PREFACE

“Assassinate the Alpha.” His instructions were clear and easy. Easy because it was me. I had taken down strong men and powerful women. Men who never thought they could be taken down. Taking them down was not easy either but again it was because it is me.

Men stood no chance where I stood. There are older men and even women in our club. Yet I joined six months ago and I have taken down more than each has in the last thirty years since my father founded the organization. I overheard people in the organization murmur and gossip among themselves that my father trained me differently, but that was where they missed it. My father never trained me. In fact he did not want me anywhere close to the organization. He said multiple times that he wanted a normal life for me. That I am a happy girl with the nature of a sunflower – I was always happy. Which is an absolute contrast to my name if you take out the two latter words.

The keyword is WAS. My happiness is a thing of the past now. Every feeling of happiness died in me the moment I founded Esther’s body. My father, his sister, a few other people – did I say a few others? Wrong. 

There were more than a few. Everyone carried on with the rumor that Esther was depressed and she had killed herself. I had always wondered why Esther would shove a gun right at the center of her forehead herself and pull the trigger. I thought to myself multiple times that although she might never have been as happy as I was, she might have been depressed – but killing herself? No, at least for me she would never do that. 

Never! And I was right. On my tenth birthday, I was happily hurrying over to my father’s study to show him the knitting kit a friend’s mom had given me because it was all I had ever wanted – but the conversations from the study were harsh. It felt like there was a fight and I had wanted to turn away and run when I heard the word that switched off every nerve of humanity in me...