22. Lyssa

Despite the meetingout at Elysium, I’m right on time to meet Scarlett in the alleyway where her brother died. The shop that I assume used to be her family’s restaurant is a laundry now, but the alley seems just the same, or so Scarlett nods when I ask her.

She’s quieter than usual tonight, her eyes wary again every time she looks at me. But there’s something else there, too. Something I’m not sure about.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say there was something wrong with her. More wrong than usual, I mean.

The scents of stale piss and rotting garbage get stronger as we make our way down the alley, the sounds of distant traffic fading to a dull thrum. My footsteps are silent, a practiced stealth ingrained into my very being. But Scarlett’s movements seem to betray the inner turmoil I’m sensing in her—each stride is heavy, weighed down.

Maybe it’s just that she feels the ghosts of this place.

I study her profile, pale skin yellowed in the harsh glow of a flickering light at the back of one of the stores. Those hazel eyes are more haunted than ever. She came here seeking answers with me, but I know this alley will hold no redemption for her, even if we find some kind of clue. And what clue will we possibly find, all these years later?

I still wanted to see it. Get the sense of the place.

“Did you get anything from Ariadne?” I ask, my voice low, but it still seems to fracture the eerie quiet.

Scarlett shakes her head, her ponytail shaking as she does. She’s tied her hair up tonight like I do. “No.”

A flicker of annoyance runs through me. “No” isn’t exactly helpful. But something tells me not to push it.

“See anything useful?” she asks, her voice cool.

I glance around. “I see any number of better positions to take someone out from if I wanted to do it quietly and without being seen by the camera.” I point up at some of the fire escapes on the taller buildings around us. “Easy enough to use a silenced gun from up there—or throw a knife.”

Scarlett looks too, and I see the calculations running through her head as she turns to the camera, too. “You’re right,” she says slowly. She shrugs off her jacket. “Let’s recreate the scene.”

“What?”

“Act it out. Maybe it will jog something in my memory.” There’s something so…dull about the way she says it, her eyes avoiding mine, but she’s already positioning herself in the center of the alley. “I’ll be Adam.” She stares at me. “You take the part of the Wolf.”

“Fine.”

I take my position further up the alley, and I mimic, so far as I can remember, the motions of the woman. Scarlett, however, has turned to face me, watching my approach, even though her brother had his back to his attacker.

I reach her, hold up an imaginary knife, and then drop my arm. “Well?”

“It wasn’t you,” she says, that same blank tone in her voice. “Was it?”

I shake my head slowly. “It wasn’t me.”

Scarlett’s composure crumbles then, a strangled sob tearing from her throat as she drops to her knees, anguished cries echoing off the grimy walls. I’ve seen her angry, determined, flirtatious—but never this hurt, this…broken.

Not even at the motel the other night.

Something urges me forward, my body acting on instincts I didn’t know I possessed. In two strides, I’m kneeling before her, wrapping my arms around her shuddering frame and pulling her against my chest. She doesn’t resist, her tears soaking through my shirt as I hold her tight, shielding her from the cruelties of this world, if only for a moment.

We stay like that for what feels like an eternity, her ragged breaths slowly evening out against the steady thrum of my heartbeat. When she finally pulls back, her eyes are red-rimmed but clear, shining with a turbulent blend of gratitude, affection, and...

“Lyssa,” she whispers. Keeping her gaze locked on mine, Scarlett leans in infinitesimally. My breath catches in my throat. Our lips are so close I can feel the heat of her breath fanning across my skin.

Then, with a low, desperate sound, she presses her mouth into mine. I return the embrace, increasing the intensity in time with her needy whimpers. My mouth moves on hers almost desperately, and my hands knot in her silky hair, pulling her closer still as my body arches instinctively into hers. There’s some primal, electric energy between us that has me craving more, more.

Her arms tighten around me, one hand splaying over my lower back while the other cups the nape of my neck, holding me in place as she plunders my mouth right back with ruthless, relentless hunger.

Time loses all meaning beyond the slick heat of our mingled breaths, the frantic hammering of my pulse, the dizzying spiral of need blazing through my veins. I’m drowning, but for once it’s not in blood—no, this is an entirely different kind of submersion.

And just as abruptly as it was cast, the spell shatters.

There’s a harsh clatter, boots on concrete—muffled shouts ringing out in Russian. Scarlett tenses as I do, her entire body going rigid as we break the kiss, our heads whipping around to pinpoint the source of the disturbance.

Five stocky men with shaved heads are headed toward us, fists raised and fury etched into their brutish features.

We both get to our feet.

Eyes narrowing, I shove Scarlett behind me and assume a defensive position, fists raised as the men advance.

“Murdering bitch!” one of them snarls, beady eyes bright with undisguised hatred. “You killed Yuri, and now you’ll pay for every drop of his blood!”

Sokolov bratva. Great.

“For fuck’s sake,” I sigh, “I didn’t kill Yuri.”

“Not you,” he spits, further enraged, and points a large, stained knife behind me at Scarlett. “Her.”

“Get out of here,” Scarlett says in a low voice. “This is my problem.”

She’s right about that. I should go. And Hadria has ordered that Syndicate members should back off the Sokolovs for now.

“What, and miss all the fun?” I ask brightly.

I’ve already instinctively positioned myself between Scarlett and the threat, even though the reality is that she’s just as much a threat to me as these Sokolovs—more, actually. But the protective urge, the need to shield this woman I’m supposed to have killed myself by now, is just too overwhelming.

“But—” she begins, but the bratva are still coming. They’re out for blood, that much is clear from their snarls and blades.

“You gonna pay for this,” their leader goads, his teeth bared in an ugly grin. “I’m gonna slice you up, little girl.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Scarlett reaching for her knife. I take out mine, too, and hope she won’t just plant hers in my back.

But Hadria’s command still echoes in my head. Back off the Sokolovs.

“You know, this doesn’t have to get messy,” I call out, letting my voice take on that steely edge that commands respect...or at least pause. “We’re not looking for trouble.”

The brute throws back his head with a bark of laughter. “Too late for that, lapochka. Should’ve thought of that before you crossed the Sokolovs.”

“For the last time, Yuri wasn’t a Sokolov,” I snap back. “He worked for me. For the Syndicate.”

“Yet here you are sucking face with the bitch who killed him,” the guy growls back. “Seems to me like you need putting down too, Wolf.”

So much for diplomacy.

“I guess you can try,” I tell him with a smile. With a lazy flick of his wrist, he signals his men forward. They advance to surround us. “No killing,” I hiss at Scarlett, meeting her startled gaze. “Non-lethal force only.”

For a beat, she looks like she might protest, but a roll of the eyes is all the confirmation I need. And then we begin, moving in unison, dancers in a lethal tango as the first attack crashes over us.

A fist swings toward my face, sloppy and telegraphed. I catch the man’s wrist, using his own momentum to send him tumbling into his cohort.

Scarlett is using an economy of motion that is nothing short of impressive. She ducks a wild haymaker, sweeping the attacker’s legs out from under him before bringing her elbow down in a crunch against his nose.

But a cry of fury draws my attention toward the mouth of the alley. There are more of them.

Fuck. A lot more of them.

“Heads up,” I manage to holler to Scarlett, just before the bear of a man who seems to be their leader barrels toward her, all subtlety abandoned in favor of brute force. His meaty fists are clenched as he zeroes in on Scarlett.

An image flashes through my mind—Scarlett, broken and bloodied at this animal’s feet.

He’ll kill her if he gets his hands on her.

The thought propels me forward with renewed urgency. I slam into his side, dropping into a textbook tackle that drives the air from his lungs in a guttural wheeze. We tumble away from the fray in a blur of grappling limbs, trading vicious blows until I manage to slam him down against the unforgiving concrete of the street.

But my head snaps to the side as something hard and blunt glances off my temple, rocking me back with a burst of white-hot pain.

Looks like his friends want to play too.

A kick in the mid-section sends me backward, and the dazed leader is still alert enough to grab my foot and pull, hard, so that I crash to the ground. I kick out, get my foot free, then roll aside just as a steel-toed boot comes crashing down where my skull was moments before. Rising in a low crouch, I lash out with a vicious front kick that sends its owner stumbling back, clutching his abdomen.

I dart a glance toward Scarlett, who has her back against the alley wall, using it to fend off three attackers at once. Even as I watch, her foot lashes out in a wicked crescent, laying one of them out cold with a sickening thud.

A battered groan draws my attention as the leader struggles to his feet. He staggers forward, pure vitriol blazing in those dead eyes as he locks onto his target once more.

Scarlett.