I broke protocol.
The protocol? Do not engage with humans unless absolutely necessary.
Simple enough.
Yet, I found myself cornering Vera Ballantine in a dark alleyway like a mobster cliché.
I told myself she’d practically invited me, since she’d made herself easy to find. With geo-tagged selfies plastered on three different social media platforms and backup reservations under each of her subpar daughters’ names.
They’d chosen to dine at one of those god-awful genre-confused “oriental” restaurants that managed to convince influencers their food didn’t suck. The type that served sushi, pad thai, and pho under the same roof.
I hid in a narrow passageway, waiting for them to finish. The last thing I needed was to be plastered on a gossip rag.
About an hour after I’d arrived, Regina and Tabitha hung back inside the restaurant while their mother poured outside to ask the valet for her Mercedes.
Vera slipped into the alleyway, producing a cigarette from her Gucci purse.
The second the orange embers of her cancer stick glowed, I pressed the tip of my knife to her lower back, still hiding in the shadows.
She gasped, trying to turn. “What the—”
I burrowed the blade deeper into her back, forcing her body to slam against the wall face-first. “No need to turn, Vera. I’d like to eat dinner tonight, and your face is a prescription-grade appetite suppressant.”
She gulped, her cheek digging into the rough bricks. “Zachary Sun?”
“Listen carefully.” I ignored her question, knowing she couldn’t see me, especially in the dark. “Your existence is currently a terrible inconvenience for me. Stop messing with your stepdaughter.”
“Farrow?” She leaned back before remembering the knife. “That girl ruined my life. She’s trying to take me dow—”
“I didn’t ask for a TED talk. I gave you specific instructions. Don’t you dare mess with her. Not now. Not in the future. No matter the outcome of your dispute.” I slanted the knife, taunting her with its blade. “Farrow Ballantine is under my protection. You know who I am. You know what I’m capable of.”
Farrow will come out of this victorious if it’s the last thing I do with my life.
I needed to ensure Vera didn’t attack her afterwards. I didn’t intend on sticking around my maid to find out.
Vera tried to turn again, seconds from stomping her feet. “You don’t understand.”
In the background, the valet asked his coworker where she’d gone.
Her cigarette fell from her shaky fingers to the pavement. “I’m going to be penniless—”
“I do understand. Perfectly so. I just couldn’t care less. Farrow Ballantine is officially off-limits to you. Tamper with her life one more time, and I assure you, I will take yours.”
“You’ll never kill me.” A wretched laugh tumbled out of her throat. She tried to turn again, but this time, I curved the knife to the side of her throat, losing patience. “You won’t risk your life for that white trash.”
“You and I are not the same, Vera. I don’t answer to the law. Ruining you is as easy as ordering takeout.”
“Mr. Sun—”
I cut her off, refusing to confirm my identity, knowing she could never prove her suspicions. “I consider myself a thorough person. When I’m done with you, I’ll move on to your daughters.”
“Please—”
“They’ll live in utter poverty, unable to marry anyone respectable. We both know they’re incapable of making it on their own.” I dug my heel into her cigarette, grinding it beneath my sole. It died with a hiss. “By the time I’m finished with your family, you’ll be sorry for the day you decided to form one and exclude Farrow from it.”
She sobbed, tears beginning to leak from her eyes. “You’re evil.”
The valet boys got impatient, calling out her name. One of them asked the other to run into the restaurant and fetch her daughters.
I needed to wrap this up.
“I am,” I confirmed, completely at ease with her observation. “You’ll be better off if you remember this simple fact. Not only am I more evil than you, I’m also more capable. Consider this your first and final warning, Vera. Leave Farrow alone.”
She burst into a fresh bout of tears, nodding.
“Now turn around and walk back to the restaurant. Look behind you, and the last thing you’ll see before you die is the flash of my blade.”
I had no intention of wasting a perfectly good knife on her, but she didn’t know that.
She nodded, faster than a bobblehead. “Okay, okay.”
I pushed her toward the street with the hilt of my knife. She stumbled over her own feet, weeping and choking.
“Mom. Ugh, where were you?” One of Vera’s spawns clung to her arm as soon as she neared. “We had to wait in the cold.”
“Not to worry, sweetie,” Vera purred, her voice business as usual. “Just went on a little cigarette break.”
“You should really give them up, you know. It’s eating at our inheritance, and it’s not like there’s much left.”
