“Don’t be stupid, Aina,” Kohl growled, raising his gun in the air between them, a cold look on his face that made her feel like any other target. She stared down the barrel and imagined what the air would smell like as the bullet flew forth to lodge in her brain. His voice slid toward her like smoke, darkening the space around them. “Why is Kouta Hirai still breathing?”

Aina sat on the cracked cobblestones, taking deep breaths to ease the dizziness from the punch. If Kohl had wanted to kill her, he would have already. Instead, he had knocked her around a bit and was ready to talk now. Maybe she could still prevail.

“I could swear he was dead,” she said, staring at her clasped hands. They didn’t quite seem like hers anymore.

How had this kill been robbed from her? She’d worked every day since joining the Dom to get better, to become as formidable as Kohl to prevent outcomes exactly like this. Her kills amounted to her respect, her future, her way off the streets. She would never allow herself to forget what it was like to have nothing, and she would never allow herself to return to nothing simply by failing at a job.

Her voice grew louder, angrier, roiling with the injustice of it. “I practically decapitated him.”

Kohl approached and knelt in front of her. His arm with the vulture tattoo reached out, and he touched her hair lightly. It was something icy and fiery at the same time, something she wanted to recoil from and draw closer toward and simply couldn’t locate a middle ground within.

“You didn’t stick around to make sure? You wanted to get out of there quickly? Were you scared?”

“No! I just…” She swallowed hard and moved a strand of dark hair behind her ears, brushing against his hand as she did—wishing he would take it. “I thought he was dead. I don’t know what else to say.”

She expected a reprimand, not for him to trail his hands down the side of her face to rest at her chin. It ached from the punch, but his touch was warm against the building bruise. He was so close, so formidable, and so unattainable, she wished more than ever that she could be his.

What is wrong with me? she thought, then shook it away.

If she wanted it, there was nothing wrong with it, was there? And he might be angry at her now, but wasn’t he right to be? She was the one who’d messed up on a job.

“Do you have any idea what it means that you’ve failed?” Something darkened in his voice, and her chest tightened in response. “This wasn’t any regular job, Aina. You were sent to kill one of the richest Steels in this goddess-forsaken city, and you failed. Have you forgotten what Steels do to people like you who reach too high?”

“I can pay back the money,” she said, the words blurring together in her rush to get them out.