Page 18 of Pretty Little Assassin

“A pressure point.”

My hand rises to the base of my skull, where his fingers pressed before everything went dark.

“Which pressure point?”

“A secret one.” His expression remains perfectly serious. “I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you, and I have not had this much fun in years.”

Mental note: don’t let Viktor’s slippery pressure-point fingers near my neck again.

Fuck. Even in my head, that sounded wrong.

After checking that Mercy is still strapped in place, I reach for my phone.

Fourteen messages. A lot has been going on during my impromptu nap, and at least nine of them are from Donnie.

DONNIE: V, answer me.

DONNIE: Your warehouse network is gone. Not down. GONE.

DONNIE: I lost every feed. Every backup route too.

DONNIE: Tell me you’re alive before I start remotely detonating things.

The next few are from Zero.

ZERO: Check in.

ZERO: Do not return to the warehouse. Do not go anywhere alone.

ZERO: I don’t care how capable you are.

ZERO: Answer me, kid.

“Shit.” Zero doesn’t send four messages. She tells you what to do once and expects you to be smart enough to survive long enough to obey.

“What is it?” Viktor reaches for my phone like he means to take it.

I pull it out of his reach. “Mind your hands. Just because you brought me here doesn’t mean you can touch whatever you please whenever you want it.”

His eyes settle on mine, and the intensity of this gaze makes my body remember his mouth at the worst possible time.

I shake it off and open the last message, the one from Madam.

THE PRIMACY HAS JUST DECLARED WAR ON THE VEIL

“That’s impossible.”

Viktor reaches for my phone again and takes it from my hands. I don’t fight him. This has become much bigger than either of us.

His thumb goes still against the screen. For a split second, something hard shifts beneath the Wraith’s mask before his expression locks down again.

The Primacy and the VEIL have never been besties, but the two shadow organizations have always followed certain rules. We stay out of one another’s way. Sometimes our objectives overlap, and occasionally we even benefit from the other organization’s work.

We tolerate each other. We do not go to war.

Viktor sets my phone down on the table instead of handing it back. Mr. Pickles confiscates it to rest his tail.

“Мой враг теперь твой враг,” he says. He lets the words hang in the air before adding, “My enemy is now your enemy.”