I slide out my work phone to find three text messages and five missed calls waiting for me—all from John.
John:What the actual fuck, Nadia?
John:Call me back! Now!
John:We are both in deep shit. Call me.
I don’t call him.
I hurry down the stairs, scramble to the kitchen to find coffee already made. When I yank open the door to the garage, it’s empty—shiny concrete, Brian’s BMW gone.
“Damn it.” I stayed out late and then slept in, something I never do. He’s gone off to work unprotected. A sinking feeling in my stomach tells me I’ve failed.
Not to mention the whole part where I killed her—or ratherthe monsterkilled her. And not as specified by the contract.
Back upstairs, I text Ian:Don’t suppose you’re following Brian?
He doesn’t reply.
I fly around the house, yanking a gun from the biometric safe behind the refrigerator, checking every entrance, making sure each window is still shut and locked tight. Then back upstairs I go, entering my hidden room, checking a different monitor—one with infrared cameras aimed around the house. There are trees, bushes, bamboo, a shed. I might not be able to see someone out there looking in, maybeaimingin—but this camera can pick up their heat signature.
“Mama?” Eliza’s voice through the baby monitor. She’s searching the house for me. Crap.
I slip from my hidey-hole and speed through the motions of the morning, only breathing easy when the girls are dropped off at their private school fifteen minutes late. They’re safe there, I remind myself. It’s where the children of CEOs go, with high levels of security. I didn’t pick their school solely for the academics.
But then I’m left with myself. Back at home, I text Brian:How’s your morning going? Where are you? Want me to drop off coffee?
It’s a ruse. I just want him to answer and to know where he is so I can follow him and play bodyguard.
Another text on my work phone.
John:Call me right now, I’m serious!
I hiss a sigh through my teeth. Andher.That womanwho entered Jennifer Patrick’s apartment last night, who did not play the long game and figure out the right moment, the right place, to make it look the way it was supposed to—like anaccident.
My breath comes out sharp.
I totally fucked up.
The monster took over for a single night, and in just a few hours, I put everything on the line. It’s a problem, a big one—if this is what being without Brian will do to me, I can already envision the future: It involves prison, even death row. My girls with their aunt or uncle, my aging parents, or worse, foster care. Years of missing our home, our family, regretting ever asking for this bigger job that has royally fucked my life.
I dial John.
When he answers, there is no video game soundtrack in the background. It feels foreboding.
“What did you do?” he asks, deadly quiet.
“What didyoudo?” I bite back. “I asked for a big contract and you gave it to someone else?”
A pause. “I did not, Nadia. But we need to talk about last night. What happened with the pharmacist?”
I take a breath. “I screwed up.”
“No shit. You don’t kill the guy you’re supposed to, and then you fail to make your other hit look like an accident. It’s your freaking specialty, Nadia. What were you thinking?”
My father would take this moment to say something likeYou weren’t thinking, were you?And I wasn’t, becauseshewas.
Jenniferstayedin the shower, bled out there, cried for help as the monster whispered,This is for all the souls you took, as though she were the grim fucking reaper, pissed off that Jennifer was doing her job for her.
