Page 24 of Villainous Rise

This made no fucking sense.

I watched them work the room. Valor paraded Annie around like a fucking trophy, his arm possessively wrapped around her waist as they moved from one group to another. Each time they stopped, he’d introduce her with that camera-ready smile. Each time, she’d nod and shake hands, her lips curved upward in what anyone else would call a smile.

But I knew better.

I’d memorized every expression Annie Bishop could make. I’d studied them, fucking dreamed about them. That wasn’t her real smile. That was her professional mask, the one she wore when dealing with League bureaucrats and Alliance officials she secretly wanted to choke out.

Valor leaned down again, his mouth brushing against the shell of her ear, and something in me snapped. I imagined the sound his spine would make if I ripped it out through his throat. The way his perfect teeth would look scattered across the marble floor. The satisfying crunch of his skull beneath my boot.

I forced myself to breathe. To focus. To actually fucking look.

That’s when I saw it.

Annie wasn’t leaning into his touch. She was enduring it. Her shoulders held a tension I recognized now that I was looking beyond my rage, the same rigid posture she adopted when forced to attend functions she hated. Her smile never reached her eyes. Each time Valor touched her, there was the slightest, almost imperceptible flinch.

No one else would notice because no one else had spent months learning the language of Annie’s body, the subtle tells that betrayed her true feelings. No one else knew how her real smile started at the corners of her eyes before reaching her lips.

This wasn’t attraction. This was fucking tolerance.

Annie wasn’t on a date with this fucking asshole. She was enduring him. Playing some kind of role.

My murderous rage transformed into something colder as Valor’s hand slid lower on her back, fingers stopping just above the curve of her ass. Annie’s smile tightened fractionally, her spine stiffening even as she maintained her polite facade.

Fuck this.

Almost as if she felt my rage, Annie’s gaze snapped up, finding me instantly among the crowd. I watched every emotion that flickered across her face—surprise, anger, confusion, recognition.

Then horror. Pure, undiluted horror.

She gave the smallest shake of her head, barely perceptible to anyone who wasn’t watching her every fucking breath like I was. But I saw it. Clear as day. A plea.

She knew. Of course she knew. Annie had always read me like a goddamn book, even with a mask covering most of my face. She’d taken one look at me and understood I was three seconds away from launching myself over this railing and turning Valor into a smear on the floor.

Someone said something to her, drawing her attention away. She smiled that fake smile again, nodding politely at whatever bullshit they were spouting. But her eyes, those eyes that had haunted me for months, flicked back up to me.

She was paler now, her lips barely moving as she mouthed two words: “Please don’t.”

Fuck. She was asking me not to intervene. Not to kill the fucker who couldn’t keep his damn hands to himself.

The metal of the railing warped beneath my fingers. This was exactly why I didn’t do relationships. They made you weak. Made you hesitate when you should be acting.

The fallout would potentially be catastrophic if I acted. I might even face actual consequences beyond the usual slap on the wrist. But it would be absolutely fucking worth it to crush Valor’s windpipe right now.

And Annie would hate me more than she already did.

She was still watching me, those blue eyes pleading while she maintained that plastic smile. Three months of silence, and now she was asking me for something. The first fucking thing she’d asked of me since I’d betrayed her.

Don’t kill the handsy asshole who’s touching her.

I released the railing, flexing my fingers. Fine. I wouldn’t kill him. Not tonight, anyway.

But that didn’t mean I had to sit up here and watch this bullshit performance either.

I vaulted over the railing and landed on the marble floor below. The crowd nearby startled, a ripple of gasps spreading outward.

I strolled across the ballroom like I owned it, ignoring the whispers that followed in my wake. Villain acting villainous at a retirement party. Scandalous. Whatever.

As I approached Annie, Valor was engaged in conversation with some bureaucratic nobody in an ill-fitting suit, his back partially turned to to her. Perfect.