Page 81 of Pretty Little Assassin

“Hello, Asset 13.”

I’m not even one step in through the doorway when I get the greeting.

An older omega. Not one of the omegas on my protection list.

“Who are you? How do you know my⁠—”

"Twenty years he has cost me. Thirteen of them spent building a machine to stop men exactly like him, and he still crawls out from under it like a cockroach."

I don’t know her face. I don’t know her voice.

But the cadence. It’s so familiar.

“The teams have retrieved some of the omegas safely. The others—well, there will be some losses today. The bastard seems to have been cleverer than even I gave him credit for.”

She pauses, crinkling a photograph of my stepfather in her hand and tossing it to the side of the room with something palpably more severe than bitter resentment.

“I’d like this to end tonight. And after all this time, I had to come here and see it end with my own eyes.” She looks up at me with stiff recognition. “I was not going to watch this go down on a monitor.”

A monitor? Wait⁠—

“Hello, girls.”

The house has a new upgrade. An intercom system that fills the place with my stepfather’s voice as if it’s coming through the seams of the walls. That’s one thing that apparently hasn’t been preserved in embalming fluid.

“I’m so glad that you could both make it.”

A pause, and I can hear him smiling into it.

“Twenty-three minutes, girls. Do make yourselves at home.”

His voice—delighted, gloating. I fucking hate this man with a passion I can’t put into words.

I flinch.

“Don’t let him get into your head, Asset 13,” the omega says, looking directly at the new intercom relay in the corner of the ceiling and clocking its location immediately. “He enjoys it. Don’t give him the pleasure.”

Her voice—even without knowing it exactly, I still know it. The rhythm between her words. The tiny enunciation. The tone. It’s the same voice that I have heard through a modulator a thousand times. It’s the same voice behind the words in all those birthday cards I got every single, fucking year. The same voice from the encrypted calls, the same tone from the text messages.

It’s the voice of the woman who gave me purpose, shelter, and a reason to be a weapon.

“Madam?”

“Hello, Valentina.” Her eyes are sharp, still watching the room. But her voice is soft.

I can’t believe she’s here. After all this time.

Madam.

“What a happy little family reunion this is.” The intercom does little to hide the twisted malice in his voice.

Jesus Christ, I hate the man so much.

The last time he used the phrase “family reunion”, my mother died in my arms. I don’t think I have any family left for him to torture again.

At least I didn’t think so.

“Both of my girls, home at last.”