Chapter 103

"Is his payment going to be worth your life?" I continued.

I'd almost made it to where I'd heard her dress. She must be close, watching with as much intensity as I listened.

Something whistled close to my head. I ducked. Strands of my hair breezed across my face, carrying the scent of sweet peonies directly from the right. Before another swing to my skull, I lunged sideways shoulder first. It buried into soft fabric and curvy flesh, straight into her chest from the feel of it. She slammed backward into a wall, and my momentum pinned her there. Whatever weapon she'd had clattered against the wall as it fell. Metal on wood. A gun, probably.

"Who else is down here?" I crushed my forearm against her throat, my ears prickling for anything creeping up behind me.

"N-no one," she sputtered.

"I'm blind, not stupid," I said, recalling exactly what I'd said to Lager - before I shot his finger off.