Home > A Fate of Wrath & Flame (Fate & Flame #1)(9)

A Fate of Wrath & Flame (Fate & Flame #1)(9)
Author: K.A. Tucker

“For her?” Sofie cocks her head. “She is not a mule for purchase. Clearly, you’ve misunderstood. I offered to spare your employer’s life if he released her from her debt to him, which he foolishly refused. Now he is dead, and she is no longer bound to him. I am simply giving you the choice to either allow us to leave peacefully or forfeit your lives.”

Tony glowers at her and for a moment, I think he’s going to lunge. A part of me hopes he does.

“Don’t be stupid,” Pidge pleads under his breath, cradling his injured arm.

“Fine.” Tony sneers at me. “She’s a worthless bitch, anyway.”

Sofie’s face hardens, her eyes narrowing as they drop to where dark bruises matching meaty fingers have started to form on my biceps. “Perhaps I should not be the one to choose your outcome.” She stands and rounds the desk, her delicate hand curling around the hilt of the bloodied sword. “Should we or should we not leave them breathing, Romeria?”

My stomach drops. She knows my real name. How the hell does she know my real name?

“What will it be? Life”—Sofie presses the tip of her blade against Tony’s neck—“or death?”

He grimaces as a drop of blood swells against his skin where the sharp point nudges. His blue eyes dart to mine and mixed in with the usual medley of hatred and anger is fear.

I look away, unable to digest the latter. Tony’s a degenerate and an asshole. He hurt a helpless man tonight for no good reason. He wanted to see me suffer, even be killed. He deserves to lie in a heap next to the rest of these lifeless bodies.

My attention drifts to them. Irving has a pregnant girlfriend at home. Gavin’s twin sons giggle as they hide behind their fence and shoot unsuspecting neighborhood passersby with their water guns. Mark just closed on his first house with his wife. Korsakov leaves behind a daughter who will be devastated. They’re men who I would never label “good,” but they’ll be mourned all the same.

While I may be a thief, I’ll never be an executioner. “Let them go.”

Sofie waits a few beats but then lowers her blade with a heavy sigh. “She shows mercy where I would not. I’ll admit, that’s a quality I admire and abhor equally.”

Both men release the slowest exhales.

“If you two have an ounce of intelligence, you will remain here until we have departed.”

Tony’s bearish body shakes from rage but for once, he has the sense to keep his mouth shut.

She strolls past them without a hint of wariness. “Shall we?” It’s as if she’s inviting me out for a drink. As if she didn’t slaughter four men, and there’s no need to ask if I’d be willing to work for her now that Korsakov is dead. I guess there isn’t, because it’s obvious she’s intent on getting what she wants.

I have no more of a choice now with Sofie than I did three years ago with Korsakov. I have traded one murderer for another, and I must go along with it until I can get away from her.

We leave Pidge and Tony, daggers jutting from their wrists, standing in the office filled with corpses. My legs feel like they belong to someone else as they propel me forward, step by step. Every few seconds, I steal a glance over my shoulder, expecting to see Tony there, aiming his gun at my back. But the doorway remains empty.

Sofie doesn’t look back once. “I did warn them. I wish they had listened.” She shakes her head. “But men like them never do.”

“Tony is going to call the guys outside,” I hear myself say, my voice hollow. “They’ll shoot us the second we step out that door.”

“My guards will have taken care of them by now. They are no longer an issue.”

Right. The two scary men in the SUV. I eye the sword in her grasp and the trail of blood it leaves along the concrete. “And who took care of the guys in the office?”

She flashes me the briefest of looks. “Which answer would you prefer?”

“The truth?”

“I have yet to lie to you.”

“How would I know that?”

“You are a clever girl, Romeria. I think you know a great many truths.” Quietly, she adds, “More than you realize.”

“How do you know my real name? Did Korsakov tell you?” I didn’t think even he knew, but there isn’t much he can’t find out. Couldn’t find out.

“Malachi told me. He told me many things before he sent me for you.”

Do I know this Malachi person? Did I meet him on the street? And why has he sent Sofie for me?

I’m about to ask that question out loud when Sofie says, “I will not harm you, but do not try to run.”

There it is, the not-so-subtle threat. I can go willingly—or not—but go with her, I shall.

“Why all this effort? Why didn’t you just force me to leave with you from the hotel?”

“I considered it,” she admits. “We haven’t been given much time to dally. But I would prefer you come with me of your own volition, and it was clear that you felt trapped by that man.” She sighs, as if speaking of a daily nuisance that she has gladly put behind her. “I thought if I helped you with your problem, you might be keener to help me with mine.”

I wouldn’t call this of my own volition.

Maybe it’s because my brain is muddled with shock, but none of this makes any sense. I’m a thief. A highly skilled one, sure, but nothing more. I couldn’t even defend myself against Tony. Meanwhile, Sofie and her men wiped out a major crime syndicate within minutes, without earning a single scratch. “It’s clear you can get your hands on anything you want without my help, so what do you want with me?”

“It is not a matter of want, but of need.” Sofie turns to meet my eyes, and that confident veil she hides behind slips for a moment, long enough that I catch a glimpse of the raw desperation behind it. “I need you to save my husband.”

 

 

Chapter Three

 

 

“I’m sure there is a suitable change of clothes for you among my things.”

“I’m good.”

Her eyebrow arches at the mud and mustard splattered on the hem of my dress. I’m sure I wouldn’t have to look hard to find smears of Tony’s blood too. “Suit yourself.” She shifts her attention back to her newspaper. She unfolded it as the plane’s engines revved for takeoff and is working her way through, page by page. Korsakov was the only other person I knew who would take the time to read a whole paper like that, rather than skim for interesting headlines.

When we emerged from the warehouse, the armed men were missing from their posts and the two guards with Sofie were waiting in the SUV, their hands drenched in blood. Any thoughts I might still have had about escape evaporated.

They exchanged no words, simply nodding at Sofie when she gave orders to take us to the airport. Now, they huddle in the pod of seats beside us, the sleeves of their black dress shirts rolled up, quietly cleaning and polishing an arsenal of blades with methodical precision.

There are daggers and swords of various lengths and shapes—some with a simple, functional hilt like the knife I lost tonight, and others with gilding and jewels that gleam under the light and would make Skully salivate. Propped up against the side of the cabin wall is a crossbow, a bundle of sleek quivers next to it.

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