Page 57 of Pretty Little Assassin

Somebody in this room is running late on purpose.

I think idly about killing Robert Johnson. Garrote, knife, strangling. Dismembering. Fast or slow.

Obviously, Valentina gets the kill.

I’m just passing time.

Admiring Valentina in the same sexy stilettos she ground into my chest, wearing the dress she poured herself into, simpering at every alpha and making them think they’re in charge.

It’s enough to make me glad I was tortured into immunity to synthetics. I like to think I could have evaded her assassination, but I see every alpha here clueless about her true nature. And Dostoevsky warned me not to believe my own lies.

I can smell the jasmine and vanilla underneath.

Only I can see the gleeful murderer.

“How delightful,” an alpha in a red dress says as she walks past the tray in my hands and plucks a champagne flute.

They’re all wearing red. Hundreds of women dressed to be noticed, all managing to look exactly the same. Money buys many things. Individuality is apparently not one of them.

All the red makes it look like a murder scene waiting to happen.

It does not make it hard to keep track of her. Between checking exits, operatives, and monitoring—yes, Donnie, monitoring—my eyes follow her. So does my nose.

Two hundred people in this room and a synthetic cocktail on her skin, and I could find her blindfolded.

Hell, I don’t even try; I can’t not track her scent.

It is in every breath I take.

“Aren’t you supposed to be walking around with the tray?”

The same alpha takes a second flute off my tray.

I understand why omegas hate alphas. What I don’t understand is the alpha need to feel larger by making someone else feel small. Perhaps because I’m already big enough.

“Maybe,” I muster a charming smile. “But if I were walking around, then I wouldn’t be standing right here for you to help yourself to a second glass now, would I?”

She giggles, glances down at my belt as if she’s interested, then gets distracted by someone calling her name before she walks away to rejoin her friends.

I’m still tracking Valentina through the crowd. Reading her body language, counting the micro-adjustments she makes as she moves.

Her eyes are constantly scanning the room. She plants her heels down delicately, part of the act she’s portraying, but also firmly enough so that I can hear the clicking of her shoes on the marble floor from here.

She knows what she’s doing. And I’d be lying if I didn’t find her courage and competence hot as hell.

The little pout as she smiles at alphas in the room. It’s tempting but not inviting. She’s making it easy for them to want her, stupidly so, but not so much that they help themselves to her. Which is why when one of them touches Valentina, every muscle in my body flexes in a triggered, visceral response.

“Dude, you really need to work on breathing techniques. How is it possible that you can be silent enough to live up to your reputation of standing hours on end and corners of apartments without your targets even knowing you’re there—but for some reason, you can’t manage to keep your exhale from sounding like a geyser coming through my earpiece?”

“Donnie, curb the commentary,” Zero scolds him. “Keep the comm clear.”

I put every face in this room into memory. The ones who touch her go in twice. I have killed for money, survival, and reputation. For her, I would do it for free.

That one. The finger he just ran down her arm.

Give me a reason. That finger will be all they find.

I keep watching as Valentina uses much less violent measures to get the alpha to back off. The fury still stays with me like pent-up, kinetic energy. Even after she’s walked away from the asshole.