His grip tightened fractionally. “Stop wasting time.”
“Have you ever been to the beach? Can you swim?” I pressed on, watching his face for any reaction.
“Last warning,” he said through his teeth, eyes darkening with threat.
I was running out of time and options. My mind raced to the most disturbing information I’d uncovered during my investigation—a heavily redacted document that mentioned a “loyalty verification protocol” for new operatives. The final test that proved the conditioning had taken hold.
My stomach turned at the thought, but I had to try.
“Have you ever killed a child?”
The change was instant and violent. His hand dropped from my throat as if burned. His pupils contracted to pinpoints, then dilated so rapidly I could actually see ithappen. His mouth opened as if to say “no,” but no sound emerged.
A thin trickle of blood appeared beneath his nose, followed by a second. His breathing shortened to rapid, shallow gasps.
My heart constricted painfully in my chest. I hadn’t just found a crack in his programming—I’d stumbled onto the cornerstone of his conditioning.
According to my source, the final test for newly programmed operatives was the execution of a child—the ultimate proof that their humanity had been successfully stripped away, that they would follow any order without question.
The document had called it “the point of no return.”
Until this point, I had only read about these prisoners who had been snatched away from the prisons and had all of their personality stripped away from them. To see one of them in front of me, cracking like this…that was more than I ever expected to find.
I watched in horror as he staggered back a step, one hand pressed against his temple. His eyes unfocused, seeing something far beyond the peeling wallpaper of my motel room.
“Eight years old,” he whispered, the words barely audible. “Brown hair. Blue backpack.”
His eyes snapped back to mine, wide with something I never expected to see there—raw, undiluted horror. For one heartbeat, I saw a man, not a weapon. A soul confronting the unforgivable. Then, like a circuit breaker tripping, hisexpression went completely blank. The blood from his nose dripped onto the carpet—one drop, then another.
He blinked rapidly, like someone waking from a nightmare. He raised his hand to his face, swiping at the crimson streak beneath his nose. He stared at the blood on his fingers with detached curiosity, as if it belonged to someone else.
“What happened?” he muttered, his voice hoarse.
I swallowed hard, the taste of fear metallic in my mouth. I could tell him what he’d said—about the child with brown hair and the blue backpack. I could push harder on this crack in his armor. But something in his lost expression made me hesitate. This wasn’t the moment. Not yet. I needed his help, not to break him entirely.
“You blacked out for a second,” I said instead, keeping my voice steady despite my racing heart.
I watched as he battled whatever was happening in his head. His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, but the momentary disorientation in them told me everything.
He recovered with terrifying speed, straightening to his full height. The rage vanished, replaced by something worse—a cold, calculated shift in his approach.
He stepped forward, erasing what little space remained between us. I pressed harder against the wall, but there was nowhere left to go. He planted one hand beside my head, and leaned in.
His voice dropped an octave, transforming from threatening to something velvet, edged that slid down my spine like ice water. “Who are you, Maeve Durham?”
Chapter 3
Maeve
My heartbeat counted down my remaining seconds—each thud against my ribs another moment he allowed me to live. I couldn’t decide which was more dangerous: his body boxing me against the wall, or the questions burning behind his eyes.
“What makes you special?” Each word caressed my skin like a physical touch. “What makes you different from every other target? How did you do that?”
His free hand rose, knuckles brushing my cheek with unexpected gentleness. It was almost as if he deemed me something fragile, something more delicate than everything else in this dark world of his. And perhaps that was what I had been. Someone to show him the way.
The contrast between his lethal presence and the almost tender gesture sent contradictory signals racing through my body. My pulse hammered traitorously loud in my ears.
“I’ve killed hundreds.” The confession was delivered like a seduction. “Never hesitated. Never failed.” His thumb traced the curve of my lower lip. “Until you.”
