Page 40 of Wraith (Deviant Assassin #1)
Blade
T he rain hammers against the windows of Blaque’s Funeral Home, a steady, unrelenting downpour.
Thunder cracks overhead, shaking the old walls, sending a shiver through the dimly lit room.
The air smells of old, damp wood and candle wax, cloying and thick.
I stand near the casket, my hands fisting at my sides, jaw clenched tight enough to make my teeth ache.
My left eye twitches. It always twitches when I’m on edge like this.
The phone buzzes in my pocket, vibrating against my leg.
I pull it out, and Phoenix’s name flashes on the screen.
The lightning outside flickers, casting long, eerie shadows across the floor.
I shouldn’t pick it up right now. Not here.
Not with Felix impatiently waiting for me to explain why I’ve announced we need to kill Kiera.
But I take the call. I always do. Excusing myself for privacy, I head for the door.
Felix rolls his eyes dramatically and complains.
“Hurry back, for fuck’s sake. You can’t just leave me hanging?—”
I shut the heavy door securely behind me and pick up the call as I stride across the hall and into an empty room.
“Phoenix.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend.
“Blade,” she says, her voice soft, almost worried. “Did you find anything? About Wraith?”
I close my eyes; the lie forming in my throat, burning like bile.
“I’m still searching,” I mutter, hating myself for it. “Wraith’s good at covering his tracks.”
I can’t tell her the truth, even though she’s my only close connection.
Can’t let her know finding Wraith isn’t the real problem.
Won’t let her know Kiera is Wraith, so I reaffirm her belief that Wraith is male, even as I curse myself in the back of my mind of the deception. Pheonix has always had my back, but…
Umber wants Kiera dead.
If my wife, with her very strong survival instinct, knew there’s a price on her head… if she knew I was standing here, in her funeral home of all places, while someone out there wants me to put her in a casket.
She’d run. Or worse, she’d stay and fight. But I won’t lose her again.
“Be careful,” Pheonix whispers. “There’s something about this that feels… off.”
“Yeah,” I grunt, the tension in my jaw making it hard to speak. “I’ll call you when I know more.”
I disconnect the call before she can say anything else. Before I say something I can’t take back.
My screen lights up with an incoming video call from Esther as I hang up with Phoenix.
I draw a deep breath, school my face to impassive, and accept the call.
Ester’s hawk-like eyes meet mine, her face unreadable.
She’s always been good at reading people, and right now, I feel like I’m under a microscope.
“These unsanctioned kills are piling up,” she says, her voice low and calculated.
I tilt my head, lifting my brows to convey my surprise.
Sometimes less is more, especially when I’ve got a reputation as an unshakable killing machine.
My gaze darts toward the dark window, the shadows from the storm crawling across the floor.
Esther doesn’t know how deep this runs. None of them do.
As Wraith, Kiera is systematically picking off high-command personnel, and it’s only a matter of time before the target I’ve been sent after returns home.
“Killing off high-ranking officers isn’t subtle,” I say, forcing my voice to stay calm, even though every nerve in my body is screaming. “Wraith’s making a move.”
“Or someone’s making a move for him,” Esther counters, moving closer to the camera, her gaze never leaving mine. “Watch your back, Blade. No one’s safe. Not even you, until we know who’s pulling the strings.”
I swallow the bitterness rising in my throat.
She doesn’t need to know about Kiera. Not yet.
I nod like the obedient soldier she expects to see instead of a guy whose head is pounding with questions and end the call.
The sound of my boots echoes on the creaky wooden hallway floor as I brace myself to deal with Felix again.
I don’t get a second to gather my thoughts, because Felix leans against the wall near the door, waiting for me. His usual wide grin is absent, as he stares at me expectantly, his gaze traveling over me slowly.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the runaway himself,” he says, arms folded across his chest. “Where the fuck have you been, Blade? You promised to give Kiera a life free of pain, away from Rick and Donna. Instead, you ghost her? Ghost me?”
My face twists in a severe scowl at the edge of hurt in my old friend’s voice.
“Now’s not the time for that.”
“Oh? But it’s the time to plan a murder? Kiera’s murder?”
The weight of Felix’s words hangs between us like a guillotine. He knows what I’m planning. Hell, he’s been helping me get the lay of the land to pull it off because I told him she was in danger. He just doesn’t know how deep and deadly the threat is.
“I don’t have the fucking time to connect all the dots for you, Felix.
I have to get rid of her,” I say, keeping my tone low, deliberate, to discourage further questions.
“You should be planning your own contingencies, not giving me the third degree about the past. Fi, you’re wrapped up in this, too.
You think Umber will just let you walk away if they find out you run her clean-up crew?
In their eyes, you’re just as big of a liability. ”
I take a step closer, lowering my voice until it’s just us and the storm outside.
“They’ll come for you, too,” I growl. “If we don’t do this right, if we don’t take Kiera off the map, you’re a dead man.”
Felix swallows, his jaw tightening. “So, we’re doing this. No turning back?”
“No turning back,” I repeat, resolved to our course of action. “And once she’s gone, you’re going to have to disappear.”
There’s a heavy pause, and for a moment, I see something flicker in Felix’s eyes—fear, doubt, maybe both. But it passes, and he nods, his lips quirking up in a remnant of the grin I remember so well.
“Alright then,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder as if we’re playing a game. “Let’s make it count.”
Felix always had his own way of dealing with the ugliness of life.
I don’t respond, unable to slip into lightheartedness as easily as my old friend.
Instead, I turn to retrieve the supplies I stashed in the back of the funeral home.
The warmth drains from the air here, the scent of damp wood and decay thickening with each breath as dark tendrils weave their way around my chest. They lengthen, twisting, sharpening, curling up my arms and finally reaching my face, until the shadows envelop me completely, cloaking me in their suffocating embrace.
I collect my duffel bag from the corner, the weight of it heavy in my hands. Inside, I’ve got everything I need, along with gloves, guns, and knives.
As I move through the motions, checking the items one by one, my mind keeps drifting back to Kiera. To what I have to do. The rain outside is relentless, and it mirrors the storm inside me. My hands work, but my thoughts are with her. With the fallout of what I’m about to create.
I zip the bag shut, the movement like closing a chapter of my life, as I try to steady my pounding heart.
The thunder outside rolls like a low growl, shaking the walls of this dark, suffocating room.
Rain lashes against the window, relentless, each drop pounding like the echo of my pulse.
My eye twitches, an involuntary, painful spasm that irritates the shit out of me.
The cold blue light from the monitor is all that illuminates the space, casting long shadows across my face and hands as I hover over the keyboard, fingers trembling with rage.
Bile rises in my throat while the video plays, even though it’s hot as hell, turning me on in ways I never could’ve imagined. My skin crawls, every fiber of my being screaming to turn it off. It’s a grotesque scene, not because of what’s happening, but because of what I’m about to turn it into.
Kiera’s face is all I can focus on. Her expression strained, though not broken—never broken. I have to make the desire on her face seem like terror, disgust, fear. The sight of her like this makes something primal in me want to tear the world apart. Or join in like the sick fuck I am.
But I can’t. Not yet.
My fingers itch to curl into fists, to punch the screen, or to throw the keyboard across the room, but I resist. I’m smarter than that. Calm. Calculated. Ruthless.
I pause the video, staring at the still frame—Kiera against a wall, Wild hovering over her.
The memory of what really happened makes my blood boil.
He doesn’t hurt her, no; he gives her pleasure, something every fiber of my being craves to give her, too.
But it doesn’t matter. The truth is irrelevant now.
What matters is what I make people believe.
My jaw clenches so hard it feels like my teeth might crack.
The coppery taste of blood hits my tongue as I bite down on the inside of my cheek, the pain a sharp contrast to the rage thundering inside me.
My hands tighten around the mouse, knuckles white, but I stay steady. No mistakes. No hesitation.
The editing software hums quietly, a mechanical, emotionless sound that mocks the raging emotions flowing hot through my veins.
I splice the video, frame by frame, twisting the narrative until it’s something monstrous.
The more I manipulate the footage, the more my disgust festers, eating away at my insides.
Kiera’s face flashes on the screen again, and I swallow the urge to scream, to break something, anything, to release the fury building inside me.
But I don’t. I can’t.