The lead hitman, Pierce, signaled with two fingers. The three men fanned out. They moved with the precision of professionals.

Braylon leaned against the damp wall of the shed. His hand drifted to his waist, searching for his gun. His fingers brushed empty leather. He let out a silent, frustrated breath.

Ivy felt him move. She turned her head and glared at him. Her eyes were dark behind the rain-splattered lenses.

A beam of light swept across the broken window of the shed. It caught the tips of Ivy's wet hair.

She didn't panic. She scanned the floor. Debris, old gym mats, broken glass. She picked up a jagged shard of a mirror. It was about six inches long.

The hitman approached the window. He leaned in to look.

Ivy moved.

She didn't lunge. She exploded upward. The glass shard slashed across the man's wrist. It was a precise cut, deep enough to sever the tendons and the artery.

The man dropped his gun. He opened his mouth to scream, but Ivy kicked him in the solar plexus. He stumbled back, colliding with the man behind him.

Pierce spun around. He aimed his weapon at the shed door.

Ivy didn't go through the door. She grabbed Braylon by his belt and shoved him toward the back wall. The wood was rotten from years of neglect. They hit it together.

The wall splintered. They tumbled out into the muddy service lane behind the school.

Braylon groaned as his wound stretched. The pain was blinding.

Ivy didn't offer comfort. She grabbed his collar and hauled him up.

"Move," she hissed.

They ran. Ivy was fast, surprisingly strong for her frame. But they weren't fast enough.

Pierce and the remaining shooter rounded the corner. They blocked the exit to the main street.

Braylon leaned against a brick wall, sliding down slightly. He looked at Ivy.

"Leave," he wheezed. "Not your fight."

Ivy looked at him. Then she looked at the men blocking their path. She felt a surge of irritation.

"Shut up," she said. "You are my patient now."

Pierce raised his gun. The silencer looked like a black hole in the dim street light.

"No witnesses," Pierce said.

Ivy reached into her pocket. She didn't pull out a weapon. She pulled out a coin. It was black and gold, heavy in her palm.

Pierce squeezed the trigger.

Ivy threw herself to the side, dragging Braylon with her. The bullet chipped the brick inches from her head. A fragment of stone cut her cheek.

She sat up. Her eyes were terrifyingly calm. She tossed the coin.

It clattered on the wet pavement and rolled, coming to a stop at Pierce's feet.

Pierce looked down. The streetlamp reflected off the metal. He saw the twin serpents entwined around a dagger.

The Serpent's Eye.

Pierce froze. His finger hovered over the trigger. Sweat broke out on his forehead, mixing with the rain.

Every mercenary in the city knew that symbol. It belonged to Deondre Pittman. It meant the bearer was under the personal protection of the Syndicate's head.

Pierce lowered the gun. He looked at the girl. She was soaked, muddy, and bleeding, but she looked at him with bored arrogance.

She pointed a finger toward the end of the alley.

Pierce swallowed. He couldn't risk it. If she really was connected to Pittman, killing her would mean a slow, agonizing death for him and everyone he knew.

He signaled his men. They backed away, disappearing into the darkness as quickly as they had come.

Braylon stared at Ivy. He was losing consciousness, the adrenaline fading.

"Who are you?" he whispered.

Ivy didn't answer. She dragged him toward her beat-up Ford Fiesta parked at the curb. She opened the back door and shoved him inside like a bag of laundry.

The Ford rattled as Ivy drove through the service entrance of the Goff estate. She killed the headlights before turning onto the gravel path that led to the kitchen.

Braylon lay across the backseat. The bleeding had slowed, thanks to the gel, but he was pale. He watched the back of her head. She drove with one hand on the wheel, the other tapping a rhythm on her thigh.

She parked behind a row of hedges.

"Get out," she said.

She opened the back door and pulled him out. He leaned heavily on her. They stumbled across the wet grass toward the back door.

Ivy kicked the door open. The kitchen was warm. The smell of cinnamon tea hung in the air.

A light flicked on.

Joette Goff stood by the island counter, clutching her robe. She dropped her mug. It shattered, tea splashing across the pristine tiles.

"Oh my god!" Joette screamed. "Ivy!"

Ivy clamped a hand over her mother's mouth instantly.

"Mom, quiet," Ivy whispered harshly. "It is a hit and run victim."

Joette's eyes were wide with terror. She looked at Braylon, at the blood soaking his shirt and Ivy's uniform.

"We need to call 911," Joette whimpered against Ivy's hand.

"No police," Ivy said. She removed her hand but kept her gaze intense. "He has no insurance. I will handle it."

Joette blinked. She was used to Ivy taking charge. She nodded, her hands trembling.

"I... I will get towels," Joette said.

Footsteps creaked on the stairs. Heavy, deliberate steps.

"Mrs. Goff? Is everything alright?"

It was Mrs. Pringle, the housekeeper. Her voice was like sandpaper wrapped in velvet.

Ivy's eyes narrowed. She shoved Braylon into the pantry cupboard under the stairs. She slammed the door shut and leaned her back against it.

Mrs. Pringle appeared in the doorway, her gaze sweeping across the entire kitchen: the shattered mug, the puddles and mud smudges on the floor, and the faint red streak of blood on Ivy’s arm.

"I stepped in a puddle," Ivy said in a flat, emotionless voice. "It startled Mom. Go back to bed."

Mrs. Pringle didn’t move. Her eyes lingered on the bloodstain for a long moment, and she sniffed sharply at the air, searching for any chink in the story, any trace of something amiss—but found nothing.

"You ought to be more careful, Miss Ivy," Mrs. Pringle said, her voice tight with tension. "That was a nasty fall."

Ivy stared straight at her, not blinking once.

"Go to bed, Pringle."

The housekeeper forced a stiff, fake smile and turned to leave. But she didn’t head upstairs; Ivy heard her pause in the hallway outside.

Ivy waited a full minute, and only when the footsteps finally continued on did she unlock the pantry door.

Braylon tumbled out. Ivy caught him.

She practically dragged him up the back stairs to her room. She dumped him onto her bed. The duvet was pink and fluffy. It smelled of lavender.

Ivy locked the door. She went to her bookshelf and pulled a specific book. The shelf clicked and swung open slightly, revealing a high-intensity surgical lamp.

She dragged a heavy case from under the bed. She opened it. Scalpels, clamps, sutures, a portable defibrillator.

Braylon watched her through half-lidded eyes.

"Standard issue for high school girls?" he rasped.

"Only for the ones who expect trouble," Ivy said.

She cut his pants open to check his leg. Then she moved to his abdomen. She threaded a curved needle.

"I don't have anesthesia," she said.

"Do your worst," Braylon muttered.

She began to stitch. Her hands were steady. Every time the needle pierced his skin, Braylon's muscles seized. He bit his lip until it bled, but he didn't make a sound.

Ivy watched his face. She respected the silence. Most men screamed.

She finished the knot and snipped the thread. She injected a syringe of antibiotics into his thigh, followed by a sedative.

Braylon's eyes grew heavy. The pain dulled to a throb. He reached out and grabbed her wrist. His fingers were weak now.

"Name," he whispered.

Ivy pulled her hand away. She packed the tools back into the box.

"None of your business."

She watched him succumb to the drugs. Outside her door, in the hallway, Mrs. Pringle typed a text message on her phone.Yes, she hadn’t actually left at all. She’d seized the chance when the moment slipped, and snapped a photo.

Across the city, in a marble-floored bathroom, Cleora Goff's phone buzzed.

She was getting a pedicure. She picked up the phone with her free hand. The screen lit up with Pringle's message.

She brought a man home. Bloody. Secret.

Cleora smiled. It was a slow, venomous expression. She waved the nail technician away.

She dialed a number.

"Auntie Felicity," Cleora said. Her voice pitched up an octave, sounding sweet and concerned. "I heard the most terrible rumors... Ivy might be in trouble. With bad men."

In the basement of a warehouse in the Meatpacking District, Deondre Pittman sat in a leather chair. He held a scalpel, turning it over and over in his fingers.

Quincy, his second-in-command, stood by the door.

"Pierce failed," Quincy said. "He said he encountered... a bearer of the Serpent's Eye."

Deondre stopped spinning the scalpel. The blade nicked his thumb. A drop of blood welled up.

He had only given that coin to one person. A child who had saved his life five years ago. He had lost track of her when her father went into hiding.

"Find out who saved the Lancaster heir," Deondre said softly.

Back at the Goff estate, the sun was rising.

Ivy was asleep at her desk. Her head rested on an open anatomy textbook. Her hand still loosely gripped a pair of surgical scissors.

Braylon woke up.

He felt stiff. His chest burned. He looked down. His torso was wrapped in professional-grade bandages.

He looked around the room. It was a paradox. Pink curtains, stuffed animals, and romance novels on the shelves. But on the walls were detailed diagrams of the human circulatory system.

He sat up. The bed frame creaked.

Ivy moved instantly.

She didn't wake up groggy. She woke up attacking. She spun in the chair and threw the scissors.

They thudded into the wooden headboard, an inch from Braylon's ear.

Braylon looked at the vibrating metal. He raised an eyebrow.

"Good morning to you too," he said.

Ivy rubbed her eyes behind her glasses. She looked annoyed that he was awake.

"You are alive," she said. "Unfortunately."

Braylon smirked. The pain in his side was sharp, but his charm was a reflex.

"You saved my life. How can I repay you? My body?"

Ivy stood up. She walked to the bed and looked down at him. Her expression was clinical.

"Money. Lots of it. And silence."

Braylon paused. He wasn't used to women looking at him like he was a specimen in a jar.

The doorbell rang downstairs. It was loud.

Then came Mrs. Pringle's voice, shrill and projecting.

"Oh, Mrs. Miles! What a surprise!"

Ivy stiffened. She walked to the window and peered through the blinds.

Three luxury sedans were in the driveway. Jared Miles, her fiancé, was there with his parents. And Cleora, clutching Felicity Miles's arm like a dutiful niece.

Ivy turned back to Braylon.

"Stay here. Don't make a sound."

Braylon heard the commotion downstairs. He put the pieces together.

"Trouble with the in-laws?" he asked.

Ivy ignored him. She stripped off her bloody uniform shirt. She had a tank top on underneath. She pulled on a oversized, gray hoodie. It swallowed her figure completely.

She opened the door.

Braylon watched her leave. The playful look in his eyes vanished. He reached for the cheap flip phone Ivy had left on the nightstand.

He dialed a number from memory.

"Douglas," he said. "Locate me."