“Brooke,” Sophie hisses behind me.
I ignore her. I aim right between Elliot’s eyes and pull the trigger.
Click.
Nothing.
I pull it again.
Click.
My stomach drops. I pull it again, frantic now, desperate—
Click.
Empty.
Of course.
Elliot steps closer, taking the barrel of the gun with two fingers and lowering it like I'm a child holding a dangerous toy incorrectly. He holds it loosely at his side.
Then with the same steady posture, he reaches behind his back with his other hand and pulls out a second gun. Black metal catching the gray morning light.
The kneeling man sees it and wails, his voice shredding itself in panic. “No—no, please, please, I’ll—”
Elliot doesn’t let him finish.
He aims and fires.
The shot cracks across the yard like lightning. The man’s body snaps backward, collapsing into the wet grass. His blood spreads fast, mixing with dew, turning the ground into mud.
My ears ring, Knox grins, Asher wipes his boots in the grass and Sophie just watches me.
Elliot finally looks up from the corpse and meets my eyes with terrifying calm. Then he steps in close. Close enough that I feel the warmth of the gun he has just used. He lifts the empty pistol I tried to fire and taps the barrel lightly against my chin.
“Now,” his tone lowers, “you’ve broken Rule Two.”
My throat locks.
“You didn’t follow instructions.”
His voice isn’t angry. It is clinical and precise. As if this is just data for him. Brooke Sinclair: noncompliant, defiant, requires correction. He lets the cold barrel slide down from my chin to my collarbone before lowering it completely.
“You won’t like the consequences,” he adds.
And behind him, the dead man lies facedown in the grass, punishment for a rule I hadn’t even known existed yesterday. Now I am about to learnmine.
“Oh and by the way,” Elliot smirks. “No one is coming for you. You’re ours now. Grant just confirmed a few hours ago, Seth is dead.”
Chapter 7
Brooke
Dead.
Dead?
No.
