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ONE
Decima
If there wasone thing I’d learned in the past few weeks, it was that monsters rarely looked like horrific creatures of the night. No, they could lurk right in front of you within a politician’s glossy smile or a mother’s desperate hug.
They could stare down at you from an impervious height, all craggy, chiseled face and sleek silver-blond hair, like the man who called himself the Hunter was doing to me right now.
The party carried on around us, music echoing through the nightclub alongside laughter and the clinking of champagne glasses. This celebration was forhim, the guy who apparently was “boss” to all these people. And the sick sensation in my gut came from my growing suspicion about exactly what they were celebrating.
Just a couple of hours ago, the men of the Chaos Crew and I had murdered most of my birth family. It’d been for a good reason. The Maliks had been torturing and making bloody sacrifices of innocent children for generations. But the man in front of me had wanted to bring about the Maliks’ downfall. He’d given me clues and nudged me toward the discoveries I’d made. He somehow seemed to already know it’d happened.
How large a hand had he really had in pushing me toward this end?
But that wasn’t even the biggest question looming in my mind. At least one woman in the club had the same bisected teardrop tattoo that I bore on the back of my neck, the one that connected me to the household where I’d been held captive and trained as a deadly assassin for more than twenty years. The Hunter’s right-hand man appeared to be the same person who’d hired the Chaos Crew to slaughter everyone else in the household—who’d demanded they return me to him when I hadn’t turned up in the mansion.
Too many pieces were colliding all at once, but I couldn’t make them fit together into a picture I understood. My mind was spinning so fast it was dizzying me. What the hell was going on?
Moments ago, when I’d accused the Hunter of arranging the massacre at the household, he’d acted as if it was Damien Malik’s fault instead. I knew that was bullshit, and I wasn’t letting him get away with his non-answer.
I pushed a little closer, my muscles flexing with all the strength my combat training had given me, and glared up at him. His cool stare wasn’t going to intimidate me.
“I know you’re behind the killings at the household,” I said. “How were you connected to them? What did you have against them?”
Why did you wantme?I thought but couldn’t quite bring myself to say.
The Hunter simply shrugged his broad shoulders and started to turn away, as if my questions didn’t even warrant his verbal acknowledgment. My teeth gritted. I snatched at his arm before he could dismiss me completely.
“Why were you after the Maliks too? Did they even really kill your daughter, or did you make that up like everything else you’ve apparently lied about?”
The Hunter’s attention snapped back to me with a brief flash of anger in his eyes. He wasn’t totally impervious.
That fact lent truth to the words he said next. “I’d never lie about my daughter. We should both be happy with the outcome we got. Go have a drink and enjoy yourself now that you’re here. Tonight I intend to celebrate, not submit myself to an interrogation.”
He turned his back and strode to the bar. A few toughs who I guessed were bodyguards fell in to flank him in tight formation. They stopped when he did and turned to watch me as if sensing this clash wasn’t finished yet.
It definitely wasn’t. The Hunter hadn’t bothered giving me a single answer. Typical.
I whirled around to face my men, frustration thrumming through me so violently they could probably see it in my stance. “This isn’t over,” I said to Julius, the leader of the crew.
His jaw was tight, his deep blue eyes coolly fierce. Havinghissubstantial frame, which was even taller and brawnier than the Hunter’s, standing over me settled my nerves a little rather than rattling them, because I knew this man would do whatever he could for me with his power. He didn’t argue, simply nodded and motioned for all of us to pull back to the far end of the bar.
We tucked ourselves into a booth in the back corner, away from the noisiest parts of the party. I kicked at the table legs, my fingers curling toward my palms. “That fucking jackass,” I growled.
“Definitely not the most pleasant guy I’ve met in my life,” Garrison remarked with typical snarkiness, swiping his hand through his rumpled blond hair. “We’re not bowing out that easy, are we? This prick’s got to have every answer you’ve been looking for since the day we found you.”
Julius snorted. “She’s not planning on leaving.” He lifted his chin toward me. “What do you need us to do?”
The loyalty and dedication he showed in those seven words could have torn my heart into shreds. He didn’t ask to hash out my strategy first or for me to explain my reasons. He didn’t need to. He knew that this was my mission, and I’d call the right shots. And he intended to be right there with me when I did.
All four of my men did. A sharp-edged smile crossed Garrison’s lips, and Blaze shifted in his seat with typical restless eagerness. The hacker’s brown eyes gleamed bright beneath his shaggy red hair. Talon sat next to him as a still and solid presence, the amber lights gleaming off his shaved scalp, but I felt the weight of all his attention on me.
The Chaos Crew was ready for action, and right now I was the one directing them.
I was too tangled up about the situation to take much enjoyment out of my newfound authority. “We’ve got to get the Hunter away from his security,” I said. “As long as he can use them as a shield, we’re not getting anything from him. If we can drag him out of here, we can interrogate him properly. That’s clearly the only way he’s going to open his mouth.”
Even then, I wasn’t betting on cracking him open being an easy process.
Garrison glanced at the crowded room. “With the atmosphere and the amount of drinking going on, we’ve got more leeway than we might otherwise. It’ll still be tough to shake the muscle from their boss.”
