She was promised freedom for a single contract: five years of obedience, then life in the sun. Instead Anna Maksim got a bullet, a bargain, and a brand-new mission—to walk into the lair of the woman who ruined her life and put a knife in her heart. Natasha Romanoff is famous, lethal, and impossible to read. Anna knows only three facts: her parents died in a staged crash, Olga Petrovna wants Natasha dead, and the only way out of the agency is to do what they demand. So Anna trains a mask of innocence, infiltrates Natasha’s world as a hotel clerk, and volunteers as a teammate to rescue hostages. Every handshake is a gamble; every smile could be the last. This is a fast, savage game of cat and mouse: betrayals flipped into alliances, assassins learning to love, the hunter becoming the hunted. When the truth drops—about who ordered her parents’ death, who faked her freedom, and how many lives are expendable—Anna must choose: kill the widow to be free, or let the widow save her instead. Which gamble will cost less—revenge or living with the lie?

25 Chapters