The blade sliced through Mark's throat so clean he didn't even scream.
I watched the blood spray across the concrete wall of the training room, droplets hitting my face like warm rain. My tongue darted out to taste the copper sweetness on my lips. Nothing. No guilt, no satisfaction, no emotion at all. Just the metallic tang and the sound of a body hitting the floor.
"Time." Vincent's voice echoed through the underground chamber.
I didn't look at the stopwatch. I knew I'd beaten my previous record. Mark had been good - one of the Silver Moon organization's top assassins. But good wasn't perfect. And after fifteen years of training, I was as close to perfect as a weapon could get.
"Forty-seven seconds," Vincent announced, his cold blue eyes gleaming with approval. "New personal best, Scarlett."
I wiped the silver blade clean on Mark's shirt before sliding it back into the sheath at my thigh. Around the training room, the other assassins watched in silence. Some looked impressed. Others looked afraid. Smart of them.
"Clean this up," Vincent ordered the others. "Scarlett, my office. Now."
I followed him through the maze of corridors that made up our underground facility. Twenty feet below the streets of New York, the Silver Moon compound stretched for miles. Training rooms, weapons labs, sleeping quarters for over two hundred operatives. My home for the past fifteen years. My prison for just as long.
Vincent's office sat at the heart of it all, behind reinforced steel doors that could stop a tank. The walls were lined with weapons from every era - swords, guns, poison darts, things I couldn't even name. But my eyes went straight to the glass case in the corner. The one that held my father's silver dagger, the only thing I had left of David Hunter.
"Sit," Vincent said, settling behind his massive desk.
I remained standing. I always did.
Vincent smiled that thin, cold smile that never reached his eyes. "Stubborn as always. Very well. Today marks fifteen years since I found you, Scarlett. Fifteen years since your father's murder."
My jaw tightened. Even after all this time, the wound felt fresh. I could still see Dad's face in my dreams, still hear his laugh. Still remember the blood pooling around his body when I found him.
"Alexander Blackfang," Vincent continued, pulling out a thick file. "The monster who killed David Hunter. Who ripped apart your family and left you an orphan."
He slid a photograph across the desk. I'd seen it before - a tall man with black hair and silver eyes, standing outside a gleaming corporate tower. Handsome in a dangerous way, like a predator pretending to be civilized. Alexander Blackfang, CEO of Blackfang Corporation. North America's most powerful werewolf.
"Tomorrow, you begin your final mission," Vincent said. "Everything we've trained for leads to this moment."
I picked up the photo, studying Alexander's face. Something about his expression bothered me, but I couldn't put my finger on what. "What's the plan?"
"Infiltration. You'll pose as his new personal secretary. I've arranged for the position to open up." Vincent's smile widened, and I didn't want to know what had happened to Alexander's current secretary. "You'll have access to his office, his schedule, his private elevator. All the access you need to get close."
"How close?" I asked.
"Close enough to slide your father's blade between his ribs."
I nodded, but something nagged at me. After fifteen years of preparation, it seemed almost too simple. "What about security? His pack? Werewolves can smell deception."
"Leave that to me. I have ways of masking your scent, your intentions. He'll never see you coming." Vincent leaned back in his chair. "The position starts Monday. That gives you thirty days to complete the mission before the board meeting where he plans to expand his territory into our hunting grounds."
Thirty days. I'd killed men in thirty seconds. This should be easy.
So why did something feel wrong?
Vincent opened another drawer and pulled out a small wooden box. "These belonged to your father. I thought you should have them for this mission."
My breath caught. Inside the box lay my father's silver dagger - the twin to the one in the glass case - and a small photo. But this wasn't the formal portrait I'd seen a hundred times. This was candid, taken at some kind of gathering. Dad stood next to a younger man with salt-and-pepper hair and a genuine smile.
The man looked familiar, but I couldn't place him.
"Who's this?" I asked, pointing to the stranger.
Vincent glanced at the photo, and for just a split second, something flickered across his face. Guilt? Fear? It was gone so fast I almost thought I'd imagined it.
"Nobody important," he said, closing the box. "Just someone your father worked with before... before he discovered the truth about werewolves."
But his answer felt rehearsed. Practiced. Like he'd been expecting this question for fifteen years.
I tucked the box under my arm. "I'll need everything you have on Blackfang. His habits, his weaknesses, his pack structure."
"Already prepared." Vincent handed me a thick manila envelope. "Study it tonight. Tomorrow, we begin your cover preparation."
I turned to leave, but his voice stopped me at the door.
"Scarlett."
I looked back.
"Your father's death cannot go unpunished. Alexander Blackfang took everything from you - your family, your childhood, your innocence. It's time to take everything from him."
I nodded and left, but his words echoed in my head as I walked back to my quarters. Vincent was right. Alexander Blackfang had destroyed my life. He deserved to die.
So why did I keep staring at that photo of my father with the stranger? And why did the stranger's smile remind me of someone I couldn't quite remember?
My room was small and sparse - a bed, a desk, a weapons cabinet. Everything I needed, nothing I wanted. I'd stopped wanting things years ago. Wanting led to weakness, and I couldn't afford weakness.
I spread the contents of Alexander's file across my desk. Photos, financial records, surveillance reports, pack hierarchy charts. Fifteen years of preparation boiled down to a single target.
Alexander Blackfang, thirty years old. CEO of Blackfang Corporation, which owned half of Manhattan's financial district. Alpha of the North American Eastern Pack, controlling territory from Maine to Virginia. No known mate or offspring. Parents killed in a car accident when he was twelve - though the file noted the accident was "suspicious."
Interesting. We both had dead parents.
I studied his photos, looking for weaknesses. He was tall, probably six-foot-three, with the lean muscle of someone who stayed in fighting shape. His suits were expensive but understated. His expression was always controlled, revealing nothing.
But his eyes... there was something about his eyes that bothered me. They were sharp, intelligent, constantly scanning his surroundings. The eyes of a predator, yes, but also of someone who'd learned not to trust easily.
The eyes of someone with secrets.
I picked up the photo of my father again, staring at the stranger beside him. The man's face was open, friendly. Everything Alexander's wasn't. But there was something in his smile that made my chest tighten with an emotion I couldn't name.
A knock at my door interrupted my thoughts.
"Come in."
Marcus Chen entered, carrying a tray of food. Marcus was one of the few people in this place I could tolerate. He'd been recruited around the same time as me, though his specialty was information gathering rather than assassination.
"Thought you might be hungry," he said, setting the tray on my desk. "Heard about the new mission."
I nodded, moving the files to make room. "Thirty days to get close to Alexander Blackfang and put a blade in his heart."
"And then what?" Marcus asked, settling into the chair across from me.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, after you kill him. What happens to you? To us? Vincent's been planning this for fifteen years. What's his endgame?"
It was a good question. I'd been so focused on the mission itself that I hadn't thought about what came after. What did come after? Would Vincent finally let me go? Would he find me a new target?
"I don't know," I admitted.
Marcus was quiet for a moment. "Can I ask you something?"
"Shoot."
"Are you sure about this? About Blackfang being the one who killed your father?"
The question hit me like a physical blow. "What kind of question is that? Of course I'm sure. Vincent wouldn't lie about something like that."
"I know, I know. It's just..." Marcus ran a hand through his dark hair. "I've been doing research on Blackfang for months, preparing intelligence for your mission. And some things don't add up."
"Like what?"
"Like the timeline. Your father was killed fifteen years ago, right? But according to every source I can find, Alexander Blackfang was twelve years old fifteen years ago. His parents had just died, and he was being raised by his pack's council."
My blood went cold. "That's impossible."
"I triple-checked. Even found old school records. He was definitely just a kid when your father died."
I stared at him, my mind racing. If Alexander was twelve when Dad died, then he couldn't have been the killer. Which meant...
"Vincent lied to me," I whispered.
"Maybe not lied," Marcus said carefully. "Maybe just... simplified the truth. Maybe someone in Alexander's pack killed your father, and Vincent thought it would be easier to blame the current Alpha."
But even as he said it, I could see he didn't believe it. And neither did I.
I looked at the photo of my father again, at the smiling stranger beside him. "Marcus, have you ever seen this man before?"
He took the photo, studying it carefully. His face went pale.
"Where did you get this?"
"Vincent gave it to me tonight. Said it was just someone Dad worked with. Why?"
Marcus was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.
"Scarlett, that's Vincent. Fifteen years younger, but it's definitely him."
The photo slipped from my fingers, fluttering to the floor. Vincent. The man who'd raised me, trained me, fed me stories about my father's killer... had been my father's friend.
"I have to go," Marcus said, standing abruptly. "If Vincent finds out I told you this..."
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to.
After he left, I sat in my room, staring at the photo on the floor. Fifteen years of training, fifteen years of hatred, fifteen years of preparing to kill a man who might be completely innocent.
And the man who'd orchestrated it all had been smiling next to my father like they were best friends.
I picked up the silver dagger, my father's dagger, and tested its edge against my thumb. A thin line of blood welled up, bright red against my pale skin.
If Vincent had lied about Alexander, what else had he lied about? What really happened to my father? And why had Vincent been so eager to turn me into a weapon aimed at Alexander Blackfang's heart?
I had thirty days to find out. Thirty days to get close to my supposed target and learn the truth.
One way or another, someone was going to pay for my father's death. I just had to figure out who deserved to die.
I closed the file and tucked the dagger into my boot. Tomorrow, I would become Alexander Blackfang's secretary. I would smile and take notes and pretend to be a helpless human girl.
And then I would decide whether to save him or kill him.
But first, I had to survive whatever game Vincent was really playing. Because I was starting to realize that in fifteen years of training, the most important lesson might be the one no one had taught me: how to tell the difference between your enemies and your allies.
Especially when they might be the same person.
The clock on my wall ticked toward midnight. In eight hours, my final mission would begin. In thirty days, either Alexander Blackfang or I would be dead.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but all I could see was Vincent's face in that photo, smiling at my father like he loved him.
Like he loved him right up until the moment he had him killed.