Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Marie
Castellanos’ blood was spreading, slow and dark, seeping into the cracks of the concrete.
I couldn’t move. My chest was heaving, and for a second it was just me and him, and the horrible wet sound of his breathing.
Then a voice from outside hit the silence like a slap.
“The fuck—?”
Another smoother voice followed, and footsteps crunched on the gravel just beyond the doorway. I snapped my head toward it, hands fisting at my sides.
Two men filled the entrance.
Both in black tactical gear, and both armed to the teeth with holstered guns, thigh rigs, knives, and things slung across broad backs. The one in front was huge, with dark brown skin, short-cropped hair, and thick forearms inked with black tattoos, muscle stacked on muscle.
His mouth fell open as he took in the room, the blood, Castellanos on the floor with a knife in him, and me standing there over his body.
Behind him stood another strong man with long blond hair tied back, dark eyes, and sharp edges to his face that made him look almost too pretty for the gear he was wearing. He took in the scene in one cool sweep.
They looked like trouble. Professional trouble. The kind of men who walked into war zones, not random stone buildings inland.
Castellanos’s men. They had to be. Every muscle in my body locked up again.
The big one’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh,” he said, his deep voice shocked. “We’re late.”
The blond exhaled through his nose. “You think?”
My body moved before I could question it. I dropped back down, wrapped both hands around the knife handle, and ripped it out of Castellanos’s gut.
“Whoa whoa whoa—no, no, no—” the big one blurted, lurching forward the same second I did it.
Blood surged out like I’d hit a burst pipe, hot and thick, splattering my hands, my jeans, the floor. Castellanos’s whole body jerked, an awful gurgling sound tearing from his throat.
“Shit shit shit,” the huge guy hissed, dropping to his knees beside him. His gloved hands went straight over the wound like it was instinct, pressing down hard.
I stumbled backwards, my sneakers skidding slightly in the slick spreading underfoot, and I snapped the knife up between us with both hands, the blade shaking but pointed straight at the two strangers.
“Stay away from me,” I rasped. “I will hurt you too.”
The blond blinked once, then lifted his hands slightly, palms forward. “Noted,” he said, and he almost sounded amused. “Evidence suggests you’re… committed.”
The big one glanced up from his bloody work, eyes wide. “Okay, first of all, impressive stab.” He said it like we were talking about a cooking show instead of a crime scene. “Second, could you not swing that thing near my face? I like my face.”
“Who are you?” My arm trembled under the weight of the knife and adrenaline. “Why are you here? If you’re with him—”
“Trust me, we are not with him,” the big one said, jerking his chin down at Castellanos, whose breaths were getting wetter and more ragged. “My job description does not include getting shanked on my last day.”
The blond angled his head, studying me over the tops of his raised hands like I was some strange new species that had wandered into his field notes. “We walked in on you gutting him,” he explained mildly. “If anyone should be worried about allegiances, it’s not you.”
He had a point, but my brain was not in a place to appreciate dry logic.
“Back up,” I snapped, the knife dipping then jerking higher again. “Both of you. Or I’ll—”
“Stab us,” he cut in. “Yes. We’re following the theme.”
The tattooed guy’s mouth twitched like he wanted to laugh and was fighting it. “Pretty boy? Less sarcasm, more not getting murdered by the girl with the knife, yeah?”
Pretty boy?
I blinked at them. Were they… together? Those two? In full tactical gear, covered in weapons, and flirting over a dying man?
This was not how I had thought this confrontation would go.
The big one looked back at me, and his eyes were surprisingly warm for someone literally elbow-deep in my worst nightmare. “Hey. Look at me.” His deep voice softened a fraction. “We’re not here for you. We don’t know who you are. We’re here for him.”
He emphasized it with a little lift of his bloody hands pressing into Castellanos’s stomach.
I didn’t lower the knife or relax. My heart was still hammering too fast, my skin too tight. “If you’re not here for him, then let him bleed.”
He winced. “See, my brain knows that’s the right call. My training is just… yelling at me.” He pressed harder on the wound. “Also, my boss is gonna be pissed if he misses the fun.”
The blond sighed like this was all so tedious and touched a finger to the black earpiece at his collar. “This is Alastair. We’ve located the target.” His eyes flicked to Castellanos, then over to me again. “And there’s a… civilian on site. Armed and very… enthused.”
He paused, listening to whatever came back through his comms, then added, “And no, that wasn’t in your data. Update your files.”
Civilian. That’s what they thought I was. Some random woman who’d wandered in and snapped.
The other’s gaze slid up to me again, taking me in more carefully now. Sweat dampened my hairline, there was blood on my jeans. My knuckles were white around the knife handle.
“You’re shaking,” he noted quietly. “You’re about five seconds from either passing out or doing something else very stabby.”
“Don’t tell me what I’m about to do,” I shot back, because if I stopped being hostile, I was pretty sure I’d just start crying.
“Fair enough,” he decided, not offended in the slightest.
Castellanos made a wet, bubbling groan underneath his hands. His eyes rolled and found me, still full of hate even as blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
“Marie—” he gargled.
All the air left my lungs for a second. My whole body flinched at my name in his voice, smeared with blood and hate.
The big guy’s head snapped toward me. “Marie?” he echoed, eyes narrowing. “Like… Marie Rivers?”
“Don’t say my name,” I snapped automatically, the knife jerking up again.
The blond’s brows lifted, and his gaze flicked between me, the knife, and Castellanos. “Huh.”
The two of them exchanged a look, one of those fast, wordless conversations that I guess people in relationships had, and then the blond started muttering into his earpiece again.
“Okay,” the big one said finally, focusing back on me. “Hi. I’m Kyan. This is my boyfriend, Alastair.” He jerked his chin back without looking. “We work for Wade.”
It took a second for that to register past the roaring in my ears. I blinked at them. “You’re lying.”
Kyan snorted. “Trust me, I am not brave enough to lie about who I work for with his girlfriend holding a knife.”
“I’m also not brave enough to make jokes with her,” Alastair muttered. “Yet here we are.”
“I’m not his—” I paused, because wasn’t I his girlfriend? It felt strange saying it out loud, almost dreamy.
Kyan’s mouth curved despite the blood all over his hands. “Oh, you’re definitely his something. Man nearly chewed through Thomas’s arm when he saw you weren’t home.”
I swallowed hard, my hand tightening around the handle. “He what?”
“We’ll get to that,” Alastair muttered. “Step one, though, maybe lower the knife so you don’t pass out from locking your elbows.”
My arms were shaking. They weren’t wrong. “I’m fine.”
“You are not fine.” Kyan cut in. You’re standing in a puddle of your trauma, covered in a dying man’s blood, and pointing a knife at two very handsome strangers.” He paused. “I get it, but still.”
Despite everything, a short, disbelieving laugh escaped me. It sounded wrong in this room, but it was either that or scream.
“You’re… what, twenty?” I managed, because now that the adrenaline spike was easing the tiniest bit, I could actually see them properly.
They were huge and lethal-looking, yes, but their faces were young. “Do they recruit you out of high school?”
“Excuse you, I’m twenty-two,” Kyan corrected, offended. “I’m an adult assassin—” He caught himself and grimaced. “Adult employee.”
Alastair pinched the bridge of his nose. “He means contractor. He has not had coffee today. Or a filter.”
“You just said assassin.” I stared at them.
Kyan huffed. “We’re not here to hurt you, Marie. We’re here for him.” He glanced down at Castellanos. “Well, we were. You sort of handled that.”
“I didn’t know you were coming,” I muttered. “We didn’t coordinate murder schedules.”
Alastair’s mouth twitched, the closest thing to a smile I’d seen on him. “Shame. You’re efficient.”
Castellanos wheezed wetly on the floor between us, and Kyan adjusted his pressure, wincing. “He really is leaking everywhere. You got him good. Center mass-ish, nice angle. Have you done this before?”
“No!” My voice jumped an octave. “I gut fish.”
“Transferable skill set,” he decided approvingly.
The knife felt heavier by the second, and my forearms ached. I didn’t lower it, but I did let my elbows bend a little, the tip dipping a few inches.
Kyan noticed and nodded as if I’d just aced some test. “There you go. Motor skills and murder instincts. Wade’s gonna be proud and horrified.”
The mention of Wade reminded me why I was here. “He can’t see those videos,” I blurted. “Ever. I came to—” I swallowed hard. “To make sure he doesn’t.”
Alastair’s eyes flicked to me, sharp and assessing, then softened by a millimeter. “He won’t.” His tone was certain. “We’ll take care of it. No one’s seeing them. Not him, not anyone.”
He said it with no hesitation, no caveats, and it punched through my panic harder than anything. For the first time since I opened that email, I felt something other than terror.
Relief, thin and shaky, but real.
“You can?” I hated how small that sounded, but it slipped out anyway.
“That’s our job,” he nodded. “We make things disappear.”
Kyan’s hands were still pressed to Castellanos’ abdomen. “Videos, servers, hard drives. Poof. Gone. We’ve got nerds who live for this shit.”
Alastair’s mouth twitched. “They prefer ‘analysts.’”