AN: I found it odd that a character who snaps necks and hides the bodies in tall grass was claimed to not kill in cold blood. I'm sorry, I didn't realize the 40 headshots I'd racked up while hanging from a rope didn't count.

"Oh, don't worry about him, Nadine. These guys don't kill in cold blood. It's just not their style."

Feeling the cold steel press harder into her skull, Nadine begged to differ. Had this guy not been keeping track of the head count the brothers Drake left in their wake at every turn!? More of her men were dead by their hands than by the hands Captain Henry Avery left behind. Headshots, snapped necks in the grass, bullet-ridden and shrapnel-filled; you name it, these bastards had done it.

Though she wriggled and winced, trying to get free, she didn't sweat. She was too professional for that.

She did think she had a fairly legitimate concern, however.

The gun clicked, a normally faint sound that echoed in her ears as the vibration resounded through her skull. "You willing to bet her life on that?" she heard, and was it just her or did that voice sound colder than it had before?

"Go ahead, then. Shoot her." Nadine glared at Rafe, feeling panic start to creep in. Way to throw her under the bus.

It was a bluff and both of them knew it. Rafe was a very good actor, but he had never acted under the assumption that they wouldn't kill whatever mindless goon stomped in their direction before. They knew it for a fact, knew it as well as they knew the mercilessness of Henry Avery's many traps. They'd sent men out to die keeping these two at bay, if they didn't succeed in finally ending their sorry lives, and the brothers had responded in kind. It was a game to them, a game full of risks and adrenaline but no consequence on their conscience. It frustrated her to no end, scared her out of her mind that between Rafe and the Drake brothers, Rafe was the safe one.

Because at least Rafe was able to admit he didn't care about anyone but himself.

The Drake brothers were so caught up in their delusions of grandeur that they didn't stop for a minute to understand the lives they snuffed out without so much as a second glance. The lack of concern made them as much a danger to themselves and to the people around them as they were to their enemies.

"Never trust a Drake," she'd said not too long ago, and this was the reason why.

What Rafe was doing right now? Bluffing to get her free? That amounted to trusting the Drakes. Both of them. Trusting that they wouldn't kill her, trusting that their missing at best and twisted at worst sense of morality would stay their bloodstained hands.

In that moment, Nadine didn't think she could hate Rafe more.

"Sam—" She didn't wait to hear his next words. Her face twisting in anger, she went with the bluff, hoping to high heaven it didn't get her killed.

"I die, you both die."

"So be it. Not another step!"

She heard it. The faint sound of a trigger being squeezed, not yet all the way but one step closer to spelling out her death. Shit.

Rafe, sweating but not nearly enough for the adrenaline junkies to see it, put on a swagger and a smirk and shifted his weight. He wasn't. Oh, no, he wasn't—

"You mean..."

It was as if the world was moving at the speed of light and in slow motion at the same time. Rafe's leg folded and unfolded, something squeaked by her head, "Like this?" Rafe said but then there was a bang and pain and something was gushing out of the side of her head that wasn't supposed to, she was falling and everythnig wsa jumlbgni

Nadine Ross fell to the ground, dead.

Rafe, looking pale, stepped back. "Oh."