Page 82 of Lethal King

Rian

She’s late.

Clenching the remote, I dare myself to turn the dial all the way up to ten. It would be a fitting punishment.

But something stops me.

I can’t help but remember what Gabriel told me last night. Rozalia isn’t who I think she is.

He was right. My perception of the frustrating Black Cat has changed—if only slightly.

Still, that doesn’t excuse her for standing me up.

She’ll pay.

Just not right now.

“I don’t think she’s showing up,” Maksim crackles over my earpiece.

“No shit.”

The first bits of morning light are seeping in through the holes that line the pockmarked tin roof above my head.

This old warehouse is filled with spiderwebs and bloodstains—countless shady deals have gone down behind its condemned walls, but it doesn’t look like anything will happen here today.

Fuck.

“Where the hell is she?” I grumble.

It’s not like the Black Cat to shy away from a confrontation—especially if showing up means freeing herself from someone else’s control.

Do I not know her as well as I think or do, or is something wrong?

Shit. Part of me almost wants to be concerned. Is she alright? Has something happened?

Before that weakness can get too strong, though, reality slaps me across the face.

She’s your enemy. Act like it.

Still, even as I turn towards the only door in and out of this place, I can’t help but focus on all of the reasons Rozalia might have stayed away.

Maybe she’s already found an antidote to my wicked trap. Maybe she’s still flustered from our last encounter.

… Maybe she’s pregnant.

My eyes roll at the mere thought of that last possibility.

There’s zero chance. I remember the words she hissed at me from the darkness of that security room.

As if I’d ever let that happen.

She’s on some kind of contraceptive. At the very least, she must have cooked something up after our encounter—or just gotten her hands on some ordinary plan B pills.

Neither of us were thinking straight in that dark, screen-lit security room. But there was nothing stopping us from coming to our senses afterward.

My fist clamps down tighter around the remote.

This time, though, it’s not because I’m thinking about turning the dial way up.