Page 46 of Ruin

Which meant...

I turned my eyes to the passenger’s seat and felt a thrill of cold fear slip down my spine.

Devil was here, and the time had come for me to see whether I was actually going to follow through with this... or turn and run.

CHAPTER 25

SARAYA

I TENSED, MY BODY CAUGHT between the sudden need to run screaming toward the nearest shelter and dart toward the car, shooting as I went like some old-time Hollywood gangster on a suicide mission.

I twitched one way and then the other, instincts warring, and screamed at myself in my head to do something, do something now. This was my chance! Devil was right there, completely defenseless and in a spot where he would have sworn he was safe. He had security with him and no reason to think that anyone would have tracked him here. Hell, almost no one even knew he made these trips, so he never would have expected an enemy to meet him on the steps of the bank.

He also wouldn’t, I thought, expect me.

I could run out there, run right up to the car, raise the gun and shoot him in the head quicker than he could even react. This was the perfect opportunity to do what I’d come here to do. And yet suddenly, after all of that confident talk all morning, all I could think of was that I wouldn’t survive the encounter. I might catch him by surprise—the chances were very good there—but the chances of me getting away from him and back around the corner, onto the bike and away from here, before his guard Dion caught me, were slim to none. Dion was paid to stay alert and ready for anything, and he was very, very good at his job.

He was also really good with a gun. I’d seen him at target practice. He almost never missed. Sure, he might be surprised at what had happened and even more surprised to see me on the other end of the gun. That might delay him a little bit. He might also take some time to feel for a pulse in Devil’s neck and try to staunch the bleeding. It might give me the time I needed to get away.

It might.

Far more likely, though, that he’d take one look at Devil, realize that he was dead—or that Dion himself couldn’t do anything for him and would have to call an ambulance—and would jump out of the car and chase after me before I’d gone ten steps. Dion was, after all, a pro. He was used to seeing people get shot.

When it came right down to it, I doubted it would faze him at all.

I had all these thoughts in the blink of an eye, the way you do when you’re facing something important, and moments after I hadn’t been able to move, frozen to the ground with indecision, I was moving.

Because Dion would most certainly kill me for what I was about to do. That much was never in question. But this was the best chance I was going to have at getting to Devil, and I would have been a complete idiot to throw it away.

This was my chance to take my fate into my own hands and act for myself—and this was my chance to save Knight from the war Devil was going to rain down on him.

I crept out of the alley, sticking to the shadow of the building, and walked quickly toward where Deon was starting the process of parking the car. It was a big sedan, expensive, and nothing that I’d seen before, and I wondered when Devil had bought it and where he’d gotten the money.

Stupid question, really. It didn’t matter where he’d gotten it or how he’d had the money for it. All that mattered was that it would be the last ride he ever took.

I stuck to the building as I walked, my hand in my pocket and my finger on the trigger of the gun. I’d already clicked the safety off so I wouldn’t have to worry about that when the moment came, and now my finger was twitching, wanting to pull the trigger and have this over. They were only about 100 feet from me now, Deon pulling back and forth as he situated the car and Devil’s mouth moving a million miles a minute. Probably giving his bodyguard orders to stay in the car, I thought. Probably telling him exactly what to do and think and feel while he was there.

Devil always did like to tell everyone else what to do.

I was going to end up passing the bank before they even got out of the car, I thought. Devil would have to come toward me to get to the door of the bank. He’d be walking toward me, no idea what was about to happen. Even now, I could see him looking my way, his eyes scanning the street like he was looking for someone.

Was he looking for someone?

I froze and ducked into a doorway when his eyes brushed across the space where I’d been standing, and cursed myself for a fool. I was on the same side of the road as they were and walking right toward him. What kind of idiot thinks that’s a good way to sneak up on someone?

An idiot who’d never done this sort of thing before, that was who. I’d only thought about how convenient it was that they were on my side of the street, without taking into account how easy it was going to be for them to see me if I was walking right toward them.

Right. Walking was a problem, then. Being on this side of the street was a problem, but there was nothing I could do about that now. I couldn’t exactly cross the street and wait on the other side. First off, he’d have no reason to use that side of the street at all, so I wouldn’t have access to him.

Secondly, he’d most certainly see me crossing the street right in front of his car.

“Stupid,” I hissed at myself.

But I knew I was going to find a way around the problem. I hadn’t come this far just to give up now. I certainly hadn’t started this whole thing just to fail. Devil had spent months doing terrible things to me. Beating me, raping me, forcing me to do things I didn’t want to do.

Now it was my turn.

I wanted my vengeance, and I was going to take it. And damn the consequences.