Page 126 of Her Soul to Own

Something’s off. It’s too quiet.

And not the kind of late-night hush a house this size naturally sinks into.

There’s a sound, a creak. It’s barely audible, but I’ve lived long enough, hunted and been hunted long enough, to know the difference between a natural groan in the floor and a human weight trying too hard to be nothing.

I pivot slowly, my heart rate slowing as my senses sharpen.

Almost like a whisper, there’s a faint scrape of fabric against the wall. A soft, almost respectful exhale. I move on instinct.

The moment I spin, he’s already lunging out of the shadows. A man in matte-black tactical gear, completely unmarked. No insignia, no badge, no face visible under the balaclava. But his body language—controlled, trained, and lethal—says enough.

A silencer-equipped pistol gleams in his grip as he fires.

The shot is a whisper “thpp!”and it punches into the wall inches from my head. No time to think. My hand’s already down at my boot, my fingers closing around the hilt of the blade I’ve carried since Berlin.

I drop low, spinning beneath his arm as he brings the gun up for another shot, and drive the blade hard into the underside of his wrist. The steel sinks into flesh and tendon with a muffledthump, and he grunts a raw animalistic sound as the gun clatters from his hand.

Before he can switch tactics, he slams his other fist into my ribs. The air leaves my lungs in a sharp grunt, but I twist through the pain, coming around with an elbow to his throat. He chokes, staggers, and tries to step back, but I’m inside his range now.

This is my kill box.

I slam him against the server tower, the impact rattling the metal casing and making the fans inside whine louder. He claws for balance and tries to knee me, but I’m faster. I bring my blade up and bury it in his gut with brutal force.

His body jerks.

Blood blooms instantly, soaking into his vest and splattering across the side of the rack in a dark, hot arc. He growls, rage mixed with shock, and swings at my head, wild and instinctual. I duck, twisting the knife, and drive it upward under his ribs.

The tip bites into the muscle of his heart. I know that shudder—full-body, final, and electric. He spasms once, his hands slapping at my shoulders in a death twitch, then collapses with a gargling moan.

I let him drop.

He hits the floor hard, dead weight and dying whimpers, followed by the slow, wet sound of blood pooling. The spray across the server tower runs in rivulets down the steel, seeping into the vents. Somewhere inside, something sparks and fizzles.

I’m breathing hard. Blood slicks the blade in my hand, and my ribs throb where he landed the punch, but it’s nothing I haven’t bled through before.

I crouch and rifle through his pockets. His phone is a burner with a standard layout. No lock screen or ID. But there’s one message open, and it says,“Retrieve the file. Terminate if intercepted.”

A shiver crawls over me.Terminate. If intercepted.

He wasn’t here to secure anything. He was here to kill me because Evander knew I’d get in the way.

I open the metadata logs and run a trace through the diagnostic backdoor.

The sender’s number routes through a satellite tower registered under a shell corporation I’ve seen before. One buried deep in a network of offshore holdings. A trust.

Evander’s.

Even in hiding, he’s still watching, still deploying, still playing God from his gilded bunker.

I look down at the corpse. This wasn’t a warning. This was an execution order.

He expected me to come for the truth, and he planned for me to die before I got out with it.

And if he’s watching me, then he’s watching her.

Lyra.

Fuck.

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