After another groan, his handler seemed to relent.“Marco is in that state.He’s good with these situations.”
Fink nodded.The name was familiar to him, but he’d never had the opportunity to work with him.“Thank you.”
“This is a big ask,” AJ said.
Fink didn’t quite flinch, but the comment caught him off guard.
“She’s not connected.There will be questions.”
Ah.Right.
AJ was part of a syndicate.Fink not so much.Though most considered him an associate, he wasn’t actually tied to any particular crime family or group.He was an independent contractor.
Sydney was a wild card.If there was one thing organized crime despised, it was the unfamiliar.Strangers were never to be trusted.
They’d demand to know why.
“Answer them,” Fink said of the questions people in power would inevitably ask.
“They’re gonna want us to tell them who she is to us,” AJ pressed.
“She’s mine,” Fink said before ending the call.
He tossed the cell onto the nightstand before twisting and eyeing the woman beside him again.They hadn’t known each other that long.In a few weeks, she’d wormed her way into his soul, the depths of his being.
Fink couldn’t let Sydney go.No matter what AJ or his buddies said.He decided, no matter how ill-advised, he was keeping her.
His murder buddy.His apprentice.His trainee.Whatever anyone wanted to call her didn’t matter.As long as everyone understood she was his.
40
Sydney
Tuesdaybeganasanyother day had.Fink got up first and made a hearty breakfast that was sure to clog Sydney’s arteries and add several inches to her waist.Luckily, she had a second heart, preserved nicely in resin on the shelf in Fink’s library.
They were playing house, and she couldn’t have been more content and happy about it.After thirty-one years of walking this Earth, she’d found her place.Her peace.Her comfort.Her home.It was Fink.No matter where they were, as long as they were together, she was at peace.
Corny as hell for sure, but she didn’t care.
Studying to be a contract killer was tedious, time-consuming, and hard as hell, but it broke up their day.They could only fuck so much before they’d get bored with it.
Standing at the bib sink in the modern, cozy country kitchen, Sydney scrubbed at the pan Fink had used for their bacon and omelets.She hummed to herself as the birds chirped outside and Fink tended to something about cameras he had on the property.
While it looked like a rustic hunter’s cabin and even had that feel, Fink had a thousand and nine cameras set up watching the expansive property.Some would call him paranoid.Those people were obviously oblivious to what Fink did for a living.He needed to find out who was on his land before they knew they had ventured past the property lines.
Yesterday, a random hunter and his son strolled through his forest.Today, he went to check wires, solar panels, and whatever kept them going.Which left her alone in his house, and she’d never felt more comfortable in any space in her life.
Shimmying her hips, she wiped the towel over the skillet before she made her way over to the cabinet to store it.
Vrr.Vrr.
Putting it down, she furrowed her brows at the cell phone Fink had given her.Through the magic of technology she would never understand, he arranged it so that all the calls from her cell back at home would be routed to this one, but it’d be untraceable.He explained it.She hadn’t caught on to how it was possible but was delighted to have a lifeline to the outside world.
Vrr.Vrr.
Who the hell would want to get in touch with her, though?
Cautiously, as though it were a snake ready to strike at her, she glanced at the screen.No names.Only a number, and she’d never seen it before.
