chapter 18
Avira
“Mama, you are the best cook.” I pause for a second, then add, “Along with Aunt Pheny, Ma and Wendy.”
I stuff my mouth with pasta, chewing happily.
“Is it important to know cooking to become a good wife?” I ask after gulping it down.
Mama and Daddy laugh. Zoan, however, answers calmly, “It’s good to know cooking as a life skill.”
Yeah, like a thousand other things, this man knows how to cook.
If only he were a normal man with knowledge in just a few areas, I’d feel a lot less insecure.
But no, he’s Zloban who knows too much, about everything.
Which means I get to feel insecure about all those smart women he works with.
Why would he want someone like me as a wife—someone who only knows how to write books—when he could have a woman with expertise in ten different fields, all useful to him?
The thought gnaws at me. I’m even starting to doubt whether he has feelings for me at all.
For the past week, I’ve been getting into his bed at night and hugging him in my sleep, but he hasn’t even lifted a finger to touch me back.
After that night, he started keeping his door unlocked so I could enter without climbing balconies like a thief.
And I do, right after Mama and Daddy lock their door.
The best thing about having parents completely obsessed with each other is that they don’t have time for the world once the sun sets, and for long hours after it rises.
I glare at Zoan while shoveling more pasta into my mouth, but he doesn’t notice me.
It’s confirmed that he doesn’t see me as his sister.
But that doesn’t mean he sees me as anything else either.
Most likely, he just treats me as a responsibility.
Or maybe he simply has affection for me, because why wouldn’t he?
He respects Mama and Daddy, so of course, he’d have affection for their daughter.
I sigh silently. My overthinking brain is never a good place to linger.
Daddy speaks, his tone unusually serious. “Avi, we need to discuss something with you.”
“About what?” I ask.
He rises from his chair. “First, finish your dinner. Then come to the sitting room.”
He and Zoan leave the table. I turn toward Mama. “What is this about?”
She frowns slightly. “I have no idea,” she says, and that’s rare.
“I used to think you lived inside Daddy’s stomach.”
She gives me a light slap on the head.
After dinner, Mama and I walk into the sitting room. Daddy and Zoan are already seated on the main couch, a glass panel is hovering in front of them, projecting images into the air. The glow from the screen reflects off Zoan’s unreadable profile, turning him into something more statue than man.
“What’s it, Daddy?”
“You know, pumpkin,” he begins, “these days if you marry someone before turning twenty, it’s considered first grade. Wait too long, and you end up dangling with second-grade stuff.”
I tilt my head. “Are you, by chance, suggesting that I get married?”
He nods.
My eyes flick to Zoan. His face remains carved in stone—nothing new, yet tonight it cuts sharper.
“And how am I supposed to find this… first-grade stuff?”
“You can go on blind dates.”
Again, I glance at Zoan. Is he really fine with this arrangement?
Daddy adjusts the projection, turning it toward me. “Zo selected some nice men for you. Take a look.”
My heart plummets, splintering into pieces I can barely hold together.
He selected men for me. He wants me to marry someone else.
What dreams had I been living in, to believe he might want me for himself?
How could I have been so foolish, so damn delusional?
It was always a stupid, one-sided love, never meant to be reciprocated.
I clench my jaw, swallowing the taste of iron in my throat. “Send me all of their details,” I say flatly. “I’ll pick someone.”
I catch his icy gaze fixed on me from the corner of my eye, but I refuse to look back. I rise from the couch and walk out of the living room.
My phone pings in the pocket of my shorts just as I reach my room. He’s sent me all the details himself. Of course he has.
I open his chat, my eyes skimming over the old messages between us. Here too, it’s all one-sided. I write long paragraphs, while his replies are nothing more than a handful of words, one-line sentences.
The pressure in my throat builds, I try to swallow it down. I will not cry. I won’t shed tears over this stupid, useless love.
Forcing my focus, I open the file on my desktop and place a video call to Wen.
“Heyy,” she greets, then freezes, her expression sharpening. “What happened?”
“Zoan wants me to marry someone else.”
She jerks forward, fury flashing across her face. “What! Has he lost his head?”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” I snap, my voice cracking. “I don’t care if he’s lost his head or his dick.”
“I want to go on a date tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. And every damn day from now on. I want to show him I can meet other people. That I will fall for someone else. Someone better than him.”
By the time I finish, I don’t even realize I’m shouting, and crying.
The sob breaks me open. I bury my face in my palms, shoulders trembling, the sound of my own brokenness filling the room.
Zloban
My jaw trembles from the intensity of my rage, guilt, self-hatred, and helplessness coursing through my bones. I can’t bear to see her cry like this, especially knowing I’m the cause.
I close the laptop, rise, and pick up Horizon’s case before storming out of my study and then out of the house.
I reach the parking lot. Sitting behind the wheel, I scroll through the names of the targets in my mind.
Tonight I hunt in LA. I ask my AI assistant, Vault, to list the targets I have there.
I have a habit of keeping a close eye on those I hate…
and those I love. The latter is only one person, though.
By midnight, I reach my first vantage point atop a building owned by Nexoil. In the past few years, all the showroom buildings we constructed were made tall, so that I could take a shot from them if needed.
In the chaos of the city, locking onto a target is difficult.
I settle Horizon on its stand, attaching the full array of sniper accessories: scope, suppressor, bipod, and rangefinder.
My first target is Blake Thornton, a 38-year-old don who tried to play games in an arms deal a week ago.
He came to San Diego for the deal, and we have a rule: no killing on our turf.
I order my men to finish off the ones I don’t like, but I like killing the special ones myself.
He is standing outside the club he owns, a girl pressing herself against him. He’s groping her, waiting for his car. I have one minute to take the shot. He’s 2.77 km away, not too far, and completely exposed. The only risk is hitting the girl.
I inhale slowly, shoulder settled into Horizon’s stock, cheek welded, sight picture steady.
The scope narrows to a reticle and one tiny, regular heartbeat.
I dial range and click windage in mils, apply the computed hold for 2,770 m, then confirm target velocity and bearing. Breath out to the natural pause.
The trigger pad meets my finger; a measured, continuous squeeze, and the firing pin falls.
Recoil transmits up my arm. Acoustic returns, a distant horn, a glass tinkle, the shot’s exhale.
Then the soundscape collapses back into the scope.
I track the tracer mentally, compensate for drop and Coriolis, and let ballistics carry the round.
I watch the look of horror on the girl’s face as she scans her surroundings, then I close the target in my mind. Next.
Vault tells me about the location of my next target.
I open my eyes when sunlight strikes my closed lids. I sit on the roof of my SUV, where I fell asleep. My phone vibrates beside me. I pick up Leo’s call.
“Today’s headlines in the underworld: ‘Phantom out for killing.’ By the way, good morning, brother. Any reason for killing eleven men in LA in a single night?”
I watch the sun climb. Killing makes the hollowness go away for a few hours. Now the blood has cooled and the void is back, it’s a hole in my chest that makes every breath a struggle. I need to see her or I’ll suffocate.
I cut Leo’s call and open the house feed. She’s nowhere outside her room, and there’s no camera in her room.
I drop from the roof of the vehicle and start pacing across the rough earth of the wild woods. I’m three hours from San Diego, anxiety ratchets with every tick of the clock. I try to take deep breaths, but my lungs refuse to cooperate.
I can’t see her, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t fine.
“She is sleeping in her room.”
“She is fine.”
I repeat the phrases, my fingers move on reflex. I activate the drone in my study, muttering, “She is fine,” as if saying it enough will make it true.
I pilot it toward her window. There she is. My chest eases, the pressure in my lungs loosens. She’s sleeping on her bed. I zoom in on her face. It’s swollen, she must have cried for hours before finally falling asleep.
I caress the screen with the featherlight touch of my fingertips. “I’m sorry, Dove.”
Leo was right. I won’t survive this. I can neither bear to see her unhappy nor stand to see her happy with someone else. I’m utterly fucked.
My phone buzzes again. It’s Leo again. I answer.
“Have you completed your routine surveillance?”
“What do you want?”
“Why didn’t you tell me before going hunting? I have a few names I want eliminated.”
“Send them all.”
“Planning to keep killing until she finds a suitable man? That hardly seems like a sustainable plan.” He exhales slowly. “I have a lot of sympathy for you. Once I return to San Diego, I’ll give it to you.”
“Then, I’ll wait for your return, once you’re done killing kids in New York.”
“Fuck you, man,” he says, voice calm, before ending the call.
Her live image consumes my screen again. I watch her for a few more minutes before sliding into my car and igniting the engine.