I didn't blink.
She was on me in half a breath, that smile stretched like a puppet string about to snap. But her movements were jerky—glitches in the program, as if she hadn't finished downloading how to kill me yet.
"Down," I hissed at Elliot, shoving him to the floor with one hand as my other came up, parrying her first strike with the heel of my palm.
Crack.
The air snapped with the impact. Her knuckles skidded off my arm, caught in a rotation, and I twisted her wrist before she could reset. She reeled back, eyes flashing gold and black again.
That grin never faded.
"Masked Syndicate," she purred through a voice that wasn't hers, wasn't anyone's—like a distorted voicemail from Hell. "Cain sees Abel."
"You've got it backward, darling," I said, pivoting around her next jab with a dancer's spin. "I am Cain in this family."
