Chapter 10
Jiya
My hands are steady as I assemble the rifle. Each component clicks into place, a clean, mechanical sound in the pre-dawn quiet.
The roof access door was child’s play. Now, three stories up, the wind whips my hair across my face as I settle behind the concrete parapet. The cold seeps through my jeans.
It’s time to stop playing games. I have the perfect vantage point across from Calloway’s building, with clear sight lines to his front entrance.
I check my watch. According to my observations, Calloway leaves for his morning run at precisely 5:50.
Eight minutes.
I tear off another piece of the bread I snatched from last night’s leftovers and shove it in my mouth. It tastes like cardboard, but it’s something to do besides listen to my pulse.
Poison is my brand. It’s clean, it’s intimate, it’s personal. A rifle is…loud. And requires math. I really wanted it to be poison. To stare into his eyes while he knows I’m the one to eliminate him. But desperate times call for desperate long-range measures.
The steel of the rifle is a different kind of cold against my skin.
This isn’t the familiar routine of the range.
No paper targets, no resetting for the next shot.
There’s just the street below, the bruised sky, and the weight of the job in my hands.
I adjust the scope. The crosshairs settle on the entrance, clean and patient.
“One bullet and it’s done. Not that hard.”
Two years ago, I told the man behind the counter this was for protection. The lie tastes like ash in my mouth now. I always knew it would come to this.
A flicker of movement draws my eye to Calloway’s window. His silhouette passes behind the curtain. He’s awake, moving around inside. My finger slides to rest along the trigger guard.
The rifle scope is a keyhole into a world I was never meant to see. And the view is distracting as hell.
He’s shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants slung so low they defy gravity. He stretches, and the muscles in his back and shoulders ripple under smooth, pale skin. His hair is a mess, like he just rolled out of a warm bed.
My scope follows the lines of his torso as if they were drawn for this exact purpose, a map leading south. Down, down, to the sharp indentation of his hips and that infuriating V that disappears into the soft gray cotton.
A low, familiar heat pools in my stomach.
“Center mass,” I snarl to myself, forcing the crosshairs back up.
It’s obscene that a killer should wake up looking like that. The jaw, the cheekbones, the sleep-heavy eyes. My finger tightens on the trigger. He’s a monster. But the rest of my body isn’t listening. It’s humming with a current that has nothing to do with the kill.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I whisper to the empty air.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to reboot my brain. This is not happening. This is a biological error. Adrenaline and attraction are getting their wires crossed. My body has appalling taste in men.
I realign the scope with an angry jerk. He is a target. A piece of human garbage I must dispose of.
The wind picks up, catching a strand of my hair that’s escaped from my cap. I tuck it back, trying to focus on the mechanics of the shot rather than the man I’m about to kill. The distance. The bullet drop. The wind speed.
I position my cheek against the stock and even my breathing, just like my instructor taught me.
Calloway steps out in his running gear. Designer athletic wear that clings to his muscles.
I inhale, hold, exhale halfway. The crosshairs align with his chest.
A sudden, explosive flutter of wings erupts from my right.
It seems my dinner roll has summoned the local pigeon mafia. They descend in an avian flash mob, a swarm of winged rats.
One lands on my scope, tilting its head to stare at me with the cold, dead eye of a tiny, feathered loan shark.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I whisper, trying to wave it away without moving the rifle.
It coos, a sound I am certain is pigeon for, “Nice scope you got there. Be a shame if someone pooped on it.”
“Shoo! Get lost!” I whisper-yell, but more pigeons arrive by the second, having clearly sent out the bird equivalent of a group text about the free breakfast buffet.
It coos at me again.
Mockingly, I swear.
An entire squadron joins the party, settling on the concrete barrier, on my backpack, one brave soul even perching on the rifle barrel itself.
Through the chaos of wings and feathers, I catch a glimpse of Calloway through the scope.
Shit. He’s started his run, jogging down the sidewalk with that annoyingly perfect form.
I jerk the rifle, trying to track his movement while batting away what feels like the entire urban wildlife population of Boston.
“Oh, come on!”
My finger begins its final, steady squeeze on the trigger. The world narrows to the man in my scope.
I pull the trigger. A pigeon takes off.
The sudden shift and the frantic beat of its wings make me jerk the barrel upward by a fraction of an inch, a fraction of a second before the rifle kicks against my shoulder.
Instead of Calloway dropping to the pavement, there’s a massive crash from the building behind him. A stone gargoyle—one of those ridiculous architectural flourishes that pretentious buildings love—explodes in a shower of dust and debris.
Calloway stops mid-stride, spinning around to stare at the destruction. Even from here, I can see his confused expression as he tries to figure out what just happened.
I stare at the space on my rifle where the feathered menace used to be. Then, at the rubble across the street. Then back.
I cycle the bolt, chambering another round. He’s standing still now, a perfect target. All I have to do is adjust for the distance, account for the wind, and—
My finger freezes on the trigger.
He’s not running. He’s looking around with concern.
Just like a guy who’s confused about why gargoyles are spontaneously exploding during his morning jog.
“Shoot him,” I whisper to myself. “He’s right there. Just pull the fucking trigger.”
My hands shake. The crosshairs drift across his chest, over his face, back to his chest. I try to steady my breathing, but something’s wrong. Everything feels wrong.
Calloway moves again, but not jogging. He’s running back toward his building, probably deciding that exploding architecture is a sign to cut the run short.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I track him with the scope, but my finger won’t cooperate. It sits beside the trigger guard, useless.
He reaches his building’s entrance and pauses, looking back once more at the gargoyle debris. Then he disappears inside.
I lower the rifle, my whole body shaking now.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” I mutter, breaking down the weapon with jerky, frustrated movements.
I had him. Perfect shot. Clear line of sight. And I choked.
I stuff the disassembled rifle into my backpack with trembling hands, cursing under my breath. The early morning air feels colder, my skin prickling with goosebumps.
“You’ve killed seven men,” I remind myself, zipping the backpack with more force than necessary. “Seven.”
But not like this.
I’ve never pulled a trigger on another human being before. My method has always been seduction, not destruction. I create a persona, lure them in, gain their trust. I look into their eyes as they realize what is going to happen to them.
There’s no trust in a bullet from three stories up.
I stand, brushing pigeon feathers and rooftop grit from my clothes. My knees ache from kneeling so long, my muscles stiff and protesting.
“I’m just not a shooter.” I set the backpack over my shoulders. “That’s all it is.”
When I kill, I use my beauty, my charm, my intelligence. I use what makes me female against the men who think it makes me weak. I use their lust and their arrogance and their stupidity against them. I make them want me so badly they’ll drink anything I hand them.
I push through the door, moving down the stairwell as fast as I can. No security cameras in this ancient building—one of the reasons I chose it.
My breath steadies with each step down. By the third floor, my hands have stopped shaking.
“You’re a seducer, not a shooter,” I whisper, the words solidifying into certainty. “That’s your weapon. That’s how you’ll get him. Even if it takes longer.”
I need a new plan. A better one. One that gets me close enough to see his eyes.
I take one last glance across the street, a final survey of my failure.
And my blood runs cold.
He’s there. In his window. His gaze sweeps across the rooftops, street, methodical, searching.
And then it stops.
His eyes lock directly onto my position.
There’s no way he can see me, not really. I’m a small, dark shape in the shadows. But I swear, he’s looking straight at me.