Page 42 of Till Death Do Us Part

I drew the knife from inside my jacket—an authentic Whitecliff blade, marked with their seal. I’d been on procurement before this, getting the weapon Vera would use to kill Elaine, make it look like the Whitecliffs’ doing.

This job might have been the hardest of all.

Chapter 17

vera

Something wasn’t right.

I didn’t know what it was, but when I got back to the house, something felt wrong. A disturbance. It wasn’t all as I’d left it.

Whitecliffs? But… no. They couldn’t have found this place. Not unless they’d tracked us?

They couldn’t have. They didn’t know the route Elaine and I took, and Petra would never have done something so amateur as leave a trail. Tracked our communications? But we only talked over secure servers…

The only way any of them would have found us would be if somebody leaked it. But I couldn’t even imagine. We were family.

I left the car and held my hand close to my gun while I inspected the property. No sign of anybody. Just a persistent feeling like something was wrong.

I told Petra about it once I was inside, and her expression hardened.

“I’ll set up defensive measures. You just focus on Elaine.”

“Thanks. Guess I’ll kill you another time.”

She put a hand on my shoulder before I could leave. “Vera?”

“What?”

Her eyes flickered. “It’s going to be hard for me, too. You’re not in this alone.”

I turned away. “I already told you,” I said. “It’s going to be easy. I threw away my humanity for a reason. Nothing but an attack dog now. Nothing but a wild wolf.”

Elaine was visibly tongue-tied when I met her before the ceremony, pacing the parlor anxiously.

“You okay?” I said, and she swallowed hard.

“Just… nerves before the wedding. I can’t believe I’m getting… married.”

“It’s not going to feel like anything is different.” I put a hand on her arm. “You’ll just be safe instead.”

She swallowed, her eyes locking on mine briefly before pulling away, blushing. It stirred something inside me.

No. You can’t.

I wasn’t going to feel anything for her. Nothing sentimental, and nothing about… last night. Nothing about how she’d all but offered herself to me.

I didn’t fuck people I was going to kill. Bad form.

I didn’t hold them and kiss them tenderly, either. No matter how it felt when she looked at me.

“It’s going to be settled before you know it,” I said. “And we’ll be able to move forward.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

She met my eyes again, and here in the quiet of the parlor, just the two of us standing close, I wanted to kiss her.

My phone buzzed, and I pulled back sharply, turning my back to Elaine before I lost my mind.