Page 29 of Her Irresistible Sheik (Al-Sintra Family #9)

“Where the hell is she?” Clyde roared, slamming the tablet onto the rusted, metal table, the screen cracking in the corner. The grainy satellite images blurred, but he didn’t care. He shoved the useless thing aside and glared at the wall as if it had personally betrayed him.

He was losing his edge.

No. That wasn’t true. He refused to believe it. He was the best in the business—or he had been before she came along.

That prissy little princess with her curls and her smug smile had cost him more than just a job. She’d cost him his dignity .

His contacts inside the palace had vanished.

Poof. Gone. Not a single whisper from the usual barflies who once laughed at his jokes and soaked up his free drinks.

Now they were ghosts. No return calls, no texts, no shadows slipping onto the usual stools at the hangouts the palace staff frequented.

The cowards had cut ties—probably under palace orders—and left him in the cold.

He gritted his teeth—and winced. The gap where his molar used to be flared with a jolt of pain.

“Damn her,” he snarled, pressing a knuckle to his temple.

He couldn’t sit without feeling like someone had jammed a hot poker into his left ass cheek.

Sleep was a joke. Every turn, every twist in the night brought a fresh jolt of agony—his broken thumb bumping against the mattress, the throb in his cheek, the nagging sting from the hole in his jaw where the tooth had been knocked out.

Clyde slammed his fist down again, this time rattling the half-empty wine bottle.

No one made Clyde panic. He was a predator, a ghost, a name whispered in fear.

And yet, here he was—hiding in a filthy warehouse with gauze taped to his ass, sipping overpriced wine like some moody recluse while the woman who had humiliated him pranced around somewhere, probably laughing at him.

That thought boiled his blood.

She’d been nothing more than a target. A commission. A job. But now… now she was personal.

He wasn’t even sure how she’d done it. Had she meant to shoot him with that damn arrow? Had it been blind luck? Either way, the image of himself limping out of the palace like a kicked dog, pants wet with blood, thumb throbbing, face swollen— it haunted him . And worse, it infuriated him.

His next job could wait. He needed revenge .

He swirled the remaining wine in his glass. Five thousand dollars. A vintage that belonged in the hands of a man of taste and power—not someone stewing in his own humiliation, muttering about archery and scones.

A lesser man would move on. Change his name, bleach his hair, file new teeth into a fake smile. But not Clyde.

No.

She had bested him, and now the ledger had to be balanced.

He would find her. And when he did, he’d take his time. No quick end. Not anymore. He would make sure her final moments were filled with fear— the same cold, humiliating fear he’d tasted limping through those palace halls, praying no one recognized him.

He leaned forward, tapped open a different surveillance channel on his damaged tablet, and began drafting a new plan.

This time, there would be no mistakes. No witnesses. No mercy.

And absolutely no damn arrows.