Page 128 of Lethal Attraction

My earpiece crackles to life as I sail past my family with determination. Logan’s voice filters through seconds later. “I’ve got a visual on Brooks to the Easter side. About a hundred yards to the left.”

I press my earpiece. “Keep your visual. Clear out the area.”

“Vincent is on the move,” Rowan warns. “I’ve lost sight of him.”

Fuck.

“Thalia,” Atlas calls. “Shout for backup if you need it. Do you understand?”

I don’t answer as my legs pump faster. My heart pounds in my chest as I clear a log and continue in the direction that Logan gave.

“Answer us,” Rowan commands with a hard edge.

“Copy,” I say through gritted teeth.

I keep pushing, my lungs burning as the brush scrapes across my shins. My sixth sense kicks in the moment I feel eyes on the back of my neck, and I spin.

A woman launches herself at me from behind, sending us both to the rugged ground in a mess of limbs. I send our momentum forward, turning our position until she’s under me and I’m straddling her hips. She unsheathes a knife, gritting her teeth as she slashes wildly at my face.

I lean back and blink at her. “Oh, this is just sad. Would it make you feel better if I let you get a good one in?”

She releases a fierce, high-pitched sound as she reaches out for me, and I snatch her wrist before angling her knife at the base of my neck.

“Right there,” I smirk. She barely makes a nick before I suck my teeth. “That’s pathetic.”

“Fuck you!” She spits before trying to buck me off.

“It’s almost like you don’t have…any…training…” my voice dies as the realization slaps me. Hard. “You don’t.”

She stops fighting, her limbs falling as she pants beneath me. “I-I’m not an assassin.”

I stand quickly, towering over her with a scowl. “Explain yourself before I fucking kill you for the fun of it.”

She looks away, ashamed as her lips wobble. “Brooks said he needed bodies. I didn’t know we were going to war…”

He hasn’t been trying to get money for his cause. He’s been trying to fill the void of not having enough people. Vincent never would have agreed if Brooks had only a few assassins behind him. No, he needed more bodies…

I sigh, stepping back before I reach out for her hand. She stares at my appendage before slowly taking it, and I hoist her up. Before she can release me, I yank her close with a warning.

“Find as many civilians as you can and retreat. There’s a highway two miles away from here. Go and never look back.”

She swallows, nodding quickly. “Okay. Thank you—for sparing me.”

“This isn’t a mercy,” I clarify. “You shouldn’t have been here in the first place.”

She nods quickly before disappearing through the brush. As soon as she’s out of sight, I call in on the earpiece. “We have a problem. Some of these people aren’t assassins. Brooks needed more people for his cause, so Vincent would agree.”

“Motherfucker!” Rowan curses.

“I knew these guys didn’t seem trained well enough,” Logan mutters.

“New plan,” Bailey says. “Release the civilians unless they’re dead set on being slaughter.”

“No one is to harm another civilian unless they refuse to cooperate,” Rowan agrees.

A chorus of responses come through the channel before everyone continues tearing through the Western Branch and Brooks’s men.

Another man steps out from behind a tree in front of me, his hands tightening into fists at his sides as he cracks his neck.