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Sierra didn’t acknowledge his accusation, which I assumed to be true based on her obviously contentious relationship with her husband. “Craig wanted Rebecca for himself. He actually believed she’d leave you for him. Then he could marry her and finally get his chance to sit at the table, to learn who all the players were.” Pointing at Novak while keeping her eyes on me, she went on, “What my idiot husband and Craig failed to understand is Rebecca would’ve stayed in an unhappy marriage rather than wear the mark of divorce as if it were a scarlet letter.”
“That’s all your grandmother’s BS in your ear,” Novak muttered, his words strained by my arm at his windpipe.
“Nothing matters now, does it? We’re blown, and The Collective will kill us for it. Our family is now a loose end.” Sierra opened her arms wide, and I hated she’d been in Diana’s life and for so long. Diana was sweet and trusting, and she’d never have seen through this woman.
“You blame me for Rebecca, but this is all your mess, too,” Novak gritted out, and I loosened my arm a bit to better hear what he had to say. “If you’d let me kill Diana and the others, we wouldn’t be in this position.”
“You don’t kill the best minds in science, not when they can be advantageous later.” Sierra folded her arms. “Rebecca was no Diana. Her life was inconsequential. She didn’t deserve a seat with The Collective. She’d have handled it like her father, and my grandmother and I were the only ones with the foresight to know that. The rest of you men thought with your dicks.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, my heart pounding as I worked hard to let these two fight and reveal details for me, suppressing the urge to kill everyone and end this right then and there. I’d never killed a woman before, but fuck . . .
“You do know your wife wasn’t only screwing Craig Paulsen, but my husband as well, right?” Sierra came a few steps closer, meeting my eyes as my arm started to slip from Novak’s neck. “They shared her at the same time. She had a thing for dominance, and I guess she wasn’t getting her needs met at home. Wouldn’t get a divorce, but she’d let two men fuck both her holes at?—”
“She’s lying,” Novak hissed when I was seconds away from crushing his windpipe, killing him. “It was only Craig she was screwing. My crude wife is clearly trying to goad you into killing me so she doesn’t have to do it herself. God forbid she gets her own hands dirty.”
“He’s right, I do want him dead.” She whipped out a 9mm she must’ve had tucked behind her back.
Realizing what was about to go down, I flung my weight to the side in one fast movement, breaking away just as she shot her husband. While she unloaded on him, I neutralized the other threat. A head shot, and Jake went down.
I placed Sierra in my line of sights next. No obstacles or weapons in the way, but I couldn’t bring myself to shoot her.
She slowly lowered her pistol, her gaze falling to Jake as if only now realizing through her haze of hatred and anger he was also dead. “I bet Rebecca would’ve loved the man you are now, though,” she murmured before pointing her Glock at me. She didn’t appear to be mourning the loss of Jake either.
Sociopath. I shifted to my knees, preparing myself for the last thing I wanted to do. Kill Diana’s best friend.
“You won’t pull the trigger, will you? I can see it in your eyes. Some devil you turned out to be.”
Her lips stretched, and she readied her aim, but the door flew open a moment later, distracting her. Alyona stood in the doorway, and Sierra spun her way.
“We need her alive,” I hollered out just as she shot her.
Sierra returned fire, striking Alyona in the chest. She stumbled back into the doorway in shock, sending another round at Sierra before they both fell to the ground.
“Damnit.” I shifted to my feet, unsure who to go to first. “Alyona,” I hissed, sidestepping Sierra as blood began to pool around her body.
“I—I’m okay,” Alyona whispered, scrambling to sit up. “Chest plate caught it,” she told me as Zoey and Griffin came up behind her. Dallas rushed between his legs to get to me. He dropped by my side, waiting for a command to move.
“We got held up out there,” Griffin remarked, joining us. “But we have to exfil now.”
“We need to drag Sierra out, she might have answers.” I went over to her, finding her eyes closed, head lolled to the side. Checking her neck, my shoulders fell. “No pulse.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to kill her,” Alyona said as Zoey helped her stand.
“It’s not your fault,” I mumbled, patting Dallas’s helmet, signaling to him to start moving.
“We have less than three minutes to get out of here before this whole place blows,” Griffin announced, grabbing hold of my arm to redirect me.
“Someone remotely hacked an explosive device that was down here. We can’t turn off the countdown,” Zoey rushed out, coming to my other side as if worried I couldn’t walk alone.
Maybe I couldn’t? Shit.
No, that wasn’t why I wasn’t budging.
“Sierra’s daughter,” I said at the memory. “Is she here?”
“Wyatt found her,” Griffin shared, jerking my arm to get a move on. “She’s already above ground.”
Relief swelled in my chest, and although the pain was catching up with me, I finally managed to get myself to move. I had a reason to survive. Someone to come home to. “Where are we?”
