Chapter 6
Ivy
The hotel hallway smells like expensive lies. The kind of scent rich men wear when they're pretending they didn't earn their fortune off the backs of trafficked girls.
I adjust the wig. Blonde tonight. My dress is too tight, heels too high, but that's the point. Let him think I'm dessert.
My phone buzzes in my clutch.
Asher: You awake?
I silence it without reading the rest.
Three months since my birthday. Three months of this dance where we get close enough to burn but never quite catch fire. Three months of him texting me at two in the morning with stupid memes and voice notes of him singing to whatever punk rock bullshit he's obsessed with this week.
Three months of me lying awake, staring at my ceiling, wondering what his mouth tastes like.
Focus.
Suite 1247. End of the hall. Security camera at the elevator—already looped, courtesy of Punk. The one by the stairwell has a convenient blind spot, thanks to the lazy contractors who cut corners on a seventy-million-dollar renovation.
My earpiece crackles.
“You're clear,” Punk says, munching on something. Chips, probably. Girl's always eating. “Target confirmed in-room. Alone. You've got a fifteen-minute window before his security detail returns from their smoke break.”
“Copy.”
I slip the keycard from my clutch—cloned this afternoon when I bumped into a housekeeper near the service elevator—and slide it through the lock.
Green light.
The suite opens into darkness cut by city lights bleeding through floor-to-ceiling windows. Chicago spreads out below like a circuit board, all those tiny lives buzzing along, oblivious.
I pull the door shut with a soft click.
“Ivy.” Emeric's voice replaces Punk's, smooth as aged whiskey. “How are we feeling tonight?”
“Homicidal,” I mutter, crossing the foyer. Marble floors. Original art on the walls. The kind of wealth that makes you forget people are starving three blocks away.
He laughs, low and rich. “Yes, I gathered that from your enthusiastic request for field work.” A pause.
I can practically hear him swirling whatever overpriced bourbon he's drinking.
“Tell me, does this sudden bloodlust have anything to do with a certain snowboarder who's been blowing up your phone?”
My jaw clenches. “No.”
“Liar.”
I ignore him, moving deeper into the suite. The bedroom door is cracked open, light spilling through. I catch the sound of running water. Shower.
Perfect.
“You know,” Emeric continues, because apparently he's decided to be chatty tonight, “I find it amusing.
All these years, nothing rattles you. Not the close calls, not the injuries, not even that mess in Prague.
But one pretty boy with boundary issues and suddenly you're requesting hits like you're ordering takeout.”
“Are you going to be useful or are you going to keep psychoanalyzing me?”
“Can't I do both?” The amusement in his voice makes me want to reach through the comm and strangle him. “Humor an old man, ma chérie. What is it about this one that's got you so… itchy?”
My phone buzzes again. I don't look.
“He's a complication,” I say, slipping a knife from the holster strapped to my thigh. The blade catches the light from the window, a thin line of silver that promises efficiency. “Complications need to be managed.”
“Mmm. And murdering a human trafficker is management?”
“It's stress relief.”
He laughs again, genuine this time. “Fair enough. Though I must say, I'm rather enjoying watching you squirm. It's been what, six years? Seven? Since anyone's gotten under your skin like this.”
“He's not under my skin.”
“Of course not. That's why you've checked your phone four times since entering the building.”
I flip him off even though he can't see it.
The shower cuts off. I move to the wall beside the bathroom door, knife ready, breathing steady.
“Tick tock,” Punk says. “Twelve minutes.”
The bathroom door opens. Steam rolls out first, then him—Marcus Dalton, fifty-three, CEO of a shipping company that's really a front for moving girls across state lines. Sixteen confirmed deaths, dozens of ruined lives, and enough money to buy his way out of every investigation.
Not tonight.
He's in a towel, skin still damp, completely unaware. I wait until he passes me.
Then I move.
My arm hooks around his throat. He grunts, hands flying up to claw at my forearm, but I'm already sinking the blade into his kidney—quick, deep, angled up.
The resistance gives way to something softer, and I feel the exact moment his body understands what's happening.
He goes rigid against me, a strangled sound caught somewhere between his chest and his mouth.
“Shhh,” I whisper against his ear. “This is the part where you pay your tab.”
He tries to speak. Blood bubbles at his lips instead.
I hold him as he dies. It takes less than a minute. When his weight goes slack, I lower him to the floor, careful not to let him thump.
My phone buzzes.
Again.
“You should answer that,” Emeric says, and now there's something else in his voice. Not amusement. Something sharper. “Before he gets worried and does something stupid.”
I wipe the blade on the towel and straighten, checking my dress for blood. Clean.
“I'm working.”
“You're done working. Target's eliminated. Now you're just standing there, staring at a corpse, avoiding your phone like it's going to bite you.”
He's not wrong.
I pull out my phone.
Asher: You awake?
Probably not. It's late.
Okay but real talk, if you had to fight a bear OR fifty snakes, which one and why?
The bear is regular sized btw. I'm not a monster.
Okay I'm a bit of a monster but in a fun way.
You good?
That last one lands different. Softer. Like he actually gives a shit.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard.
“Ivy.” Emeric's voice drops. “We need to talk about this.”
“About what?”
“About the fact that you're developing feelings for someone who could compromise everything we've built.”
The word feelings sits in my chest like a tumor.
“I don't have feelings,” I say, stepping over Marcus's body. “I have objectives.”
“Then why are you standing there, wanting to text him back?”
Because I do. I want to tell him the bear, obviously, because at least with a bear you know what you're dealing with. I want to hear his laugh through the phone. I want to fall asleep to his voice like I have been for the past three months, pretending it doesn't mean anything.
I want things I have no right wanting.
“I'm leaving,” I say instead.
“Ivy—”
I pull the earpiece out and drop it in my clutch.
The hallway is still empty. I take the stairs, heels clicking against concrete, and I don't stop until I'm outside, cold air slapping my face.
My phone buzzes again.
Okay I'm going with the snakes because you'd probably speak in parcel tongue and recruit them. Strategic.
Night, Venom.
I stare at the screen until it goes dark.
Then I text back.
The bear. At least it's honest about wanting to kill you.
Three dots appear immediately. He's awake. Of course he is.
Dark. I love it. You okay?
Why wouldn't I be?
Because you never answer this late. And that response was very “I just murdered someone” energy.
My heart stops.
KIDDING. Obviously. Unless…? No. Kidding. But seriously you good?
I'm fine. Go to bed.
Only if you do too.
Deal.
Liar. You're gonna stay up for another hour doing whatever mysterious shit you do. But that's okay. I'll allow it.
How generous.
I'm a giver. Goodnight for real this time.
The screen goes dark again.
I stand there on the sidewalk, wig itching, dress too tight, hands still steady from a kill, and I feel it.
The crack.
The first real fracture in the armor I've spent my entire life building.
And it's his fault.
Goddamn you, Asher.
I shove my phone back in my clutch and start walking. Daniel's parked two blocks away, engine idling, ready to disappear me back into my other life.
Jogging down the street, I find Daniel's parked car and slide into the back, ripping off the wig before working on the ridiculous clothes.
His eyes meet mine in the mirror. “Everything okay?”
“Why do people keep asking me that?” I ask, unclipping my hair from the ugly little bun and running my fingers through to break it up.
“Is it not obvious?” Daniel jokes, pulling us into the dead street.
“Fair,” I say, pulling out my phone and rereading Asher's text. Why is he already important to me?
Why in this lifetime?
* * *
A pillow hits my head. A hammer? Thor!
“Wake up, Venom.”
I groan, swatting blindly at the air. My brain is still stuck somewhere between Asgard and a very specific fantasy involving lightning and abs that could grate cheese. “Five more minutes.”
“You've been moaning for the last ten.” The mattress dips. “Should I be concerned, or jealous?”
My eyes snap open.
Asher is sliding under my sheets like he owns them. Like he owns me. His hair is damp, curling at the ends, and he smells like cedar and something expensive. Fresh from the shower. In my bed.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Waking you up.” He settles against my headboard, arms crossed behind his head. Those pale blue eyes find mine in the dim morning light. “You were saying someone's name. Couldn't quite catch it.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “I wasn't—”
“Thor.” He says it flat. Dead. “You were moaning Thor.”
“I was not.”
“You absolutely were.” His jaw ticks. Just once. “The Marvel one or the mythology one? Because I need to know if I'm competing with Chris Hemsworth or a literal god.”
“You're not competing with anyone.” I yank the covers higher, suddenly aware I'm wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and underwear. “Because there's no competition. There's no anything.”
“Mm.” He doesn't sound convinced. “You always get this defensive about your dreams?”
“You always break into women's bedrooms at—” I squint at the clock. “Six in the fucking morning?”
“Only yours.”
I hate the way that lands. Hate the little flutter in my chest that I immediately murder with extreme prejudice.
“Get out.”
“No.”
“Asher.”