Tòumíng turned to leave the room, his hand already reaching for the door handle, his mind already racing ahead to the warehouse on the east side, to the cocaine importers, to Jin Chan and the power vacuum and the seventeen bodies still lying on the street. He had a lead. He had a direction. He had— "Wait."
The Ice Queen's voice cut through his thoughts like a blade. He turned back, one eyebrow raised, his hand still on the door. "What?"
She was standing now, her arms crossed, her expression shifting from the flustered, dazed look she'd worn moments ago to something sharper, more calculating. The blush had faded from her cheeks, replaced by the cold composure that had made her the most feared woman in the criminal underworld.
"I'll accompany you," she said, her voice steady, commanding. "To the warehouse. To the importers. To wherever this investigation takes you. You'll need protection, and I'm the best protection you could possibly ask for."
Tòumíng blinked. Then he laughed—a short, incredulous sound that echoed through the room. He squared his shoulders, puffed out his chest, and flexed his arm in a way that was probably meant to be impressive but came across as slightly ridiculous. His bicep bulged, straining against the sleeve of his blood-stained shirt.
"Protection?" he said, his voice dripping with exaggerated bravado. "I don't need protection. Look at these guns. These are weapons of mass destruction. I could take on an entire army with these bad boys. I'm basically a one-man apocalypse. You should be asking ME to protect YOU."
He flexed again, just for good measure, his grin wide and insufferable.
In any normal situation, with any normal woman, this level of egotistical boasting would have dried up every uterus within a five-hundred-mile radius. It was the kind of performance that made people cringe, that made women roll their eyes and walk away, that made everyone in the room collectively question his life choices.
But the Ice Queen wasn't normal.
Her breath caught. Her eyes widened. Her hands came up to her face, pressing against her cheeks, and her blush returned with a vengeance. She looked at him—at his flexing arm, at his stupid grin, at his absolute, unearned confidence—and she felt something dangerous bloom in her chest.
He's showing off, she thought, her internal voice pitched high with disbelief. He's actually showing off. For me. Like a peacock. Like a—like a—oh god, this is the most attractive thing I've ever seen.
She pressed her knuckles against her lips to stifle the giggle that was threatening to escape. The man who tried to cut out his own heart to prove his love for me was PATHETIC. Desperate. Sad. But this? This stupid, arrogant, completely unwarranted flexing? This is—this is ART. This is CONFIDENCE. This is a man who doesn't need to prove anything because he knows exactly what he's worth. And he's worth EVERYTHING.
Chesqo Dong, standing in the corner of the room, was not having the same reaction.
His face had gone pale. Then red. Then a shade of purple that suggested his blood pressure was reaching dangerous levels. His fists were clenched at his sides, his jaw tight, his eyes locked onto Tòumíng with the kind of hatred that could curdle milk from across the room.
This—this MINER—was getting the attention he'd been begging for. This teenager with his stupid flexing and his stupid grin and his stupid audacity was making the Ice Queen blush in a way Chesqo had never managed.
He stepped forward, his voice cold and sharp, cutting through the moment like a guillotine. "If you're so confident in your abilities, then you won't mind a compromise."
Tòumíng lowered his arms, his grin fading slightly. "Compromise?"
"Instead of having the Ice Queen accompany you—" Chesqo's voice dripped with barely concealed venom, "—I'll pair you with one of her best operatives. Someone who can handle whatever you can't. Someone who's proven their worth in ways that don't involve... flexing."
The Ice Queen's expression flickered—a momentary hesitation, a flash of concern. "Chesqo, I'm not sure that's—"
"It's settled," Chesqo interrupted, his tone brooking no argument. "Tòumíng will be accompanied by Lù Jī."
Tòumíng's head tilted. "Lù Jī? Who the hell is Lù Jī?"
No one answered. The silence stretched, heavy and uncomfortable. The guards in the hallway had gone completely still, their faces pale, their eyes wide. Even the Ice Queen seemed to have lost her composure for a moment, her lips pressing together in a thin line.
Tòumíng's brain, slow as it sometimes was, finally processed the name. His eyes went wide. His jaw dropped. "Lù Jī? That—that means, Slaughter Princess. Her name means SLAUGHTER PRINCESS!"
He spun toward the Ice Queen, his voice rising to a near-shout. "NO! Absolutely not! No fucking way! I am not being paired with someone called the Slaughter Princess! That's the most obviously evil name I've ever heard! That's like naming your assassin 'Murder McStabFace' and expecting people to be chill about it!"
The Ice Queen's expression shifted, something between worry and amusement flickering across her features. "She's... effective. Very effective. Perhaps a bit too effective at times. She has a tendency to be thorough. Very thorough. Dangerously thorough."
"That's not reassuring!"
"But she'll keep you alive," the Ice Queen said, her voice soft, almost pleading. "That's what matters. I don't want to lose you before I've had the chance to—" She stopped herself, her cheeks flushing again. "Before I've had the chance to properly... enjoy your company."
Chesqo's eye twitched. "The arrangement is settled. Lù Jī will accompany him. End of discussion."
Tòumíng's heart dropped into his stomach. He'd been so focused on the immediate danger of the Slaughter Princess that he'd completely forgotten about the boat rental. The guards. The fight. The thirty bullets. The blood.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
"On second thought," he said quickly, his voice suddenly very small, very meek, very different from the boastful flexing of moments ago, "the Slaughter Princess sounds lovely. Wonderful, even. I would love to meet her. Please introduce me immediately."
The Ice Queen sighed, a long, worried sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep in her chest. "If you say so." She waved her hand dismissively, a gesture that carried the weight of a queen dismissing her court. "You're both dismissed. Tòumíng, Lù Jī will meet you in the lobby."
Tòumíng nodded quickly and practically fled the room, his feet carrying him down the hallway, past the guards who parted like the Red Sea. They didn't look at him. They didn't make eye contact. They just stared straight ahead, their faces pale, their hands gripping their weapons with white-knuckled intensity.
"Hey," Tòumíng called out to one of them, a younger guard who looked like he was barely out of his teens. "Where can I find the Slaughter Princess?"
The guard's face went even paler, if that was possible. He looked at Tòumíng with an expression of pure, unfiltered horror.
"Sir," the guard said, his voice barely above a whisper, "you're making a terrible mistake. Your life is worth so much more than going with that murderer. Please. PLEASE reconsider. I have a sister your age. I don't want to see you die."
Tòumíng's confusion deepened. "Who the fuck is this girl? What's so terrifying about her?"
Before the guard could answer, footsteps echoed from the grand staircase. Light footsteps. Delicate footsteps. The kind of footsteps that belonged to someone small, someone soft, someone who couldn't possibly be a threat to anyone.
Tòumíng looked up.
And his brain stopped working.
A girl was descending the stairs. She was tiny, maybe five-foot-two at most, with a figure that was curvy, soft, almost doll-like. Her hair was long and straight and black as ink, with cute bangs that framed her face in a way that was almost aggressively adorable. She wore an all-white outfit—a frilly dress with layers of lace, matching white shoes with little bows on them, and a white ribbon in her hair that tied into a perfect little bow.
She looked like a porcelain doll. She looked like she'd just stepped out of a Victorian-era children's book. She looked like she was about to ask for tea and crumpets and maybe a hug.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and shuffled forward nervously, her fingers twisting together, her eyes darting around the room like a startled deer. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper, stuttering and uncertain.
"I—I—I'm the Slaughter Princess," she stammered, her cheeks flushing pink. "It's n-nice to meet you. I hope we can be f-friends."
Tòumíng stared at her.
Then he turned to the guard, his face completely deadpan, one eyebrow raised in the most unimpressed expression he'd ever worn.
"Ha ha," he said flatly. "Very funny. Jokes over. Where's the real Slaughter Princess?"
The guard grabbed Tòumíng's shoulder and leaned in close, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. "She's killed over three hundred and forty-five people in the eight months she's been contracted by the Ice Queen. Eighteen of those have been allies, people in this very building, people who made the mistake of underestimating her."
Tòumíng looked at the guard. Then at the tiny, frilly, stuttering girl. Then back at the guard.
"...No fucking way."
The guard nodded, his eyes wide with fear. "Yes fucking way."