One-two-three-four.
One-two?—
A sound.
Wet.
Metallic.
Wrong.
My eyes snap open.
The elder Lawson is looking down.
At his own chest.
Where two blades—myblades, the ones I thought I'd lost when I was drugged—are buried to the hilt.
Blood spreads across his expensive shirt.
Fast.
Too much.
Fatal wounds.
And behind him...
Kai.
Standing there with my blades in his hands, expression carved from stone, dark gold eyes burning with something I've never seen in them before.
Hatred.
Satisfaction.
Release.
"I've always wondered," Kai says, voice calm and conversational, "why close combat was emphasized so heavily at Ruthless Academy."
He twists the blades.
His father gasps—a wet, gurgling sound.
"But I can see the appeal now." Kai pulls the weapons free with a slow, deliberate motion that's almost surgical. "It's silent when it comes to close execution. And the target is distracted—being a fucking douche of an ass father and husband."
The elder Lawson drops to his knees.
Blood pools beneath him, spreading across the concrete in a dark mirror.
Kai crouches—bringing himself eye-level with the man who raised him, who trained him, who tried to kill him.
"You know," he says softly, "I absolutely hated you. Did you think I didn't know who really killed Mother? Who drove her to that point? Who made her feel so worthless that death seemed preferable to another day as your wife?"
His father tries to speak.
Can't.
