Page 47 of Lady and the Hitman

The bracelet buzzed once. A pulse against my wrist.

My earpiece crackled to life.

“Good girl,” came Ronan’s voice. “You’re already running.”

I nearly moaned.

He sounded close.

But I couldn’t see him.

“I wonder,” he murmured. “Did you look at yourself in the mirror before you stepped into that bodysuit? Did you see the way your thighs pressed together? The way your nipples showed through the fabric? You don’t want to be hidden, Zara. You want to be hunted.”

I ducked behind a tree trunk, heart thundering.

“And I will find you.”

His voice cut out.

I didn’t know where to go. Or how far this arena extended. But I moved. Through a tunnel. Past a waterfall exhibit. The zoo felt endless at night—stripped down and strange. No crowds. No laughter. Just wild things watching from their enclosures. A panther paced behind a fence.

I wasn’t sure who was more dangerous—Ronan or the animals.

At one point, I caught sight of another woman ahead—tall, lean, moving fast.

So I wasn’t the only one.

But it didn’t matter.

Because he wasn’t after her.

He was after me.

And I felt it. That low hum inside. That primal need to be caught.

I turned a corner and stumbled into a dimly lit corridor. A reptile house.

The air in the reptile house was cooler, but no less oppressive. Glass tanks lined the walls, shadows of stillness and menace behind each one—silent predators watching me watch them. It was humid, dense, almost too quiet. My shoes made no sound on the floor, but my heartbeat thundered like a drumline.

And I ran.

Not out of fear. But hunger.

Because this was exactly what I’d asked for.

When I wrote that letter to Alpha Mail, it had poured out of me like blood from a fresh wound. I’d wanted to be hunted. To feel the panic and the pull. To look over my shoulder and see him there, closing in. Because it wasn’t about fear. Not really.

It was about inevitability.

About the ache of knowing I’d be caught, but not knowing when.

That thrill, that breathless anticipation, it was better than foreplay. Itwasforeplay.

I didn’t want candlelight and compliments. I didn’t want slow music or sweet promises. At least, not at first. Iwanted a man who could stalk me through shadows and drag me to my knees when he found me.

I wanted the edge. The dark. The surrender.

Because I didn’t feel small in that surrender.