Page 31 of Torn By Fate

My lips twitched and a smile spread across my face.

And for the first time, his expression truly faltered, and I saw a brief moment of fear. Too bad, too late.

“Wrong answer.”

I moved.

The distance between us vanished in the space between heartbeats.

My right hand found his throat, fingers locking around his windpipe with enough pressure to cut off sound but not enough to collapse his airway. Not yet.

His hands came up, fast and competent, the typical trained response of a man who had been in many fights before. But I already had the upper hand.

My left forearm drove into his sternum, and the air left his lungs in a soundless rush. He bucked, twisting his hips to throw me off balance. I let him turn, using his momentum to drive him into the wall of the alley. His head connected with the brick, and I heard the dull thud of impact. His eyes went glassy for a moment, just a moment, but it was enough time for me to shift my grip. I released his throat and drove my knee into his groin.

He folded.

I couldn’t help but let out a low, mocking laugh. Where was his arrogance now?

The grin was gone now, and he let out a growl, raw and animalistic. He was pissed off, good. That was real fucking good.

His hand went for his waistband again, but he never made it.

My favorite dagger found the inside of his wrist. It was a shallow, precise cut, severing the tendon that controlled his grip. His knife clattered to the ground, and I heard the sound of it bouncing once before it came to rest against the asphalt, useless.

He didn’t scream. And you know what? I respected that, even as I drove my knee into his stomach again and felt the remaining air leave his lungs in a wheeze that smelled like stale coffee and cigarettes.

He dropped to one knee, and I was behind him before he could recover, my left arm locked around his throat in a rear choke, my dagger pressed against the carotid artery on the right side of his neck.

“Who are you working for, Henry Beckett?” I said against his ear, my voice calm. Unhurried.

I felt him tense when I said his full name. His real name—not his alias.

Rocco had done his job well. He’d dug through every corner of the man’s life and uncovered everything there was to uncover. Henry Beckett. Thirty-seven years old. Former military. And his current occupation: hired mercenary. No wife. No children. No family worth mentioning.

And no loyalties beyond the highest bidder.

We knew where he lived, where he worked, the dozens of names he’d used, and the bodies he had left behind.

Rocco found almost everything. Almost.

The one piece of information he wasn’t able to find was the only one that truly mattered.

Who had hired him to kill Serafina?

Because men like Henry didn’t stalk women halfway across the world for no reason. Someone had put a price on my wife’s head.

And I intended to find out who.

He swallowed, the movement pressing his throat harder against the blade.

“Last chance,” I murmured.

Henry Beckett said nothing.

His body went rigid in my grip. It wasn’t fear. No, his body tensed with his resolve. He’d made his choice. He would die before he talked, and the grim acceptance of that fact radiated from him like heat from a furnace.

I knew men like him. Proud and disciplined. Arrogant enough to stare death in the eyes without blinking. He would never tell me what I wanted to know.