“Keep your left hand on the gun. Don’t break your hold. Keep your stance. Be ready for the kickback. Shoot when you’re ready.”

I shot.

I didn’t need to go through the steps he’d just given me. I was always bracing for the worst in this life, and because of that, I didn’t move. Not an inch. I felt the kickback. It reverberated up my arm, my shoulders, my chest. I felt the wave of pressure slam against my face, but I was ready for it. I’d been around enough guns being shot.

But I had not been ready for the emotions that surged through me.

I’d gone over my line. I’d just shot a gun. I was a step closer to making that list a reality. Maybe that’s why I’d told Raize about it.

“Bronksi’s on the list,” I said softly.

His dark and penetrating eyes found mine. “We can make that happen.”

Yes. Right. I told him I wanted to kill a man, and he said “we can make that happen.” I was so far over the line now that I wondered why I’d ever drawn a line. It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t start on my list with that line being there.

“That last building, Oscar’s, it’s on the list, too,” I confessed, my voice quiet. “I want to blow it up.”

His eyes narrowed. I knew he was remembering my freak-out. “We can make that happen, too.”

A wave of emotion swept through me, and I braced myself. I didn’t know what I was feeling, but it was so much right now that I couldn’t move a muscle. Not. One. Muscle.

Raize’s hand went to my hip, and his fingers flexed there. “What’s going on in your head?”

I went back to remembering that boyfriend. “I was thinking about the sex I used to have. That was a long time ago.”

His fingers dug into my hip as he aligned behind me. I could feel him from my shoulder to my ass. He fit against me, almost perfectly.

He used to have sex regularly, too. I’d seen the women who left his room in the mornings. And his stint was a lot more recent than mine. Mine was years ago, probably three years ago. That would make me… “I should be in college.”

Raize tensed behind me. I could feel his breath.

“If I hadn’t decided, well, you know—another life, another world, and I’d be in college by now. Maybe a sophomore even.” But I wasn’t, and there was no point in dwelling on it. “You said you were going to destroy his operations. What are you going to do about the women?”

“That’s important to you?” His forehead went to my shoulder, barely touching me. I don’t think he realized.

My tongue felt heavy. I blinked a few times, and there was a wetness there I didn’t want. “It is.”

His voice got rough. “It have to do with why you started this life?”

Oh, damn. He went there.

This morning was just so weird.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“We can take them to a shelter, wear ski masks so they can’t identify us.”

My knees almost gave away. I had to release the gun, grabbing for the table so I didn’t fall.

Raize caught me, holding me in place with his front pressed against my back.

I could feel how long it’d been since he’d had sex. I don’t know if he meant for me to feel it, but I was. I remembered how it felt when my boyfriend used to slide inside of me. So damned good, so distracting.

A slight growl left him as his fingers dug in one more time before he peeled himself away from me. “Shoot some more. I want you to feel comfortable.”

Comfortable wasn’t how I’d put it, but I raised the gun, turned my mind off, and kept going until I’d emptied the clip. Then he refilled it, and I did it all over again.

We went to eat lunch after both of us had shot all of our weird emotions away—or that’s what I hoped I’d done.

17

Ash

There was a new awareness between Raize and me.

It was different. It was uncomfortable.

I almost wanted to spend time with Cavers to balance me out, bring me back to the way I’d been before. But when I really thought about that—nope. I shuddered.

Anyway, there was no coming back from where Raize and I had gone. I’d told him too much. I couldn’t backtrack if I tried.

The new awareness was just there.

And actually, that new awareness had been developing for a while now.

Maybe I needed a new distraction? I was progressing, working toward my list, but without my line, maybe I’d lost the old failsafes to keep myself checked? Like they were anchors for me or something, a way to not lose my soul. Was I trying to find a new anchor?

Was that what I was doing?

Because that’s what all of this was about. That was the real battle—keeping your soul. How far could you go, how much bad shit could you do, yet still keep your soul, no matter how much pain that entailed? Maybe I needed something else to counter all the pain I’d be feeling as I moved forward with my plans, because I would still have my soul.

Sex.

This was all about having sex. Me having sex with Raize, or me admitting I wouldn’t mind having sex with Raize.

That was wrong. Right?

Right.

Indulging, having sex with anyone—much less Raize—was wrong. Well, different life and I could have sex with a boyfriend. It would be healthy and normal and respectful. I’d never looked at sex as a bad thing or something to be ashamed about, so when that was taken from me—violated and warped and twisted into something my sister was probably forced to do—I promised myself I would find her “boyfriend,” I would find that guy’s boss, and then that guy’s boss, and I would murder all of them.

That had been the beginning of my list.

I watched Raize inside the gas station and wondered if his boss was on the list and neither of us knew it. Marakov. There was a family of Marakovs who ran the mafia we all worked underneath, but the way Abram had said that name, I wondered if Raize’s boss was different, either more special or more in charge or… I didn’t know.

I hoped Raize didn’t care about the guy, because I wanted to kill him.

I would kill him. I needed to make that correction.

My phone buzzed, and I grabbed it—Jake calling. “What’s up?”

He was quiet for a moment. “You sound weird. What’s changed?”

“I learned how to shoot a gun.”

“Ah. It’s liberating, isn’t it?”

That was one word for it. “I’m a bit more murderous now.”

He chuckled. “That happens, too, but you’re also spending a lot of time with the boss. He’d make me feel more murderous.”

“True. It’s a side effect.”

Another chuckle from him.

I didn’t know why he was laughing. This wasn’t a funny conversation.

He sighed. “What are you guys doing?”

I pulled the phone away, looked at it as if it had grown an alien head, and put it back to my ear. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Because aren’t you with the boss?”

“Yeah, but that’s for him to answer.”

“He’s not answering my calls or texts. What’s he doing?”