Page 185 of Blood & Throttle

For a while, we just sit like that. In the blood, in the silence, in the fucking aftermath.

Then she leans back enough to look at me.

“What did he say to you?” I ask.

She doesn’t look at me. Just swallows hard, eyes fixed on the red pooling beneath Kane’s skull.

“That I’m his daughter,” she murmurs.

I freeze.

She finally lifts her gaze and meets mine with something that isn’t shock, it’s fury barely leashed. “He said my mother tried to run from him. That she betrayed him.”

My jaw clenches.

“He couldn’t stand how much I looked like her. Just seeing me was a constant reminder of her, and what she did. So he sent me away,” she says, voice flat now. “That’s how he framed me so easily. He knew exactly where I was and had the power tomake sure everything went the way he needed it to. I was the last loose end.”

I want to put my fist through every wall in this goddamn building. Instead, I just take the gun from her hand and toss it aside. She lets me.

Then she wraps her arms around me again, and whispers, “He was right about one thing.” I tense. “I’m not afraid to kill the people who hurt me.”

Fuck. I press my mouth to her temple.

“You’re not alone anymore, Little Stray,” I breathe. “And he’s never touching you again.”

Her expression is unreadable. “He was my father, Riot. I was the mistake he buried. The loose thread he cut.”

My jaw clenches. I can’t find words. All I can do is stare at her like I’m seeing her for the first time again. No wonder she was fire. No wonder she was fury. She was born in the middle of a fucking storm, and yet she doesn’t break. She doesn’t apologize. She just holds my gaze like she’s waiting for me to flinch. Instead, I grab her jaw and kiss her. Hard.

“You didn’t just kill him,” I murmur against her lips. “You exposed every lie he built.”

Her eyes glisten, but she doesn’t cry.

A crackle in my comms yanks us back.

“Riot? Sin? You copy?” Ghost’s voice, urgent.

I hit the mic. “We’re here.”

“Holy shit,” Ghost blurts through the comm, breathless. “You’re alive?”

I wipe blood from my mouth and scoff. “What the fuck does that mean, Ghost? You think some weak-ass, half-trained Syndicate grunt actually tookmeout?Me? I’m the fucking Reaper, asshole.”

There’s a pause, then Ghost scrambles to recover. “Wait—no, I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant you were goneand—”

“He panicked,” Sin says dryly, brushing blood from her temple.

“Ghost panicked,” Bishop confirms through the comms, deadpan.

Taz barks in the background like she’s backing him up.

“I didnotpanic!” Ghost snaps. “Okay, maybe like a little—shut up.”

Sin smirks. “Missed you guys.”

“We’re two minutes out,” Bishop says, cutting in. “What part of the building are you in?”

I glance around for the first time. Past the blood and broken glass, there’s a wall of screens. Servers. Racks of hard drives and tech. A command center built for control and surveillance.