The Million-Dollar Heart by Rebecca Ryan

With a thunderous bang, Diana’s gun fired, but the bullet whizzed past Vivienne’s ear, barely grazing a hair.

Unfazed, Vivienne did not even flinch.

Diana, panic-stricken, stared at the figure before her, feeling her wrist trapped as if in an iron vise, pain radiating through her bones like a fracture in progress.

“You… you’re Sasha!”

Karen’s gaze was heavy, a mix of the strange and the familiar.

She had never imagined that the story behind her kidnapping was so convoluted!

Clenching her fist, Karen threw a punch that landed squarely in Diana’s gut with the force of a sledgehammer.

“Touch my daughter, and you’re dead meat!”

Diana’s punch could take down a full-grown mastiff, but Karen’s blow could kill a full-grown bull.

The difference in strength was enormous.

Diana felt as if her insides had been rearranged, her nerves and flesh overwhelmed by pain. It was as if she was about to be ripped apart. The agony was excruciating!

Karen then slapped Diana’s face repeatedly, and in no time, Diana’s once delicate features swelled up like a balloon.

Diana tried to steady herself, to take another look at her adversary, but her swollen cheeks pressed so tightly against her eyes that they would not open!

Lifting Diana off her feet, Karen’s fingers flew, sending needle after needle into Diana’s scalp.

“Ah!”

Diana fell to her knees, screaming in torment.

The pain was unbearable!

Rolling on the ground, Diana banged her head against rocks as if the blunt trauma could somehow dull the sharper pain within.

Even as her head was bloodied and bruised, Diana hardly noticed.

boiling inside Karen was far from

already neutralized the poison in her

moved to Zelda’s side, who was still bound, and settled her

F-Poison was

the display as if

daughters look like their mothers.” Wearing Gillian’s face, she sipped a glass of red wine with a smile, as if the battleground was a social gathering and they were simply old friends

eyes, the silver needles in her hand

was on high alert, determined not to let

softly, as if in casual conversation, “You

soft stroke as

“This face is all I have left to charm the

flung it towards Karen and Vivienne, the skin transforming mid-air

“Frost!”

ducked, narrowly missing the skin-blade, and kicked a

rock and turning it into a projectile. With a burst

in the tree where Vivienne had been tied, while the rock pierced F-Poison’s thigh, embedding itself in the ground and

seeped from F-Poison’s wound,

was about to unleash her poison,

sensing something invisible in the air—particles that could trigger a violent explosion upon contact with poison.

no

stood side by side, united

her wounded leg, threw down a

eyes from the smoke, Karen and Vivienne quickly traced F-Poison’s escape

Zelda at the cliff’s

both might overpower me together, but with this hostage, what can you really do?” F-Poison taunted, gripping Zelda’s neck tightly, ready to snap

of a helicopter’s rotors sliced through

“F-Poison, would you rather go up or down? Either way, I can

his machine gun—not at F-Poison, but

abyss below, but no echo came. Clearly, the height of this cliff

Surrender now!” Karen stood protectively in

over a decade ago. Even against many more enemies

frowned. Over a

it be

than Vivienne—how old was

child trained to grow into

perhaps F-Poison