Page 9 of Lovely Venom

“Buyer down!” Ruin reports with a shocked voice, like she can’t believe her eyes.

“Who iced him?” I struggle to see past the gunfiresmoke.

“Havok killed his own buyer.”

“What?” I whisper, curled into a ball, trying not to die. “Dealers don’t off their customers.”

“It had to be him,” Ruin’s voice wobbles. “The gunfire came from somewhere. I lost visual.”

Havok flies out a side door that leads to an apartment upstairs with a duffel of cash slung over his shoulder. His buyer lies on his product with one bullet hole in the forehead.

“Ruin, I’m on the move. Following the target,” I bark into my comms and vault over the smashed pallets to take off after Havok.“DEA!”

I pound the rickety stairs up to the second floor. The warm, stale air grows denser with every step. At the top, a door slams, darkening the stairwell.

“I lost visual,” I report. “I’m activating night vision.”

A hollow wooden door stands between me and the dealer no one in the city wants to touch. Armed to the teeth, I kick in the door. Sharp eyes tell me no one lives here. I’m not interrupting someone’s dinner or a kid playing video games.

I scan around the sad living room and keep walking. “DEA!” I yell again.

Havok jumps into my path from a closet with a pistol raised at my forehead.

“We meet again,” he grounds out in a smooth, regal voice that rattles through my bones for some reason.

Staring down a gun barrel locks me in place. “Throw down your weapon, Havok.”

His lips curl into a gleeful grin. “Come to the dark side with me, Riot.”

“Nice try.” My finger wobbles on the trigger. I’ve come this far to trap Havok. I’ll get another chance. But not if I’m dead.

Distant sirens turn his head toward the window. “How many times do we have to do this dance?”

I breathe in to answer with a lengthy tirade, but a familiar wheeze steals my voice.Fucking asthma.

Havok cocks his head, eyes zeroing in too closely. I jam my mouth shut to take short breaths through my nose. And say nothing.

Backing up to the open window, he says, “This is your last warning, Raina.”

Hearing him use my real name stops my heart. “How do you—”

“Soon you will know everything.” He cuts me off and smashes a window with his foot. With his duffel of cash in hand, Havok climbs out onto the fire escape.

Out of pure self-preservation, I grab my inhaler from a pocket and suck down a hit.

What the hell just happened? Getting my breath under control, I remind myself that it’s not uncommon for drug dealers to refuse to kill cops.

But I don’t live by that code.

“Rage!” I yell into my mic. “East side of the building! Fire escape!”

“There’s a car waiting for him,” Ruin warns that we’re outnumbered.

Fuck this. I dive for the window and see Havok jogging down the metal steps. A horn honks from his getaway car, and he yells something in another language.

I burst onto the fire escape just as Havok hops into the open door of a late-model, rusty SUV.

“No, you don’t,” I mutter.