Chapter Three
?
I might throw up.
Azalea
Let it be known: assassin people—or at the very least the people who hire the assassin people—are useless.
Last night, Junction seriously told me to seduce Malcolm.
That’s all he gave me to work with. Instead of providing drugs or weapons, he opted to provide stupidity.
Because I, Azalea Pastella, have never seduced anyone in my life.
After receiving that harrowing message, I spent my entire evening playing R-rated dating sims—which, for the record, I have never touched before.
My go-tos are softer, sweeter. Full of fantasy and princes and gentle moments.
Many of them don’t even have kissing on-screen that’s how tame I prefer my romantic fiction to be.
The whirlwind of dark romance that consumed my evening has left me jittery, scarred, and—for the first time since I agreed to murder—doubtful. If assassination as a woman involves seduction, I don’t think I’m cut out for it.
According to my highly educational research, there’s an awful lot of touching involved in seduction, and I do not do touch.
I have never done touch. Every last accidental brush in my life has resulted in my being stuck in the bathroom, scrubbing my skin off in a panic.
Which is why I now wear gloves. Everywhere except my home. Always.
My research led me to a simple conclusion: seduction is filthy.
And filthy is not on my resume.
“Azalea.”
I squeak, whirling upright at my desk, where I was absolutely not counting how many pairs of backup white gloves I have in an effort to calculate how many I might need to burn after a seduction effort.
Per usual, Malcolm stands before me in his jet-black attire with his fingers in his hair—which is one of the dirtiest parts of the body.
The only reason I have so much is because I can’t tolerate getting it cut or not being able to see it.
If my hair falls in my food, I need it to be two-feet long and glaringly obvious that it’s there.
I don’t even want to think about how much hair Malcolm has eaten in his lifetime, because the short strands aren’t even segregated to the top of his head. They’re on his face. Trim and neat but there. An ever-present collection of stubble shadowing his jawline.
Touching him aside, kissing him would be a nightmare.
His eyes narrow, and he gets closer.
Instinctively, I shrink, glancing at my crystal heart, hoping he won’t soil her again.
“I said, Azalea,” he murmurs.
“Yes, sir?” I whisper.
Straightening, he crosses his arms and peers down at me. “What’s wrong?”
What’s…wrong?
Malcolm has never asked me that before—probably because he’s normally the one causing everything wrong in my life. Presently, it’s no different, but considering I just got here and he’s not done anything to me yet, I bet he’s annoyed, thinking someone or something else has ruffled me first.
He strikes me very deeply as a man who is possessive with his toys.
Most monsters usually are.
“Nothing, sir.” I find the space to breathe. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”
A low hum rumbles in his chest, then he doesn’t even bother with a command. He merely flicks a finger at me, indicating I stand.
So I do.
“Come,” he states, so simply, and turns for his office.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I take a moment to fortify myself, then I follow him…into the abyss.
Despite the full wall of windows and the sunshine peeking through the clouds beyond them, everything in Malcolm’s office gulps light.
Black as ebony, the space feels like it’s trying to swallow me when he forgoes his desk to pass a water feature beside the seating area closer to the windows.
Anyone who doesn’t know better would assume the burbling water skating down the wall to trickle into the shallow pool below is oil.
Nothing exists in that water. Nothing can.
And just seeing it compels me to check my clothes for stains.
While I’m making certain no dark spots are on my skirt, Malcolm reclines on one of the velvet dark sofas and tosses his arm over the backrest. “You’ve been working for me for a little while now, haven’t you?” he asks.
Once I’m sure I’m clean, I fold my gloved hands against my skirt and dare to look up. “Yes, sir. Two years.” Two horrible years.
“Do you enjoy it?”
Enjoy it? It’s a job. You don’t enjoy jobs.
I say, “It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” because that much is true.
Here, I have my own space away from people.
Here, everything is clean. Even this place.
Because despite the fact I find Malcolm’s office unbelievably unsettling—and despite the fact I’m convinced it must be dirty since black can hide so much—at a glance, it’s perfectly clean and flawlessly orderly.
The entire building—from the lobby to this penthouse office—maintains flawless order and perfect cleanliness.
Furthermore, at this job, I’m not sharing a break room with people who might have touched my food.
Instead, I have a personal fridge where I keep my lunch right behind my desk, and in the breakroom, there isn’t a gamma-ray known as a microwave.
There’s an oven with a stove. And I’m given enough time on my break to heat what I bring properly and thoroughly.
Not to mention, all that doesn’t even scratch the surface of pay or benefits, which are both astronomical.
No matter how much I hate this man, there’s no question that this job is the best I’ve ever had.
Bending his elbow, he brushes his thumb over his lips, and I try not to think of where his hand has been or how many germs he’s just put near his mouth. “Sit.”
Carefully, I make my way to the other couch and wonder what is going on. Maybe he knows I accepted a job to kill him. Maybe he’s going to make me pay before I’m arrested…and sent to…prison.
Even assuming I believe that Junction’s corporation has any power, there’s no way they’d be able to intercept and intervene if Malcolm is already personally on to me.
Not only that, I’ve not been able to so much as attempt one murder yet.
They have no reason to bother wasting the time or resources to protect me.
A lump settles in my throat as the consequences for failure rear in the back of my head—spinning endlessly. If this organization that I have zero reason to trust can’t actually protect me, my life is going to turn bleak.
I need to commit to this job.
Or else.
Which means I need to commit to a seduction attempt.
Which means…I need to…not let my spirit exit my body at the mere idea of a seduction attempt.
Alas, the foolish thing slips free, tethered to me via a single, fraying string.
As a result, my spiraling brain shuts down.
Unbidden, Malcolm moves to sit beside me on my couch. My skin prickles in response to the foot of space between us.
He reaches, securing a lock of my hair and bringing it toward him. “What do you think of me?” he asks.
What…do I think…of a man who knowingly torments me every chance he gets just for the high? What does he mean? I hate him. Of course I hate him. Who wouldn’t hate him?
Oh dear.
There’s a wrench in the seduction attempt already, because he must know I hate him.
It’s not like he’s done a single thing that would make me feel differently.
He’s bullied me nearly every day for a full two years.
There’s no way he’s oblivious to my rather potently negative feelings for him.
I bet they make his twisted game of tormenting me all the more sweeter.
His abuse stinks of the unhealthy compulsion to control.
He must love knowing I hate him but obey him anyway.
He must love knowing I would gladly shove him off a building but still watch my tongue for the sake of business professionalism.
For the sake of business professionalism now, I say, “I…don’t think I understand the question.”
Holding my gaze, he kisses my hair. “Just say whatever comes to mind.”
Staring dead at my…kissed hair…I whisper, “I…don’t believe what’s coming to mind is…
work appropriate. Sir.” The second the words are out of my mouth, I freeze, because I forgot that I really, quite desperately, need to seduce and cleanly kill this man, for the sake of not ending up in prison.
And, here we are, inexplicably on a couch together while he’s touching me like a male lead in one of my dating sim games.
If there were any opportunity to pretend I don’t loathe him and have secretly been harboring anything other than abject abhorrence for him, this would be the perfect moment. Yet I immediately went and botched it.
Nevertheless, he whispers a curse and says, “I feel the same way.”
“Huh?” I breathe.
What?
He feels the same way?
What does that mean?
He also wants me dead?
He wishes it were possible for him to toss me in a basement and torture me for months until I’m a shell of what I once was and begging for a mercy I already know he’s not capable of possessing?
He’d get up early on a Thursday morning and sit out front as the trash people come round, purely so he could listen to the bones of my severed and bagged limbs crack in the compressor?
He hates me so vehemently that the emotion vibrates beneath his flesh—poised to destroy everything around him—whenever he’s not monitoring it and shoving it deep down into the pit of his toes?
If that’s the case…why in the world hasn’t he fired me yet?
Don’t tell me. Does he hate me in a make her suffer way, too, not a get her away from me one? If that’s the case, it makes so much of the past two years make sense.
Hating me would explain everything. Except for what I’ve done to deserve the hatred.
I’ve always strived to do my very best at my job. I’ve always come on time. I’ve never taken a minute over my breaks. Does he just hate me for the way I am? The things I can’t help? The way my brain tortures me? Can he hear my thoughts? Does he know how pathetic I am?