Chapter 28
KIARA
The purple box slips from my fingers and drops off the edge of the counter, spilling vibrators and monster cocks across the floor as my body pivots on instinct. My eyes sweep the room in a fraction of a second, already calculating distance, angles, objects.
I have no easily accessible weapons. Nothing but the contents of my apartment and three trained killers rushing toward me.
Sure, it’s not exactly how I intended to do this, but we’re here now, so I suppose we’re doing this the hard way. Consider it the ultimate test of my skills, exactly what I’ve trained for all these years.
Diving deeper into the kitchen, I act on instinct, not allowing them the extra seconds to point and aim. Tearing open the first cabinet I find, my hand closes around the handle of my frying pan, and I hurl it across the room with every ounce of strength I have.
The metal spins through the air like a missile before smashing into one of the assassins’ faces with a bone-rattling crunch. Blood spurts at the same time that his head snaps sideways, and his body drops instantly, the rifle clattering against the floor.
One down, two to go. But now I’ve lost my quick element of surprise.
The second assassin charges forward, faster and closer than I’d like as I sprint around my kitchen island, moving like lightning, too fast for him to get off a clean shot.
My hand locks onto the back of the nearest dining chair, and I whip it backward, slamming the wooden frame straight into his chest. The impact sends him stumbling into the coffee table, the glass cracking beneath his weight, right where Spikezilla and Needles were sitting only a few minutes ago.
But he doesn’t stay down—men like this never do, they enjoy coming back for more.
Ripping the broken chair leg free from the splintered frame, I swing as hard as I can, barely giving him a chance to find his balance before the wood connects with the side of his skull. A sickening crack fills the air as his eyes roll back and he collapses across the table.
But I barely spare him a glance, all too aware of the third assassin quickly closing in, and before I can figure out a game plan, he fires.
I dive, and the shot snaps past my shoulder, plunging into the wall as I hastily scramble behind the couch, adrenaline flooding my veins.
The footsteps are closing in, and as I search for something to save my life, I find the frying pan I’d just used to take out the first guy, and my hand snaps toward it, grasping the handle without skipping a beat.
The assassin rounds the couch, rifle already lowering toward me, and I explode upward, the frying pan driving straight into his throat, and I scoff as he drops hard. “Not today, asshole.”
The sound he makes is wet and broken as the air wooshes from his lungs. He folds forward, choking, and I wrench the rifle from his grip before he even hits the ground, turning it on him and letting off a clean shot straight between the eyes.
The room falls silent again, except for the sound of my racing heart, but only for half a second before gunfire erupts through the wall.
The sound slams into my chest like a punch. Raiden.
More shots crack through the plaster, followed by the violent crash of furniture and the unmistakable sound of bodies hitting the floor.
Someone screams—a woman—raw, guttural, cut off almost instantly, and I force myself to take a breath.
He can more than handle himself. A slew of assassins breaking into his apartment—piece of cake.
Racing through my apartment, I madly search for every hidden weapon and shove them into the holsters on my favorite pants. Suddenly, I am very grateful that I’m actually wearing pants.
After grabbing one of my kitchen knives, I take off toward Raiden’s apartment, when the sound of shattering glass tears through my home, and another wave of trained killers is barricading me into my apartment.
“Fuck.”
There are heaps of them, pouring in from my bedroom and the front door, each one of them already locked and loaded on me, and instead of panicking about it like a little bitch, I simply get to work.
The first guy rushes at me, and when I grab him and yank him forward, it’s clear he doesn’t hold the same level of dedication to his training as I do. He stumbles, and I use the momentum of his fall to my advantage, angling his chin right down against the stone kitchen counter.
I crack his jaw without effort, and I don’t bother waiting to see the fallout as I simply move on to the next.
One after another, I dodge and weave their advances, some of them coming in pairs.
I steal a gun off a woman and empty the magazine in seconds, taking out three with precision.
Next door, the same chaos bleeds through the thin walls, but I can’t focus on that.
I know Raiden can handle himself, so all that matters is getting out of here alive.
Escaping an entire agency of assassins won’t be easy.
A blade whistles past my ear, close enough that I feel the air shift, and I spin and slam a saucepan into someone’s jaw so hard the metal handle bends. Teeth scatter across the kitchen floor as he collapses, and the pistol slips from his hand, skittering toward me.
I grab it before it stops moving, and for just a split second, things are easy again.
Gunshots crack through the apartment as the fight spills from room to room.
One man drops near the couch. Another crumples against the kitchen island.
A third staggers backward into the wall, blood splattering across the white paint, before his body slides to the floor.
The air grows thick with the metallic smell of blood, and my living room turns into a war zone, furniture overturned and shredded by bullets, glass and wood littering every inch of the floor.
Bodies pile up faster than I can process them.
Every time one falls, another weapon appears—a knife, a pistol, another rifle—and I grab whatever hits the ground next.
I don’t count them. I don’t stop to think. I just keep moving because every time gunfire erupts through the wall next door, my chest cracks open a little more. I need him to be okay, because without him, what was the whole point?
One after another, I just keep going, until finally, there’s nothing but silence, and I fall to my knees, gasping for air.
One more shot comes from next door, but something about it makes my stomach sink like lead.
My ears ring from the chaos, but beneath that high-pitched hum there’s nothing. No footsteps. No voices. No crashing furniture. Just silence.
My heart hammers against my ribs for a whole new reason. If he were done, he’d already be racing in here, probably going straight through the wall just to save the few extra seconds, but there’s nothing. Just pure, dead silence.
“Raiden?” I call, my voice barely above a whisper as I scramble back to my feet, my knees suddenly shaking.
There’s no response, and as panic creeps up my spine, I step over the bodies scattered across my living room, desperate to get to him. If he’s been shot . . . fuck.
CRACK.
Pain detonates through my back, electricity exploding through my body like lightning tearing through my nerves. My muscles seize, locking so violently that a scream rips from my throat before I can stop it or even begin to figure out what the fuck is going on.
My legs buckle, and my knees slam into the hardwood floor.
With shaking hands, I dig my fingers into the floor, trying uselessly to get back up.
Every muscle in my body spasms at once, the electricity flooding through my spine and down into my limbs until I can’t feel anything except the violent, burning current ripping through me.
What is this?
Tears spring to my eyes, and I try to move, try to turn around, try to fight the pain, but my body won’t listen.
I’m paralyzed with electricity, and the only possible reason could be a high-powered taser, something created for either military or law enforcement.
My vision blurs as the world tilts sideways, the apartment spinning around me through a haze of pain and ringing noise.
And then comes a laugh so familiar that my whole world crumbles before I’ve even seen the woman standing at my seizing back. I know exactly who I’ll find.
Milan.
The betrayal tears through me. My best friend. My confidant for all these years, and now she stands at my back, about to be the very reason for my fall.
The electricity finally dies, and the silence that follows feels heavier than the current ever did.
Every muscle trembles violently as the last aftershocks ripple through my body. Even my lungs struggle to remember how to breathe. The scent of blood and burned skin hangs thick in the air, mixing with gunpowder and the metallic bite of adrenaline still flooding my veins.
Somewhere beyond the ringing in my ears, a slow pair of footsteps moves through the wreckage of my apartment. Deliberate. Unhurried. Too fucking confident. And that’s the biggest mistake she’ll ever make.
She thinks she has the upper hand because I’m down, but she has a lot to learn about this industry, and a shitload still to learn about me. Because I don’t give up. I don’t let women like this take the win. It’s not in my DNA.
I force my head up, taking in everything around me. Bodies litter the floor, dark shapes slumped against shattered furniture and splintered walls. Blood stains the hardwood, soaking into the rug beneath the couch. The apartment barely resembles the place I walked through only a few minutes ago.
The footsteps stop a few feet behind me, and I groan as I attempt to turn back, to take in the woman who’s called herself my best friend for all these years, but my body doesn’t respond.
Milan’s voice cuts through the silence. “Well . . . That took longer than I expected.”