Page 34 of Wraith (Deviant Assassin #1)
Blade
T he photo album burns in my memory. Kiera's 'Wraith's Proof, Bitch!
' book that documents every goddamn murder.
But it's her words to Felix that drove me here: 'He left me with questions and debt without a backward glance.
' What debt? I left her financially secure.
Someone lied to her, told her I abandoned her with nothing.
Someone who had access to her after I left, someone who could manipulate a scared teenager into believing her husband betrayed her.
Zephyr.
The room reeks of stale whiskey and deceit, but the real stench is my own stupidity. I trusted him with the most precious thing in my world, and he turned her into a killer. Turned her into my target.
Every file I find, every piece of evidence, brings me closer to understanding how completely he destroyed us both.
The murder album wasn't just Kiera's twisted trophy collection; it was evidence of Zephyr's masterpiece.
He didn't just make her into Wraith. He made sure I'd be the one sent to kill her.
My gaze snags on a locked cabinet tucked in a shadowed corner.
It’s an anomaly, a detail out of place in Zephyr’s meticulously organized office.
A prickle of unease, a gut feeling honed by the brutal world I inhabit, propels me toward it.
The lock clicks open with surprising ease, an invitation to uncover the truth concealed in plain sight.
Rows of files line the drawers, their labels a blur of bureaucratic jargon, a cryptic language of secrets and lies.
I scan them impatiently, my fingers itching for something tangible, something real in this swirling deception.
My hand brushes against a file tucked at the very back, its label a single, cryptic word: Widow.
My pulse quickens, a drumbeat of anticipation and dread echoing in my chest.
I retrieve the file, the thick paper cool against my burning skin.
Inside, surveillance stills and Polaroids lay nestled amongst typed reports.
The first few images are grainy, indistinct figures moving through the night, ghosts in a world of shadows.
Then a face. Contorted in a silent scream, it stares up at me from the glossy surface of a Polaroid.
The victim’s eyes, wide with terror, lock with mine.
A chilling connection across time and space.
The assassin in the photos moves with predatory grace, a dancer in a macabre ballet.
Each movement is precise, deadly. My stomach clenches, a cold knot of dread forming.
There’s something… familiar about the way she holds herself, the lethal precision of her movements.
Ice trickles down my spine. A premonition of the truth.
I flip through the remaining photos, each one a fresh stab of betrayal, each image a shard of glass piercing my heart.
The assassin’s stance, the subtle tilt of her head, the way she holds her weapon… it’s her.
Kiera.
The glass slips from my numb fingers, shattering against the hardwood floor. The sharp report echoes in the sudden silence, mirroring my shattered illusions. I fumble for the phone, the cold metal a shock against my trembling hand, a lifeline in this swirling vortex of disbelief.
“Blade,” Phoenix’s voice crackles through the speaker, her cheerful tone a cruel mockery of the turmoil consuming me. “What’s up?”
“Run a cross-check,” I rasp, the words catching in my throat, choked by the rising tide of fear and betrayal. “Unsanctioned kills. Blaque Funeral Home.”
A pause. “Why the sudden interest?”
My voice cracks. “Just do it, Phoenix.”
Another pause, heavier this time, laden with unspoken questions.
“Something’s wrong. Tell me.”
“Get me the information, Phoenix.” I bite out, then soften to add, “Please.”
“Alright, keep your shirt on. But remember, some things are better left alone.”
She already knows the funeral home is part of this shit show. Does she know of Kiera’s involvement?
The line goes dead, leaving me alone with the chilling echo of her words.
Kiera’s face, frozen in a mask of cold indifference, stares up at me from the scattered photos. A haunting reminder of the changes in the woman I loved. Phoenix’s words echo in my mind, a chilling reminder of the secrets festering beneath the surface of our world.
The city lights bleed into the sky, painting the room in shades of gray, mirroring the bleakness in my soul. I pace, the floorboards creaking beneath my boots. A rhythmic counterpoint to the chaotic thoughts I can’t bring myself to accept, no matter how much evidence I find.
Kiera. An assassin. Those words don’t belong in the same breath, and yet, now I’ve been ordered to become the weapon aimed at her heart. Even with my broken heart and black soul, that is just…
I pick up a picture, my fingers tracing the sharp angles of her jaw, the familiar contours now imbued with a chilling new meaning.
Her eyes, usually so full of warmth, are vacant, cold, reflecting the killer she’s become.
The curve of her lips, once a promise of laughter and passion, now mocks the memories we shared, and the life I lived to protect her, twisting them into a cruel parody.
In my memories, she’s a skinny teenager with defiant eyes and a smile that could melt glaciers. An exotic flower blooming in the darkness. I promised to protect her, to shield her from the shadows clinging to her like a shroud.
A promise I broke. I failed.
Another photo. This one of her standing over a corpse, the blood a dark stain against the polished floor.
A jolt of adrenaline, a primal thrill, wars with the disgust churning in my gut.
A dark beauty that both repels and fascinates me.
Disgust. Regret. Exhilaration. Arousal. The conflicting emotions tear me apart.
I drop the photo as if it’s burned me, my breath growing ragged. The scent of jasmine, Kiera’s favorite, clings to the pages of the report. Did the sick bastard scent them? It’s a gut-wrenching reminder of the woman I left behind. The woman I crave more than ever.
Pushing the pages aside, I turn to the laptop sitting on the table. I open the digital file referenced in the report and watch a surveillance video.
How long has he been cataloging her kills?
Kiera’s movements a mesmerizing dance of death. Her body and skills, a weapon as deadly as any firearm. The anticipation in her eyes mirrors the dark excitement coiling in my gut, a disturbing reflection of the predator she’s become. It’s a perversion, this erotic pull I feel toward her darkness.
Unable to resist the demands of my hardening cock, I reach down, my hand fumbling with the button of my jeans.
My carnal urges riding me hard, I’m desperate to find a release from the tension and heat ripping through all my senses.
Kiera’s face on the screen blurs with images of the lust in her eyes as I took her against the coffin.
Her moans, the ones I crave like air to breathe, echo through my mind, fueling a twisted fantasy as I wrap my fist around my thick shaft and stroke myself hard and fast.
I’ve been home for such a short time and yet I’ve been driven to jerk myself off over and over by an aching lust for my beautiful, twisted wife. Unable to ignore the dark desire she drives in me.
I close my eyes, lost in the memory of how her body wrapped around me, welcomed me in as if no time had passed at all.
And yet it has. My little wife has become a deadly deviant, and it only fuels my insatiable need for her.
In less time than it takes a boy seeing his first underwear model on the pages of a magazine; my body convulses.
Hot jets of passion explode from my cock and splash across my stomach and fist. I fight to breathe, a desperate attempt to reclaim some semblance of control in a world spiraling into chaos.
Kiera. Zephyr corrupted my Kiera.
The bastard promised to take care of her, to protect her. Instead, he molded her into a weapon, a reflection of his own twisted desires.
Why? What purpose could he possibly have with all the assets at his disposal?
He took the fragile girl I cherished and twisted her, a weapon pointed directly at my heart. I have to find a way out of this—for us both.
The air hangs thick with the stench of concrete dust and decay, a fitting stage for the brutal scene about to unfold.
I move through the skeletal remains of the construction site, senses screaming, a predator stalking its prey.
But tonight, the hunter and hunted roles blur in the endless darkness.
I’ve followed another apex predator here.
I’m locked on her presence, a phantom weight in the stillness, a silent promise of the savage dance to come.
My muscles coil tighter, anticipating the clash, the brutal ballet about to begin.
A flicker of movement in my periphery, a subtle shift in the shadows, and I spot her perched on a steel beam, a dark silhouette against the night. Still. Patient. Waiting. My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat of anticipation and a dark, twisted thrill.
Headlights cut through the darkness, slicing through the shadows. A man emerges, his movements hesitant. The fear in the man I’ve only known wrapped in calm power fills the space. A lamb wandering into the lion’s den. He doesn’t see her, my lethal beauty lurking in the shadows.
First, a blinding flash, then Kiera moves with a speed that defies the eye, an undetectable whisper of death to all but the most trained. A choked gasp. A muffled thud. Then silence. Mere seconds pass before the coppery tang of blood joins the decay in the air.