“Even now,” he counters, “with a gun to your head and every assassin in the world climbing this tower to claim your bounty, you still can’t admit you made a mistake.”
I huff out a soft laugh, the kind that tastes like blood and defiance. “That’s what happens when your balls are bigger than your brain. You forget one simple little detail.”
My fingers tighten around the exposed wire—subtle, deliberate, the shift of someone choosing a moment instead of reacting to one. He feels it. The pressure of the rifle increases, firm enough to bruise.
“And what’s that?” His voice lowers, the coil before a strike.
“That I’m Saint motherfucking James.”
I tilt my head just enough to let the moonlight catch my grin.
“And I don’t make mistakes.”
I slam the wire against the beam.
A burst of bright, violent sparks leaps across the space between us, catching him full in the eyes. His scream rips through the chamber, raw and ragged, as he twists away. The rifle jerks in his grip, and I shove the barrel off my temple a heartbeat before he fires. The shot goes off beside my ear—too close, too loud. Pain detonates through my skull like someone drove an ice pick into my eardrum, the sound collapsing into a high, vicious ringing that swallows everything else.
For a moment my vision swims. My knees threaten to buckle. The metallic taste of adrenaline floods my tongue.
The bullet tears sideways,shattering the nearest pane of glass. A violent burst of night air slams into the room, freezing and hungry, whipping my afro back and dragging smoke toward the open void three thousand feet below.
I grit my teeth and shake off the disorientation. No time to cradle a blown-out ear.
I twist the wire again, once, twice—the practiced motion of someone who’s done this more than she’ll ever admit—and press it to the ignition plate.
A single spark jumps.
The skyscraper shudders, a low, resentful groan echoing through the vertical labyrinth beneath us. Then, far below, the first bomb erupts like a muffled thunderclap. One floor. Then the next. Then the next. A chain of detonation rising through the building like the heartbeat of a dying giant.
Every assassin still clawing their way upward realizes at the same moment:
they’re not racing to catch me.
They’re racing to outrun death. And it’s already winning.
I turn back to him.
Smoke curls around us. The floor vibrates with the approaching destruction. The air tastes electric.
Thirty seconds to escape.
Maybe less.
But killing this bastard?
Yeah, I can spare a few.
5 DAYS AGO
The moon is entirely too pleased with itself tonight.
Full, bright, and shining directly on me like it’s judging my life choices while I dig a grave with a shovel better suited for a kindergarten sandbox. Sweat rolls down the back of my neck despite the cool night air, and the dirt here is packed so tight it feels like I’m trying to carve through concrete with a salad spoon.
“This is what I get,” I mutter, levering out another miserable scoop of earth. “One week. One damn week of vacation, and I couldn’t keep my homicidal little hands to myself.”
The corpse lying a few feet away doesn’t answer, naturally. He just stares up at the moon with those glassy dark eyes, looking far too peaceful for a man who’d been stupid enough to land himself on the Guild’s hit list. Stupid enough that I said yes even with a suitcase half-packed and a beach reservation already paid for.
A low rush of movement whispers across thelandscape—the distant thunder of one of Japan’s high-speed trains slicing through the night. It rises, swells, then fades again, leaving the silence thicker than before.
