Page 2 of Pretty Little Assassin

He’s going to wish he’d kept a closer eye on me.

“You can run if you want, Valentina,” his tone drops, becoming unnervingly soft. “But I promise you, I would find you. And you’d regret making me look.”

“Of course, Stepdaddy, I’m not going anywhere.”

I let myself tremble for exactly two seconds, then straighten my spine and turn toward my room.

I step inside and close the door. Then pull open my vanity drawer.

There, behind my hairbrush, tied to the back of my mirror, is my solution. The reason the police will call it a “business argument gone wrong”.

A hum builds in my throat, the same hum that I sang to myself the night I found out my stepfather was a monster. The same hum my real dad used to make anytime I was nervous. He knew it calmed me down.

I look up at my reflection and see my bright green eyes narrow as I hold the knife.

The cops can call it whatever they want.

I’m calling it practice.

1

VALENTINA

9 years later

They say you can smell death coming.

That’s bullshit.

Death smells like whatever I want it to.

Tonight, it’s honey and omega slick, synthetic pheromones designed to make alphas stupid, which, let’s be honest, isn’t very difficult for most of them. The suite reeks of it: that heavy, cloying sweetness that scrambles their neurons and reroutes all the blood from their brains straight to their dicks. My target’s already half-drunk on bourbon and the other half-drunk on me when I slide my palm up his chest and feel the pathetic hammer of his heartbeat beneath my fingers.

“Little omega,” he slurs, grabbing my hip. His grip is too tight, alpha-possessive in the way that makes my skin crawl. “You smell incredible.”

“Thank you.” I smile up at him, wide eyes, soft lips, the whole performance. “You’re very sweet.”

He isn’t sweet.

He’s a forty-seven-year-old alpha with a thing for trafficking omega teenagers through his chain of “wellness retreats.” Twelve victims confirmed—probably more. The youngest was fourteen.

The last things he’ll ever taste are my fake-heat perfume and the champagne I poured him ten minutes ago.

Poor bastard thinks he’s the predator.

His name is Gerald Wallgreen the III. Investment banker. Philanthropist. Guest speaker at three Omega Rights galas last year. The irony is so sharp it makes me want to peel the skin off his face. But that would be messy, and the Madam prefers clean kills when possible. Something that could pass for natural causes or, at the very least, won’t make the evening news for longer than it has to.

So I use the knife instead.

My favourite one is a four-inch carbon steel blade strapped to my inner thigh, hidden beneath the slit of a red Valentino dress.

I named her Mercy, the blade, not the dress. A Valentino cannot be rebaptized.

Why Mercy? Because that's what I show them in the end. Even though it's not the kind they want.

Gerald tries to kiss my neck as I slide Mercy free. His nostrils flare. He smells the steel, or maybe the shift in my pheromones, because even synthetic heat has its limits, and mine froze into ice-cold intent.

“Wha—”