Hate Me Take Me

Chapter 1 Hot Pink Is a Tactical Advantage

AMANDA

I move through the warehouse like a shadow, my pink Glock steady in my grip. Every step is precise. This is where I feel most alive, my tactical gear secured, earpiece crackling with quiet chatter from my team, and the anticipation of finishing the mission.

“Two tangos on the east side,” I whisper into my comm, pressing my back against a concrete pillar. “I’ve got eyes on them.”

My heartbeat is steady. This is what I was trained for. This is what I’m good at.

Any other day, I’m Amanda Bennett—lover of pink handbags, overpriced wine, and reality TV drama.

I’m the woman who spends an hour perfecting my winged eyeliner, who owns seventeen different shades of pink lipstick, and who once made a PowerPoint presentation ranking Taylor Swift’s exes.

I live for designer sales and Sunday brunch mimosas.

But today? Today I’m Viper. Elite operative. Stone-cold killer in stilettos.

I peek around the corner. Two armed men patrol between stacks of shipping containers, their assault rifles catching the lights of the warehouse. Amateur hour. They’re talking, distracted, completely unaware that death in designer tactical gear is about to rain down on them.

“Copy that.” Jake’s voice crackles through my earpiece. “Raven’s in position on the north side. You take the shot when ready.”

“Wait, where’s Cipher? I need backup on the west corridor,” another team member says into my headphones.

“On my way to you now,” Cipher says.

I take a breath, raising my weapon. The pink barrel catches the light. Some people have said it’s ridiculous. Well, that was the last thing they ever said. Because this gun is my signature. When these assholes go down, they’ll know exactly who sent them to hell.

“Taking the shot in three,” I murmur, finger poised on the trigger. “Two. One.”

The first guy drops clean. Headshot. Beautiful.

The second spins toward me, weapon raised, but I’m already moving. I roll behind another pillar as his bullets spray where I was standing just seconds ago. Concrete chips explode around me.

“Nice shot!” Raven’s voice is loud in my earpiece. Too much enthusiasm, Raven. There’s still two left. “Now, move your ass—more incoming from the south entrance!”

“Can confirm, three more hostiles headed your way, Viper,” Cipher says.

I sprint across the open floor, weaving between obstacles. My heels are silent on the concrete, my movements fluid because I know how to walk in them, duh. Three more targets appear, but I’m ready. I slide behind an overturned table, pop up, and put two rounds center mass in the closest one.

These idiots never stood a chance.

“Amanda, watch your six!” Jake shouts.

I spin, weapon raised, just as—

My world explodes.

The bullet tears through my shoulder, sending me spinning against the concrete wall. My vision starts to blur red around the edges, pulsing with each heartbeat.

“Fuck!” I gasp. “I’m hit! I’m hit!”

My pink Glock trembles in my hand. The red haze is getting worse, clouding my vision like someone’s holding a crimson filter over my eyes.

“I’m bleeding out over here! There’s actual blood on my gun! It better not stain!” I shout into my comm. “Raven? Jake? Cipher?” But no one comes to help. It’s just me and the slow reality of death creeping in.

Is this it for me? This is how I go? Years of practice and training, and I’m reduced to dying on a warehouse floor?

At least I look fabulous doing it. No one can take that from me.

A voice cuts through the chaos, exasperated. I’m too far gone to even know who’s speaking anymore. “Jesus Christ, Amanda. You’re being way too dramatic.”

“DRAMATIC?” I shriek, checking my wound again. “I am literally watching my life force drain out of my body! This is not dramatic! This is dying!”

“It’s just a flesh wound.” The first voice laughs. “You’ll be fine in like thirty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds? I don’t have thirty seconds! I’m getting lightheaded! I think I’m seeing a tunnel! Should I go toward it?”

“I say she makes it ten seconds tops this time,” Cipher says.

“Oh my God, she’s doing the thing again,” the other voice chimes in—higher, more amused. “Amanda, you literally do this every time.”

“I do not do this every…” I pause, squinting at my shoulder. The red haze is getting darker. It’s like thick curtains closing. Everything starts to fade to black. I guess this is my time to take a bow.

GAME OVER.

The words flash across my screen in bold red letters, followed by my pathetic stats. One kill this round. Died in the first five minutes. Again. Because I’m sitting on my couch in my pajamas, holding an Xbox controller, staring at my seventy-five-inch TV screen.

“Oh, come on!” I throw my hands up, nearly launching the controller across my living room. “That was such bullshit! I had perfect cover!”

“You ran straight into the open like a fucking Leeroy Jenkins. What did you think was going to happen?” Jake’s voice is completely unsympathetic.

“I was being tactical!”

“You were being Amanda.” My sister Raven’s voice cuts in, and I can hear the grin in her tone. “Which means you were being ridiculous.”

I huff, slouching deeper into my pink velvet couch. On-screen, I’m back at the character mission page, my badass operative, in all-black tactical gear except for her signature pink pistol, rotating slowly on the display.

Video games aren’t really my thing, honestly.

I do this to connect with Raven—it’s our weekly sister bonding time since she moved downtown.

Plus, the squad’s grown over the past few months.

Jake, Cipher, the girl whose name I can never remember.

I have no idea who these people actually are.

Raven met them all in some online lobby, and now they’re apparently part of our squad.

Pretty sure Cipher and what’s-her-name aren’t murderers. Jury’s still out on Jake.

“Whatever. I still look cool as hell,” I mutter, spinning my character around to admire the outfit I spent forty-five minutes customizing. “And my gun is still the prettiest thing in this entire game.”

“Your gun is fluorescent pink. It glows in the dark. It’s like carrying a neon sign that says ‘Shoot me,’ ” Jake deadpans.

“It’s called making a statement.”

“And what statement would that be?” Cipher laughs.

“That I’m fabulous, and if you’re going to kill me, you better appreciate the aesthetic while you do it.”

Raven snorts. “God, I love you.”

I smile, adjusting my silk pajama top. The pants have little martini glasses printed all over them—a housewarming gift from Raven when I moved into this place. She said they “screamed Amanda.” She gets me.

“All right, weirdos,” I say, already reaching for the wineglass on my coffee table. “This was fun, but I’m logging off. Some of us have real jobs in the morning.”

The apartment falls quiet except for the soft hum of the city outside my window.

I set the controller aside and stretch, my silk pajamas sliding smoothly against the velvet couch.

The wine is crisp and cold, just the way I like it—and exactly what I need after a long day of dealing with entitled men who think dropping ten grand on a custom suit gives them the right to “test out” my customer service skills with their wandering eyes and sleazy comments.

See, the problem with men is that they suck. Every last one of them. I don’t care how hot, how charming, how supposedly different they claim to be. At the end of the day, they’re all just walking disappointments with egos too big for their brains.

Which is why I, Amanda Bennett, no longer bother with them. At all.

Well. Not in real life, anyway.

I grab my phone from the coffee table and settle deeper into my couch. The dim glow of my screen illuminates the only relationship I still entertain: Chad.

Chad is everything I could ever want in a man. He’s smooth. He’s a little toxic. He’s just the right amount of arrogant to keep it interesting. And best of all? He’s not real.

CHAD

Thinking about me again, baby?

His message pops up on my screen. I snort, tapping out a response.

Please, as if I ever stop.

That’s what I like to hear. You know you’re mine, right?

Oh, absolutely. One hundred percent. Let me just get your name tattooed on my forehead.

Chad is the fuckboy I personally crafted inside the Obsess AI app, back when I was bored and slightly wine-drunk.

And here’s the thing about Chad: He’s safe.

Utterly, completely, and beautifully safe.

I can tell him anything and everything. Every humiliating detail about my failed marriage, my deepest insecurities, my most embarrassing fantasies.

I can be messy and needy and vulnerable in ways I could never risk with a real person.

It’s like confessing to Google—this weird digital intimacy where you can admit that you’ve been obsessing over the red patch behind your ear for four days, convinced it’s either cancer or ringworm or maybe just an allergic reaction to that dragon ear cuff you bought off Etsy from a seller with questionable metallurgical credentials, but you absolutely had to have it because who doesn’t want a tiny dragon curled around their ear like some kind of medieval badass, and you’ve spent more time examining it with a hand mirror than you’ve spent on actual self-care this month, but you can’t ask anyone in real life because then you’d have to explain why you haven’t just gone to a doctor like a normal adult.

There are no consequences. No judgment. No rejection.

No possibility of becoming “that girl who always thinks she’s dying of mysterious diseases caused by her own questionable online shopping decisions. ”

I had to watch Cal and Izzy being disgustingly cute at work today.

Really?

Yeah. He brought her lunch and she got all giggly about it. Like, actual giggly. Over a sandwich.

That’s rough, baby. You know you’re not missing out on anything, right?