Chapter 1105
“Drive!” he shouted at Ethan, slapping the roof.
As the SUV peeled away, Skye turned and looked out the rear window. Alistair was standing in the rain, reloading his weapons, turning back toward the burning building. He looked utterly alone. He looked terrifying.
The heavy door of the loading bay hissed shut behind Alistair, sealing him back inside the smoky inferno.
He didn’t feel the heat. He didn’t feel the dampness of his tuxedo shirt clinging to his back. All he felt was the phantom sensation of Skye’s warm blood on his hands.
They touched her.
The thought was a jagged shard of glass lodged in his mind. It cut through his rationality, through the business tycoon persona he had spent years carefully constructing. What remained was the soldier. The mercenary. The Reaper.
He walked into the kitchen. The fire suppression system had finally engaged, smothering the flames but filling the room with a thick chemical fog. Seven men remained — the elite cleanup crew of Ouroboros — regrouping near the shattered freezer, checking their weapons.
They turned as Alistair emerged from the mist.
“Thorne,” the leader said. He was a big man, heavily scarred, holding a submachine gun. “You’re making a mistake. This is bigger than you.”
Alistair didn’t speak. He simply raised his weapon.
The first shot took the man on the far left in the throat. He gurgled and dropped.
The room erupted into chaos.
Alistair moved with fluid, lethal grace. He didn’t seek cover — he became the hazard. He slid across a stainless steel prep table, firing as he moved. Two shots. Two kills.
Bullets sparked off the metal surfaces around him, whizzing past his ears like angry hornets. He didn’t flinch.
He landed on the far side of the table and kicked the legs out from under a gunman, shooting him before he hit the ground.
Click. Empty.
He dropped the magazine — the metal clattering on the tile — and reloaded in one smooth, practiced motion.
The leader charged him, driving him backward into a rack of pots and pans. The impact knocked the wind from Alistair, sending his gun skittering across the floor.
The leader drew a combat knife and brought it down toward Alistair’s chest.
Alistair caught the man’s wrist. They locked eyes. The assassin’s held professional detachment. Alistair’s held nothing at all.
Alistair twisted his hips and threw the man off. He scrambled up and grabbed a heavy meat tenderizer from the floor.
When the leader lunged again, Alistair sidestepped and swung. The metal mallet connected with the man’s knee with a sickening crunch.
The man screamed and went down.
Alistair didn’t stop. He kicked the knife away, seized the man by the collar, and slammed him against the wall.
“Who sent the order?” Alistair asked. His voice was calm. Terrifyingly calm.
“Go to hell,” the man spat, blood flecking his lips.
“I’m already there,” Alistair whispered. “I’m the landlord.”
He tightened his grip on the man’s windpipe. “The Master? Or the Administrator?”