not a verdict.
He slides his hand out of his pocket and tosses something toward me.
I catch it without thinking.
A blue marble.
I snort and laugh, sharp and humorless. “You can keep it.” I toss it back. “I’ve got one of my own. And you’re a lousy shot.”
He still doesn’t move.
“Let’s see if I’m any better.”
I draw.
The motion is smooth, practiced, inevitable. The shot cracks through the garden, loud and obscene in the quiet.
Alejandro spins as the bullet hits him, surprise finally breaking through his composure. He slams into the stone bench just behind him, then the path, the sound ugly and final.
He doesn’t move.
My arm swings back to Kenji, gun steady, sight lined perfectly with his head.
The petals keep falling.
The water keeps flowing.
Kenji studies me the way he always has, like he’s already ten moves ahead and mildly disappointed I haven’t caught up yet. The gardens remain perfect. Lantern light. Cherry blossoms drifting. A koi breaks the surface and disappears again, blissfully ignorant.
He thinks this is still his room.
“Why?” I ask.
He tilts his head. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“All of it.” I gesture vaguely at the ruined skyline behind us, the blood, the bodies, the fact that we’re standing here pretending this is civilized. “If we’re about to have a final showdown and only one of us is walking away, what’s the harm in a little reveal?”
He considers that, then nods once. “Very well.”
He clasps his hands behind his back and motions with his head. “Let’s walk.”
I don’t move.
“And put your gun away,” he adds lightly. “It’s disrespectful.”
I hold his gaze for a beat longer than necessary, then slide the gun back into my pocket. Not because he asked. Because I want my hands free.
He starts along the koi pond at an unhurried pace. I fall in beside him, a careful distance between us. Close enough to hear him breathe. Far enough to kill him if I have to.
He sighs. “I’m disappointed in you, Saint.”
“Get in line.”
A faint smile. “It was supposed to be you here with me at the end. Not Tex. Not like this. But… you know what I mean.”
“I really don’t.”
“You had to go and develop a heart.” He clicks his tongue softly. “I tried very hard not to teach you that. Perhaps you can’t help it, being a woman.”
I snort. “Perhaps it’s just because I’m not a fucking dickhead.”
He chuckles, amused on the surface. I know better. He files the insult away, sharp and precise, for later.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he continues calmly, “the necessity of this power balance. Someone has to control the superpowers of the world. Checks and balances.”
“Oh,” I say. “So this is supposed to be some heroic act for all of mankind?”
“There will always be someone sitting at the top, Saint.”
He stops walking and turns to face me.
I don’t slow. I stop with him. “I’m going to make sure it’s not you.”
His eyes warm, almost fond. “Your confidence was always one of your best traits.”
“And my worst?” I ask.
He turns and resumes walking.
I follow.
“So you’ve been selling the Guild,” I say. “Trading power. Killing for profit and influence. Starting wars so you can be the elite asshole sitting at the top of the pyramid.”
“Essentially.”
“And this?” I sweep a hand around us. “Why all this?”
He exhales, pleased. “It’s time to rebuild the Guild. Launch it fresh. A new creed. New mindsets. The old oaths are limiting. They put the Guild beneath those with power over the contracts.”
He looks at me and smiles.
“I’m changing that.”
My stomach tightens.
“And you helped me do it.”
I stop again. “How so?”
He doesn’t.
“You killed every assassin who would have been a problem,” he says easily. “The ones who wouldn’t bend to the new Guild.”
The words land like a dropped blade.
All those bodies. All that blood. The last few days of staying alive by inches.
I had been doing his work for him.
“It’s simple,” Kenji continues, almost conversational.
“Everything needs to be rebalanced. A world war would accomplish that. Killing the presidential hopeful puts someone I control into power. Once America does what it does best—bullies the world into a third war—the Guild will bring it to an end.”
He glances at me. “Eventually. For the right price.”
I feel something cold settle behind my ribs.
“New assassins,” he says. “Ones who understand how the world actually works now. The superpowers indebted to us. Under our thumb.”
He pauses.
“Though I had hoped you’d be dead by now.”
“Why frame me for this?” I ask quietly.
“You would never bend a knee to the new creed,” he replies. “And I needed to clean out the narrow-minded. I assumed Tex would take you out in the chaos.” A faint sigh. “I always did put too much stock in his capabilities.”
He turns to me then, extending his hand. His other remains in his pocket, and I hear it—the soft clink of marbles rolling together. A habit. Always has been.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, “I wanted it to be you. I hope that boy’s life was worth yours.”
I look at his hand.
I don’t take it.
“The poison,” I say. “Your berries.”
He laughs softly through his nose. “Of course.”
“And how did you keep track of me for so long?”
He lowers his hand and slips it into his other pocket. “The tea I served you when you came to me for help. Same micro-trackers as the ones in your sigil. Dissolved. Elegant.”
He meets my eyes. “I never lost sight of you, Saint.”
He turns away.
Takes one step. Then another.
“It’s time we part ways.”
“I agree.”
He stops and turns back, posture shifting. Formal. Familiar. The stance he drilled into me until it lived in my bones.
“Despite it all,” he says evenly, “it was my honor to mentor you.”
I mirror him without thinking.
“All you did was teach me how to kill you.”
Something dark slides into his expression, erasing the warmth. The calculation sharpens into something lethal.
“Well,” he says, settling into a fighting stance.
“Let’s see if the student can finally best her teacher.”