The last time Six had seen Wilson Trent, she’d been bound and gagged, bruised and bloodied, her pride stripped away and her future in jeopardy.
This moment had a certain symmetry, which was the first thing she’d found amusing in over a year. She lifted her gaze from the half-dead body to the man who’d brought him. Brendan Donnelly was solidly built, with just enough flesh over hard muscle to hide how much of it there was until he flexed, or wrestled you into submission, or dumped a six-foot man at your feet.
He watched her, waiting for a reaction with an air of anticipation that had her shivering. “I don’t understand. Does Dallas want me to kill him as a test of loyalty or something?” If so, it was a damn shitty one. Most of Trent’s men would have stabbed him in the back for fun.
The corner of Bren’s mouth quirked up. “That’d be stupid. Dallas isn’t stupid.” He held out a knife, his fingers light on the blade and the handle pointing toward her. “I figure this one’s yours, that’s all.”
She could snatch it from his hand and sink it between his ribs. In her fantasies, at least—and maybe his, too, judging from the way he watched her sometimes, as if he liked the idea of her being as dangerous as he was.
Fantasies were the only place she was dangerous. He’d stop her before she grazed the blade across his skin, but apparently he’d let her take that same knife and sink it into Wilson Trent’s traitorous excuse for a heart.
Still, she didn’t reach for it. “No tricks?”
“No tricks.”
Six nudged Trent’s leg with her boot. “Untie him.”
Bren didn’t move, only waved the knife at her. “You do it.”
She curled her fingers around the hilt. It was heavier than she’d expected, the blade itself nearly half a foot long. Trent choked out a muffled protest and squirmed back, and Six felt the first stirrings of satisfaction as she sliced through the ropes.
Fear before death was too good for him. He’d taught her that there were worse things than fear. Things like hope. “Get up.”
“Fuck you,” he rasped.
She planted a boot in his side. “Get up, bastard. Get up and fight. I thought you liked hitting me.”
He lunged up on one knee and grabbed for the knife. Fast, but not fast enough. She slammed her knee into his face, reveling in the crunch of bone as his nose broke. “Take this,” she snarled at Bren, thrusting the knife at him.
“You sure?” But he was already reaching for the blade.
“I’m sure.”
When Trent rocked up, she smashed her fist into his jaw. Pain splintered through her hand and up her arm, and she relished it. Relished the faint hope in Trent’s eyes, as stupid and reckless as it was. He’d fixate on the fact that she was unarmed, see her as the victim he’d made her, and somewhere in his sick fucking skull, he’d think he had a chance.
She’d beat the hope right back out of him, like he’d done to her, and then he could die.