Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
One after another, I just keep going, until finally, there’s nothing but silence, and I fall to my knees, gasping for air.
One more shot comes from next door, but something about it makes my stomach sink like lead.
My ears ring from the chaos, but beneath that high-pitched hum there’s nothing. No footsteps. No voices. No crashing furniture. Just silence.
My heart hammers against my ribs for a whole new reason. If he were done, he’d already be racing in here, probably going straight through the wall just to save the few extra seconds, but there’s nothing. Just pure, dead silence.
“Raiden?” I call, my voice barely above a whisper as I scramble back to my feet, my knees suddenly shaking.
There’s no response, and as panic creeps up my spine, I step over the bodies scattered across my living room, desperate to get to him. If he’s been shot . . . fuck.
CRACK.
Pain detonates through my back, electricity exploding through my body like lightning tearing through my nerves. My muscles seize, locking so violently that a scream rips from my throat before I can stop it or even begin to figure out what the fuck is going on.
My legs buckle, and my knees slam into the hardwood floor. With shaking hands, I dig my fingers into the floor, trying uselessly to get back up. Every muscle in my body spasms at once, the electricity flooding through my spine and down into my limbs until I can’t feel anything except the violent, burning current ripping through me.
What is this?
Tears spring to my eyes, and I try to move, try to turn around, try to fight the pain, but my body won’t listen.
I’m paralyzed with electricity, and the only possible reason could be a high-powered taser, something created for either military or law enforcement.
My vision blurs as the world tilts sideways, the apartment spinning around me through a haze of pain and ringing noise.
And then comes a laugh so familiar that my whole world crumbles before I’ve even seen the woman standing at my seizing back. I know exactly who I’ll find.
Milan.
The betrayal tears through me. My best friend. My confidant for all these years, and now she stands at my back, about to be the very reason for my fall.
The electricity finally dies, and the silence that follows feels heavier than the current ever did.
Every muscle trembles violently as the last aftershocks ripple through my body. Even my lungs struggle to remember how to breathe. The scent of blood and burned skin hangs thick in the air, mixing with gunpowder and the metallic bite of adrenaline still flooding my veins.
Somewhere beyond the ringing in my ears, a slow pair of footsteps moves through the wreckage of my apartment. Deliberate. Unhurried. Too fucking confident. And that’s the biggest mistake she’ll ever make.
She thinks she has the upper hand because I’m down, but she has a lot to learn about this industry, and a shitload still to learn about me. Because I don’t give up. I don’t let women like this take the win. It’s not in my DNA.
I force my head up, taking in everything around me. Bodies litter the floor, dark shapes slumped against shattered furniture and splintered walls. Blood stains the hardwood, soaking into the rug beneath the couch. The apartment barely resembles the place I walked through only a few minutes ago.
The footsteps stop a few feet behind me, and I groan as I attempt to turn back, to take in the woman who’s called herself my best friend for all these years, but my body doesn’t respond.
Milan’s voice cuts through the silence. “Well . . . That took longer than I expected.”
She steps around in front of me, boots crunching over broken glass and shell casings as she surveys the carnage with casual amusement. Tactical gear hugs her frame, black fabric smeared with streaks of someone else’s blood, her weapon hanging loosely in one hand. And it’s almost comical to the way I’d imagined her.
She’s a hacker. Not an assassin. She doesn’t know how to use the weapons lining her belt, wouldn’t even know where to begin, and considering she knows exactly what I’m capable of, she must truly believe that she has an ace up her sleeve; otherwise, she’d never even try. Perhaps the countless assassins were that ace, but I barely broke a sweat taking them out.
I don’t recognize her face. We’ve never met each other in this way.
But the voice. God. The voice. I could almost pretend that it’s not real, that this woman before me truly isn’t Milan, but there’s no denying the voice of my best friend—my only friend.
“I’ve always wanted to use one of these. How sweet that you got to be my very first test hamster,” she says softly, not even a hint of guilt in her tone, making me wonder who the fuck I’ve been talking to all these years. The woman I know would never do this.