I remember the day my mom died. Right before I found her in my dad’s arms in the driveway, I had suggested to Layton that we run away. I never liked the world we grew up in and leaving seemed like such a great idea—still does. I just wish I could permanently leave it all behind.
I think about Danni and Mary Lou, and how I’m just going to disappear, leaving them to wonder what happened to me. Then Nyjah. I don’t know whether he was in with Reagan on blackmailing me or not, but I wish I could say good-bye. I feel guilty about it, although I know in my heart that I can’t go back to Glendale. Maybe one day, if this all ever settles down.
One day. I hope. I hope. I hope.
“Where would we go?” I ask as he hugs me.
Layton swiftly slants back, looking flabbergasted. “You’re seriously considering it? After everything?”
“You know I’m crazy enough.” I try to make a joke but miss the mark. Not knowing what else to say, I shrug. “I have to run, anyway, so it might as well be with someone.” I give him the best smile I can summon. However, there’s too much darkness in me at the moment to be happy.
He smiles back, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I know. I just wanted to make sure.”
I think I’m sure. The last thing I want to do is leave Layton when I just got him back.
“Layton, can I ask you a question?”
He nods. “You can ask me anything.”
I suck in a breath. “Do you know who killed my mother?” Usually, when I say something like this, he would always reply that my mother died from natural causes. Therefore, I don’t expect anything else from him this time.
“I honestly don’t know.” He touches my face, a soft brush of his hand. Then he traces my lips with his fingertip. “I know that it was someone there that day. I heard my dad saying something about it once, but he never said anything specific.”
“So it could be any of them?” I ask, rage flaring in my chest. I always had my suspicions about her death, and now I’ve found out I’ve been right. It makes me angry. It makes me want to go back to Boston and find out who it was. “One of the Defontelles, or the Catherlsons. Or your father. Or mine. One of them did something to her.” The last two hurt.
He nods, appearing in agony, too. “I don’t know what you know about your mother … but I heard a lot of stuff about her … About messing around with the wrong people.”
“Sadly, it doesn’t surprise me. Not after everything. God, I can’t believe she let her own daughter go to that kind of place.” I thought my life had been bad, but Solana’s was so much worse. To be raised to become a killer … The things she must have gone through, and knowing that one of her parents sent her there …
“I think I should talk to her,” I say, climbing off his lap.
“I think you should, too.” He stands up and picks up his gun. “It’s going to have to be quick. If we’re going to go, we’ve got to go soon. Solana … Well, she’s been hired to kill you, and she can’t stall for much longer.”
I should be more shocked than I am. At this point, though, shock has lost its full effect.
“I definitely need to talk to her.” I start for the door.
“Lola, wait,” Layton calls out to me, and when I turn around, he tosses me my gun. “Just to make sure you’re protected. I feel better when you are.”
I nod then take a deep breath before stepping up the stairs to go talk to the sister I’ve never known.
Chapter 6
Layton
I can’t believe she agreed to go with me after I told her my family wants to kill her, that they might have had something to do with her mother’s death, and of course about the shameful business connected to the Everett’s name. Yet I’m not going to question it. I have bigger things to worry about, like getting Lola somewhere safe until we can figure out why the three families want her dead. Plus, I have to keep myself dead while I do it.
As soon as she goes up to talk to Solana, I start throwing supplies into a bag. We’re going to have to live on the road for a while, and we’re going to have to ditch the car eventually since the Catherlsons, I’m sure, have the plate number by now. We can drive to the next state, and then maybe leave the country, if Lola has her passport.
I’m zipping up the bag when Lola comes back down the stairs, looking baffled. “She’s gone.”
I tuck my gun into the back of my jeans. “Solana?”
She nods, her gun still in hand, her dark hair a scattered mess, and dirt is on the bottom of her pants and on her boots. “I searched around, checked the car, and then walked around the woods a bit, calling out to her, but she didn’t answer.”
I pick up a hoodie from a small stack on the shelf and put it on. “I’d say I’m surprised, but I’m not. It seems like something she’d do.” I could tell when I was talking to her while Lola was still out that she was going to bail soon. She’d been getting texts from someone—I’m sure whoever hired her—and was getting antsy.
“Where would she go?” Lola asks, coming over to the shelf and grabbing a hoodie as well. “We’re out in the middle of the friggin’ woods, for crying out loud.”
“She’s more than capable of taking care of herself.” I zip up the hoodie and pick up the bag. “She’s been trained to be the best at survival.”
Lola frowns at the reminder. “Well, then what are we going to do?”
“We are going to hit the road.” I extend my hand toward her. “You have your passport on you?”
She nods, eyeing my hand with brief reluctance before taking it. “I do. It’s in one of the bags I packed. You have it, right?”
I nod. “Good.” I thread my fingers through hers and pull her toward the stairs.
“Where are we going, exactly?”
“Well, we’re going to stay on the road until we get within a safe distance from Glendale. Then I was thinking Mexico.”
She slams to a halt. “Wait. We’re leaving the country?”
“Yeah, I think it’s safest for now.” I start to walk again, but she doesn’t budge. “What’s wrong?”
She shrugs. “It just seems like a lot, you know?”
I try not to over-analyze her hesitance. “You trust me, right?”
I wait for what feels like an eternity, and then, instead of answering me, she leans in and kisses me, letting me know that she does.
Chapter 7
Solana
I stand in the darkness, waiting for the house to clear out before I go in. It took me over a day to walk back to Glendale, hitchhiking when I could. By the time I arrive at The Dusky Inn, it’s nearing the next night.
I don’t feel bad for taking off without saying anything. Good-byes were never my thing. If I stuck around for much longer, I would have had to either answer the person who sent me after Lola, or explain to Lola that her own father sent me to kill her. My withering heart wouldn’t let me do it, though. I guess it wasn’t completely dead like I thought. Besides, if I told her, then she’d want to know why, and I don’t know that, other than there are four mafia families all connected to that damn warehouse where I was raised who want Lolita dead, just like they wanted her mother dead. Larenze never explained that, either. He won’t. Just like I never explained to him that I will never, ever kill for him.
He thinks that some training and brainwashing will make it easy for me to forget that he was the one who sent me to live at that place.
I shudder as I see images of what has been done to me … Things I’ll never forget but can’t allow myself to remember.
I focus on my plan, which has just had a slight change to it.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Nyjah since Lola told me about the lovely little tattoo we share. Although it’s more like a brand than anything. A brand of what we are.
After the last woman walks out of the place, I decide it’s time to enter. There’s only one light on in the entire place, coming from the lower office where I know Nyjah is drinking a glass of scotch, something I learned while
scoping out Lola. He does it every night then smokes a cigarette, staring off into space. I wonder what he thinks about, and now I think I know.
“We’re closed,” he says when my boots make the floor creak. He glances over at me, squinting to see me in the shadows. He’s wearing a plain black T-shirt, torn jeans, and boots. His hair is short, eyes crystal blue, and I can see the tattoo we share on his neck. “Whoever the fuck you are, leave. I’m done dealing with people for the day.”
I smile to myself. Whenever he talked to Lola, he was nice, caring. This is the side he covers up, the side connected to his past. I’m really fucking curious to find out how he escaped.
“Nyjah Peirton. Although, I’m guessing that’s not your real name. In fact, if I had to guess, I’m betting that you don’t even know your real name, nor is Reagan your real father.”
His expression shifts from worry to anger as he rises from his chair. He opens his desk drawer and takes out his pistol.
“I won’t go down without a fight. You should know that.”
Smiling, I unzip my leather jacket, revealing my neck, then step from the shadows, keeping my weapons in place. “And you should know that, if I wanted you dead, you’d already be.” I dismiss his gun as I wander around his office. “Relax. I’m not here to kill you.”
His gaze darts to the tattoo on my neck before he starts to wind his way around his desk toward me, the pistol still in his hand, but not aimed at me yet.
“Who sent you?”
“No one.”
“Then how did you find me?”
I plop down in one of the chairs and cross my legs. “A simple accident, but you should consider yourself lucky I did.”
He presses his lips together, standing over me, as if undecided whether he should just kill me or not. After a moment, I guess he decides to at least wait because he sets the gun on the desk.
“And why would I be lucky that another one of the Sangue Assassins has graced their presence in the life I created to escape that one?”
“Because you know as well as I do that you never really escaped.” I thrum my fingers on my knee. “You’ll always be looking over your shoulder. In fact, I’m betting the only way you haven’t been discovered yet is because that Reagan guy has you doing his dirty work.”
He frowns, his muscles stiffening. “It’s better than the alternative. At least I don’t have to kill all the time.”
“True. But I’m giving you an alternative. One where you will never have to kill again … after we’re done. That is, if you don’t want to.” I recline back in the chair. “I never know which Sangues need to kill and which ones just do it because they have to.” I scan him over. “Although, you look like the kind who just does it because you have to.”
His eyes darken. “And which one are you?”
I smile to hide what I really am inside. “Now, why would I tell you that? We barely know each other.”
He continues to stare at me, attempting to see through my shield, but it’s made of metal and locked with a thousand invisible chains. No one’s been able to get through that shield. Tough as nails. Empty inside. Blank. Detached. Untouchable. It’s how I survived all those years of torture and training. I will never ever let anyone get through that shield. I can’t.
Nyjah takes a sip of his scotch then sets it down on the desk. “What are you proposing?”
I slant forward, resting my arms on my knees. “I’m proposing we take the warehouse down.”
His eyes widen as he lets out a sharp laugh. “Are you fucking crazy? That’s impossible.” He shakes his head. “Do you know what kind of power that would take?” He looks around the room. “And I’m guessing by your solo visit that you have no one.”
“I have some people,” I lie. The only other person who knows what I want to do is Benton, Layton’s brother, but that’s because I let it slip. A first for me. However, Benton has this way of making me talk about things when I don’t want to.
Honestly, Nyjah is the first Sangue I’ve crossed paths with that hasn’t been on some sort of assassin mission. Most of them are cold, unable to live in the real world, unable to communicate on a normal level.
Nyjah takes another sip of his drink, finishing it off. “You’re crazy.”
“I never claimed to be sane,” I reply, getting to my feet. It’s time to go. Staying in the same place for too long is never good. “But it’s clear that you are.” I start for the door. “Have a nice life, Nyjah.”
I make it to the doorway before he calls out, “Wait.”
I pause then turn around as he walks over to me.
“If I agree to help you, I’m going to need to hear a plan. None of this going in blind shit that the Sangues are known for.”
“Oh, I have a plan. But it’s going to take some time.”
“And what’s that?”
“Eliminating the people who control it.”
He seems to consider what I’ve said. “This is crazy,” he says to himself. “I came here to get out of that shit … To let everything go.”
“Have you?”
He shakes his head, his expression flashing with anger. “No, and I never will.”
“You can help others before they have to go through it,” I respond, burying my own memories—the cries, the screams, the pain. “Are you with me or not?”
He wavers then nods. “Okay, I’m in. But just so you know, I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for someone else.” The pain in his eyes lets me know it was probably someone close to him, someone who was killed during the training or took their own life, something that’s happened often.
“And that’s all right with me.” Because, in the end, all that really matters is that the damn warehouse burns to the ground and no one else has to suffer.
About the Author
Jessica Sorensen is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author who lives in the snowy mountains of Wyoming. When she’s not writing, she spends her time reading and hanging out with her family.
Also by Jessica Sorensen
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The Forever of Ella and Micha
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