CHAPTER 5

We clash in the middle of the room. I rush toward him as he takes a defensive stance, his eyes tracking my every twitch. What he doesn’t realize is that this frantic assault is a distraction. I throw out a series of punches and kicks, sharp and calculated, designed to make him exert himself and cloud his judgment. As he lunges forward with a groan of effort to restrain me, I’m already ducking.

I dive into a smooth tactical roll across the hardwood, my fingers grazing the floor until they wrap around the handle of my discarded ceramic blade. I come out of the roll in one fluid motion, taking a lethal slash at him. Ron dodges, but I’m a shadow, swiping at him again as we lock into a new, violent dance.

"You’re really trying to kill me, aren't you, Zli?" he asks, his breathing heavy and ragged. He leaps out of the way of the blade just as the tip whistles past his throat. "I’m beginning to think this is more than just a disagreement over the bill. You actually want me dead."

"What was your first clue?" I hiss, my voice a cold contrast to the heat radiating off our bodies. I swipe at him several more times, forcing him back until I finally find an opening.

The blade slices through the air and catches him in the arm. He’s a millisecond too slow, his reflexes dampened by the migraine I know is screaming behind his eyes. A thin line of crimson appears on his bicep. He dives under the heavy glass coffee table to put space between us, and I roll to the ground to keep up the pressure. But as I’m coming out of the transition, he makes his move.

Ron retaliates by grabbing a fistful of my hair and slamming me back against the wall. A sharp, white-hot pain prickles at my scalp, and the air sputters out of my lungs as I collide with the cold surface. He pins me in place, his long fingers wrapping around my wrist with crushing force, trying to shake the blade from my grip.

"I’m really trying not to break you, Zlliot," he grunts, his face inches from mine, his eyes dark with a terrifying intensity. "I don’t like hitting civilians... but you’re attacking me with a knife—"

"That’s your problem. You underestimate me because I hold a pen!"

I break his hold with a sudden, violent twist of my arms, slipping out of his grip and lunging for the kill. He staggers back, desperate to avoid the edge. It takes us both another second to realize he wasn't fast enough. A deep crimson splotch spreads across his abdomen, the blood staining the expensive fabric of his shirt.

Ron looks down at the wound, his teeth bared as he huffs heavy breaths. Every ounce of playfulness has vanished. His almond-shaped eyes have darkened into obsidian pits. His features are sharpened by a feral focus.

He pounces. He moves so fast he becomes a blur of muscle and rage. I barely have time to react as we collide, knocking over the crystal glassware on the minbar. We crash to the floor in a spray of shattered glass. The knife flies out of my hand, clattering uselessly across the room toward the balcony doors.

We’re left grappling on the rug, limbs tangled, breath hot against each other's skin. The sounds we make—thick grunts, angry hisses, heavy pants—they sound like the raw, desperate noises of a struggle in a bedroom. We might as well be fucking.

Ron voices the thought, pinning my shoulders to the floor with his superior weight. "You could’ve just taken the deal, you know. Fucking me would have been a lot more fun than dying for a government that doesn't care about you."

"Don’t flatter yourself, Dragon!"

I buck my hips hard, gaining enough leverage to shove his wounded side and roll on top. I have him for a few seconds, my hands reaching for his throat, until Ron wraps a powerful arm around my back and pulls me into a submission hold. We roll over again and again, fighting relentlessly. In the back of my mind, I’m aware that if he really wanted to, he could be putting up an even harder fight. Even now, he’s holding something back.

As I slip free from his grasp and stagger onto my feet, gasping for air, he doesn’t go for my legs.

Click.

I haven’t stood all the way up yet when I hear the unmistakable hammer of a gun being cocked. That’s when I realize why Ron didn’t try to grab me—he was reaching for the handgun tucked into the nightstand drawer. He holds it with a steady, lethal hand, pointing it right at the center of my chest.

"I didn’t want it to come to this, Zli," he says, his voice low and dangerous. "But you’ve left me no choice. If it’s either me or you, then you already know your fate."

An agonizing moment passes. I stand perfectly still, my heart hammering against my ribs, looking down the barrel of the gun. At the very last second, he slightly shifts his aim and fires.

The bullet cuts through the air, inches from my ear, and shatters the designer lamp on the desk behind me. Shards of ceramic rain down. It’s a warning shot. He intentionally missed.

I take it as my cue to get the hell out of the room. My mission has imploded; I can’t hack a server while staring down a barrel. I snatch my encrypted wristlet on my mad dash out the door, making it to the hall just as Ron shouts something after me—something that sounds hauntingly like a promise.

But I don’t pause to listen. I sprint down the hotel corridor, hitting the emergency exit and shoving the door open to vanish into the New York night. I leap from the exterior stairwell, jumping to the rooftop of the building next door, and then I take off again, weaving through the steel canyons of the city.

It’s not for another several blocks that I eventually slow down in a dark alley. Sweat slicks my skin, my clothes damp from the exertion. My side aches with a dull, throbbing heat from where I hit the wall. I’ve barely caught my breath when my phone buzzes. I see Director Hart on the caller ID.

Shit.

I bite my tongue and answer, my voice tight. "This is Ledger."

"Ledger, I have it on good authority tonight’s operation has been compromised," comes the cool, icy voice of Director Eleanor Hart. My boss. "You failed to plant the surveillance in the lieutenant's office, and what’s this I hear about you going on a rogue side quest to target Ronan Hwan?"

I close my eyes, leaning my head against the cold brick. "His guard got in the way, Director. But it’s nothing that will hinder the unit from moving forward. Tomorrow we’ll—"

"Nothing that will hinder us? Now the Crimson Dragons are aware the FBI is inside their house," she snaps uncompromisingly. "I’d say that throws quite the wrench in our plans, Agent Lukeson. Expect an earful from the board tomorrow. If you can’t get the job done with a scalpel, I’ll bring in a team with a sledgehammer."

She hangs up on me. No "are you alive," no "good effort." Just the abrupt end of the call and a dial tone that drones in my ear like a funeral march.

I can’t even be mad at her. She’s right. I failed tonight. I didn't get the files, and to make matters worse, I let my personal ghost lead me into a trap. I went rogue for a chance to hurt the Hwan family, and I ended up pinned to a floor by the target.

I draw a deep breath and touch my fingers to the ring dangling around my neck. The truth is, I don’t give a damn about pleasing Eleanor Hart or the board. I didn't join the Financial Crimes Unit for the pension or the prestige of a federal badge.

I joined for one reason. To avenge Gina and finally make the animals who executed her pay. Everything else is just a mandatory part of the cover.

But even though I failed tonight, it won’t be the end. It won’t stop me. I’ll only try harder. I’ll take out Ronan Hwan and burn the Crimson Dragons to the ground myself, because it’s what they deserve. Only then will I finally be able to move on from the past. I just have to recalibrate and devise a new plan.

Sometimes being a predator means having the patience to wait for the next strike.

LYDIA “LIL” MORETTI

I stood in the darkened command center of the Camelot unit, watching the red dot that represented Zlliot’s tracker move erratically through the grid of Lower Manhattan. The line went dead for three minutes when he entered the Bellgrave, and those three minutes were the longest of my career.

"He's out," Phoebe whispered from the monitoring station, her voice trembling. "He's moving toward the safe house, but his vitals are spiking. His heart rate is at a hundred and forty, LIL."

"He's alive. That's what matters," I said, though my own heart was hammering. I looked at the surveillance feed from outside the hotel. A black SUV with tinted windows pulled away from the curb just seconds after Zlliot vanished into the shadows.

Ronan Hwan wasn't letting him go. He was letting him run.

I turned to Phoebe, my face a mask of iron. "Don't tell Eleanor about the heart rate. Just tell her he’s en route. And get Callum on the line. I want a full sweep of the Brooklyn brownstone before Zlliot even gets close to the door."

"You think they followed him?" Phoebe asked, her eyes wide.

"I think Ronan Hwan just found a new obsession," I muttered, looking at the picture of the young Dragon captain on the screen. "And Zlliot is too blinded by G.T.'s ghost to see the shadow he's casting."

I had raised Zlliot in this business. I had taught him that numbers don't lie, but people do. Tonight, he had tried to play a game of lies with a man who was born in them.

"Phoebe," I said, grabbing my coat. "Prepare the debriefing room. And find out everything you can about Ronan Hwan's medical history. I want to know exactly what kind of pain makes a man fire a warning shot instead of a kill shot."