Fury and Flame | 3

5 | 8

J A K E

      Tonight was the deadline.

      It was the night Hundsen had summoned me to fight his men. The night I would take back the Club through blood.

      It was also the cutoff point for the assassin's imprisonment at the ONNT headquarters. She hadn't come back in three days.

      The massive building Hundsen had given me the address to was in view. I'd climbed several flights of stairs up the fire escape of the building across the street and now stood on its roof, looking out.

      If this was the new place Hundsen had turned into their lair, it was certainly a step up from the previous warehouse. The front was clean and architecturally pleasant to look at. The front doors were closed and guarded by two stout men in all black clothing. To an outsider, it would blend in with the rest of the expensive places on the street. Passerby might think the men were bodyguards, protecting some business magnate from harm.

      But I knew better.

      Either this was truly Hundsen's new lair, or he wanted me to think it was. The fight was a trap, after all. I wouldn't be surprised if this was all just an elaborate ruse he'd made to capture me.

      I wouldn't know for sure. Not unless I got inside. And I wouldn't be able to; that was exactly what Hundsen would expect from me tonight. So I had to trick him at his own game.

      Deep in thought, I narrowed my eyes at the front doors, wishing I could see inside. But I couldn't. I'd need to find another way.

      The breeze ruffling through my hair, I turned to look out at the city's night horizon. The others expected me to help break out the assassin tonight—or they had until I'd abruptly left. No one knew about the deal Hundsen had made me.

      I was hardly sure if they'd succeed in breaking her out of the ONNT headquarters. In the time she'd been director, Marcella Krasowski had upped security so much that the facility was becoming a sort of prison itself.

      Then, my traitorous mind went to the night in the Russian forest. She'd been taken then too, to a place where no one could reach her. I'd forced myself to get used to the fact that she was worse than dead and that she wasn't coming back. And when she did...

      We all know you get everything you want, Benton had said the other day. My lip curled into a sneer at the thought of it. But he was right.

      It was all coming together. I was going to have everything I wanted.

      As I stared at those vacant doors one last time before descending, I could have smiled. For the Club was going to be mine.