MAFIA'S WRONG TARGET

40: A TRIGGER AWAY

HUNTER'S POV

Kingland,
07:32pm

The island had been gun-free from the start.

An island like this-mine-without weapons was not an oversight. It was a decision. A deliberate one. No one to invalid or I can say until she arrived.

The question is, why would she?Bigger...could she even?

I had watched her closely when she was grounded in my basement in Russia. I studied every breath, every hesitation. She had been surrounded by men who knew how to kill in silence, by corridors that held more deads than light. She had been given more chances than most would ever survive.

And yet-nothing.

No weapon stolen. No blade hidden. I was unarmed around her multiple times but never a desperate strike from her even when my guard was down.

I had tasted her fear back then. Felt it in the way her pulse jumped beneath my fingers, in the way her breath stuttered when she thought I wouldn't notice. But fear alone didn't make someone harmless.

Training did.

And she didn't have it.

I could tell.

Assassins were taught to exploit mercy. To strike when the enemy softened, when their back was turned, when their trust began to grow careless.

She had done none of that.

Not once.

There had been moments-too many-where she could have hurt me. Where a single sharp movement would have drawn blood. Where anger, survival, or even revenge would have justified it.

She had chosen restraint instead.

I had ignored it because if was justifying her. Because rage is louder than reason. And grief-grief makes a man cruel in ways he doesn't recognize until it's too late.

From the very first day, there had been something in her eyes. Not guilt. Not calculation. But confusion. And a quiet, bruised defiance that didn't belong to a killer.

There were nights I had caught myself staring too long, asking a question I refused to voice. Could someone like her really plan the death of my father?
Could those hands-shaking, uncertain-ever order a man's execution?

She looked like someone who would apologize for stepping on a shadow. But every time the thought surfaced, my anger crushed it.

But not this time.

Not now.

She stood there, fragile in a way that wasn't weakness but exhaustion. Like someone who had been surviving on borrowed air for too long. Her shoulders were tense, her spine too straight-bracing for impact that hadn't come yet.

I felt it then.

The effort it took to remain still.
To keep my voice level. To keep my hands where they were. To not close the distance too quickly, to not let habit dictate my movements.

Violence had always been easy for me. Control, even easier.

Gentleness? That was the real test.
Life had a cruel way of teaching patience to men who thought they were above it. And it was teaching me now-through her.

I forced my breath to slow. Trying to calm myself before calming her because I know her enough that if I'd scare her, she'd shut down. If I pushed, she'd retreat. And whatever fragile trust had begun to form would fracture beyond repair.