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

Vivienne had untied herself. Karen had already neutralized the poison in her system the moment

and settled

all, F-Poison was their

watching the display as if

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

eyes, the silver needles

was on high alert, determined not to let F-Poison

as if in

stroke as if indulging in a moment of

easy,” she quipped. “This face is all I have

a swift motion, F-Poison ripped off her mask and flung it towards Karen

“Frost!”

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

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

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

seeped from F-Poison’s wound, and Karen’s

unleash her poison, Karen

could trigger a violent explosion upon contact with poison. It was

there’s no

side by side, united against their

her wounded leg, threw down a

Karen and Vivienne quickly traced

F-Poison holding Zelda at the cliff’s edge, a hostage

you really do?” F-Poison taunted,

sound of a helicopter’s rotors sliced

would you rather go up or

his machine

took a step back, pebbles tumbling down the cliff into the abyss below, but no echo

cornered. Surrender now!” Karen stood protectively in front of Vivienne, resolute

many more enemies back

Over

it be the

F-Poison looked barely older than

trained to grow into this role by

too, was puzzled, feeling that perhaps F-Poison was not the person