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“A daughter,” Daria informed her with a huff of disgust. “You know what will happen.”
Polina nodded. “She will start the girl’s training before she gets out of the toddler years.”
“As she should,” Daria gritted, slamming the pictures down on the desk in front of me. “Congratulations, boy. You have a baby sister.”
The desk lamp glared off the glossy photo. I reached out, shifting the pictures closer. Something pulsed in my chest as I gazed down at the little bundle wrapped in a pink blanket. A black curl of hair had escaped the swaddle. A tiny nose. A sweet smile. The biggest blue eyes that were so full of innocence.
A baby. My sister.
Warmth spread outward from my chest, a sensation that, for once, had nothing to do with physical pain. She was beautiful. A tiny little girl who was dependent on those around her to keep her safe.
I curled my fingers around the picture, drawing it closer, wanting to commit every inch of her face to memory.
And then Daria snatched it back. With a vicious curse, she tore the photo in half. As the pieces floated back down onto the desk, that warm feeling disappeared, almost as if it had never been. Leaving me numb once more.
Her grin was unhinged as she bent toward me. “You’re going to kill that little bitch one day, Vaughn.”
AGE 35
I adjusted the scope, zeroing in on the beautiful woman as she gazed up at the Parliament Building. I saw what I could only describe as longing in her expression. In the months that I had begun following her around, I hadn’t learned much about her personal life. No boyfriends. No girlfriends. Hell, not any friends that I could discern meant anything to her.
Samara Vitucci was an enigma.
From the closer look I’d had to take at her for her entire life, I would have to diagnose her as borderline psychopathic. She hid it well, though. If I hadn’t been looking for a weakness, I wouldn’t have noticed all the little tells. To any unsuspecting person, her idiosyncrasies were cute and quirky. To a trained psychologist, it all added up to a hell of a research paper.
She might not have a current lover, but she did have one obsession. If everything went smoothly for her while she fulfilled this favor for her mother, she would be in Creswell Springs in just a few weeks. And the poor bastard she was besotted with would have to deal with her special kind of crazy.
Was he the reason she was so in love with architecture? How long had she been obsessed with him if she’d mapped out her entire career, moving people and opportunities around like chess pieces until she finally had everything perfect?
I couldn’t even begin to understand that level of love. Or in this case, pure, unchecked obsession.
Why did anyone love anything?
It was a question I honestly wanted to know the answer to. Having never felt anything except numbness, I craved to feel something other than the constant emptiness that lived inside me. Watching Samara as she enjoyed something as mundane as the sight of a building had me pausing with my finger on the trigger.
For years, I’d been watching the Vitucci family, but in the last several months, I’d been focused more on the daughter. I’d known about her from the day she was born, yet I’d never felt a single moment of connection to her.
I mentally shrugged the thought away. A fleeting instant at seeing her picture was nothing in the twenty-four years since that I’d had to stalk her and her family’s every move.
And now, I was supposed to end her life.
A few strands had fallen from her ponytail. It hadn’t been easy getting the kid out of the hellhole Daria had dropped him in a few days ago, but Samara had done it. She’d made the exchange, placing the kid’s hand in his mother’s, and then sent them on their way. As if she hadn’t spent the last thirty-six hours blowing shit up and spilling blood across the Hungarian countryside.
It had taken months of planning for this one moment. Once Anya got word, more deaths would follow. I wanted to watch as she ended her contact’s life, the one who had traded a favor to Daria and, in essence, set this whole scene into motion. Code Name Quail had risked his own child’s life for nothing more than a few hundred million in his bank account.
After thirty-five years of witnessing the dark side of humanity, I was no longer surprised that a person could be so greedy.
But I doubted he would continue to breathe for much longer. Anya wouldn’t tolerate her daughter being targeted.
As I watched, I saw several different expressions flash across Samara’s face as she looked up at the Parliament Building. A small flicker of distaste. Rage only lasted a few seconds and was replaced by what appeared to be a moment of peace. Her shoulders lifted and fell with a deep inhale as she smiled.
That quickly, her emotions could shift, reminding me once more of how crazy she was. But she hid it so well. A lesson she’d learned, thanks to her childhood. Something we had in common. From the outside looking in, anyone would assume she was a spoiled little princess. Billionaire parents. Exclusive, prestigious schools. Papa’s precious little girl.
No one ever looked deeper, though. Not even her own family. They willfully turned a blind eye to the torture her own mother had subjected her to daily in order to turn her into the unsuspecting, beautiful assassin she now was. There was no one else like her. She was unbreakable. No amount of torture could crack her for even a moment.
I suspected it was because she was already so broken, there was no longer anything left to tear down.
No wonder the poor girl walked the fine line of mental stability.
