Page 207

TWO YEARS LATER

"Are you ready, hell girl?" I move to grab her hand, but she's not next to me.

Turning around, I spot her still struggling to lock her gear in place.

"Sisi," I groan, especially when I see her little frown of concentration and the way she's biting her lip…

Not good for my self-control.

"Just a second," she says, placing a finger up.

Not only does she have afuck me nowexpression on her face, but she's also drenched in blood, and the combination couldn't be more lethal to my senses.

"Done," she breathes out, relieved. "No matter how many times I do this, I never get it right," she mutters before taking her place next to me, slipping her hand into mine.

"We're already late." I purse my lips, looking at my watch. "The party started thirty minutes ago."

"We'll get there." She pats me on the shoulder, winking at me.

"Let's do this," I say as I open the plane's trap door, the air pressure immediately hitting me in the face.

One look at Sisi and I'm ready to go. Still holding each other's hands, we jump.

Somewhere on the way down we both release our parachutes, safely landing on solid ground.

"How do I look?" she asks as she divests herself of her gear, patting her dress down as if it were the most elegant thing.

"Good," I grimace as the words fly out of my mouth.

She does look good—to me. I'm not sure people will appreciate us showing up drenched in blood from head to toe.

"We look terrible, don't we?" She sighs deeply, her shoulders squared.

"If Bianca wants us to be present, she'll have to receive us like this too." I attempt to cheer her up.

She shakes her head, proceeding to walk in front of me. I don't hesitate as I catch her hand, bringing her into me and swooping her in my arms.

"I think tradition dictates I carry you in my arms." I run my nose around her face, inhaling her scent.

"And who am I to argue with tradition?"

"Good," I chuckle. "I thought you'd have objections. Besides, it's been approximately five hours since I last had you in my arms. I need to catch up."

She mumbles something incoherently, but she eventually smiles at me, not putting up a fight as I carry her toward Bianca and Adrian's house.

Today it's Bianca's birthday, and she's always very anal about everyone attending. And since Sisi and I depend on her expertise at the academy, we can't risk upsetting her.

Soon after Bianca had given birth, her contract in Russia had ended and she'd been in search of a new job. While she's not completely done with private assassinations, she accepted tobecome an instructor at our academy, V Academy—named so in homage of my sister.

The first year had been a little difficult as things were just taking off, the kids were a little skittish around us as they were getting used to everything.

From the people we'd rescued from Miles' compound, thirteen of them had decided to stay with us, their ages ranging from six all the way to fifteen. All of them had come with different traumas from being Miles' lab rats for so long.

The only thing I'm thankful of is that, from what I gathered, the sexual abuse stopped with the new generation. The guards' interactions with the children were monitored more strictly and no outside interferences were allowed in Miles' plan. Of course, that doesn't exclude Miles' own sick depravities, but the kids haven't been too forthcoming on that front yet.

Because every student was dealing with different traumas, we'd had to make allowances for each one, and that meant designing a standard curriculum, but also targeting each age group separately while also carefully cultivating everyone's personal strengths.

Safe to say, it hasn't been easy organizing everything.