“Mr Thorne.”
“Please call me Blake. And shall I call you…?” He dangles the invitation for me to give him my real name.
“Bunny.”
“Not Ms Killer?” he replies teasingly.
“That’s unnecessary, Blake.” Not having met any actual for-hire-killers, I channel Mrs Penworth, my childhood geography teacher.
“Isn’t it?” He sounds amused.
“This is just about the job,” I say primly.
“Mm. But it’s also an interview. Tell me about yourself.”
Right. Yes.
I really should have prepped more. I thought watching a few movies that had assassinations in them would do.
What should I say? Mrs Penworth won’t work for this.
“Sure,” I squawk.
“You’re an assassin?” he asks, as though that was in doubt.
“Yep.” I try to be cool. I swing my legs up onto my bed, and settle my back against the pillows. I’m chill.
“Go on then, how would you kill me, little bunny,” he croons.
He makes murder sound sexy. The filthy sort of sexy that I have zero experience with. No murder, no sex. The most exciting thing I’ve done is go to an aquarium and see a shark.
If the Norwood mafia boss were an animal, he’d be a shark.
My ears burn, and I make a wordless noise of agreement.
“I know assassins have preferred methods,” he muses.
More than I knew.
“Which would you use?”
Uh… Okay, I did think about this one.
“A gun.” It sounds plausible.
“Yeah? What’s your favourite piece?”
Peace? “They’re more dangerous than peaceful.”
He laughs, and it’s a wash of delicious heat over me.
“No piece. You’re a very deadly killer, Bunny. I get that.”
I can hear in his tone that he doesn’t believe it’s true, but he doesn’t sound annoyed, and it gives me confidence. The sort that isn’t natural to me.
“So how would you do it?” he asks, serious again. “Kill me, that is.”
I… He’s so casual about this. We’re discussing me attempting to murder him.
