Then, without a word, Cane slips his hand into the inner pocket of his black coat and pulls out a folded piece of paper. He lifts it just enough to catch the light, giving it a subtle shake as if emphasizing its importance, before sliding it across the table toward me. My fingers inch forward, tentative, hovering over it before finally brushing against the paper. But the moment I unfold it, a sharp knot of confusion tightens around my chest, constricting my breath.
It’s a mugshot of a young woman. Honey-colored hair sticks in disarray to the sides of her round face, as if caught mid-motion and never tamed. Her large brown eyes stare straight into the camera, dark and unsettling, hinting at something hidden deep within, yet her expression remains unnervingly blank, a mask that refuses to give anything away. I can sensethere’s more lurking behind those eyes, a story or a storm, but the absence of emotion makes it impossible to read, leaving me grasping at shadows that refuse to materialize.
“Your first task,” Cane says, his voice smooth and detached, as if nothing could ruffle him. “I need you to get her out of a prison in Mexico.”
I glance up, but he’s already drumming a finger against the table, a subtle command to pull my eyes away from the mugshot. “She’s one of us,” he says. “She was on a mission to take out a snitch—an idiot who thought he was smarter than everyone else. Thought landing a job in a prison on the other side of the world would make him untouchable.” He scoffs, the sound sharp and dismissive. “Job gets done, and that’s it. Nothing else to discuss.”
A small tremor runs through me as my eyes jerk back to the photo.
One of us.The words feel wrong, as though my mind is resisting the truth staring me in the face. There’s something in her gaze, something that unsettles me, a creeping discomfort that winds through my chest and stomach, coiling tight and insistent.
And still, I can’t look away.
My eyes roam over the contours of her face, noting the lingering softness that time and experience rarely preserve. Her full lips curl into the slightest hint of a smirk, subtle yet unmistakable, impossible to overlook even in its quiet.
I didn’t expect Cane to give me something so… unorthodox. Usually, when a recruit is being tested, the first task is simple: find a target and kill them.
Breaking someone out of prison? That had never crossed my mind as a real possibility. And yet, I can’t say no. Truthfully, I don’t even want to.
“Don’t be fooled by that pretty face,” his voice pierces the fog of my mind, laced with an emotion I can’t place. “She’s… unpredictable.”
I frown, the unspoken warning thick in the space between us, pressing down like a weight. A question smolders in my eyes as I set the mugshot on the table, turning my gaze toward him, searching for an answer—but he only shrugs, leaving the silence to speak for him.
“I’m sure you can handle it. Just remember—failure is not an option. If you fuck this up, that prison becomes your grave. Understood?”
I nod. “Yeah. I understand. But I have one question?—”
He chuckles, cutting me off before I can finish. “Surprised it’s a woman?”
Yes and no. Over the years, as I’ve targeted assassins and dismantled various small organizations, I’ve come across many of them. Many women, too, but they all looked different. At least, they followed the same rules these groups clung to.
Cane talks about her with a certain lightness in his voice, maybe even pride. It catches me off guard and makes me more curious about who she really is. My gut tells me she’s not as simple as she seems, and for the sake of my mission, I need to know everything.
“You could say I’m a little surprised, yeah,” I admit after a short pause.
Cane stretches out, letting one arm drape over the back of the couch, sinking deeper as he settles into a casual ease. His eyes flick toward the window, and a faint, almost imperceptible smirk curls at the corner of his lips as he drifts once more into his thoughts, lost in whatever private world occupies him.
“She’s our most trusted and loyal worker. Years of service, not a single complaint, no regret or guilt,” he says, his voice calm and measured, carrying the faintest edge of pride. Whenhe turns back to me, a quick flash of warning sparks in his eyes. “And my personal favorite. That’s all you need to know. If something happens to her, I’ll have my people chop you into pieces and send them through a meat grinder.”
That’s convincing.
“I’ll get her out,” I promise, the words soaked in confidence I can’t afford to second-guess. There’s no turning back now. I can feel the shift inside me, the quiet click of inevitability.
Years of planning, of waiting and watching, are finally ready to collide with reality.
Mexico
Sweat soaks every inch of my body, my prison-guard uniform sticking to me like a second skin. The sun blazes overhead, relentless and punishing, while my nerves coil tighter with each step I take. Unease slithers down my spine in sharp, electric jolts—a constant warning to remain vigilant. Cane’s words pulse in my mind as I cross the threshold of the prison gates, their weight pressing down with every heartbeat.
The woman I’m breaking out today waits in one of the most hellish corners of this prison, a place reserved for the worst of the worst, where even the barest necessities of life are stripped away. Cane didn’t bother giving me any details—not evenher real name. Now my mind races, cycling through random possibilities, hunting for a name that might fit. It’s a futile, pointless exercise, but at least it keeps me from descending entirely into a spiral of rage-fueled frustration.
I’ve committed the prison’s layout to memory, studying every detail with obsessive precision—the tiniest cracks in the walls, the subtle shifts in the guards’ patrols, and the full rotation of the staff for today’s shift, mapped in my mind like clockwork.
Failure isn’t an option.
Not just because Cane would kill me if I fuck this up, but because I’ve spent years working toward this moment. This mission is my way into The Order—the syndicate he works for, the first step toward dismantling the network that has been poisoning society for years. A golden opportunity that will go straight to hell if I make one wrong move.
And despite my ego, I know I’m capable of catastrophic mistakes. I’ve honed my craft in the shadows, perfected the art of killing without leaving a trace. But this?
