Page 32 of Drawn to Death
I know how we look to them. A weapon and a witness. An asset and a liability.
They don’t see what I’ve turned into. They don’t see what Quell has made me.
“Talon,” Quell mutters.
“What?”
He hesitates. I watch his eyes flick to the guards, then back to me. “If this goes wrong, ”
“It won’t.”
“But if it does,” he says, and this time he doesn’t let me cut him off, “I want you to know I don’t regret any of it.”
I feel his words harder than I should. It’s just a sentence, but it feels like forgiveness. Like he’s letting me off the hook for things he doesn’t even know I’ve done.
I don’t think about it. I just reach out and brush his hair away from his face.
He freezes. Not scared, exactly. Just… waiting. Then he looks up at me with those eyes that always seem to know too much and says, “You don’t have to pretend with me, you know. I’ve already seen the worst.”
He thinks he has. He’s seen the kills, the violence, the way I can make murder look like ab accident or a warning. But he hasn’t seen what’s underneath. The emptiness. The way I’ve shaped myself into whatever Vincenzo needs, until there isn’t anything left.
But somehow, he still looks at me like I’m someone worth knowing.
I’ve already killed a man for him. But that’s just a job. Clean. Routine. I handle it before it ever touches him.
What I’m thinking about now is different. If Vincenzo decides Quell is too dangerous to keep alive, if he gives the word, I won’t just be cleaning up a mess. I’ll be setting fire to everything I have.
And I’ll do it. No hesitation.
Chapter sixteen
Quell
Finally, the woman stops at a pair of double doors at the end of the hall. She knocks once, then pushes them open right away. “Sir,” she says, stepping aside. “Mr. Talon is here.”
Talon’s hand presses harder at my back, nudging me forward. I step into the room and the temperature drops instantly, like someone has opened a freezer door. It is weird, because outside was so warm, but here, the air feels sharp and cold against my skin.
The room is enormous. A long, shiny table runs down the center, the wood so polished it looks almost wet. Heavy leather chairs line both sides, most of them empty. At the far end, a man sits alone. I don’t need anyone to tell me it is Vincenzo. He leans back in his chair, one hand around a glass of something gold, the other just resting on the table. His suit is dark, perfectly fitted, and his silver hair is slicked back from a face that maybe used to be handsome, before life made it hard.
His eyes lock onto mine the second I walk in. I feel pinned in place, like a bug under glass. The way he looks at me isn’t justsizing me up; it’s like he sees right through me, every crack and flaw.
“Talon,” he says. His voice surprises me. Warm. Like he is greeting an old friend. “Right on time, as usual.”
Talon keeps his hand on my back as we walk closer. We stop a few feet from the table. There are chairs, but we don’t sit. I try to look calm, to stand up straight and not shrink in on myself, but my body wants to curl up and disappear.
“Vincenzo,” Talon replies. His voice is steady, not cold, not friendly. Just matter-of-fact.
Vincenzo’s eyes flick over to Talon. The relief I feel is almost dizzying, like stepping out of a spotlight. “I am beginning to think you’ve gone quiet on me,” Vincenzo says. “Two weeks is a long time for radio silence.”
“I am handling things,” Talon says.
Vincenzo looks back at me, taking in the way I stand too close to Talon, the borrowed clothes. “So I see.” He takes a sip from his glass. “And Mickey? Did he find things… handled when he dropped by?”
Talon tenses, barely, but I feel it. “Mickey’s in the trunk,” he says.
The bluntness of it makes me flinch. Just like that, a man’s whole story flattened to a spot on a map. Mickey’s in the trunk. Like saying the milk’s in the fridge.
Vincenzo’s face doesn’t change. But something in the air shifts, a tightening, like the moment before thunder. “Is he,” he says. Not a question. “And why is that?”
