ed her nostrils-the smell of a vehicle interior, not a medical bay. Voices murmured at the edges of her awareness, but she couldn't grasp the words

ids were too heavy. The world remaine

aced with a lazy amusem

seems my blood

through her system. That wasn't a NorthCo

t flickered on above her, bathin

is smile was a casual, predatory slash in his pale face. He was leaning over h

n Syndicate. Jeffrey's biggest rival. The man whose offshore da

ween them, but a searing pain shot through her abdomen and leg, ste

"You're in no shape to be playing the cornered a

. Why was he here? Why had he saved her? Th

sked, her voice raspy. "T

ike a switch had been flipped, plunging the temperature in the small space by tw

g around her chin, forcing her to look

us growl, "is an insect. A self-important little man playi

porate assassins, and terrorists, but she had never felt a sense of danger as profound as wh

that was both intimate and threatening. I

ued, his eyes dark with a possessiv

ping to a whisper that was meant to

my war p

ustion or a fresh wave of pain-the dream that had been

a white page, scrolling past at an impossible speed. It wa

nor

bordinate," the "capable asset," designed to suffer and die to propel the hero, Jeffrey Herrera, to

empire built on the bones of people like her. She saw Morgan, wearing Etta's own tac

, her sacrifices-all just i

bellion tore through

a footnote in som