Vent.
Setting my champagne flute on the toilet-paper dispenser, I easily pull off the vent and obtain a bag with a gun, a silencer, an extra magazine, a jet-black wig, and clothes. It takes about thirty seconds to change into the sleek black uniform, switch wigs, and discard my brunch attire. I keep the gun—a Sig Sauer P226—at my back, leave through a different exit out of the employee changing area, and skulk down a spiral staircase to the club.
No one pays much attention to me when I enter. It’s a business luncheon, so of course the lighting is dim and most of the men have nearly naked women in their laps. Sinners, married to the saints upstairs. There’s no better cover than a prim-and-proper wife and a post-Mass deep dive into biblical vantage points. One asshole barks a drink order at me while burying his nose in some barely legal cleavage, so I tell him I’ll be back in a minute.
Smoke, sex, and ghastly cologne pollute the air. “She Talks to Angels” blares from the sound system, so conversations are drowned by the strumming guitar and raspy crooning of The Black Crowes. Disorder is an excellent disguise. The entrance to the private room is past the emergency exit and behind the bar, concealed from the chaos of the Sunday brothel and manned by a guard. I expected two.
Before the big oaf registers that I’m not here to see if he’d like a refreshment or a lap dance, I lodge a bullet between hiseyes. He drops, but the counterpart I was anticipating returns to his post. I sense him before I see him, spinning and landing an elbow on his temple. He grunts in response and proceeds to get a hand on my throat, squeezing the breath out of me, but I shoot him up through his groin. He folds, melting into the ground as I gasp for air.
Not only am I covered in blood, but I have less than three minutes, so I don’t waste a single second. I swing open the door and take four swift shots at the men dressed in three-piece suits and heinous ambitions. All but one of the targets flop to the floor. He requires a second bullet, which I extend as I bolt toward him.
His cold eyes widen, latching on to mine, before he joins his comrades. That connection is sacred and not one I take for granted. Life is a gift, but death is the ultimate equalizer. Regardless of class, race, religion, occupation, upbringing, moral philosophy, sins committed, or heroic acts, it will find us. Being the one to bestow it is both a burden and an honor. I’m not always afforded the time, but whenever I can hold their gaze during their last breath, I’m grateful for that treasure—something only we share. In that second, I hope that wherever their soul is headed, it does better there.
I retrieve the phone from the suit with a blue handkerchief, grab an empty drink off the table, and trek back out the way I came, stepping over the bodies. The bartender casts a perplexed expression at me, likely noting I am not one of the people he’s been working with today, so I sling the glass across the bar top.
“Jim Beam and Coke.”
He nods just as there’s a scream. Someone found the guards. Before anyone snaps into action, I dash through the emergency exit and jump into Tripp’s Subaru.
“More than a minute to spare.” He grins, racing ahead.
He’s happy. The last assassin he sent in for this guy’s phone was compromised and killed. That’s never easy. Plus, Tripp’s ass was on the line, and he’s been chasing his tail for two weeks. This meeting was impromptu, thus my need to drop everything I was doing to hop on the jet he’d sent for me.
“It was seamless.” I toss the phone into the cupholder and tear off my wig, my mahogany locks tumbling down to curtain my shoulders.
A cursory peek in the visor mirror reveals choking marks, so I dig through the console and pluck some cover-up from the contingency pouch. It contains various small solutions to common post-killing problems.
“You’re pouting,” he accuses while I use a baby wipe to clean some blood off my face and hands—that might’ve been why the bartender looked at me funny—and slap on some concealer to hide the bastard’s fingerprints on my flesh. “You get in and out with few issues and time to spare, with no prep work. You’re the best. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“I’m not sure what I want.” I shrug, zipping up the pouch in favor of staring out the window.
The blur of one block fades into the next until we’re heading for that picturesque point where the mountain spears the clouds.
“Is this some sort of …” He can hardly muster the end of his question, but I wait him out, knowing what he’s getting at and eager to hear the traces of vomit in the inquiry. “Guilt reaction?”
I laugh, though my eyes stay planted on the simpler life we’re leaving in our dust. “Let’s hope not. It’s a little late for that.”
“Okay.” Worry thickens the air, so he attempts some encouragement, reminding me of our essential mindset. “Those monsters run a trafficking ring and do business with countless other pimping assholes and drug cartels.”
This is the same bullshit I’m always fed, and truth be told, I don’t need it. I’m not taking the lives of innocents. We live by acode. It’s evil with honor. I’m by no means a hero, but I’m only a villain if you’re Satan. Or if you have a beer with him. That’s the hardest truth. Not everyone we kill is the absolute devil. Some are guilty by association. And some aren’t a lot different from us—willing to kill for the right price. Or chained to a life they aren’t sure they want.
“It’s Dad,” I finally admit, twirling a strand of my hair around my finger until the skin whitens with outrage and I drop it. “He’s been prepping me for that job in Kazakhstan. I met the guy last month. He’s all right.” I clench my fist, tired of filtering my authentic opinions. “That’s a lie. He’s gross. I’ll be playing his wife indefinitely. Maybe years.”
“I thought you wanted that.” He flicks his blinker on, careening toward an on-ramp, and his taut judgment coils around me like a noose. “Not him, but the opportunity.”
“I wanted to be respected, to be someone who’s valued,” I concede, but I’m cognizant he won’t completely grasp that, so I add, “as much as the top hitters at our camp.”
“Well, that’s it, Zar. That’s the job of all jobs, the pinnacle of trust.”
“Yeah, but …” I huff, desperate for my big brother right now, not a colleague, not my handler, not someone who envies the jobs I’ve earned. “It’s like saying goodbye to everything that’s me. I’ll disappear inside that role.” I twist toward him, imploring him to shoulder the weight of all I’m suggesting. “Don’t you ever just realize how fragile life is? Take the deserving part out of it, the part where we play executioner to those who warrant that punishment. Everything can be extinguished in a second. Our breaths are numbered. That doesn’t ever wake you up?”
He stares at the highway, unable to look me in the eye when he steamrolls over my confession. “We’ll be here when you get back.”
“No, you won’t,” I hiss, throwing my arm in the air, my nose burning with the tears I refuse to let fall. “Not really. And neither will I. None of us will be the same. No contact with any of you, other than check-ins. A loveless marriage. Endless kills for a nameless boss. I won’t get an explanation for why someone is my mark. You and Dad have spoiled me with that. I’m the best, but the most naive. And maybe I want to stay that way.” The sincerity of my next statement clogs my throat, but still, I manage to expel it. “I might have the skill to survive that job, but I’ll die there anyway.”
He says nothing for five minutes, driving in silence that translates to those final moments before a jury delivers a verdict while I clamp my eyes shut and rest my head against the seat.
“So …” He clears his throat, betraying his conflict. “What can I do?”
