Page 54 of Seduce & Destroy

No bullet penetrated my body.

A muted cheer passed through the crowd, but before it would progress to outright celebration, Grant’s voice silenced them.

“Back to work. Now!”

Footsteps approached me before a hand gripped my arm. It would surely bruise. Another hand grabbed my other arm and dragged me across the pavement. My head flopped between my shoulders with a rough tug.

My hips hit the stoop as my body was transported into the building. This room was cold, bright through the skin of my eyelids and clinical smelling.

Suddenly, my body left the floor, and after a brief moment of being suspended in the cold air, I was placed on a metal table.

“Look at her,” Forrester said and poked my side. “Not so strong now. Bitch.”

I felt his eyes on me. The shallow breaths I’d been practising threatened to develop into a cough. How long was I going to have to play dead?

“Go inform the rest,” Grant spoke, and I could hear the shuffle of boots and then a resounding bang.

My eyes shot open.

Forrester’s body had crumpled onto the floor, blood gushing from a hole in the back of his head. He hadn’t even reached the door.

I looked toward Grant, whose eyes were stuck on Forrester. A smile played on his lips. “Not so strong now, huh?” He taunted and rolled his eyes before looking back at me. “Bastard.”

Too many words sprung to my mind, and none formed sentences as my mouth hung open. Grant didn’t offer an answer, either. He just looked at me. Eventually, I settled on a simple “What?”

He raised his eyebrows as if I should already know what was happening here.

“Grant.”

“Norman.” Huh? “That’s my real name, Kilina.”

“What!” He couldn’t be…could he? “You’re…you’re from the—”

“Yes.” He interjected before I could get out my family name. “They think you’re a traitor, but they have yet to find out who you work for.” He looked down at Forrester again, “Kinda dumb to skip straight to killing you than answering a simple question. Richard is a boy pretending to be a man, I swear.”

I managed a chuckle. He certainly wasn’t the ruthless leader he imagined himself to be. How could they possibly know? “I didn’t even do anything yet.”

“I know. They are sensing the discontent among the ranks, and they found the easiest person to blame. You were the one who reported Dylan, for all they know you blamed him to protect yourself.”

“I would never kill a girl. Pointing fingers isn’t going to do anything, they need proof.”

“The fact that you are evading death right now is their proof. They don’t think you did it alone.” He leaned in closer. “Look, there’s security tape of you disappearing into the woods. You found Dylan; you found the girl. I am going to try to explain to them that the bullet missed all vital organs, and you made a spectacular fucking recovery but, in the meantime, you need to be out of sight. Don’t be seen, don’t be heard.”

“Yes, Sir.” I nodded, a grave expression on my face. “How many of us are there?”

“Including us?”

I nodded.

“Four. There used to be more, but Dylan got a bit too excited too early, so we had to withdraw some troops.” A deep sigh left my lungs. I feared that number was much higher. “You’ve met his brother. Sorren. Or at least he told me so.”

Sorren. I needed to memorise that name, but stay far, far away from him. That bastard. “Did he tell on me?”

“No.” I was relieved at that answer but somehow knew it wasn’t the whole of it. “But he did inform on your relationship with his daughter.”

“Why was he in handcuffs then? Richard would praise him for that admission, no doubt.”

“He was digging into unauthorised files. Security tapes from when his brother died.”