58. CASSANDRA

“Anna!” Nabatov cries. “What are you doing?!”

The woman in the red dress stalks toward me. Her face isn’t the cool, flawless mask it was in her video the night I joined the Chase. Now it’s twisted with rage.

There’s also a good-sized goose egg and a clot of dried blood on the left side of her jaw.

I rise from my chair. Tricia moves to do the same beside me, but I stop her with a hand on the shoulder.

“Don’t,” I say. “Leave this to me.”

“You will pay for these men,” Nabatov says, waving at the men lying in pools of blood on the floor. “They do not come cheap.”

“Shut up if you want to walk out of here,” Anna says without a trace of emotion.

Carson glares at her.

“I knew I should have gone for your throat,” he snarls.

Without taking her eyes off me, Anna points the gun at him.

“I have even less reason to keep you alive, Mr. Drake,” she says. “That goes for the rest of you, as well.”

We lock eyes and I can see the madness there. She was good at hiding it, but whatever circumstances have changed the situation, she’s a complete wild card now.

“This is what I was trying to tell you,” Carson says to Nabatov. “Anna here is the reason the quarries disappear after the Chase. She kills them!”

My heart skips a beat, but I don’t let it show on my face. That’s right, blondie, keep looking right at me. You don’t need to be pointing that gun anywhere else.

“Let me guess,” I say. “After you kill them, you steal their winnings.”

“Stupid sow,” she chuckles. “Money means nothing. Power is everything.”

“Money is power.”

She smiles without humor. Those cold, dead eyes are starting to scare me as she gets closer.

“Power is power, sow. It is a gift from Satan. It’s why we offer him the desecrated virgin when the summer sun is at its hottest.”

Suddenly my mind is whirling, extrapolating from what she just said. It’s crazy, but it explains so much.

“Let me guess,” I say. “You’re the one who suggested the Chase to Nabatov in the first place.”

Nabatov looks down at the bodies of his henchman, then back at Anna.

“Is what she says true, Anna? Did you have me start this so you could kill these women? Are you insane?”

“What difference does it make to you?” she says. “You made a fortune from it. It doesn’t have to end. We just need to eliminate these people.”

She slides a hand around my upper arm and places the barrel of the silencer against my temple.

“This one is coming with me,” she says. “The rest I will leave for you, Bogdan. Do with them what you will. My time grows short.”

“I will not be a part of this!” Nabatov shouts.

“Very well,” she says, pulling the barrel from my scalp and aiming it at him. Two more coughs and Maksim’s uncle is dead on the floor.

That was exactly the distraction I needed.

I aim directly for the enormous bruise on her jaw and drive the side of my head into it. The sound it makes is like two bowling balls colliding.

She stumbles backwards but keeps the gun pointed forward. She squeezes off two more rounds into the room, but the only thing they hit is the far wall, thank God.

Before I know what’s happening, Carson is rushing toward her. I grab her gun hand just as he leaps in the air and comes crashing down with a diagonal blow right into her skull.

What the hell was that? Obviously Carson is still keeping a few secrets from me.

I flip Anna backwards with a wristlock that sends her sailing to the floor. Her head connects with the hard oak and she lies there, motionless. Two massive head traumas have left her with a concussion.

Carson and I stand there, breathing heavily.

“That bruise on her jaw?” he says. “That was me.”

“Yeah?” I huff. “And what was with that flying punch?”

He shrugs.

“I got some skills,” he says. “No biggie.”

Neither of us sees Anna move until it’s too late. She grabs the gun and sits up on the floor, angling the barrel toward Carson’s chest.

Suddenly my mind fills with images of him: the gawky teen who kissed me for the first time under the bleachers, the dashing playboy who restarted my heart for me when I didn’t even know that it had stopped.

If I lose him, I’ll die myself. I can’t let that happen.

I react without thinking, grabbing him and pivoting my weight to throw him out of the line of fire. My back is now to Anna, shielding Carson from the gun.

Three loud coughs split the air.

No ricochet cracks, which means they all struck flesh.

I hear a faint thump.

My heart races as I grip Carson tighter than I ever have before. Which of us is hit?

“Cassie!” He’s groping me with both hands. “Are you all right?”

I open my eyes, and realize I’ve been groping him. No bullet holes.

“I’m fine,” I breathe. “But what…?”

We both turn to see Anna’s prone body on the floor, bleeding out from three exit wounds in the front of her sundress. Her eyes are open, staring lifelessly at the ceiling.

Behind her stands Tricia, eyes wide, chest heaving. She’s still in the shooter’s stance.

“This was… on the floor,” she breathes, her eyes round and unblinking. “One of these guys… he dropped it… when he got… y’know. Shot.”

She goggles at Anna’s body. “Did I do that?”

I grab her in a fierce hug as tight as the one I used on Carson.

“You sure did, babe,” I whisper in her ear. “You saved all of us. You’re a hero.”

Carson joins us. We stand there, holding each other, trying to process what the hell just happened.

After several moments, we look up to see Maksim standing across the room, staring at us. Tears are streaming down his face.

I smile weakly and hold out an arm to him.

“Room for one more,” I say.

He bolts across the room and grabs the three of us in a vise grip. We stand that way for a long time.