Chapter 7 Elise
SEVEN
ELISE
The bruise on my side looks like a Rorschach test, but all I see is failure. I prod at my tender ribs, examining the mottled purple skin when the door flies open.
Priscilla bounces in with her usual bubbly energy, two mugs in hand.
“I made milk tea!” she sings. “This recipe went viral on TikTok and got, like, three million views in two days or something. It has black tea, caramel syrup, and this super-secret ingredient no one ever guesses—spoiler alert, it’s tahini! Don’t over think it, Eli. Just try it!”
I scramble to shove down my t-shirt, tugging the hem as far as it’ll go. The damage is done; Priscilla saw exactly what I was examining in the mirror.
The bright smile on her face slides off and her eyes double in size. “Wait, hold on. Is that a bruise? Eli, that looks serious! Oh my god, did somebody attack you? Was it some creep? A mugger? You need to file a police report. Or… I don’t know… go to the embassy or something!”
I turn away from the standing mirror and crack a wry smile. “No one attacked me, Cilla. I’m not starring in a Korean true crime doc. Promise.”
“But… but… where did it come from? Was this last night when you went out clubbing? KD said we should’ve gone with you!”
“For what?” I ask with an amused snort. “You should see the other guy. Kidding… mostly. I’m fine, Cilla. And how many times do I have to tell you? Knock before coming in. This is my room, remember?”
She casts her gaze downward, a sudden guiltiness about her. “I was just really excited about this milk tea.”
I step toward her, sliding one of the mugs out of her hand and taking a sip. “Mmm, delicious. And you even used your favorite Pucca mug. Thanks.”
Pricilla’s concern has gone nowhere as I attempt to change the subject to the milk tea.
It’s rough, because few things can guilt trip faster than a pouty Priscilla. Even as her roommate and quasi-friend, I can see how she has KD wrapped around her little finger.
One frown from her paired with sad eyes and her signature afro puffs and you’re desperate to bring the smiley bubbliness back.
But I ignore the concerned look on her face as I sip more of the milk tea and then mention I’ll be gone most of the day.
“Meetings and training stuff,” I answer when she asks. “KD should be by any second. At least I won’t be suffering alone.”
“He already texted me. He’s riding the underground here.”
She eventually turns and walks out, her once bright mood nowhere to be found.
A knot of guilt settles in my chest watching her go.
Priscilla has been nothing but a kind and bubbly roommate. She did her best to make sure I settled in when I first moved here and she’s made it no secret she considers us friends.
The problem is, I don’t really do relationships. I don’t really have friends.
If there’s been one reoccurring theme in my life, it’s been that I have no one else to rely on except me, myself, and I.
Trust is so fragile that other people aren’t deserving of it. It’s better to keep everyone at arm’s length.
The only people I’ve ever been able to remotely rely on have been Dad and Uncle Jerald—and Dad’s dead.
I don’t know where to begin even trying to be a friend to Priscilla. I’ve spent so many years obsessed with getting justice for Dad that I’m not sure what I’ll do once it’s all said and done.
Once I get my revenge against the Cheongryong syndicate and the man who killed him.
My mind drifts back to last night, where I’d seduced Rhee Gun-woo and almost accomplished part of that mission. He was right where I wanted him until I got too bold and he spotted the knife in the mirror.
I sigh, fingering Dad’s ring that I wear as a necklace.
Gun was charming and funny. He was sexy, and I have to be honest, he was almost good enough to make me forget what I was doing in the first place.
There were moments I forgot he was my target. Forgot I was supposed to be killing him.
The dance we shared at Eclipse pulsed with sexual chemistry. He proved to be an even better kisser.
Is that why I failed so damn bad when seduction kills are normally one of my specialties? Was I getting too caught up in my attraction to him?
I can still feel his touch. My sore and bruised ribs ache, but so do other parts of me.
His tongue on my titties…
The front door opens on the other side of the apartment and Pricilla’s excited squeak echoes as she greets KD.
I push aside the thoughts about Gun and what happened last night and head out to greet my partner.
KD and I might be exes, but we’ve been sent by the agency to get this mission done together. We don’t have any more room for misses.
I walk into the living room to find Priscilla’s arms wrapped around his neck and KD holding her off the ground. Their height difference is almost comical.
I clear my throat. “Sorry to interrupt. I know it’s been a whopping seven hours since you’ve seen each other, but we’ve got to get a move on. KD, the meeting?”
His lips spread into a shameless grin. “Right… yeah, we better get a move on or the director will tear us a new asshole. Baby, I’ve got to go.”
“Be safe!” Priscilla calls after us as we walk toward the door. “And, Eli, I wasn’t kidding about those bruises! Take care of them. You know what? I’ll put together some remedies for you!”
Fuck!
I almost cringe as she says it. Mostly because I already know what happens next.
We’re not even at the elevator before KD is hounding me.
“Bruises,” he repeats, cutting me a suspicious sidelong glance. “What bruises?”
I press the down button and stare at the digitized floor numbers as they climb. “Not sure. I think your girlfriend is confused.”
“Confused or concerned?”
“Take your pick. Either way it’s unnecessary.”
The elevator arrives and I step on, once again ignoring the pointed look KD gives me. He falls into dissatisfied silence for the rest of the ride.
Any attempt to censor himself ends by the time we’re on the ground floor and entering the brisk spring air.
We start the short trek to the subway station a couple streets over.
“You fought one of them, didn’t you?” he accuses.
“Might want to keep your voice down. We’re supposed to be assassins, remember?” I mutter back, barely moving my lips.
“Exactly,” he says. “And we can’t do that if you go and get yourself killed. I knew I should’ve gone with you last night.”
“On a seduction kill? Are you serious right now? How would that have worked exactly, KD? Hate to break it to you, but no man wants some other man cock-blocking him all night.”
He swings a fist at the air, startling some of the other pedestrians on the sidewalk. “I knew that’s what you were up to! EQ, what the fuck were you thinking? You tried two hits in one night? Tell me it wasn’t the same lieutenant.”
“Shhhh,” I say as we turn onto the next block and the sign for the underground emerges. “And no, of course not. I wouldn’t be so reckless as to try to off the guy twice in one night. It was… uh, one of the other lieutenant’s sons.”
“So that’s what the director wants!” he exclaims. “She wants to chew your ass out.”
“Probably yours too. You are my partner.”
No less than forty minutes later, we discover that is exactly what Director Camille Hart had in mind.
We both sit in the conference room on a video call with the Director of the Vanguard Agency—our boss—and play obedient while she chews us out on camera.
Because the assassin agency is based in the United States but has missions all over the world, there’s a number of “front companies” we use to disguise our work.
Whenever we’re in another country pulling off a mission, the location of those front companies becomes our base of operations.
In some countries, they’re innocuous things like a PR firm. In others, they’re an import or export business.
Our front company in South Korea is a fake modeling agency.
Thanks to today’s technology, despite the distance, Director Hart sees us regularly.
More often than not it’s video calls like this—the stern, equally sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued director dragging us for our failures.
I’m not sure who’s better in these situations.
KD tends to interrupt with attempts to get back in her good graces while I usually take the tongue-lashings in stubborn, almost defiant silence.
It doesn’t slow Director Hart down either way. The forty-seven-year-old Black woman with a bob cut that’s as blunt and severe as her stony face was once in the military with my father before she started the Vanguard Agency.
She was in Seoul at the time Dad and Uncle Jerald were getting into weapons dealing and knew them well.
But her personal connection to my family doesn’t matter. She treats me like any other agent, making no attempt to mince words as we start this virtual meeting.
She tells us exactly how much we’ve fucked up.
“You didn’t just miss the target—you lit a signal flare over the entire operation,” Director Hart says in her cold, matter-of-fact delivery.
“The Cheongryong now know we’re here. That was never supposed to happen.
This was meant to be a discreet, near-invisible mission.
You’ve turned it into a liability. Months of preparation, gone.
Our intel? Compromised. Our presence? Exposed. ”
“Director, if I may—” KD starts, but I give him a light kick under the conference table. He turns his words into an unconvincing clear of his throat, then flashes a sheepish grin and mentions his allergies.
She presses on without missing a beat.
“If they retaliate—and make no mistake, we all know the dragons are bloodthirsty—it won’t just be your problem. It becomes the agency’s problem. And there will be consequences for both of you, Onyx and Silk.
“But especially you, Silk,” she hisses through clenched teeth. “You’ve been unacceptably sloppy and distracted. Not to mention you were not authorized to go after Rhee Gun-woo. Whatever personal baggage you’re dragging into this operation needs to be checked at the door and left out of the field.”