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.

anger boiling inside

untied herself. Karen had already neutralized

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

all, F-Poison was their next formidable

the display as if enjoying

look so alike. I wonder if all 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

her eyes, the silver needles in her

high alert, determined not

as if in casual conversation, “You

stroke as if indulging in a moment

she quipped. “This face is all I have left

F-Poison ripped off her mask and flung it towards Karen and Vivienne, the skin transforming mid-air into a whirling blade aimed

“Frost!”

narrowly missing the skin-blade, and

Karen accelerated, grabbing a rock and turning it into a projectile. With a burst of energy, she hurled it towards

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

wound, and Karen’s breaths grew

Vivienne was about to unleash her poison,

violent explosion upon contact with poison. It was the

no escape

side by side, united against

wounded leg, threw down a

smoke, Karen and Vivienne quickly

the smoke cleared, they saw F-Poison holding Zelda at the cliff’s

hostage, what can you really do?” F-Poison taunted, gripping Zelda’s neck tightly, ready to

sound of a

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

Percival aimed his machine gun—not at F-Poison, but at

back, pebbles tumbling down the cliff into the abyss below, but

cornered. Surrender now!” Karen stood protectively

over a decade ago. Even against many more enemies back then, I didn’t surrender.

Over a

it be

looked barely older than Vivienne—how old was

to grow into this role by

perhaps F-Poison was not the