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HAD THERE EVER been a moment in my life when I didn’t live with pain?

Had there ever been a time when I wasn’t fighting to stay alive?

It seemed the answer to those questions was no.

No.

No.

For the past fuck-knew-how-long, I’d been fighting. Figuratively and literally. Fighting my past, my future, my mistakes, my accomplishments.

I’d fought until I forgot why I fought.

At some point in this war, I’d entered with thoughts of defending a man’s home, of battling beside that same man who was more stranger than friend, who’d stolen my woman and ruined my life, and instead of doing my best to kill him, I did my best to keep him alive.

Time stopped ticking.

I didn’t know if we’d been in this purgatory for ten minutes or ten hours, but for once, my OCD helped keep me sane.

The agony in my wounds was worse than any drug or obsessive chant. It coiled in my brain, it decorated my bones, it hissed hotter and louder with every swing, duck, and punch.

It grew so loud, it distracted me enough that I almost missed an obvious attack, leaving Mercer to pick up the slack. That was when my OCD decided to latch onto something else—something less debilitating and useless.

I swallowed my pain deep, deep down, and fought with brighter purpose. Clarity came from counting the cadavers we left behind. A tally of death that encouraged me to add to it again and again.

Hand-to-hand combat.

A shot to the chest with gunpowder and buckshot.

A serrated slice to the jugular with steel.

As the minutes bled into hours, my counting switched to incorporate another tally. This one just as handy and granting even better precision. I had an over analytic brain that loved rhythm and symmetry and numerical harmony. It relished in counting uppercuts and finger snaps. It begged to count screams and gurgles from the men I wrenched from living to dead.

I tried to keep count of how many deaths we caused while tucking away vital spread sheets of delivered punches versus the probability of who had the highest chance of success.

I lived for figures.

I craved odds and evens, hoping the final sum would equal our victory.

From the moment the doorbell rang till now, I’d counted, growing more and more frenzied the deeper into chaos I fell.

The first two to die were Chinmoku—just as I’d hoped but feared wouldn’t happen.

Mercer’s men had listened, and my man didn’t need to be told.

Bang.

Bang.

Two Chinmoku shot between the eyes, courtesy of Selix and Franco.

Q’s man and mine.

A joint effort and an equal commitment to this overthrowing of power.

Selix had been the first to shoot, knowing full well what the Chinmoku were capable of, thanks to me teaching him their ways every morning on board the Phantom. He’d overstepped and decided my conversation with Daishin had reached a mutually conclusive end—that there was only one place to go from there and that was most likely my death by sacrifice.

He hadn’t waited for me to make that vital mistake or confirmation from me that I wouldn’t.

He didn’t need to.

In this matter, and in all matters, he was my equal, my brother—just like the bastard Franco was Mercer’s brother. He was true to his word, shooting a fraction of a second after Selix.

I’d prepared for Daishin to attack me in the midst of two of his warriors’ untimely ends, but he’d surprised me by falling back with his remaining men, leaving the bodies of his fallen to become gruesome garden ornaments, spreading out like cockroaches too fast to be plucked off with bullets.

It fucked me off, but I couldn’t blame them. They were men, after all. They could equip themselves with every skill imaginable. They could become the best in the world and kill with their bare hands, but unless they could turn their flesh into Kevlar they were still vermin who bled.

As they’d melted into the night, Mercer yelled, “Shoot on sight.”

I’d leapt off the stoop, buckling under the avalanche of agony in my ankle, tearing/hopping in pursuit of the bastards who’d run. I expected us to separate, but Mercer stayed beside me, sprinting with agility and hardly out of breath as we rounded the first corner of his home and slammed into a Chinmoku.

I delivered an uppercut on instinct, whipping the man’s head up and cracking his teeth together. I waited for him to plummet to his knees, ready to chop the nerve in his neck and suffocate him.

But Mercer had other ideas.

The moment I incapacitated the fighter, he yanked out his pistol and shot him point blank in the face.

For the longest second, we stared at each other, the scent of sulphur still strong in the air. I hated him for taking my first kill but was grateful, because the world swam with sickness and pain, and I needed to conserve every ounce of strength I had left to survive the night.

The strangest thing wasn’t the fact we’d worked as a team or the fact that we’d fought side by side when only hours ago we’d fought tooth for tooth—the strangest thing was how fucking easy it had been.

How smooth.

How rehearsed.

How right.

We grinned in the dark, shedding our human skin and letting pain and lust for death drive us. Not my ankle, shoulder, elbow, nor any malady could stop me as we jogged through his gardens, peering into shadows, steadily listening to the popping of guns from his security team as they found their own Chinmoku to eliminate.

Racing into a large conservatory with palm trees as high as the Phantom and the coos and trills of exotic birds, we ducked as a Chinmoku launched from behind an aviary, going for my jugular in an artery pinch I knew well.

One touch and my nervous system would stop talking to my brain and boom, unconscious and easy prey. Instead, I whirled and performed the same trick on him.

He collapsed into a bag of bones, and Mercer finished him off with a single trigger squeeze. The crack of his gun ricocheted around the glass conservatory, startling roosting birds and making them soar around their gilded cage.

He murmured something in French, linking his fingers through the wire as his gaze darted between the feathered bodies of different jewelled colours.

Outside, more shots fired.

I counted.

One, two, three, four.

I didn’t like that it wasn’t a perfect trio but I loved the noise and visualised my enemies falling.

So far, I estimated eleven Chinmoku had been dealt with. Unfortunately, that probably meant at least one from our side would’ve been killed in retribution for not shooting fast enough or believing he could take on an expert fighter barehanded.

In this fight, we were nothing more than cardboard cut-outs of villains and heroes. I didn’t care about the Chinmoku’s motive to kill me. I didn’t care what it would mean if I lost or won.

All we focused on was that elusive finish line.

Bang.

Bang.

Two more down.

Did that make thirteen Chinmoku in an untimely grave or more of ours as worm food?

Mercer gave me a pointed look, standing over the fresh corpse. There was no time to wait and no safe places to dawdle.

Thirteen down did not make this war won. If Daishin had brought twenty of his men—despite his attempt at throwing me off age-old tradition—then we were closer to winning than we’d been at the start.

Keep going.

Keep living.

We faded into the foliage, letting shadows do our camouflaging for us.

I couldn’t allow thoughts of Pim to consume me. I couldn’t permit worries over Selix to distract me.

I had enough distractions with my injuries.

As we crawled through the night, my ankle turned weak, burning with agony, forcing me to hop more than run. My elbow screamed at being used as a balancing rod while my shoulder singed hot around the pinpoint of stitches.

I’d probably have to spend another week in bed after this—if I survive—but I refused to think about that now. The only thing that mattered was extermination.

Mercer guided me through the aviary and down a long corridor with black and white images of real estate and high rises. We bypassed a pool and found another Chinmoku slinking up a back staircase.

Instantly, I lurched forward and grabbed his ankle. Yanking him down the stairs, I smashed his face into the steps and stomped on his spine, snapping something vital.

Mercer cleaned up my mess with yet another bullet to the back of the guy’s head. We weren’t here to drag out a defeat or let them see who we were before they died. If we could slaughter each one without them noticing us, that would be the best outcome.

Clean. Ruthless. Efficient.

Fourteen dead?

Or maybe the Chinmoku had brought guns of their own, even though it went against their code, and Mercer and I were the only ones standing.

We wouldn’t know until we came face to face with either victory or defeat.

Stumbling forward, I chased him as he melted back into darkness, stalking through his own home, looking for infiltrators.

My hands throbbed for throats to squeeze and lives to steal.

We’d been killing for hours or was it days? No matter the tick in my brain, I couldn’t seem to keep time straight anymore.

Another few gunshots, more men shouting in French and Japanese.

Bang.

Bang.

Fifteen, sixteen?

Are we close?

Are we winning?

Mathematical equations and probability calculations whirred in my brain as we skidded around another corridor and into the foyer again.

Two Chinmoku this time.

Bright red gloves and black uniforms with matching brutality on their face.

I took one.

Mercer took the other.

My method was hands-on and swift.

Mercer’s was coldblooded and sharp.

Both achieved the same result with glazed eyes and soul-dead carcasses.

Tripping back into a run, I gasped and swiped at fever-sweat stinging my eyes. My vision had once again gone hazy, my ears ringing, my body begging for rest. But I kept pushing, kept killing.

Soon.

Soon this will all be over.

Falling through the front door again, I spotted Selix fighting a young Chinmoku. He couldn’t have been more than late teens. A spitting image of me when I’d stupidly sold my soul into their custody.

The two men grappled on the grass. Selix’s gun just out of reach; most likely kicked out of his hand for hesitating before firing. The Chinmoku was just a kid—a kid intent on spilling blood. With a quick move, he yanked Selix into a throat lock.

A death lock.

No way in hell would I watch my friend be murdered.

Throwing myself toward the battle, Mercer fell back as if understanding Selix was my responsibility just as Franco was his. Not giving me a second glance, he veered to the left, his attention on his friend who also fought a Chinmoku, holding his own but not for much longer.

I stopped paying any attention to anyone but Selix and bowled straight into the bastard doing his best to kill my friend.

We tumbled to the ground, limbs flying, wounds bleeding. I kneed him in the balls as he tried to pin me on my back.

Unsportsmanlike behaviour but I didn’t give a fuck as I wrapped my fingers around his throat and squeezed. Even with my broken digit and no strength in my elbow, I slowly siphoned the life out of him as Selix picked up his gun and held it to the man’s temple.

He didn’t fire, watching coldly, letting me steal the world of yet another Chinmoku while providing backup if my hands failed in their task.

Slowly, the life drained from him. He faded into nothing and I let go, hating the touch of flesh that was no longer possessed by a soul.

As the dead man fell into a pile of limbs, a slurry of shame filled me. The Chinmoku might’ve been a good kid. He might’ve got wrapped up in this terrible faction the same way I did. He didn’t deserve to die just so me and mine could live.

“Prest.” Selix bent down, holding out his hand.

His voice, still filled with rocks from being strangled, snapped me from my haze. That Chinmoku would’ve killed my only friend—he didn’t deserve my mourning.

I clasped Selix’s palm gratefully, creaking upright, and for the first time, I truly felt my age. My injuries fucking crippled me and I honestly had no clue how I was still awake, let alone murdering men.

A terrible thought struck that I might not get through tonight, after all.

If my maths were correct there should only be two or three Chinmoku left, give or take. My calculations were as fuzzy as my stupid eyesight.

Selix pulled his hand away as we broke into a tired amble.

I tripped, almost face planting into the manicured grass.

He grabbed my shirt, providing leverage to keep me upright. “Stay alive for me, Prest.”

I nodded and tried to speak, but my tongue was as useless as the rest of me now. I shook my head, doing my best to see as we picked up our pace. I tripped again, this time crying out as my ankle turned into the Grim Reaper’s sickle.

“Fuck’s sake,” Selix muttered, wrapping his arm around my waist as we hobble-jogged back to the large house.

I wanted to curse him for thinking I was weak. I wanted to push his bulk away and prove I didn’t need his support.

But this time? This time, I had no energy left to waste on lies.

I knew how I felt, and if I looked half as bad on the outside as I did on the inside, well, I must look like death nuked in a microwave.

Blood trickled from my nose and not from an injury but overuse, overtiredness, and a body slowly shutting down from lack of care.

I blinked and squinted into the darkness, doing my best to distinguish glimpses of black security from Mercer’s team and black Chinmoku from the enemy’s side.

Only the red gloves helped differentiate the two.

Climbing the steps to enter Mercer’s home, ready to find the Frenchman and rally our killing unit one more time, I slammed to a stop as Daishin appeared.

From the library.

With Pimlico’s hair wrapped around his fist.

A smug smile on his lips and victory in his heart.

Fuck.

I slammed to a stop. Every method of slaughter and principal of carnage vanished from my mind. Selix froze. The battle was over.

All that mattered was Pim.

And Daishin had her.

A cut marred her pretty cheek. Blood puddled around the collar of her hoodie. And the metal thimble with a wicked sharp fingernail that Daishin favoured as his killing method nicked her jugular.

He believed killing with a simple slice was far more elegant than wielding something larger and cumbersome. He’d been affectionately known as the Wasp while I trained under his strict command.

His sting was just as poisonous and cruel.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Pim.

She stood deathly still, one twitch from death, one scratch from murder.

Apologies and promises danced on my tongue. My wounds faded under a greater, deeper agony.

The agony of having my heart suffocated by the one person who knew how to hurt me the most.

Pimlico was family.

And Daishin was well versed in taking family away from me.

I sighed heavily, almost relieved to have it over.

I wouldn’t have to fight anymore.

I wouldn’t have to hurt.

Looking into the eyes of the woman I loved more than anything, I gave up.

I did what I should’ve done all those years ago.

I put my fate in the hands of honour.

I kneeled before my greatest enemy.