Chapter 162
"Put the gun down, Abigail," I said. My voice was suddenly steady, the frantic drumming in my chest cooling into a cold, hard focus. I took a slow step forward, not enough to trigger her reflex, but enough to close the distance. "You don’t want to shoot me. Not really."
"Don’t tell me what I want," she hissed, her eyes narrowing over the iron sights. "This is the end of the road, Druski. This is where your miserable, lucky streak finally runs out."
I let out a slow, deliberate sigh, shaking my head. "Come on, Abigail. We both know what this is really about. Let’s stop pretending."
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t smile. She just stared at me with that icy, assassin’s gaze, her finger still ghosting over the trigger.
"This isn’t about Monet, is it?" I asked, my voice dropping to a low, intimate murmur that echoed through the hollow warehouse.
"What?" she asked, a flicker of genuine confusion breaking through her mask of stone.
"This has nothing to do with Monet being in love with me," I said, dismissively waving a hand at her previous excuses. "It’s not about her getting ’soft’ or some bullshit story about the business being at risk. That’s just the lie you tell yourself so you can sleep at night."
"What are you talking about?" she demanded, her grip on the Glock tightening.
"You’re not protecting her," I said, locking eyes with her. "You’re protecting yourself. You’ve spent years being the only thing that mattered in her life. Now, I’m the one she’s thinking about. I’m the one she’s calling. You’re not worried she’s losing her edge—you’re worried you’re losing your place."
I took another half-step, the gravel crunching under my boot. "This isn’t a hit, Abigail. This is a tantrum in a red dress."
"You’re damn right I’m worried about my place," she snapped, but the barrel of the Glock wavered, just a fraction of an inch.
"I’m not done yet, Abby," I said, my voice as calm as a predator’s. I took another step, closing the distance until I could see the slight tremble in her hands. "The real reason you want me in the dirt... the reason you’re wearing that dress and standing in this warehouse... is because you have feelings for me."
The silence that followed was deafening. She blinked, her lips parting as she struggled to find a comeback that wasn’t there. For a few seconds, the lethal assassin was gone, replaced by a woman who looked utterly exposed.
"Are you drunk?" she finally managed, but the bite was gone from her voice. It sounded like a plea.
"No, Abigail. I’m the only sober one in the room," I said, my eyes locked on hers. "You aren’t worried about Monet getting soft. You’re worried because you have feelings for me, and you’ve never felt this way about a man in your life. It terrifies you. You think if you kill me, the feeling goes away. You aren’t protecting Monet—you’re trying to kill the part of yourself that’s finally waking up. You’re the one getting weak, Abby. Not her."
"Shut up!" she screamed, her composure finally shattering. She gripped the gun with both hands now, her knuckles turning bone-white. "Stop it! Stop talking or I swear to God I will shoot you right here!"
A single tear tracked through her perfect makeup, glittering under the industrial lights. The red dress, the gun, the warehouse—it was all just a stage for a woman who didn’t know how to handle a heart that was finally beating for someone.
"I will do it!" she screamed, the Glock shaking in her grip. "I’ll do it! I’ll blow a hole right through that arrogant heart of yours and go to my date with the smell of your blood on my hands!"
"No, you won’t," I said, my voice dropping to a low, hypnotic frequency.
I didn’t flinch. I didn’t rush her. I simply walked forward, one slow step at a time, until the cold, circular mouth of the barrel was pressed firmly against the center of my chest. I could feel the mechanical heat of her tension radiating off the steel.
"You’ve had a dozen chances to pull that trigger, Abby," I whispered, leaning in until our faces were inches apart. "But you’re still holding your breath. If you really hate me, if I’m just a ’distraction’ or a ’liability,’ then finish it. Be the cold-blooded bitch you want everyone to think you are."
Her chest was heaving, the red silk of her dress rising and falling in jagged bursts. Her eyes were wild, darting across my face, searching for a reason—any reason—to stay behind the trigger.
"But if you feel what I know you feel..." I continued, my hand coming up to slowly cover her trembling fingers on the grip. "If you brought me here because this is the only place you feel powerful enough to face me... then drop the gun. Stop being the shadow and show me what’s behind the mask."
For a heartbeat, the world stopped. The silence in the warehouse was absolute. Then, I felt it—the sudden, heavy release of tension.
The gun clattered to the concrete floor, the sound echoing like a thunderclap in the hollow space.
Abigail collapsed against me, her hands clutching the front of my shirt, burying her face in my neck. A jagged, broken sob escaped her—a sound of pure, unadulterated surrender.
I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her small, trembling frame tight against my chest. The lethal rigidity that usually defined her had completely evaporated, leaving her soft and shivering in my hold.
"It’s okay," I murmured into her hair, my voice a soothing anchor in the hollow silence of the warehouse. "I’ve got you, Abby. The machine is off. You’re safe."
She let out a shaky breath, her fingers digging into the fabric of my shirt as if she were afraid I’d vanish if she let go. "I was going to do it," she whispered, her voice cracked and raw. "I really thought I could."
"But you didn’t," I reminded her, rubbing a hand soothely down the small of her back, feeling the delicate silk of that red dress. "Because you’re more than just a weapon. Monet doesn’t need to know about any of this. This isn’t about her business or her empire tonight. This is just us."
She pulled back just an inch, her eyes red-rimmed and vulnerable, looking up at me with a raw honesty I’d never seen on her face. The short blonde hair was slightly tousled, and the fierce "Black Widow" mask had stayed on the floor with the gun.
I didn’t give her a chance to retreat back into her shell. I reached up, cupping her face in my hands, and tilted her head back.
"I knew you were in there somewhere, Abby," I said softly.
Then I leaned down and kissed her.
It wasn’t the polished, performative kiss I gave Lana for the cameras, or the calculated power-play kisses I exchanged with Monet. This was desperate and hungry, fueled by the adrenaline of the last ten minutes and years of her suppressed longing. She gasped into my mouth, her hands flying up to wrap around my neck, pulling me closer until there wasn’t a sliver of air between us.
The warehouse, once a place of near-death and cold concrete, suddenly felt like the center of the world.
I broke the kiss just long enough to look her in the eyes. Her pupils were blown wide, her breathing ragged, the "RedEye" precision completely replaced by a desperate, human hunger.
"The concrete is cold, Abby," I whispered, my voice thick with the adrenaline still surging through my veins. I trailed a hand down the side of that tight red silk, feeling the heat radiating off her. "Let’s take this to the back of the Cadillac. I want to see how this dress looks spread across the leather."
She didn’t say a word. She just grabbed the lapels of my jacket and pulled me toward the heavy steel doors. We stumbled out into the cool night air, but the chill didn’t stand a chance against the fire between us.
I clicked the remote, and the Cadillac’s lights winked in the darkness. I threw open the heavy rear door and ushered her into the plush, darkened interior. The scent of expensive leather and her dark perfume collided as I climbed in after her, slamming the door shut and sealing us away from the world.
The car rocked slightly as she climbed over me, her movements frantic and uncoordinated, the red dress hitching high up her thighs. She wasn’t an assassin anymore; she was a woman trying to make up for a lifetime of suppressed emotion in a single night.
"Druski," she breathed against my ear, her voice a jagged ghost of its former self. "If you tell Monet... if you ever tell her I broke like this..."
"I’m not telling anyone," I promised, my hands finding the zipper at the back of her dress. "Tonight, the only thing that exists is this car and the fact that you’re still breathing. And so am I."
The red silk slid down her shoulders, pooling around her waist like spilled wine. In the dim glow of the city lights filtering through the tinted glass, she looked like a masterpiece—one that was finally, irrevocably, mine.