My stomach dropped when two dark dilated eyes stared straight ahead. He was alive but not living.

The woman moved in front of him and asked, “What is your name?”

Without any bodily reaction, Valentin responded, “194.”

I saw a victorious smile light up her face; then she asked, “Who do you obey?”

With the same vacant expression, Valentin replied, “Mistress.”

The last of my hope drained out of my body. The Mistress snapped at her men to get Valentin down. Valentin stayed absolutely still, his empty gaze fixed straight ahead.

The heavy chains fell away, yet Valentin didn’t move. The woman stepped back until she was beside my bed, and she ordered, “194, come to me!”

Valentin walked forward, his body obeying the woman’s command. When he halted before her and she looked down at me still strapped on the bed, my body washed with dread. “194,” she said with a smile on her face, “capture Zaal Kostava. Return him to me within the day—dead or alive.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Valentin stated without question.

As I heard the sound of Valentin leaving to capture my brother, I was sure I would never be whole again.

I remained still and turned my head away from the woman in the room. A hand on my arm caused me to turn back. Strangely, I didn’t feel pain. The woman had injected me with a serum that was like liquid fire flowing into my veins. I didn’t react when she injected me with yet another syringe. And I didn’t react as she picked up a third. Only at the fourth and fifth injection did I realize that she was trying to kill me.

The only time I reacted at all was when the woman bent down to my ear and whispered harshly, “This is for Levan Jakhua, Kostava whore. After tomorrow, there will be no more of your family left to plague the earth. After tomorrow, the love of my life can finally rest in peace—knowing the last of your poisonous hearts have stopped.”

18

194

Capture and retrieve Kostava.

Capture and retrieve Kostava.

The van rocked from side to side as it took me to my hit. My hands reached out and held on to the bars of the cage, pulling at the metal, trying to release some of the rage deep inside.

Capture and retrieve Kostava rolled around my mind and as it did pictures of his face flashed behind my eyes. Tall, muscled, Georgian. Long hair. Green eyes.

Capture and retrieve Kostava.

I held my head when a bright pain slammed through my brain. It hit again and again, and a pair of brown eyes stuck in my mind. My body shivered when the eyes wouldn’t move. My hands shook when the eyes told me I had to remember something. I tried and tried to remember the brown eyes; then Mistress’s voice in my head screamed “Capture Kostava!” My blood boiled and the collar around my neck tightened.

Rage built in my veins, until it burned and burned, and I roared out in anger. My feet kicked at the cage, heavy boots the Wraith had made me wear slamming against the metal.

I struck the cage again and again until the van came to a stop.

I crouched in the cage needing to kill, ready to kill, whoever waited past that door. I waited and waited, until the van door opened and a Wraith snapped the lock off the cage.

Pushing on the metal door, I charged from the cage, snapping the neck of the Wraith, hissing at the sound of crunching bones.

Throwing the lifeless body to the ground, I jumped out of the van, the smell of salty air hitting my face. I looked left and right, then pulled the dark hood of my black sweatshirt over my head. Everywhere was dark and quiet.

I scanned the area, listening to the crash of waves behind me. Broken piers and dark sand sat on one side, old broken-down houses and empty shores sat on the other.

I broke into a run, keeping to the shadows. The cold wind whipped around me as I ran and I ran, my mind tracing the streets that would lead me to my hit. Store signs creaked as they swung in the wind. Boarded-up store windows were covered in graffiti.

I kept running, capture Kostava, capture Kostava still circling my mind. But something else tried to force its way in, making my hands ball in anger. Something else I was meant to remember.

But I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember. Suddenly my feet stumbled, lurching my body into a fallen brick wall. Brown eyes flooded my brain again. Brown eyes and soft lips mouthing, Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu. I love you, too, I love you, too.…

I bit back a roar as a female’s face came into view, making me stumble again. I knew the face. I knew the face, but I couldn’t remember why. Kotyonok, whispered in my head. Just as the fog seemed to clear, the collar tightened around my throat and a new wave of fire flooded through my veins, taking the face away.

My hand slammed on a house wall to my right. I fought to breathe through the pain. My legs kept running, Mistress’s voice commanding me to capture and retrieve Zaal Kostava—dead or alive.

Darkness smothered my mind, leaving only one thought—capture and retrieve Kostava.

Sweat from my body dripped down my skin; then the darkness lifted again. My legs shook, something pushing Mistress from my mind.

My head switched back and forth, back and forth, between Mistress’s voice and the female with the brown eyes telling me she loved me.

I had rounded a corner when suddenly the brownstone came into view. Lights were on inside, people moving past the windows. I halted, my breathing low and hard as I prepared for my kill. Lights turned the corner, and I ducked into an alley as a car moved past.

I blinked, and blinked again, as I saw a female in my head; she then appeared before me. I reached out, but my hands sliced through thin air, the female disappearing. I stumbled against a wall, my back hitting the hard brick. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes.

Capture and retrieve Kostava.

Capture and retrieve Kostava.

Mistress’s voice always in my head forced me to stand straight. Forced me to obey her command. My eyes again concentrated on the brownstone, back on task. I moved to step forward, but that brown-eyed female in my head was there in front of me again. I could see her like she was real, dressed in black, holding a photograph in her hand. Suddenly she moved toward the house—I realized it was a memory trapped in my brain. I’d been here before. I’d watched this house before. I’d grabbed out to pull the female back and taken her to the torture chamber.

The female apparition looked so real to my eyes that I still reached out. As I did, my hand clutched at nothing but cold air, the female misting and fading into the background.

Clutching my head as a hot pain sliced through my skull, I hid back in the shadows. Sweat poured from my face; then I felt my collar tighten again. No! I thought, unable to take any more of the poison running through my veins.

Another surge of blazing heat surged through my veins. And I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand it. But a clear command filtered through.

Capture and retrieve Kostava.

I scanned the street. Straight ahead I saw a man in black walking down an alley—the back entrance to the house.

Without making a sound, I crossed the dark street, snow crunching lightly beneath my feet. I pressed myself into the shadows and turned the corner into the alley. Four males stood there with guns. Guards.

Breathing deep, I rounded the corner and sneaked up to the first male. Snapping his neck, I dragged him backward into a garden, removing his gun from his jacket. I checked the model—silencer.

Good.

Jumping back into the alley, I held out the gun and fired three shots, each piercing the head of a guard. Throwing the gun to the ground, I climbed the wall of the house that held Kostava. A guard stood just below the wall. Jumping down to land at his back, I wrapped my arm around his neck and squeezed. The guard clawed at my arms, but with a twist of his neck he silently collapsed to the ground.

I had made to move toward the back door when the blinding pain came back. Dropping to my knees, I gripped my head. The pair of brown eyes flashed at me. I gasped for breath as the name Kostava again circled in my head.

I had to capture or kill Kostava, but I loved a Kostava, too? I didn’t understand; my mind swam with dark fog. My skull ached, and pushing to my feet, I swayed. I hit the side of my head, my vision clearing to see stone steps that rose to the back door.

Kostava.

I silently ran up the steps. Seeing people sitting in a room through the glass, I scanned their faces. Three women, four men. Then my body cooled when it recognized Zaal Kostava as the one standing just beyond the door.