“It was a big job, but I was emboldened by those images, and he claimed I was the only one he trusted to help him. There were eleven targets in a private room in a nightclub in Dubai, and I was in and out in less than three minutes, but …” It takes a beatfor me to confess how stupid I was, but this is how I got my start. “It was a setup.”
“Explain,” he demands.
There’s something other than his traditional domineering edge lacing that order. Something darker. Maybe judgment. Of all the things I’ve done, my first job is still the worst.
“I wasn’t killing traffickers. He had me kill his client.”
Eleven deaths that weren’t mine to bestow. They weren’t good men, not innocents by any means. I couldn’t find much about their connection to one another—a bunch of businessmen involved in duplicitous affairs that seemed unconnected to them as a group. Some of them did have relationships with known traffickers, but I wasn’t convinced they were less deserving of life than I was. I can still see the hazel eyes of my final shot—the only one I chose to hold.
Axel swirls the cognac in his snifter without a single word, staring at the amber liquid before swallowing it and my admission. Maybe any chance I had at him trusting me just got devoured.
“You were a pawn?” he finally asks.
“Yes. He was essentially a double agent. He wanted out of his contract, so he made a deal with a rival of his client. He’d kill the entire board employing him and, in turn, be let go. But they had another stipulation. They wanted him to do a few other jobs before he was completely free. Knowing that sort of thing snowballs, he sold them on the idea of an asset better than him and completely unknown. He gave me the heavy lifting on the mission. They saw me in action, and that was that. They owned me. If I didn’t do the other jobs for them, they’d kill me.”
His jaw clenches, and even with his more relaxed attire and his homey personal space, he appears positively lethal. “Where is the man you wereinvolvedwith?”
He almost sounds jealous with that inquiry, which is absurd because that was ten years ago. His irritation with me having drinks with Cash made more sense, though nothing about this evening is particularly tangible, so I’m at a loss.
I hitch a shoulder, feigning aloofness that doesn’t really apply here while ingesting a sip of the Cabernet. “He disappeared.”
“And how did your father respond?” His tone is even, but nearly all the blue has retreated from his eyes.
A chill skitters through me, similar to the eerie trepidation that ensnared me the day he whistled on the Riverwalk. It’s not fear of him, but rather an awareness of his formidability.
Still, I maintain as much pragmatism as I can muster. “He told me that every choice has a consequence and that this life was mine. He wasn’t wrong. I rode out my contract with that rival client. He and Tripp—my brother—helped so we could knock it out quickly. Then I chose to become the best, to see the work for what it was, to concentrate on jobs that made the biggest difference. One stone.”
“One stone?”
I glance at the city lights surrounding his private suite in the sky, abundantly aware of how Axel and I both serve the underworld, but from drastically different positions. He has people who want him dead, but a fortress and an army protecting him. As an assassin, if you aren’t killing, you’re the next mark. Sitting in Axel Noire’s gilded kingdom, my options are limited. I remain his captive, betray him, or die when I leave here.
Sadly, none of those include me crawling into his lap.
Shaking that off, I answer him. “It’s something my father says—a play on thatkill two birds with one stonesaying. Our stone isn’t used to kill two birds. We kill one to save another. Every life taken is a life saved. One stone.”
Stone being my father’s name—a name he refused to relinquish—sprinkles our mantra with his victor-mentality conceit, but I don’t share that.
Axel walks to the bar, pouring himself more cognac. “And did your father handle the rogue asset who had conned you and disappeared?”
“No,” I respond to his back, noting the way his shirt stretches taut across it and recalling how chiseled it looked that day in the gym. A flush creeps over my cheeks. “We never act out of anger. It muddies the waters. Vengeance only leads to more vengeance.”
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hurt that my father hadn’t been more outraged on my behalf, but it’s what makes him an indomitable warrior. I can’t fault him for that.
“Of course,” Axel agrees, returning to his seat with a subtle tic in the back of his jaw that he can’t conceal. “What was the assassin’s name?”
I huff a mirthless laugh. “You know I can’t give you that.”
He lounges in his chair again, manspreading and owning the room with his feigned nonchalance. “That’s not the type of person I would permit to reap the benefits of my services. I need the name to blacklist him from here. That’s not vengeance. That’s good business.”
“Well, you don’t need to worry about that. He lives a quiet life in some secluded town in—I don’t even know—Montana or Wyoming or something. He’s been out of the game since I entered it.”
He spins his luck on his watch—something I think he does to regroup—before his probing leer lifts to me. “Living off the millions he made from that job, no doubt.”
I finish my wine in a single swill, growing antsy. “Probably.”
“But you like what you do now?”
“I think that’s enough air clearing for one night. I should go.” I stand, deliver my glass to the sink in the bar, and head toward the door. “Your family—what you’ve built here—is truly amazing. Thank you for letting me be a part of it tonight.”
