Page 60 of The Games We Play

When my phone rings again, I answer with a hollowness in my voice.

“What have you done?” November snaps.

“Saturday. Seven Thirty. You’ll have what you want,” I respond in a deadened tone.

“Based on what intel?”

I sigh and shake my head in disbelief. “Because I’m meeting Darius at the auction. And I just killed Scott Parkins along with however many other of Darius goons were waiting for me. The sniper across the street got away.”

Silence stretches between us for what feels like hours. Every second Puppet is in the hands of that monster feels like a year etched into my being.

He’s ruthless, vindictive, and has no empathy for anyone or anything.

“Status,” November orders.

“GS to the left shoulder. Exit wound out the back.”

“Get back here now, and we’ll plan a team. This ends now. Understood?”

My chest cracks, a foreign feeling I’ve not felt before. “My family?” I ask.

“We’ll post guards at the house. Time to do what you do best, Lima. Kill or be killed.” She disconnects with her words echoing around the empty car.

Kill or be killed.

Thirty-One - Tess

I never thought I’dfall in love. Thought for sure my fucked-up childhood and lack of nurturing shot that all to hell from the get-go. If I couldn’t fall for my best friend since childhood, who worshiped the ground I walked on, how would I ever let anyone else in?

I couldn’t because my version of love isn’t the one they teach you about in the hallmark movies. My version is dangerous, deadly, covered in thorns, and laced with acid.

My love was planned to kill me from the beginning. But I knew this all along, right?

I accepted that fact the moment I woke up to the note on my nightstand after being chased into the woods.

Dad paces the floor of my living room after disappearing upstairs to look for answers, I assume. He runs his hand through his hair again, showing his clear agitation with my responses.

“I don’t know who he is.” Victor scoffs, and I glance in the burly man’s direction. “I don’t! It’s part ofthe—”

“Childish fantasy? Fucking a man you don’t know hiding behind a mask? Tell me, Theresa. Do you have a taste for killing? Is it an all-consuming thought that nothing else can top?”

No,because there is one thing,one person who, even killing, can’t get out of my head.

“He—he just showed up. I don’t know where he lives or what his name is. Did you really come all the way here because of him? Not even that you were concerned with your own fucking daughter. But because I might know who he is. Are you—what—after him? Who are you?” My voice grows louder with each question.

Roxy tenses under my hands, and I squeeze her tighter next to me.

“I’m God,” Dad says with a sinister smile, raising his arms out wide. Victor nods in agreement. “I control who lives and dies. I offer people’s salvation or damn their souls to eternity. I’m a very powerful man, Theresa. And I always get what I want.”

A shiver skates down my spine, and I want more than anything to run away from here and not look back. “And you want him? But why? Who is he?”

Dad stares past me out my window, and I wonder for a fraction of a second if he saw something. But his gaze seems far away. Like he’s lost in a memory. “He owes me a life. And you seem to be my ticket to getting it.”

He strides over and grabs my bicep, yanking me up and away from Roxy. “What are you—you’re hurting me!” I shout and try to rip my arm free.

“I’ve been gone a long time, but you’re still my daughter, and you’ll do exactly what I say. Understand?” His cold, dead eyes level me with a stare that would put my worst nightmares to shame.

“Let me go. Dad, please. I don’t want anything to do with whatever this is.”

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