Chapter Three
A noise jolts me awake at five a.m. on the dot.
My hand flies to the gun in the small biometric safe strapped beneath the bed frame, but when I hear it again, I stop and look over to see my husband fast asleep—snoring.
My alarm will go off in another ten minutes, but of course I’m now wide awake.
It’s May, which means the air is already hot and thick with humidity, even at this early hour.
But it’s also beautiful. The moon shines bright overhead, and I leave my headlamp off, loping down our residential street to a trail system.
I want to breathe easy, to enjoy it; this is supposed to be my me time. But there’s a full day ahead—
Pharmacy
PTA breakfast to prep for
Plan the perfect way to kill my next mark
—and maybe a sick child to cart around through all of it.
I haven’t always killed. I didn’t start until I was seventeen, actually.
I could jokingly blame Piper. Or rather, her college boyfriend.
I never liked him, but when I showed up to visit during her junior year and found her cornered, naked, in the communal shower of her dormitory, him screaming at her for not answering his texts, demanding to know if she was cheating on him—it obviously put me on high alert.
When she had a fractured jaw and came home from college lying about it a week later, I knew what had to be done.
Some might say it was an overreaction. He’d yelled at her, hit her a time or two. Did he deserve to die for that?
Fifty-five percent of female homicides in the United States are committed by intimate partners. So yes. He did. He did deserve to get too drunk and freeze to death on a rare twenty-degree night in Texas. In fact, I’d say I let him off easy.
It wasn’t hard. Who would suspect Piper’s little sister, skinny and awkward with braces? Convincing him to come with me had been the easy part—Piper had a surprise for him, I said, a suggestive gleam in my eye as I led him on a path through the woods.
It was also easy to offer him booze spiked with propranolol, a heart medicine that lowers the heart rate and blood pressure.
The drug kept him from regulating his body temperature, and I’d known it was unlikely to be tested for.
Sneaking the medicine from Gran’s medicine cabinet had been too easy.
The alcohol, overproof rum that got him drunk faster than he expected, exacerbated the effects.
His death appeared to be an accident—a college student who’d had too much to drink, passed out on a chilly night in January beneath some bushes, and wasn’t found until it was too late. Sad, but hardly remarkable.
The biggest problem was Piper—her shock. Maybe her suspicion.
Or perhaps I imagined it, and the way she stared at me, wide-eyed and accusatory, was merely a symptom of grief.
I sprint down a hill and cross into a green field surrounded by spiraling oak trees; a small, picturesque wooden bridge; and an elevated worship space where yogis like to practice.
Technically, I’m on the property of a church, but their grounds are beautiful, with a majestic view of the sunrise over downtown.
They welcome everyone, and though I’m not the slightest bit religious—how do you account for people like me in the eyes of their god?
—I appreciate the meditative space they provide for anyone who wants it.
Dirt trails and rock staircases, fountains and rosebushes.
This property must be half a dozen acres, and they maintain it for anyone who needs peace.
But I don’t need peace. I don’t feel bad about what I do.
John said the package would be delivered this morning, the one that tells me how to find my next mark.
He assured me it was a VBP, or very bad person.
While my moral code might be a bit loose, I won’t kill just anyone because some rando wants them dead.
I have to feel like the world is a better place without them.
It’s how I stay in control, how I keep myself from killing any person who catches my attention.
They are prey; I am a predator. It’s simple math without any rules, and so I have embraced the guidelines my grandmother gave me. They’ve gotten me this far.
Up on the overlook, I find a stone bench settled between two thick-trunked trees and prop my leg up to stretch my hamstrings. Somewhere, an owl hoots. A mosquito buzzes near my ear. But still, the world feels quiet. Until it doesn’t.
I sense him before he speaks, that energy that only living beings carry, an essence that goes out like a flame extinguished when you end their life. He doesn’t make a sound, no twigs snapping beneath his shoes or heavy breathing. Just the realization I’m no longer alone.
I don’t reach for my gun.
Ian might enjoy killing, but I’m not on his hit list. Besides, we genuinely like each other. Neither of us can say that about many people.
“Good morning.”
“It is a good morning. What a view.” He sidles up beside me, gaze fixed on the narrow strip of orange sunrise, and touches a hand to my shoulder in greeting. Beside me, Bear growls a warning, ever the protective running partner.
I don’t look Ian’s way, not yet. I settle into his presence, his company. It’s a unique camaraderie that we share, being the same sort of different in a world that doesn’t recognize or understand us. And if it did, would be all the more terrified.
There’s also the fact that for him to be here means he followed me.
Which means I’m followable. I should have noticed I had a tail.
When I do glance at his face, he peers back with his familiar amber eyes, long nose, pronounced cheekbones.
He’s more interesting to look at than handsome, and yet, I like his face.
Ian’s a friend, a colleague, and the only other assassin I’ve ever met.
We did our first job together twelve years ago, back when we were both new on the scene.
He helped me fill some gaps in my knowledge—after all, I was fresh out of college.
I didn’t really know what I was doing. I’d like to blame the pull I feel toward him on the fact that we were both in our twenties when we met, high on the reality we could literally work as assassins instead of toiling away behind a desk for the rest of our lives.
But it’s not that. It’s plain and simple attraction, like-minded people who are genuinely drawn to one another—physically and otherwise—who’ve never gone there, never tested those waters.
Who never will, for that matter. Beyond the fact that it would obviously interfere with our ability to work together, I’m happy with my husband, happy in my family—I won’t let anyone threaten that.
Thankfully, in all the years we’ve known one another, we’ve gotten better at ignoring it.
Instead, we meet randomly and talk through the wild, unexpected moments from our best jobs.
Sometimes, we grab a beer down on the River Walk and catch up.
And on rare occasions, we go to his weapon store, a ten-foot-by-twenty-foot storage unit that holds guns and knives and weaponry I can’t even name—one of half a dozen he has strategically placed throughout the country—and pull out guns to take to the shooting range.
Like anyone with a calling, we have fun immersing ourselves in the tools of our trade.
And always, always, I am honest with him, honest like I can be with no one else.
When you’re living a lie—even a partial one—it’s a relief to have someone you can tell the raw truth. I’m pretty sure he feels the same.
“What’s the occasion?” I ask. Though we text regularly, Ian doesn’t come around just to socialize.
Twelve years ago, after that long weekend spent killing three mobsters, we went our separate ways and only see each other a couple times a year.
Whenever he’s coming through San Antonio, or if we happen to get the rare opportunity to do a job together.
It’s safer that way, but I miss him in between visits, crave our easy conversation.
“Job.” He shrugs his big shoulders. “Want to walk?”
“I’m actually out for a run.” I look at him pointedly.
He cracks a grin. “Okay. Want to run, then?”
We take off at an easy jog. I’m tempted to sprint ahead, to see how long he can keep up or if he can outrun me.
I smirk at the thought but don’t do it. If he’s found me here, in the wee hours of the morning, with no one else around, it’s because he wants to really talk.
This isn’t a social call, it’s a work one, and Ian takes our business very seriously.
“How’s work?”
“It’s good.” I consider. “Really good.”
“And life?” His gaze searches mine. There were about two seconds during that job twelve years ago when I wondered what a life with him would be like.
Someone who knows who I truly am, what I am, because he is the same.
Someone who understands how my mind works, that I can kill people without being a complete monster in every aspect of my life.
At the time, I held off due to professionalism, and honestly, being unsure how he felt—I didn’t want to ruin our friendship.
Then I met Brian and realized I could have a normal life, like my mom and dad, and my siblings too. At least, normal on the surface.
I suspect Ian and I would have ended terribly. We may be drawn to one another, but if he’s dynamite, then I’m the spark. It would have been fun and exciting—until we both ended up dead. But still, he gets me in a way no one else can, because no one else in my life is like me.
Ian clears his throat, bringing me back to the moment, to his question—How is life?
I try to formulate a response that’s honest and doesn’t give him more detail than necessary.
The more we know, the more we could hurt one another if someone nabbed one of us and got us to talk.
Like a government or any of the societies that pretend to not exist.
“I’m happy.” I point with my chin up a steep climb that levels out near The Lodge, a fancy-schmancy club settled between multimillion-dollar homes where I’ve pulled off a hit before.
This route is the only way to get back to the dam I want to run across before I head back toward my neighborhood.
But it’s two or three miles of sprawling, knotted oaks, manicured lawns, and stately homes between here and there, so we have plenty of time.
And at this hour, almost no one’s out. “How about you?”
He shrugs. “I’m happy too.”
I know he has a wife. A kid. I don’t know their names, and I’ve never visited his home. If everything goes as it should, I never will.
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” he says, unreadable.
He has no nervous twitches, no easy-to-decipher extraneous movements that offer me insight into what’s happening in his head.
I’ve often wondered how he learned to be that way, or if it came naturally.
My biggest tell is clenching my jaw, grinding my teeth.
I’m pretty good at hiding it, at least from everyone besides my dentist.
We slow to a walk as the incline increases.
“Okay.” I know I’ll have to wait until he’s formulated the words in his head. He doesn’t feel the need to fill the empty space like so many others do.
We finish climbing the hill, huffing as we crest the top.
A woman in her eighties gives us a little wave, then bends down slowly, retrieving her newspaper.
She turns to go inside, her bathrobe wrapped tightly around her slight body.
Someday, that will be me. I won’t be so capable, won’t be able to do my job anymore.
Or maybe it will just be one more disguise.
No one suspects a little old lady. The thought makes me smile.
“I was offered a job I think should have been yours. That’s why I’m passing through town, headed south—for work.”
It takes me a second to reply. “Go on.”
“It’s in Mexico. I had to travel a thousand miles here, and now I have to drive five hours across the border.
It’s a big job, a dangerous dude and his security team.
But it’s a big payoff, half a mil. I suggested you for it since you’re closer, but—” His gaze darkens.
We break into a run again, taking a sharp turn down a wooded road. “They said you weren’t quite right.”
I don’t know everything about how Ian works, but I know he has no handler—that he works directly with the people who want killing done—sometimes contracted by the same organization I work with and sometimes freelancing.
It’s a risk, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
Or maybe he wants to keep the twenty percent I pay out to John.
I turn this information over in my head.
I travel for work every couple of months, and Mexico is just south of the border.
But there might be more to it than that.
“I mean…there are jobs they’d choose me for over you.
If they wanted it to look like an accident or needed a woman. Whereas you’ll kill anyone, and I—”
“Won’t?” he fills in. “Yes, you have…ethics.” He says it as though it’s distasteful, then clears his throat and wipes the back of his hand over his forehead.
“It’s not that. I got the impression they didn’t think you could do it.
Or should do it.” A cyclist zooms past us going the opposite direction, and he waits until they’re out of earshot.
“Because you’re a woman. A wife. A mom.”
“What?” My voice comes out sharp, fast. I stumble to a stop and look at him, my normal picture of composure shattered. Bear strains at her leash. “They think I can’t do a job because I’m a mom? Why?”
“I can’t say. Maybe they thought you wouldn’t want to go out of town and leave your kids at home?
” Ian looks right at me, and the full force of his gaze makes me go silent.
His jaw is tense, his face hard. He’s angry—for me.
“I thought you should know. Should maybe talk to your handler. Because…” A quick shake of his head. “That’s fucked-up.”
I’m still stunned, unable to form words.
I get plenty of jobs, easily one a month.
I thought I was successful. Even last night, I felt good about my work, my own particular set of skills.
I can shoot from a significant distance or make a kill look like an accident.
I can merely brush by someone in a crowded place, and minutes later, they’ll drop dead.
I take pride in my work, because how many people can do what I do?
Furthermore, John hasn’t mentioned me being passed over for jobs, my name being crossed off because I’m a woman, a wife, a mom.
“Sorry, Nadia, but I gotta go. I’ll stop back in on the way home—maybe we can grab a beer?” Ian extends an arm and, numbly, I step into his embrace. It’s quick, fleeting, his familiar smell enveloping me for half a second before he’s gone.
I’m left standing alone as the sun burns hot above the horizon. It no longer feels like such a beautiful day.