Page 89 of Pretty Little Assassin

“Fifteen minutes,” she says anyway.

“I know. Keep walking and talking.”

She walks. It takes her four steps to talk, which, for her, is a very long time.

“In order to not die,” she repeats. “Yes. That is the part I came here to say to your face.”

“What?”

“The order to complete the contract on Viktor Petrov was not mine.”

I almost miss a step.

“I confirmed tonight that Johnson has been sending orders through my relay. In my name. In my format. That directive came from him.”

“How long have you suspected?”

“Three days.”

I keep walking. I don’t look at her. “And you said nothing.”

“I had suspicion, not proof. Shutting down the relay without knowing where the breach originated would have exposed every operative connected to it.” Her expression tightens. “But I was wrong to leave you in the dark.”

“Had I obeyed that order, I would have killed the only person willing to walk into a Primacy ambush for me.”

“I know.”

“We’re going to have that argument.”

“When Johnson is dead.”

“Agreed.” She turns the corner ahead of me. “And I think we both know now that once you met him, you were never going to obey an order to kill him.”

I open my mouth to answer, but voices approach from the other side of the door.

Madam checks the walls, then the window. No hidden passage this time.

“Our only option is the hallway.”

“Fine with me.” I tighten my grip on Mercy. “A few guards would make a nice warm-up before Stepdaddy.”

Before I reach the door, the voices stop, and the footsteps retreat.

I ease the door open.

The hallway is empty.

“They moved already?”

“Or someone called them off,” Madam says.

“He wants us upstairs.”

“Then we shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

This is the floor where I spent most of my time.

The bedroom I came out of only when I was summoned, or when I needed to check whether my mother was still conscious.