Sebastian let out a sinister laugh. “The only one who’s dying here tonight is you, Gin.”
“Please. You dropped a couple of tons of rock on me, and I still walked away from it,” I said. “And that was when I was weak, drugged, and disoriented. You really think that you can go toe-to-toe with me and win? You’re fooling yourself.”
Sebastian’s laughter died down, and he eyed me. “And you look remarkably none the worse for wear. How did you manage to survive the mausoleum collapse? And get out after the fact?”
I gave him an evil grin. “You don’t really think that I’m going to tell you that, do you?”
He returned my grin with one of his own. “Why not? You told me all of your other stupid, silly, simpering secrets. Oh, Sebastian, you’re so wonderful. Oh, Sebastian, you understand me so well. Oh, Sebastian, you make me feel so alive.”
His mocking words cut me to the core, but I kept my face cold.
“You were so easy to play.” He sneered. “So ripe for the taking. So very desperate for attention. It wasn’t even a challenge. All it took was a few soft words, a few sweet looks, a few teary confessions, and you were eating right out of my hand. Some assassin you are, Gin. Tell me, do you get this emotionally involved with the families of all your victims? Or was I a special case?”
I didn’t answer him, but I couldn’t help but grind my teeth.
“Oh, ho!” Sebastian crowed. “Just me. Well, I suppose I should be flattered. But really, I think that it’s just sad. That you’re sad—sad and pathetic. Little girl lost, so desperate for someone to love her that she believes any lie she’s told.”
My hand tightened around my knife. “I’m sad and pathetic? Please. I’m not the one who hired an assassin to kill my own father. I’m not the one who didn’t have the balls to do it myself. I’d say that makes you sad and pathetic, Sebastian. No, scratch that. It just makes you weak.”
His eyes glittered, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. I’d struck a nerve, so I decided to press my advantage. Besides, Sebastian had hurt me with his words, and I wanted to do the same to him.
“Totally, utterly weak.” I sneered. “I’m not the one cowering behind a teenage girl instead of facing my enemy head-on.”
Sebastian jerked his hand off Charlotte’s shoulder, as if he’d never even thought about how that made him look, using her as a shield.
I stared at Porter. “You really should find yourself another boss. Someone who has a set. Someone who’s not afraid to do his own dirty work.”
Porter shifted on his feet, and the guilty look on his face told me that he’d thought the same thing more than once. Too bad he hadn’t left before now—because he was going to die right alongside his boss.
Sebastian whipped around. He noticed the giant’s chagrined look too, and his face tightened with rage.
“See?” I taunted. “Even your own man thinks you’re weak. He has no respect for you, and neither do I. Neither will anyone else. You’ll never be half the man that your father was, and we all know it. Soon so will everybody else.”
Red rage mottled Sebastian’s face, his hands clenched into fists, and he took a menacing step forward, as though he wanted to show me how wrong I was by throttling me himself.
That was exactly what I wanted. For him to forget the fact that I had a knife in my hand and rush at me so I could stab him to death right here, right now.
But Sebastian controlled his rage. He stopped, his lips curling with disgust.
“You didn’t think I was half a man when you were screaming out my name in bed last night.” His voice took on a smug, superior tone.
“You weren’t the only one who’s been faking things,” I shot right back. “No wonder you have to drug women to get them into bed, considering what a lousy lay you are. Watching paint dry would have been more titillating—and fulfilling. It would have lasted longer too.”
More and more rage flooded Sebastian’s face, while his left eye twitched with fury. His lips drew back from his perfect white teeth, making him seem exactly like the sick, rabid animal he was.
“Porter,” Sebastian said through his clenched teeth. “I’ve changed my mind. Put her out of my misery. Shoot that bitch where she stands.”
The giant didn’t hesitate. He raised his gun and pulled the trigger.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The three bullets thunked into my chest, and I collapsed in a heap on the floor. The giant’s aim was true, and the bullets would have gone straight into my heart if I hadn’t been wearing my silverstone vest.
Charlotte screamed and screamed. I opened my eyes a crack just in time to see Sebastian shove her away. She slammed up against one of the side bookcases, bounced off, and fell to her knees. I hated that he had hurt her again, but she was out of the line of fire now, and I wouldn’t have to worry about her getting in the way of what I was going to do next.
“Stop your sniveling,” Sebastian ordered her, then turned back to Porter. “Empty the rest of your clip into her, and make sure that she’s dead this time. I don’t want any more mistakes.”
My fingers tightened around my knife, but I lay there on the rug and waited for Porter to lean down and take hold of my shoulder. But to my surprise and consternation, the giant stopped a few feet away from me, and I realized that he wasn’t going to roll me over onto my back so he could pump some more lead into my chest. He was going to do the smart thing and put a couple of bullets into my head from a distance.
Still, I waited—waited until I heard Porter suck in a breath, and the shadow of his arm on the floor started to move as he raised his gun . . .
Then I lashed out, whipped my knife up and around, and drove the blade into the giant’s foot. Porter screamed and tried to readjust his aim, but I ripped my knife out and swiped it at him again, making him jump back out of the way of the sharp blade.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The bullets thunked into the Persian rugs beside me, but I didn’t give him a chance to fire again. I scrambled to my feet and threw myself forward. Porter managed to block my arm, keeping me from driving my knife into his chest, so I lashed out with my heavy boot and stomped it down on his instep, the one I’d skewered with my knife.
The giant howled with pain and hopped away. His foot caught on a table leg, and his head cracked into one of the bookcases, rattling the stone models on the shelves. He dropped his gun and pitched forward, his hands going to the top of the table that he’d tripped over to try to steady himself. That gave me all the time I needed to dart forward and bury my knife in the side of his neck before ripping it out just as brutally. Porter screamed again and arched back, but the wound I’d given him was a fatal one, and a few seconds later, he slumped over the table, then toppled over onto the floor, dead.