Page 19 of Vicious Doll

"Twelve minutes to mindfuck the Director of Special Operations, stick him with a needle, and get him to a secure location." I check my watch—a sleek Cartier that's probably worth more than Isaac's car. "No pressure."

"Pressure makes diamonds," Mikhail rumbles from where he's assembling a suppressed pistol with the tender care most men reserve for their dicks.

"Or corpses," I add.

"Think good thoughts," Volkov says with that bloodless half-smile. “Everything will work out.”

I don’t know about that but fuck it, I’ll take all the good vibes the universe can offer.

We split three blocks from the hotel, Mikhail peeling off to secure our extraction vehicle and backup position, Volkov heading for the service entrance to neutralize security cameras. I continue alone, heels clicking against ancient cobblestones, Sofia Petrov's credentials burning a hole in my designer handbag.

The Hotel Imperial stands like an aging aristocrat among peasants—cream-colored facade, flags hanging limp in the winter stillness, doormen in uniforms that probably haven't changed since the Habsburg Empire fell.

I stride through the revolving doors like I belong, like I'm just another business consultant meeting a client rather than an operative hunting the man who tried to have me killed.

The lobby gleams with old-money opulence—marble floors polished to mirror shine, crystal chandeliers throwing fractured light across the faces of the wealthy and the wannabes. I note exits, security personnel, camera positions—all the details Killion drilled into me until they became second nature.

Killion. Fuck. His name rises unbidden again, an uninvited guest at my mental dinner party. I push it aside, focusing on the now, on the hunt, on staying alive.

The bar is where Harlow should appear after his meeting—the Oak Room, all dark wood paneling and discreet lighting, the kind of place where champagne never goes flat and secrets never leave the premises.

I select a seat with sight lines to both elevators and main entrance, order a mineral water I have no intention of drinking, and settle in to play the deadliest game of my life.

My hand brushes the tranquilizer pen in my jacket pocket. Volkov's voice echoes:"One click to disorient. Two clicks to drop. Simple."Yeah, simple until it isn't.

Time drips like cold molasses. Twelve minutes. Eleven. Ten. The bar slowly fills with afternoon drinkers—business deals being brokered over thirty-year-old scotch, affairs being kindled over wine older than their participants, secrets being traded like baseball cards.

I check my watch. 1:47 PM. Harlow's running late, which means the plan is already fraying at the edges. The longer I sit, the higher the risk of being made by hotel security or—worse—someone from the Dollhouse.

That's when I feel it—that prickling awareness at the base of my skull, the sensation of being watched. Not the casual glances of men appreciating my legs, but the focused attention of a predator.

I turn, expecting Harlow's silver-fox composure.

Instead, I find myself staring into a ghost's face.

Killion.

Standing at the bar entrance, winter light haloing his dark silhouette, eyes locked on mine with the intensity of a targeting laser.

He's found us. Found me.

And somewhere in the hotel, Volkov is about to spring a trap that's already been compromised.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I maintain my composure—Sofia Petrov wouldn't panic, wouldn't flinch, wouldn't betray with a tight expression that her entire world just tilted sideways. I sip my water, eyes meeting his over the rim in silent challenge.

Come and get me, you son of a bitch.

He moves through the room like smoke, purposeful but unhurried, taking the seat across from mine without invitation. Up close, he looks exactly the same yet somehow different—same predatory grace, same controlled intensity, but something new lurking behind those eyes. Something almost like concern.

"Hello, Nova," he says, voice pitched low enough that only I can hear. "Or should I call you Sofia now?"

I smile, brittle as thin ice. "Killion. What a pleasant surprise. Let me guess—you just happened to be in the neighborhood?"

"I've been tracking you since Prague." No preamble, no bullshit. Pure Killion efficiency. "You're making some questionable alliances."

"Says the man who used me as expendable bait."

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