Chapter 192
Raven
My mouth opened. The word formed on my tongue. I was going to do it. I was going to break. I couldn't watch her die, I couldn't—
A massive explosion lit up the window behind the masked man. Orange flames erupted from somewhere outside, casting the entire room in hellish light.
And in that split second of illumination, I saw it.
A tiny detail. So small I almost missed it.
On the collar of his tactical vest, just visible above the armor plate: white powder. Or ash. Caught in the fabric.
My mind went into overdrive.
Reeves didn't smoke. If he "burned files before dying," the ash should be paper. But that's not paper ash. That texture—cedar. Expensive cedar wood ash. Like the kind that comes from premium cigars. Or the firewood we used at the beach bonfire last night.
And the smell. Faint, but unmistakable. I'd smelled it before. Recently.
The chainsaw screamed louder.
But there's something else wrong.
The explosion outside. The flames were massive, angry, red-orange. Through the window, I could see what looked like half the compound burning.
Except.
Except the temperature in this room hadn't changed.
A fire that size—that close—should be making this concrete box an oven. We should be sweating. The air should be shimmering with heat distortion.
Instead, the temperature was exactly the same as when I'd woken up. Cool. Almost comfortable.
Visual without thermal. Hollywood pyrotechnics.
This is a set.
The chainsaw was centimeters from Katya's midsection.
I stopped struggling. Let my body go completely limp. When I looked up at the masked man, I made sure every ounce of Phantom—the woman who'd seduced targets in five languages before slitting their throats—came through in my eyes.
"You're too far away." My voice came out husky. Breathless. "Come here. I'll tell you the secret."
He hesitated. Professional instinct warring with curiosity.
I let my gaze drop to his mouth—the only part of his face visible below the mask. "Come closer."
He leaned in.
The second his face was in range, I lunged upward—as much as the zip ties would allow—and sank my teeth into his lower lip.
Not a kiss. A bite. Hard enough to taste copper. Hard enough to make him freeze.
Then I shifted. Pressed my mouth fully against his. Let him feel the heat, the hunger, the absolute fearlessness of someone who'd just figured out the game.
When I pulled back, I could see his eyes through the mask holes. Wide. Shocked.
And familiar.
I smiled. Let blood—his blood—stain my teeth.
"General Reeves never took off his wedding ring. Wore it on his left ring finger." I glanced down at the severed hand on the floor. "That hand? Ring's on the right hand. Wrong finger. Wrong hand."
His breathing changed. Faster. Deeper.
"And Nash?" I leaned as close as the restraints would allow, dropping my voice to barely a whisper. "Your cigar habit is showing. Arturo Fuente Opus X, if I'm not mistaken. Eighty dollars a stick. Next time you play terrorist, maybe brush your teeth first."
For five long seconds, nothing happened.
Then his shoulders started shaking.
Not with anger. With laughter.
He reached up, hit a switch on his collar. The voice modulator cut out. When he spoke again, it was pure Nash Wilder—that rich, dark timbre that had haunted my thoughts for weeks.
"Jesus Christ." He started undoing the clasps on his mask. "You absolute psychopath."
The mask came off.
And there he was. That devastating face. Those storm-gray eyes now lit with something between admiration and desire so intense it should have been illegal.
The second his mask hit the floor, the "fire" outside vanished. Just—gone. Like someone had flipped a switch. Because someone had. Projection equipment powered down. The orange glow disappeared, replaced by normal late-afternoon sunlight through the windows.
The gunfire stopped. The radio static cut out.
From next door, I heard one of the "terrorists" sigh. "Ma'am, you can stop crying now. Exercise is complete."
Katya's sobs turned into hiccupping confusion. "What? WHAT?"
Nash stepped closer. His lip was bleeding where I'd bitten him. He didn't seem to care. If anything, the way he looked at me suggested he liked it.
"In the middle of seeing a severed hand, hearing your friend about to be chainsawed in half, and watching the whole compound burn—" He reached behind me, produced a knife, and cut through my zip ties in one smooth motion. "—you still had the presence of mind to notice which finger the ring was on."
My wrists were raw and bleeding. He caught them gently, examining the damage with a frown.
"And the temperature differential in a supposedly raging fire." His thumbs traced the red marks on my skin with surprising tenderness. "Most people wouldn't have noticed that. Most trained operatives wouldn't have noticed that."
He looked up. Met my eyes. That earlier intensity cranked even higher.
"Congratulations, Raven. You didn't just survive the test. You dominated it."
Behind him, the door opened. General Reeves walked in—very much alive, very much intact, both hands present and accounted for. He was grinning.
"That," he announced to the room at large, "was the single most impressive performance I've seen in twenty-three years of running this program."
Two soldiers escorted Katya into the room. She looked like she'd been through a war—tear-streaked, shaking, mascara everywhere. The second she saw me, she burst into fresh tears and launched herself into a hug that nearly knocked me over.
"I thought you were dead! I thought I was dead! I thought—" She pulled back, seemed to register Nash still holding my wrists, the blood on his lip. "Wait. Did you bite him?"
"He deserved it," I said flatly.
Ethan appeared in the doorway, looking pale but unharmed. "I had a panic attack and passed out in the first thirty seconds. Did I miss something important?"
Reeves clapped him on the shoulder. "You'll get the full debrief in an hour. Right now—" He gestured to the three of us. "Medical tent. Get checked out, get cleaned up. We'll reconvene at 1800 hours."
As everyone started filing out, Nash still hadn't let go of my wrists. His touch had shifted from examination to something else entirely. His thumbs traced slow circles on my pulse points, and I could feel his gaze burning into the side of my face.
I turned to look at him. "You're bleeding."
"You're worth it." No hesitation. No shame. Just brutal honesty wrapped in dark velvet.