Page 44 of At Your Mercy

I stared at the smear of red across my palm until it dried sticky and dark. My chest felt like it was caving in. My head throbbed. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt Wes’s weight pinning me down—not like a cage, but like… safety. Like belonging.

And that was poison.

I couldn’t afford it, couldn’t let it root in me. I knew what happened to boys who believed in things like safety. Elias had proven that a long, long time ago.

My phone sat facedown on the counter. I grabbed it, thumb hovering over the screen before I finally swiped it open. One number. Always the same. I didn’t need to think. Just do.

The call connected after a single ring.

“Ronan,” Elias’s voice purred, smooth and rich like oil poured over fire. “I was wondering when you’d call.”

My throat tightened, choking me from the inside. I pressed my hand harder over the sting in my palm until it pulsed. “Give me someone,” I rasped.

A pause. “Give you someone?”

“A target. Doesn’t matter who.” My voice broke, and I hated it, so I forced the words out sharper. “I need to work.”

Silence stretched on the line. I could picture Elias now, smiling that infuriating, knowing smile.

“You sound unsettled, Ro,” he drawled. “Did something happen?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Just give me a name, please,” I snapped, my voice raw.

Elias chuckled softly, indulgent. “Very well. There’s a man in the city I’ve been keeping an eye on. A nuisance. You’ll find his photo in your messages.”

My phone buzzed in my hand as the file came through.

“Kill him,” Elias went on, voice low and certain, “and when you do, remember what you are. Remember who made you.”

The line clicked dead.

I stared down at the picture, heart thudding so hard it hurt.Killing was simple. Killing didn’t lie.

And if I drowned myself in it, maybe—just maybe—I could carve Wes out of me before he took over completely.

* * *

The city always looked different when I was hunting. Sharper and colder, almost as if the world were cut out of glass, waiting to slice open anyone dumb enough to stumble into the wrong alley.

The photo Elias sent burned in my pocket, the man’s smug face seared into my mind. I didn’t have any details, just the face. That was fine. I didn’t need a backstory. I didn’t want it.

I wanted blood.

I prowled through the streets, hood up, cap pulled low.

The target wasn’t hard to track. Elias had a way of making things convenient when he wanted. I followed the man from the back entrance of a bar to his car, then from the car to a row of apartments with shitty exterior lighting. He didn’t look around even once.

By the time he reached the stairwell, I had already caught up to him. The knife felt like an extension of my hand.

For a second—just a second—I saw Wes instead.

The hesitation made my stomach churn, but it only lasted a heartbeat.

I grabbed the man by the collar, slammed him into the concrete wall hard enough to rattle his teeth and break his nose, and shoved the blade up beneath his ribs before he could suck in more than half a breath.

His eyes went wide with shock. There was a flicker of pain, then… nothing.

Warmth spilled over my hand as I lowered him to the ground. His body convulsed once, twice, then stilled.