Page 205 of House of Cards

Unlovable.

Troy sticks out his head, squeezes off a few bursts of gunfire, falls back behind the sofa with gritted teeth. We can’t reach them from our cover, and we’d be exposing ourselves to open fire if we tried to move.

I flash a hand signal at Troy.

COVER ME

He’s barely nodded before I roll sideways over the floor, keeping my body as small a target as possible. Bullets tear into the marble where I’d been a second before, but Troy’s suppressing fire forces them back into cover.

I reach an overturned card table near the second door, breath coming hard. Not from exertion, but from fury.

Zoey, staring at me likeIwas the monster seconds after she stabbed Luis in the eye to save my life.

She’s not wrong.

My life choices have warped me into something lethal, efficient…and inhuman. I learned to bind, torture, kill with the same precision I cook Balmont’s books. Skills that became second nature.

Some sick and twisted part of me craved the pain I caused. To relish the sight, smell, taste of blood. The feel of it on my skin.

A part I’ve kept hidden from everyone until I met Zoey.

Why the fuck I thought she’d still accept me, I don’t know. I’m not some hopeless romantic.

But I think she is.

And that’s possibly her only flaw.

Eventually she’ll have to realize the world doesn’t give a fuck about anyone’s happily ever after, not even hers.

Especially not mine.

Maybe that’s exactly what happened when she saw me take down Miguel and Luis. Whatever romantic notions she had about me, about us, crushed.

Guess I did her a favor, then.

Again, zero fucking gratitude.

The gunfire dies down momentarily, our targets trying to figure out how to exterminate us without risking their lives. In the lull, I hear a door at the far end of the room click shut—someone calling bullshit on his odds and making a run for it.

Fuck. The door leads to the south wing. Not exactly a straight shot to the staircase leading to Zoey’s hiding spot, but I’m not about to leave anything to chance.

I don’t have a line of sight on Troy, so I have to share my plan with everyone in the room.

“Finish these assholes!”

Troy sticks his upper body out, raining down another volley of suppressing fire as I sprint across the room, heading for the door.

Bullets ping off the wall and floor behind me, one of them ricocheting into my calf like a snakebite. Wincing, I shoulder through the door and into the dark hallway.

Early morning gloom gives both sides the advantage, but fuck, what I wouldn’t give for a little sunlight right now. The man I’m chasing down could hide behind any of the massive pot plants or statues scattered through the halls.

Myles wasn’t exactly in a tactical frame of mind when he furnished this villa. Suppose he never expected there to be a gunfight in his halls.

Looks like the guy I’m chasing got hit. A streak of blood against the wall tells me which way he went, and I follow silently on bare feet, constantly scanning for sign of my prey, anticipating ambush points.

Blood splatters on the floor lead me down a side-corridor and into the villa’s enormous kitchen. Stainless steel surfaces gleam in the ambient light cast from a strip of LEDs hidden behind the lowered ceiling above a granite island.

A pot clatters to my right, drawing my eyes and the muzzle of my assault rifle. I switch direction, quads burning as I inch forward in a low crouch.