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The main house comes into view first. Everything else, like the smaller properties, is built around it, but nothing overshadows it. To the left, there is the medical wing. Fully stocked. Surgical-grade equipment, independent power supply, no paper trail. The medical staff I have on hand know it’s in their best interest to shut the fuck up.

To the right, the training facility. Reinforced concrete, steel framing, soundproofed interior. I love to train there, which I’m going to do later tonight. Then, behind it, there is the pool. Temperature-controlled. Filtered daily. Useless, technically—but it keeps the staff occupied when there’s nothing else to maintain.

I park and step out.

Four employees live on-site. Permanent rotation: a doctor, two security specialists, and one for maintenance and logistics. The men and women on-site are the most loyal employees, and I would trust them with my life.

Even though there are employees who guard the estate in shifts, I am the scariest thing you will find here.

The front door unlocks before I reach it. Inside, everything is exactly where it should be. It always is. Meticulous planning and design were the key elements in building this fortress of protection and solitude. My parents built this estate years ago, and I perfected it.

I greet the employees and retreat into my main study. The room is nothing fancy, and no warmth is detected. While this is my favorite room by far, I am realistic about it. It’s a space that’s entirely my own and where I conduct my business. The light from outside spills across the desk, where my two computers run side by side. Surveillance, data, movement––everything feeds through them. Everything else you will find in here is for tactical purposes–a dresser with some of my clothes, two chairs, and a closet with guns and knives.

Gray, bleak, and mine.

Every day at 7 p.m. on the dot I check the feed from what my camera’s picked up that day. I look at every single frame to see if my eyes can catch something that should not be there. My controlling demeanor wasn’t always as strong as it is now; I was a carefree child and teenager once. And I owe it all to my parents.

Kanita and Leon met twenty-eight years ago, and it was an epic love story. My father had a cover job as a successful restaurant owner, and my mother started working as his head chef. They knew of each other’s real jobs, because they both did it. My father was a quiet killer, and his thing was close combat; my mother, on the other hand, was more sly. She was a master burglar and loved to poison her subjects before cutting their tongues off. Their marriage was arranged in the first instance, but they quickly fell in love after that. My mother loved my father, and she was his whole world. His happiness depended on how content she was. If she wasn’t happy, he wasn’t either.

Two years after they got married, I was born. My childhood was filled with laughter, trips, and love. Until the age of ten, I didn’t know about my parents’ other ventures. They sat me down and told me the baseline of it–they help the world get rid of bad people. At that time I didn’t know what they meant, but they promised me that they would tell me when I was sixteen. While my knowledge was limited to what they shared, they did start training me. I got enrolled in fighting classes, and that’s when shit hit the fan. They wanted to wait until I was older to tell me the truth, but they realized that I wasn’t like other children. I excelled in school and in my fighting classes–I was called a prodigy.

The teachers at my old high school in Sarajevo told my parents I was intelligent, to the point where they took my advice on how to structure activities at school. My parents noticed that I was exceeding expectations, and they were proud of me, but they were also afraid for me. A person like me was on track to become one of the deadliest weapons in this industry, and the other vultures would have wanted to pick me up so they could recruit me. Or even kill me.

My father had a notorious reputation in the industry, and so did my mother, and he went to events like weddings and stuff to keep up that image. But they never brought me with them, even though other parents did. When I turned twelve, my parents had a heart-to-heart conversation with me, and that’s when I started to see the cracks in what they led me to believe before. They were honest about the fact that they were assassins, and when I asked them why I never came to those events with them, a bombshell was dropped onto me.

Nobody knew I existed.

My parents had kept me hidden as they wanted to protect me from the harm of the industry. What didn’t leave their minds was that I needed to be trained in case of an emergency. A desire for me to work in this dark underworld was not something they had, but they left that choice to me. When ‘the talk’ happened, it was made known to me that I needed to relocate my education to Switzerland, partly because of the infinite danger this city holds, and mainly because of my education. If I stayed in Sarajevo, I would have gotten bored, and my true potential would never have shone through. Switzerland, where my aunt lived, offered a high-level education completed with total anonymity. I obtained my high school degree from Espoir International School and my college degree from Valmont Institute.

You have Ivy League schools, and then you have Valmont Institute. This college was not intended for every student; no, it was for the super-rich and the most intelligent people alive. The acceptance rate is below one percent, and I got in. My parents visited as much as they could, and while I missed them immensely, I knew why I was there. Living with my aunt was great, as she cared for me, but my parents were everything to me. I fed off how much they loved each other, and I knew I wanted that someday. But dreams are not made for me; nightmares are.

“Hands on the tiles.”

Nope. I’m not going there.

“Lana, have you got a second?” Emin asks me as he walks into my study. He is the only one who is permitted to do that.

“Yes,” I say in a slightly high-pitched voice, welcoming the intrusion before my thoughts wander off where they shouldn’t. He takes a seat and brings out a folder labeled Armory. Great, no time like the present to talk about the toys we use to kill people.

Every week, Emin and I have a meeting about the armory. It is the second most important place to me, after this estate, for the reason that almost all of our weapons are there. We talk about the inventory, what else we need to order, and if we need to put more guards there.

“The guys there told me we are low on RPGs, but everything else is well-stocked,” he informs me. I make a note in my calendar to follow up on that first thing in the morning.

“Good.” I keep my voice even. When I look at Emin, he has his legs and arms crossed while his face is void of any emotion. I sigh, like he’s inconveniencing me more than intimidating me.

“Let’s talk about the elephant in the room since you are hellbent on staying quiet about it.” So, that’s why he has his briefs in a twist. I blow out a raspberry and flip him off.

He tries to sound calm. “We need to discuss what happened in that basement with you and Noa.”

“He was on his knees, then he was not. He had his hands around my throat because he wanted to kill me, but he did not. Then he left. End of story,” I fire off at him. He leans forward and puts his hands between his knees.

“Are you going to keep deflecting?” Not this shit again. I stretch my legs out, making it look like I couldn’t care less.

I drag my eyes up to his. “If you’re trying to scare me into talking, it’s not working.” I pause, jaw tightening. “Drop it.”

“Fine. I’ll retreat to my wing. But don’t think that I’m going to let you walk away from–”

“Lana!” Emin is interrupted by an employee who just barges into the room. I stand up and put my hands firmly on the desk.