Chapter 4
THE FILE
LUCIAN
Logan doesn’t sleep like normal people. He hibernates in caffeine and algorithms, and comes alive at the witching hour, dragging secrets from the digital ether like a magician.
Logan: Full background attached. If she’s guilty of anything, it’s being too decent. Also, your girl can cook. Runs a shelter, speaks four languages, and made the Dean’s List every year at NYU. Graduated with a bachelor’s in social work.
Me: That’s not why there’s a contract on her.
Logan: Never known you to care before.
I ignore the question and open her file.
Logan: You sure this isn’t a midlife crisis?
Me: Fuck off!
I read the report.
Current Name: Calista Ferraro
Age: 27.
Born: Rome, Italy.
Raised: Palermo until she was ten; then London until she was 18.
Current Location: New York City.
Occupation: Director, Hearth it gives me quick access to Maddox Tower and is removed enough to provide me with the privacy I need.
It’s minimalistic. Dark wood. Black marble. No photos. No personal touches. Everything is clean, sterile, and functional—except for the small collection of knives displayed like art, because they are fucking art.
Each knife is mounted in a custom shadowbox, precisely spaced on the dark stone wall like a private gallery.
A Heiji Higo no Kami from Kyoto—folded steel, hand-sharpened.
Carried by men who walked with honor and died with quiet hands.
A Wakizashi blade, shortened and restored, centuries old.
A samurai’s second sword—used for mercy.
Or for shame. A French paratrooper’s knife from the 1940s—used in the dark, thrown to kill.
And my first—ugly, American, practical. Black grip.
Carbon steel. No elegance. Just survival.
Logan once asked me why I keep them on the wall instead of locked away. I told him the truth.
“I keep only the parts of me I can control where I can see them.”
I don’t hang paintings. My walls are floor-to-ceiling windows—the city is my art.
I’ve got the essentials: a soundproof home gym, and a safe for my weapons.
After a night trailing Miss Mafia Princess through the city, I hit the shower.
I’m not tired—I’m wired.
I make coffee. That’s it. I don’t cook. I eat out or order in. There’s a chef in the building. The bar’s fully stocked.
What else can a man want?
I sit at the kitchen island, scrolling through photos of her—those I took a few hours ago.
Objectively, she’s a beautiful woman. There’s no deceit in her eyes, just resilience. Quiet strength.
I don’t like how I’m feeling.
I shouldn’t be looking at her—I should be looking at ways to kill her.
My jobs are usually clean. Not because the targets deserve it—most of them don’t—but because I never care.
The lines are clear.
You’re a problem. Someone wants you gone. I remove you.
Probity is a luxury someone else can afford.
But this woman?
She’s done everything right. She left the criminally asshole fiancé. She changed her name. She built something honest in a city that chews up decency and spits it back out, broken.
And yet, someone wants her dead.
I rub my hands over my face.
I don’t feel guilt—never have. My ethical flexibility is what the military liked about me. Guilt isn’t going to be a problem after I finish this job. I know that.
The problem I’m having is current, before I do the job.
I’m feeling something I never felt before: doubt. And doubt leads to hesitation. Hesitation leads to death.
My phone buzzes.
Logan: Your mystery nun’s got a record of turning down money. Donors with shady backgrounds try to throw cash at the shelter but she sends it back. Even told a city councilman’s aide to go to hell when he suggested she “look the other way”.
Logan: You gonna tell me what this is about? Or should I just start drafting your confession now?
I don’t reply.
Instead, I open a secure line and make a call I shouldn’t make. I never call. My contact knows that, so if I’m calling, something is off.
One ring. Two. A voice answers.
“Is the contract still active?” I ask.
“Yes,” the voice replies.
Long pause.
“Is there a problem?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
Click.
I hang up.
There is a problem.
I don’t want to kill Calista Ferraro. She seems like the kind of light that should be allowed to shine.
Fuck me! I’m getting soppy.
This isn’t like me.
But I know it’s far worse than my departure from standard operating procedure. I don’t think I’ll be able to pull the trigger, so to speak, when the time comes with Calista Ferraro.
If I could feel fear, I’d be shit scared.