Page 53 of Savage Saint (Empire of Secrets #2)

The west wing welcomes me with an obscene luxury that makes my teeth ache.

Persian rugs muffle my footsteps, each one worth more than most people make in a year.

Crystal chandeliers cast rainbow fragments across silk wallpaper imported from France.

Every surface gleams with wealth built on blood and suffering, polished to perfection by servants who know better than to ask questions.

Two more guards patrol this section, protecting Jerzy's private domain.

I take them down in quick succession. One with a sleeper hold that leaves him crumpled behind a marble statue of some Roman goddess, the other with a knife between the vertebrae, severing his spinal cord with anatomical precision. Clean. Quiet. Professional.

Another memory surfaces as I hide the second body—

Fourteen years old, dressed in a white gown that makes my skin crawl.

Jerzy's hand on my shoulder as he presents me to a room full of associates.

"My greatest creation," he says, pride dripping from every word.

"Trained from childhood. Loyal as any soldier.

Deadly as any weapon." The men look at me like I'm a prize horse, evaluating my worth in blood and bullets.

One of them asks about "testing" me. Jerzy's laugh is cold as winter rain.

Bile rises in my throat. I swallow it down, using the anger to fuel my movements. Those men are all dead now, I made sure of that over the years. Each one paid for looking at me like I was property to be appraised. Each one paid for laying their hands on me.

Jerzy's study door looms ahead, carved with the Chicago Wilki emblem—a wolf devouring its prey, rendered in loving detail. The craftsman who carved it probably didn't know he was creating a monument to monstrosity. Or maybe he did and charged extra for the privilege.

I reach for the handle, and my hand freezes.

Behind this door waits the man who murdered my parents. Who stole my childhood. Who twisted me into a weapon for his own use. The man who taught me that love was weakness, that trust was failure, that the only safety came from being more dangerous than everyone else.

The man I called Father for eighteen years.

My hands shake harder now, real tremors I can't control. This is different from killing guards, different from any mission I've ever run. This is personal. This is the settling of debts that can never truly be paid.

I think of Angelo waiting outside, trusting me. Of the life we might have if I can just open this door and finish what I came to do. Of the girls who might be saved if Jerzy's operation dies with him.

Be brave, little wolf. Show your teeth.

But the voice in my head isn't Jerzy's this time. It's my own.

My hand steadies. I turn the handle.

The study is exactly the same as it was in my nightmares.

Mahogany shelves reach toward the coffered ceiling, filled with leather-bound books he never read, props to project intelligence he doesn't possess.

The massive desk dominates the space, polished to a mirror shine and arranged with military precision.

The air reeks of leather and wood polish and that cologne he always wore, tobacco and bergamot and something medicinal underneath that makes my stomach turn.

The smell transports me instantly. How many times did I stand before this desk, receiving assignments? How many times did I report successful kills while he nodded approvingly? How many times did I bleed on this Persian rug while he explained why my failures demanded punishment?

Too many to count. Too many to forget.

The high-backed leather chair faces the window, Jerzy's favourite position for brooding over his empire. I can see his silhouette against the city lights, smaller than I remember. Age has shrunk him, or maybe I've finally grown beyond his shadow.

The chair turns slowly, theatrically. He always did love his dramatic moments, even when there was no audience to impress.

And there he is.

Jerzy Kowalczyk. My uncle. My parents' murderer. My tormentor.

My maker.

He looks older than I remember, silver threading through hair that was once pure black.

Deep lines score his face, mapping years of cruelty like scars.

But his eyes, those pale blue eyes that haunted my nightmares, they're still sharp as winter ice.

Still cold enough to freeze the blood in my veins.

The realisation that he's just a man—flesh and blood and bone, no more immortal than the guards I left cooling in his corridors—straightens my spine. The fear that lived in my chest for so many years shrivels and dies, replaced by something harder and infinitely more dangerous.

I am not his little wolf anymore.

"Kasieńka," he says softly, the Polish endearment rolling off his tongue like poison honey. My little Kasia. His lips curve in what might be a smile on anyone else's face. On his, it's a predator's satisfaction. "You came home."

I study him, this man who loomed so large in my memory. He's just a man. A cruel, twisted man with delusions of grandeur, but human nonetheless. Fallible. Mortal. Killable.

I straighten my spine, lift my chin, and let him see the woman I've become. The weapon he created.

"Yes," I tell him, and my voice doesn't waver. "I've come home."