LEROI
My stomach clenches at the reminder that Anton, the man responsible for saving me from my deadliest mistake, turned an innocent young woman into a killer.
Not even a woman.
Seraphine had been a mere girl. Traumatized, imprisoned, grief-stricken, and subjected to sexual assaults, she was at her most vulnerable and had no means of self-defense.
I force breaths in and out of my lungs, my heart pounding so hard that I’m sure she can feel my body tensing with alarm. I want to believe it’s a different Anton from a different organization; anything other than what I know is true. He called the day after my massacre at the Capello mansion, asking about Seraphine. His missing Lolita assassin.
There’s no denying the facts. Anton turned Seraphine into the sickest form of honey-trap. An underage girl sent to seduce and murder perverts.
My grip on her wrists loosens, and I take a few deep breaths before forcing myself to speak. “What did he do to you?”
“The first thing he did was attach a remote-control collar that delivered electric shocks,” she pauses, and her breath slows. “He said it’s how he trained all his bitches.”
The rest of her account is eerily familiar to my own training, minus the schedule of reward and punishment. Anton was firm and fair, but I had been an eager student. After failing to kill my stepfather, I was determined never to make the same mistake. As a sixteen-year-old girl suffering abuse and trauma, Seraphine would have been terrified.
“There was a lot of calisthenics, some cardio, knife skills, and practicing with syringes.” She sighs, her weight pressing against my chest. “Was your training similar?”
“Not nearly so brutal,” I murmur. “I also learned explosives and how to use guns.”
“What was your trainer like?” she asks.
My throat thickens. Do I tell her we were both inducted by the same man? Seraphine reacted so terribly when I mentioned that the first target she killed was my uncle. How would she react if she discovered that the man who trained her like a dog had treated me like a son?
Knots of apprehension twist in my gut, blazing an agonizing path to the back of my throat. “That’s a difficult question.”
“Why?”
“I grew up without a permanent father figure, and my trainer stepped into the role the moment he cleaned up my dying stepfather and moved me into his home.”
She hums. “Sounds nice.”
Inhaling deeply, I push past my unease. “He was tough, but exactly what I needed at that stage of my life.”
Seraphine shifts on my lap, so we’re sitting face to face with her straddling my legs. My heart sinks, and all traces of my erection vanish. Wet streaks mar the blood smeared on her cheeks. She looks like she’s been crying.
I straighten, my face a mask of composure. “What those people did to you was unforgivable,” I say, my voice thickening. “But I swear, every one of them that’s still alive will suffer.”
Guilt strikes my heart at the thought of killing Anton, even if he was responsible for the corruption of an innocent young girl. I have so many fond memories of the man and not just from our early days.
Every few months, I take Miko to his place by the lake for a few days of fishing and relaxation. It’s a cruel discovery that the man who taught Miko to light a campfire also taught Seraphine to kill.
I clench my jaw, steel my emotions, and focus on how desperately I need to protect Seraphine.
Her eyes soften, and she nods. “We need to find Samson before he gets to Gabriel.”
At the change in subject, my chest loosens with relief, and I’m finally able to offer her a smile. “Along the way, we’ll gather up the other two guards on your list.
She nods. “Can I sleep in your bed tonight?”
“Of course.”
She lowers her eyes and curls in on herself. “There’s one more thing I need to ask.”
“Anything.”
“When you’re hunting those men, don’t leave me behind.” Her lips tighten. “I know you called me impulsive, but I’m trying. Sometimes, I keep things so bottled up that I don’t know something is wrong until I explode.”
My throat constricts, and I can only nod. “Does that explain why you bolted out of the car when you saw Pietro Fiore outside, washing his car?”
“He knew I was being forced under the threat of the chip. He knew and said nothing. Did nothing. Acted like it was all part of the job,” she says, her voice bitter.
“Is there anyone else you want to kill?”
She tilts her head, her lips curving into a smile.
“Anyone apart from me?”
I squeeze her around the middle, making her double over and squeal. Warmth spreads across my chest at the sound of her girlish laughter, and my nose fills with her strawberry scent. Who would have thought Seraphine was ticklish?
“Maybe Anton,” she says.
Instantly, a lump forms in my gut, dread pooling in its place as I think of what Anton might have done to Seraphine. “Did he… touch you?”
She’s silent, her features remaining still. The dread twists, expands, and takes on a new form that sinks its claws into my stomach and threatens to tear at my heart.
She shakes her head. “Not really.”
I school my features into a mask of calm, even though my heart thuds so hard that its cage rattles. Through ragged, shallow breaths, I ask, “What does that mean?”
Seraphine glances to the side. “It was nothing like it was with Samson.”
Steam rises from the bathtub, and the air thickens with anticipation. It closes in on me on all sides and squeezes tight. My breath stills as I await her reply, and the silence bears down on us until my ears ring, making me force down a wave of frustration.
Why is she hesitating?
What did Anton do to her that was too terrible to even mention?
I swallow over and over, trying to digest the notion that Anton could be a worse predator than Samson. Because there’s a selfish, twisted part of myself that wonders if I’m the same. I knew she was damaged, knew she’d been abused, yet I fucked her against the wall after she tortured a rapist.
“You can tell me anything,” I say. “They’ll be no judgment, no matter what.”
I keep my voice even and my gaze soft, despite the anger and hatred burning through my veins, despite the overwhelming helplessness of knowing that the man I called a mentor is a monster.
She lowers her lashes. “He never touched me, not in a way that was inappropriate, but he…”
“Seraphine, what did he do?”
She swallows. “He said I had to learn to attract men and look innocent and harmless so they could drop their guard.”
Hesitating, I wait for her to continue.
“I had to exercise naked, and he would get really close to adjust my form.” A shudder runs through her bones, sending ripples through the bathwater. “Sometimes, I could feel his breath on my skin. Do you think that’s why I stabbed that man at the gas station in the eye?”
“It’s possible.” My words are choked.
What Seraphine describes isn’t just sexual abuse, it’s psychological torture. Being forced to assume vulnerable positions and never knowing when Anton’s control might snap is the worst kind of mind fuck.
“He also ordered me to change into cute little outfits while he watched. Sometimes I had to dance.”
My jaw clenches.
That sick bastard.
“When Samson brought him in, he’d stand back and do nothing while Samson used the collar to make me humiliate myself with sex toys. When he was with Gregor, he just stared at me while I was training in a way that made my skin crawl.” She shakes her head. “It’s so difficult to describe—”
“I believe you.”
Her eyes widen. “You do?”
“Even if they didn’t rape you, it was still abuse. They were evil men, and when we catch up with them, they will die horribly.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me into a tight hug that I don’t deserve. If Seraphine knew that I owed my life to Anton, she would leave me without a second thought.
Or maybe she would snap. She isn’t healed enough to take care of herself and doesn’t have the resources to find Gabriel.
Then she’d be out there alone and vulnerable, killing people until either the police caught up with her. Or Samson.
She must never know my secret.
