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I wasn’t sure I could demand that he did. Iwasglad that I’d found out the truth about my birth family before I’d gotten any more enmeshed in their lives. Before I’d cared even more about my place with them and losing what I’d only just regained. I couldn’t challenge the Hunter’s claims—the Maliks had admitted to their child-torturing cult when I’d confronted them. My dad had been so delusional he honestly believed that killing kids would somehow create supernatural energies to stop other crimes…
It made me queasy just remembering his determined expression. The way he’d talked to me about bringing me into the fold. So convinced of his righteousness despite the horrible things he’d done.
But there were other answers I needed.
“Why wait so long?” I asked. “You said your daughter was killed almost thirty years ago. You’ve obviously got resources. Why were you only trying to get vengeance now—why did you have me do it? Wouldn’t it have been more satisfying to take your revenge with your own hands?”
A different sort of gleam came into the Hunter’s eyes, this one predatory enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “Oh, no, there couldn’t have been a more perfect vengeance than the one I crafted so carefully. He stole my daughter from me, so I stole his from him. I sculpted her—you—into the perfect killing machine to cut him down, so he’d not only know what it’s like to lose a child but to meet his end at her hands.”
The nausea in my gut coiled tighter. He’d just added one more piece to the puzzle I was still struggling to fit together. “Youstole me from him? But—it was the household that took me and trained me. You had them slaughtered.”
Another of those barely perceptible shrugs. “They were mine to do with as I pleased. They carried out the task I gave them—to raise you so that you could deliver the most poetic justice possible—and then they sacrificed themselves to point you in the right direction.” His gaze hardened for a second. “It was unfortunate that a break in protocol meant you were left to your own devices for some time. But all’s well that ends well.”
I stared at him. They “sacrificed” themselves? It definitely hadn’t looked to me like the people of the household had given themselves up to the slaughter willingly. Anna clearly hadn’t had any idea that the attack was part of some master plan in which I’d be spared. She’d let me out of my rooms in an attempt to protect me.
That was the break in protocol he was talking about so coldly, wasn’t it? The only act of real caring I’d gotten in my entire time under their—or his?—rule.
I reached to the back of my neck, to the spot I’d seen using a mirror where I’d been tattooed with a shape like a teardrop with a line slicing diagonally through it. “The mark on my neck—there was a woman out there in the club with the same one. She belonged to the household too?”
The Hunter chuckled. “You all belong to me. I sometimes mark my property to ensure it can’t be stolen from me.”
I bristled automatically. “I don’tbelongto anyone.”
“I made you who you are, Decima. If it wasn’t for me, you’d have been one of those duplicitous Maliks, spoiled and rotten to the core. You should thank me for making you mine.”
My teeth gritted, but I held back any cutting remarks about gratitude while there was so much I still didn’t understand.
“So you’re saying that the household worked for you. You ordered them to kidnap me and train me. And then you hired hitmen to murder all of them—well, almost all of them.” Noelle had survived, who knew for what purpose other than possibly to control me as she’d tried to in vain. “Why would you kill your own people?”
The Hunter spread his hands in front of him. “There were a lot of factors that went into that decision.”
I glowered at him. “How about you lay them out for me?”
“My reasons are hardly relevant to our current situation.”
“Then why are you hiding them from me?” I demanded. “Or are you ashamed of the choices you made? I thought you were so pleased with your whole plan, and now you don’t want to tell me about it?”
One of the guards stirred on his feet at the jab, but the Hunter made a brief gesture that stilled the other man. My pointed remarks seemed to have gotten through to him.
“Your path toward your father and the rest of your family was meant to be much straighter and smoother,” he said evenly. “Your main handler was to have released you from your rooms later that night after we were sure the mercenaries were no longer observing, and with her, you’d have discovered evidence pointing to Malik as the instigator of the massacre. You’d have gone after him and destroyed him simply for that.”
At the matter-of-factness of his tone, my stomach flipped right over. “You killed dozens of your employees so that I’d believe a lie?”
“You needed the right motivation,” the Hunter said. “It’d have been easier if you’d come to it directly. All of my people are willing to die for me if required. I choose my employees carefully. They rarely know when that moment might come.”
But I doubted they ever expected it to come from their boss’s hand, not while they were seeing through his orders with all the loyalty they could offer. My fingernails dug into my palms. All those people had died—Anna had died—so this monster could play his little game.
“It didn’t work,” I had to point out. “They all died, and you never got to put on your little charade of framing my father.”
The Hunter rubbed his jaw. “A miscalculation, I’ll admit. Your escape threw everything out of order, and I had to think on my feet to reach my goals. But we got there in the end, and I think in an even more satisfying way than I originally conceived.”
Killing dozens of people—people who’d devoted their lives to carrying out his work—was nothing more than a miscalculation to him? I restrained a shudder.
“None of that matters now,” the Hunter went on, as if oblivious to my revulsion. “Revenge has been served, and we can get down to other business.”
I arched my eyebrows at him. “Other business?” What made him think I’d want anything else to do with him after this?
He inclined his head. “Thanks to me and my resources, you’ve been trained exceptionally well. I don’t think I’d be overstretching to say you may be the best solo assassin in the world. I’ll give you as much credit for that as I give myself.”
