The dual-wielding dancer who killed six men to save my life.
The girl Sage bonded with.
The heir to the Eastman legacy.
The target we were sent here to eliminate.
She's the same person.
The Omega and the heir.
The pen pal and the enemy.
The girl my pack member just bonded us all to—permanently, irrevocably, in a way that can't be undone—is theexact personmy family sent us here to kill.
Fuck.
CHAPTER 13
The Auditorium Of Reckoning
~SERAPHINE~
Isigh.
Dramatically.
The kind of sigh that makes my whole body slump against the chair I'm tied to, head lolling back, eyes rolling toward the ceiling like I'm a teenager being forced to attend a family function instead of a kidnapped Omega surrounded by men who clearly want me dead.
"If you're going to tie me to this chair and use me as some sort of ransom," I announce to the room at large, "at least offer me some water. Or better yet, wine even." I pause, considering. "At least I can die tipsy."
The multiple men—I've counted them three times now, twelve total, always landing on an even number, which is theonlygood thing about this situation—all turn to look at me.
Their expressions range from annoyed to confused to that particular kind of exhaustion that sayswhy is this Omega still talking.
I shrug.
"What?"
One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four.
My toe taps against the floor—tap-tap-tap-tap—four times before I force it still. The ropes around my wrists are tight but not unmanageable. Whoever tied them knew what they were doing, but they didn't account for the fact that I've been dislocating my thumbs since I was fourteen years old.
Survival skill.
Learned the hard way.
Like everything else.
"Force the innocent, crazed Omega to stay still after you guys deliberately set my house on fire," I continue, because apparently my brain has decided that talking is better than thinking about the fact that my sanctuary is currently a pile of smoking rubble. "Which is diabolical, to say the least. You’re lucky I didn’t have any valuables there to begin with, but taking it that far? All for what? To use me as bait for those set of men you're calling Devils of Hard Knot Academy?"
The leader—a tall, scarred man with dead eyes and the kind of posture that saysI've killed more people than you've had hot meals—twitches slightly at the name.
Interesting.
"Which is wild," I add, warming to my subject, "since they're clearly a part of Ruthless since they're in our territory, and it just feels so counterproductive to even mention Hard Knot at all because Ruthless is the hardest, most challenging, and deadliest?—"
"Shut up."
