Chapter 7
The chute hits the ground before I do.
I land hard—knees bending, breath punching out of me—and immediately yank the parachute toward me, rolling the fabric into something that vaguely resembles a bundle instead of a death trap. I don’t have time to fold it properly. I’ll do that later. Right now, I barely have time to breathe.
Not when the Guild scrubbed last night’s contract clean.
Not when I woke up framed for killing a man they told me to kill.
Not when the only clue I have is the corpse I buried six hours ago.
I sling the half-stuffed chute into my bag and tighten the straps across my chest. The forest around me is quiet—Nagano foothills, just beyond the high-speed line.
Remote enough to bury someone without a hiker tripping over their foot in the morning.
Close enough to civilization for last night’s escapade to be little more than a detour on my schedule.
Instead, I’d muttered at him, cursed the flimsy shovel, cursed the rock-hard soil, and thrown him into the ground like a pissed-off raccoon.
Great job, Saint.
Really professional.
I push through the trees, boots sinking into damp earth, irritation simmering hotter with every step. I was supposed to be on a beach today. Or asleep. Or literally anywhere but hiking back to a half-assed grave because the Guild’s collective brain cell had a malfunction.
His burial mound comes into view—just a slight rise in the soil, messy, rushed. And right now, I hate past-me with a passion usually reserved for assholes who don’t tip.
“Should’ve minded my damn business,” I mutter as I kneel. “Should’ve stayed on vacation. Should’ve bought a bigger shovel.”
I push away the top layer of dirt with my gloved hands, feeling for the stupid little shovel I threw in with him out of spite. My fingers scrape metal. Found it.
“You and I are in a toxic relationship,” I tell the shovel as I yank it free.
I start digging—quick movements, controlled, pushing aside the soil I packed down in a fury last night. My heart thrums faster. Not from exertion.
From dread.
If the Guild erased his contract…
If they framed me…
Then whoever this guy is, he matters.
Not as a target.
As a message.
I shovel faster. Dirt loosens. A smear of gray cloth appears underneath, right where I left him.
I toss the shovel aside and switch to my hands, digging until my fingers brush the fabric stretched across his chest.
“Okay,” I breathe, leaning in. “Let’s see what the hell you were worth dying for.”
His face comes into view first.
Of course it does.
And the expression is exactly as stupid as I remember it—eyes wide, mouth slack, like he died confused and mildly disappointed in himself. If he weren’t covered in dirt and currently being exhumed by a woman he unintentionally ruined, it might almost be funny.
But the eyes ruin it.
Wide open. Packed full of soil.
Just… gritty little horror marbles.
“Nope,” I mutter, grimacing. “Absolutely not.”
I pull the sunglasses off my head—my favorite pair, the ones I stole from that French arms dealer I slept with once—and shove them onto his face.
Much better. Creepy, but better.
I search his jacket pockets first, patting down fabric still damp from burial. Nothing in the left. Nothing in the right—until my fingertip catches on a slip of paper. A crumpled receipt.
I smooth it open.
A small restaurant logo in Little China, New York.
A timestamp from two days ago and a menu order I can’t pronounce.
“Perfect,” I say, pocketing it. “Exactly what I wanted—a scavenger hunt.”
I dig through the remaining pockets. More nothing. My irritation spikes so fast it almost warms me. I yank my backpack off with a huff and shove more dirt aside, checking his front pants pockets.
Empty.
I need to roll him over so I can check the back. Maybe the waistband or his boots. Something.
I stand, brushing dirt off my thighs, shifting my stance—
A blade whistles past my cheek and buries itself in the earth next to my head.
Instinct hits before thought.
I spin, gun already drawn from the back of my waistband.
The assassin charging me doesn’t even get a full second of recognition before I put two bullets in his chest and one between his eyes. He collapses mid-stride, momentum skidding his body into the dirt like a sack of grain. Judging by the direction he came from, he approached along the tracks.
I move fast. Drag him by the collar, roll his body to the edge of the shallow grave I’m kneeling in, and position him in a crude shield—a barrier of dead weight between me and the open approach.
Then I listen.
Nothing but wind, faint tremors from the tracks, and the pounding of my own pulse.
But it won’t stay quiet.
I know that.
A lone assassin means more are coming.
My jaw clenches and I take the blade from the dirt with a little more force than necessary. “How the hell did someone find me this fast?” It joins my small arsenal, sliding into the sheath at me ankle.
Could’ve been someone on the train.
Someone who jumped off after I did.
Or someone who didn’t need to jump—someone who never boarded.
Doesn’t matter. Not now.
They know where I am.
Which means I have seconds—maybe a minute—before the next one arrives.
I crouch again beside the corpse, fingers already searching for anything I missed.
“I swear,” I mutter to him, “if you don’t have something useful on you, I’m going to kill you again.”
I grunt as I grab the corpse by the collar and haul him toward the opposite ledge, dragging his dead weight out of the grave. He thuds against the dirt beside today’s freshly made friend, and I waste no time dropping to my knees.
I need to check the soil.
If he dropped anything—key card, burner, chip—this is my only shot to find it.
My hands sweep through the loose earth, digging, feeling textures: leaves, roots, a few stones, damp grit. My heart hammers so loud it’s almost all I hear.
I start counting in my head.
Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one…
If I hit sixty, I leave. No matter how unfinished this is.
The forest behind me shifts—no, stops.
Birds go silent.
Leaves freeze mid-sway.
Even the breeze forgets how to move as every instinct in my body goes rigid.
I freeze too. Hands buried in dirt.
Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty.
A soft metallic click ripples through the tree line. Barely audible—like whoever did it tried not to make a sound at all—but it echoes twice off the trunks.
A rifle.
A sniper settling into position.
Cold blooms under my skin. I’m crouched in a grave—bad angle, bad cover, bad everything. If he’s got a clear line, I’m done.
The Guild has no shortage of sharpshooters. But Alejandro was the best.
Below me, sure.
But still the best.
I’m not a sniper. Never pretended to be. I like my work up close, personal, firsthand.
Long-range? That was always his playground.
Which means whoever is in those trees isn’t him.
The forest that was silent suddenly fills with distant noise. Engines. Several of them. And tires crunching over gravel and roots—closing in.
Fantastic.
A fucking welcoming committee.
The two corpses flanking me are the only reason I’m not already dead; they block most sight-lines except straight overhead. I risk a glance sideways through a carved gap between their bodies and see headlights.
One vehicle leads the pack, faster, cutting through the trees like it owns the road. Window down. Arm hanging out. Driver too relaxed for someone charging into a gunfight.
Alejandro.
Driving like he’s cruising down Santa Monica Boulevard instead of barreling through the Japanese wilderness with a kill squad behind him.
His car skids toward me, flinging a wave of dirt at me. The rear passenger door swings open before the tires even settle.
“Need a lift?” he calls out.
Perfect.
At least now I know he’s not the sniper waiting to ventilate my skull.
My odds improve by a spectacular two percent.
I toss my pack into the back seat first. Then I climb halfway in—
“Hold on,” I snap, making sure he doesn’t decide to be helpful by flooring it.
I grab a fistful of the dead man’s collar and heave.
“He’s coming with us.”
The corpse drops onto me as I scramble inside. The momentum sends his limp body right on top of me.
A sharp thump reverberates through him and his torso jerks.
Sniper round misses me and hits him.
“Thanks, buddy,” I mutter, pushing his face off mine.
Alejandro stomps the accelerator. The wheels spin, spit dirt into the air, and the car fishtails once before catching traction.
Then we’re gone—ripping down the forest road with assassins behind us and a corpse riding shotgun.