Page 27 of Kill for a Kiss

My knuckles are white on the wheel, my mind spinning too fast.I take the next turn too hard, tires screeching as the Valkyrie slices through the curve. I should be thinking about my next move. I should be planning. But my thoughts aren’t on the files. They aren’t on Clo. They’re on old memories that flood my mind.

The only mission I failed. The family involved in it.My first mistake. The same shame I feel right now, the way control slips away from me.

It was my first failed mission—not one as a mercenary—but one as a boy who still believed there was a chance to earn his mother’s love. By killing as she instructed. By killing the target she saw as competition.

A father, corrupt and dirty. A mother who knew and let it happen. And their kids.Teenagers. Around the same age as me at the time.

Blood, screams, eyes. Eyes of horror. Fear. Disgust.Fuck!

I have to stop. Not just the car—my mind. It’s scattering.

I pull off onto a dirt path just a few miles from my safe house, killing the engine before I grip the steering wheel hard enough to make the leather groan under my fingers. My breath is shallow, too fast. My head’s a fucking mess.

Focus. But I can’t. The memories are bleeding through.

That night. The father begged first. Then the mother fought back. Then their kids—teenagers. Not much younger than I was.They saw. The way their parents stuttered through apologies, clawing at words like they might work. Like guilt was currency. Like regret hadn’t already come too late.

As if I had achoice. I was still learning then. Taking Clo’s orders before I became my own. Before I had my own training, not herlies.

I was young. Younger than a killer should have ever been. I thought I was strong enough to handle it. I wasn’t.

That night… The sounds, the smells, the way the blood wouldn’t wash off no matter how hard I scrubbed my hands afterward. It all comes rushing back, slamming into me.

No—I rip myself out of it before I fall too deep. Slamming the heel of my hand against my forehead, I force the memories back into the grave where they belong.Not now. I suck in a sharp breath and let it out slowly.

Clo. The files.Elle.I have too much at stake to lose myself now. I have to stay sharp. I have to be the monster everyone already thinks I am. So I shove the old ghosts back where they belong and drive. I need to keep moving, before the past swallows me whole.

My eyes are on the road. My path is clear, but in the back of my mind, the memories come up clearer.

Blood, screams, eyes of horror.

The gun felt too heavy in my hand that night.My grip too tight.

My body too still as I forced myself to move.Forced myself to be what I had to be.

The boy I was, he recoiled.The man I became, he didn’t.

I swore I buried that night. Pushed it so far down it would never surface again. But now, as I try to focus—as I try tobreathe—it’s clawing its way back up.

Elle’s face flashes in my mind. Her fear.Because of the bodies. Because ofme.

I can’t think about this.Not now. I slam my foot against the gas, letting the engine roar as if speed alone can outrun my own mind. I need tofocus. Get to the safe house. Go through the files. Find the truth.

I don’t have any more time for ghosts in my past.

***

By the time I reach my safe house, the adrenaline’s burnt itself out, leaving me in shuddering exhaustion.

The place is buried in the outskirts of the city, a forgotten structure surrounded by rusted-out buildings and roads no one drives down unless they have a damn good reason or a death wish.

My refuge is a bunker disguised as a warehouse, with reinforced walls, blackout windows, surveillance wired into my own private network. No one knows about this place. No onecan.

I park the Valkyrie, shutting the garage door before stepping out. The folders sit in the passenger seat like a weight waiting to crush me. I grab them, carrying the mess of stolen pages inside.

I toss the files onto a metal table in the center of the room and head straight to the fridge. I need something to keep me from tipping over, from drowning in the exhaustion crawling in my skin.

I pop the tab of a matte black can and down half of it in one go. The liquid burns like fire down my throat, overclocked with stimulants the average person wouldn’t walk away from. It’s underworld stuff, made for people like me. People who need to stay on guard when they’ve been running on fumes for too long.