Page 74 of Till Death Do Us Part

“Did you… kill him?” Elaine said quietly.

“What gave it away? The look in my eyes? Or do I smell like burned powder?”

“Well, mostly his blood all over you.”

“Ah, yeah, that’ll do it. God knows how many people he was going to continue killing if I left him unchecked. Let your conscience be at ease.”

Petra spoke in a dry, amused voice from the front. “It’s because he touched your wife.”

“I gave him ample warning,” I said lightly, and I took the paper from my pocket, scanning it. A massive encryption key, sixty-four characters. Even I needed to take a few seconds to memorize it, but finally, I took a lighter from the compartment and burned it.

The system was ours.

We made it safely to the house, escaping the police attention, but something was off as soon as we arrived. I signaled for Petra to turn off the police scanner, and when Elaine asked what was wrong, I shook my head, listening.

An uncomfortable silence. Something wasn’t right. Even the birds had gone quiet.

I stepped out of the car once Petra stopped, gun in hand, and I placed it before long—a familiar presence there at the front door. I angled the gun up and spoke coolly.

“Wanted to finish the job?” I said.

The bushes rustled, and out from cover stepped Yulia, her mask gone now, gaze sharpened like a blade.

Chapter 35

elaine

I clung anxiously to the car door as I saw them, two guns pointed at the ground, close to one another’s feet. Two gazes pointed fiercely at each other.

Yulia. She’d been waiting for us here… she must have escaped the event and come straight here to catch us.

Yulia flicked her gaze to me, and back to Vera. “The Whitecliffs gave a strict order,” she said. “Make sure the Blackbirds couldn’t get their hands on the South Yard… at any cost. But now you and the Blackbirds are fighting. Quietly. In the shadows.” She fingered the trigger. “You betrayed the family.”

Vera tightened her grip on the gun. I spoke for her. “She didn’t betray the family. The family betrayed her.”

“You trust her,” Yulia said, looking back at me. “Even knowing she married you to kill you for your inheritance.”

I swallowed hard, but I nodded. “She’s protected me. And she’s put so much at risk to keep me safe… to keep all of us safe.” I stepped a little closer, and Vera moved to stay in front of me. “That’s what real loyalty is,” I said. “To the people you choose… and the people who choose you, too.”

Yulia scoffed. “I hadn’t thought you would go soft, Wolf.”

“I can’t abide by the Horizon project,” Vera said. “And I’ve made an oath to protect my wife.”

Yulia narrowed her eyes, studying us. Finally, she looked at me. “Out of all the families in Merona, there are many dangerous wildcards. Myself. Vera Farkas. Quayle. But I suspect the most powerful of them all, Elaine Whitner… is you.”

“Me?” I drew in a sharp breath.

“Few could ever dream of taming the Wolf. And few… could make me falter when given the chance to kill a target.”

Slowly, in the deathly silence of the front yard, Yulia holstered her gun. The motion was small, the sound just barely a click of metal, but in the silence, it was deafening.

“If you betray this family, too, Vera Farkas—if you hurt Elaine after all—I will kill you.”

“I’m not the one who had a knife pointed at her. Keep talking to my wife and I’m going to get possessive. You know what happened to the last person I had to get possessive of Elaine over?”

I blushed, drawing into myself. “Vera…”

“Yes,” Yulia deadpanned. “I heard the report about him. Do you not think that was excessive?”