23. Lyssa

Time seemsto slow to a crawl as I trace his trajectory. Before I can even think, I’m moving, hurling myself forward to put myself squarely between them.

His ham-sized fist slams into my chest like a freight train, lifting me clear off my feet with the sheer force behind the blow. I hit the ground hard again, the impact reverberating through my very bones as the world tilts and spins in a sickening vortex.

I try to blink away the haze clouding my vision, just in time to see the leader bring back his foot and start to kick out. I twist away on instinct, but searing pain lances through my shoulder as his boot connects, a howl ripping free from my throat. I roll, stagger to my feet, watch him come at me again?—

Only to stagger backward a beat later, clutching at the blade buried to the hilt in his back.

His legs buckle, sending him crashing to the filthy alley floor in a boneless heap.

Scarlett stands over him, chest heaving and eyes blazing with murderous fury as she wrenches her knife free.

God, she’s beautiful. Even as she yanks out the knife, even as she heads my way with murder in her eyes…

She’s beautiful.

I brace myself for another attack from her, but it never comes. Instead, she turns on her heel and levels the remaining thugs with a look that would strip paint. They break and scatter into the night like roaches exposed to light, until only the two of us remain amid the groaning, semi-conscious wreckage.

“He’ll probably live,” Scarlett says. She nods at the guy she just literally stabbed in the back. “But, sorry, I guess. I didn’t have much choice. He was about to kill you.”

Before I can respond, a searing jolt of agony lances through my left shoulder—definitely dislocated, if not worse. I grit my teeth, swallowing back the groan that tries to claw its way free.

Scarlett’s brow furrows in concern. “Your shoulder?—”

“It’s fine,” I lie. “Just give me a sec.”

Without further preamble, I pivot and drive my shoulder into the unforgiving brick wall beside us. A brutal pop, then a screaming wave of white-hot fire quickly chased by a dull, throbbing ache.

But it’s back in joint.

“That was a silly thing to do,” Scarlett tells me calmly. “I could have helped you rotate it back in.”

“Sure, but my way’s faster.” Wiping a trickle of sweat from my brow, I look to Scarlett once more. Her eyes are wide, mouth slightly parted as if to protest. But only a breathless chuckle escapes those petal-soft lips that I was kissing just before the entertainment turned up.

“You’re insane, you know that?”

I allow the faintest hint of a smirk to play across my split and swollen lips. “Look who’s talking, Scar. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

We walk a long time, just putting distance between us and the alleyway. It’s late. Or early, anyway; the sun’s coming up and the screwy sleep schedule of the Syndicate means I’m feeling exhausted one minute and like I could take on another whole alleyway of Sokolovs the next.

We’ve been walking without talking, until I hear Scarlett take a breath. “Where are we going?”

“Dunno,” I say. “Walking helps me think. We need to figure out what we’re doing next, since you finally believe I didn’t kill Adam.”

Her next question is filled with genuine curiosity. “Why couldn’t we just kill them? The Sokolovs?”

“Hadria’s orders,” I tell her briefly.

“Ah.” She tilts her head to one side, watching me as we walk. “Do you always just…follow orders? I thought that’s why you left Grandmother in the first place. To do your own thing.”

A fair point. One that gives me pause as we make our way back onto the sidewalk of one of Chicago’s more populated streets.

The deeper truth is, I couldn’t bear to see that light I still see in her eyes extinguished by the weight of one more life on her conscience. But that is not an admission I’m willing to make.

“My loyalty lies with the Syndicate,” I say instead, carefully weighing each word. “And more importantly, with Hadria. She’s the closest thing to family I’ve got left—her and Mrs. G. And, well, the rest of the Syndicate.”

Scarlett worries her full lower lip between her teeth, her eyes dropping from mine. She stops walking, and so do I, though I pull her into a doorway to get out of the milling early-morning workers, and take a look around to make sure we weren’t followed.

“I’m sorry I killed your people,” she says at last. “I’m very sorry about Yuri, in particular. You were right about him. He—he was being kind to me, that night. He didn’t deserve to die. None of them did.”

I wasn’t expecting that. An apology.

It doesn’t fix anything, but I guess it’s nice to hear.

“Well,” I say after a pause, “no one joins something like the Syndicate without knowing the risks. Maybe they didn’t deserve to die for Adam. But none of them were innocent, Scar—and me most of all.”

I’m so glad no one can hear me saying that. It goes against everything we believe in the Syndicate. Blood for blood is our way. Hurt us, we hurt you harder.

But when Scarlett looks up at me with shining eyes, I can’t regret trying to comfort her. “Maybe,” she says, “but I made myself their executioner. And I had no right to do that. It weighs on me every damn day, Lyssa, and more since I realized that Grandmother’s been bullshitting this whole time. She used me. And I let her do it.”

I nod once, a silent acknowledgment. Her capacity for remorse is…unexpected. Disarming.

“And I get it,” she continues, her shoulders lifting in the barest hint of a shrug. “About following orders for your family’s sake, I mean. I’d do anything to protect mine, too. My—my real family, I mean.” Her words sound heavier than they should, somehow.

“Obviously,” I say at last. “You joined an elite organization for assassins and threw away your potential just for the chance at revenge. Most people aren’t that crazy.”

She is a little crazy, I’ve decided. A little left-of-center in that way we all are in the Syndicate, too. You need a slightly skewed view of the world to be comfortable with the work we do.

And even more skewed to be comfortable with the work Grandmother does.

“Scar, what’s wrong?” I ask gently, when she just looks down. “There’s been something wrong all night. You seem?—”

But the wail of distant sirens makes us both jerk to attention. Tilting my head back and forth to stretch my newly-relocated shoulder, I let out a yawn. “C’mon. Let’s go get coffee.”

A beat of surprise flickers across her face before she gives a soft, bemused chuckle. “Yeah, okay. Why not? Lead the way…Wolf.”

With that, we fall into step, two dark hearts slithering between the innocent people of Chicago as they start their workdays.

I like her. I really do.

And that’s a problem.