Page 58 of Pretty Little Assassin

I focus as I notice who she’s walking toward.

There he is.

The new infamous Director of the Primacy.

And the way he looks at her is more possessive than every other alpha in the room. I want to garrote him and then gouge out his eyes for looking at her like that.

Valentina’s stepfather has bought his way here and blackmailed Valentina into joining him. He is too smart to blame stupidity for his transgressions. Too powerful to underestimate.

He’s the kind of guy the VEIL makes it their mission to erase. And now he’s pitted VEIL against the Primacy.

I listen as he and Valentina exchange words. We all listen.

Donnie is finally silent.

Zero is half paying attention to the conversations going on around her. Her head is cocked to one side, as if she’s adjusting her earring. She’s not. She’s listening.

“Hello, Stepdaddy.”

Valentina’s voice sounds like a loaded gun. The words are overly sweet, saturated with verbal arsenic; her body language matches. One hand covers the area near her thigh where that blade of hers lingers on a thin strap beneath her cocktail dress.

I give her credit; she’s got almost as much restraint as I do. It would be hard to stand that close to the bastard and not slit his throat.

“You look lovely, as always, my dear.”

His voice makes my skin vibrate, as if I’ve just touched an electrical current. I’d like to put his hand in an electrical current. That would solve things pretty quickly.

Patience.

Beside him, more Primacy operatives. One of them almost looks in my direction, but I step behind a couple talking before he does. Anticipating someone else’s next move is a weapon in itself.

“I can’t say the same for you,” Valentina says. “Prison seems to have only done half the job of killing you. Guess I’ll have to finish the second half myself.”

This time it’s Donnie’s breath everyone can hear over the comm.

“Steady,” Zero whispers. “Don’t do anything foolish, Valentina.”

Valentina’s stepfather smiles at her. A vein pops out at the side of his temple as he does.

I could snap him in half in an instant. I could be across this ballroom before his bodyguards see it coming. I could crack his skull against the wall with one hand and still serve champagne with the other.

I do not. This is Valentina’s play.

It also wouldn't be the best move for keeping in good graces with the Primacy and keeping my contracts flowing. But I’ve never really cared about bucking the system.

In the seconds that I stand here, thinking about how satisfying it would be to watch her stepfather’s head crack open like a melon, pink brain matter splashing out all over the wall like the guts of a watermelon, I can feel my adrenaline start to spike.

“Valentina, my dear,” his voice carries through her wire into all of our ears. “Tell your mate to stand down or my men will kill your mother.”

Mate.

The single word buries me under an avalanche of realization.

Mate.

The bastard used it deliberately. He turns his head and stares right at me. It’s the first time all night I’ve been made. And it’s the first time since Valentina’s scent has been in my nose that I realize why the fuck that is.

We’ve been scent matched all along. The pretty little omega killer isn’t just the stubbornly talented, frustratingly beautiful obsession at the other end of my contract; she’s my mate.