Chapter 25
Carelessness was dangerous. Caring was worse.
Darius slipped out early the next morning, feeling like a traitor. His secrets usually sat well-behaved in the back of his mind. They shouldn’t hammer his ribs, clamoring to escape.
The night’s sleep hadn’t helped. James stayed up too late glued to his surveillance resources, trying to find when and where Terry removed the tracking device. They hadn’t expected it to go unnoticed forever, but figuring out the exact circumstances was important.
Kit stayed up waiting for James, and Holden stayed up waiting for Kit. Darius stayed up ruminating over his own thoughts. Trying not to act as distant as he felt.
The others should all be sleeping in, unless James got restless. Darius was grateful to escape the house without a conversation. He needed space to think.
But vanishing without explanation would lead to questions, so Darius stopped at his car to text the household group chat.
Darius: I’m out to finish clearing the apartment. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.
Wincing, Darius got into his car. For fuck’s sake. They had a household group chat. How had he fucked up this bad? Carelessness was dangerous. Caring was worse.
All the way back to his apartment, Darius stayed alert. He noted every driver, passenger, and pedestrian, looking for a woman with blond hair and spiraling geometric tattoos.
But if she was actually nearby, Darius would never see her coming.
He had recognized the fifth person in the scrapbook photos. Her face out of context was sharp as a razor.
Felicity Carrow. His mentor. The woman who taught him everything he knew about killing for coin.
Darius had always known she had other projects. Training an eighteen-year-old assassin was just a side hobby. She always held him at arm’s length.
Part of Darius had resented the distance. He wanted to prove himself—a born overachiever, craving a good grade in assassination.
Part of him was grateful for it. Eventually, when he’d earned enough, when he’d met enough challenges, Darius always knew he would want out. Bailing got harder the higher you climbed.
Apparently, Felicity’s main gig was Rat King.
There was no doubt in Darius’s mind. Felicity wasn’t a follower.
If she was involved, she was at the top.
Her partnership with Nazario made sense—a killer collaborating with a businessman.
Cutting Evelyn Zhou out of the deal made sense, too.
Two CEOs at the top were redundant. Felicity always hated redundancy.
“The Rat Kings are good at cleaning up actual evidence,” James had said. That was definitely true for Felicity. Sketchy vibes were the only way to pick her out of a crowd. James had lucked out having Holden the psycho savant on the case.
Maybe it wasn’t luck. Maybe it would be better not to solve this crime.
Darius’s stomach twisted as he neared his apartment. The timeline cut deep. When Darius met Felicity, James’s family was already dead. One of James’s targets had lurked behind Darius’s shoulder the whole time they’d been friends.
Did Felicity carry out the execution personally? Or did she use her puppets? Trained killers like Darius, who paid for their education with favors.
Darius parked on the street, then checked his phone. There were replies from Kit in the group chat fifteen minutes ago.
Kit: no good morning kiss???
Kit: i’m fine tho, james is blowing me right noqwwe
Followed by a new reply from James just two minutes ago.
James: Kit says he’s glad you’re gone :) because Holden and I are evil bastards :) and he knows you wouldn’t help him anyway :)
Darius couldn’t help grinning, his fondness bittersweet amidst his secrets. He typed back: tell him I’ll be back to torture him later.
After a dozen grinning emojis from James arrived, Darius headed into the building. Maybe running out of the house wasn’t the right move. The sight of Felicity’s face had spooked him bad, but what he needed was grounding. Perspective.
Nothing had changed. And it was hypocritical to accuse James of recklessness, then hide the moment he learned something important.
Darius sighed, laughing at himself. He was already in the building, so he may as well inspect the apartment and make sure all evidence of his illicit occupation was cleaned up. Couldn’t be too careful. Then he would turn around and tell the others everything. Should probably call Bishop over, too.
This wasn’t just Darius’s past anymore. He didn’t have the right to keep it from James. It would be a difficult conversation, but he’d survive.
As long as they kept James away from the firearms.
But when he reached his apartment, Darius’s blood froze. The door wasn’t locked.
Someone had been here, and they wanted him to know that.
Reflex put his gun in his hand. A glance around the hall showed nothing else amiss. Trusting his own speed and instinct, Darius shoved the door open. It swung against the wall with a crack.
No other sound or movement. Darius slipped into the room, gun poised, to find everything as he left it. All the personal effects cleared out. Just a few items of furniture he wasn’t keeping.
Guard up, Darius searched the apartment. It was a familiar, thorough pattern, taking him through the office and bedroom. The balcony made a more difficult—but still possible—point of entry and escape.
The pattern ended in the kitchen. Darius smelled it before he entered the room, but the sight was still jarring.
A corpse sat in his kitchen, bound to a dining room chair.
Darius exhaled slowly. The angle of the man’s neck meant he didn’t have to check for a pulse. Darius took the time to finish his inspection—no ambush waiting in the pantry. Then he backtracked to secure the front door and balcony.
Only then did he return to assess the dead man.
Three fingers recently missing from the left hand. Two from the right. The fatal blow was probably the gunshot to his chest. No blood on the floor, and no smell of disinfectants. The man was tortured and killed somewhere else, then staged here after death.
His face was untouched. White man in his thirties with floppy brown hair. Decidedly ordinary, but the sight spiked Darius’s pulse even higher than the unlocked door.
Terry. The man James was searching for was dead in Darius’s kitchen.
An unfamiliar phone rang.
The cheap burner phone sat on the counter, where Darius’s coffeemaker used to sit. Darius picked it up, dread mingling with strange nostalgia. This was how Felicity always assigned jobs, or as she called it, asked favors.
Though usually just with the burner phone, no accompanying body.
Darius picked up on the third ring and said nothing.
After a beat of silence, Felicity’s whiskey-smooth voice poured over the line. “Hope you’ve been well. I have one final favor to ask.”
Darius’s grip tightened. Months ago, he would have relished hearing that. Felicity was true to her word, whatever her other faults. If she said this was the last job, she meant it.
“Thought you were going to hold that over me forever,” Darius said, a smile in his voice. “Aren’t I your favorite student?”
“Even my favorite has to graduate someday.” Her familiarity was always a threat. “After this favor, you’ll never hear from me again. I’ll forget your sister’s address—and that boy you’ve been messing around with.”
Darius concentrated on analysis, not guilt. He could beat himself up for carelessness after he handled this. “Laying it on a little thick. How bad is this job?”
“Well within your abilities,” Felicity said, the flattery unnecessary. “Your friend put a tracking device on an acquaintance of mine. That’s the man sitting in your kitchen right now.”
Goddammit, James. “I see he’s learned his lesson about letting someone track him.”
“As have his colleagues.” Felicity sighed. “However, I don’t appreciate such rude behavior from the Zhou boy, either.”
Goddammit, James.
“You want me to kill James Zhou,” Darius said, still holding onto his calm.
“Will that be any trouble?” Felicity asked. Her politeness was another threat.
She knew where Miranda lived. She knew about Kit.
She knew Darius. Every dark contour of his mind, from the time he was a teenager desperate for money and control. She knew that she could leash him with the few people he cared about.
Other people’s lives were incidental.
“Frankly, he’s more trouble alive,” Darius said, letting his own smile bleed back into his voice.
“I knew I could count on you, dear.”
Darius turned away from Terry’s rigid corpse, scanning the rest of the room. Finding nothing. Most of his arsenal was already moved into the new house. All Darius had was what he had on his person and in his car—and as much time as he could haggle for. “I need seventy-two hours to stage this.”
“I know it’s a complicated job,” Felicity said warmly. “You have twenty-four.” The phone beeped as she hung up.
Darius exhaled, his mind cold. Panic settled into well-worn grooves of necessity.
Twenty-four hours had to be enough.