Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Me?” His eyes widen, and he gestures with his gun. “What are you doing here? Does John have you following me?”
“What?” I frown at him. “Why would John have me follow you? And why do you think I would? You’re my friend.”
Ian gives me a look, shakes his head. “They don’t like how I do business.”
I want to ask what he means, but I have bigger fish to fry. “What are you doing all snipered-out up here? Wait, is this the job you were biding time for?” I take a step so I can see below to the restaurant, where Brian is probably freaking out wondering where the hell his wife has wandered off to.
“Snipered-out? I have a job to do. Obviously.” He goes back to the edge of the roof, where his rifle waits, crouches down, peers through the scope. “And the mark disappeared on me.”
“What do you mean, disappeared?” I ask the question, but I already know. I pulled Brian inside, sheltered him from the potential killer I thought might be out here. From Ian, apparently.
“What I said.” His response is fast, snappy. He’s annoyed. I would be, too, if my mark escaped, if someone interrupted me in the middle of a contract. He turns, scowls some more in a rare show of emotion. “How did you find me? Why are you here?”
“The refraction of light from your scope.” I gesture to the giant gun.
It’s a rifle you can’t buy from a store, a combination of some expensive base model with Ian’s favorite scope, his preferred stock.
It probably all cost thousands of dollars, and yet it was a worthy investment if he can earn hundreds of thousands, even millions, killing quickly and accurately with it. Ian is the deadliest person I know.
“And I’m here because I’m out to dinner for my anniversary,” I add.
He stares at me. “At the same restaurant where I’m about to kill someone?” His implication is that it’s one hell of a coincidence. Which it would be—except, if my suspicions are correct, it’s not.
I look at him, ask a question I already know the answer to. “Who are you supposed to kill?”
Ian stares back, silent. We don’t talk about who our hits are. It’s almost like their identities are held in confidence, only their executioner privy to their forthcoming moment of expiration.
“Is it me?” I ask.
His brows lower, and he actually frowns. “Of course not. You think I would do that?”
“I think you’d accept a hit on a thirtysomething woman, five foot nothing, dark hair, wearing a blue dress.
” I gesture at myself. We rarely get names, just descriptions, locations, specifics as to how the job needs to be done.
I get a little extra, because I require it to be sure they deserve death, but even that is minimal.
Ian’s throat moves. He shakes his head. “No. It can’t be for you. It’s for a man.”
A beat of silence. Of my heart accelerating in my chest. My imagination runs wild, and suddenly I am imagining Brian beneath the grapevined pergola, sipping champagne.
He’s smiling, clutching my hand across the table like we usually do, and instead of worrying about the fact that I’m supposed to kill him, I’m telling him about Eliza and Evie’s latest schemes—breaking into the bag of chocolate chips in the cupboard or maybe dressing our dog in a princess outfit.
In this waking dream, Brian nods, and then—his head explodes. Blood and brain goo everywhere.
I exhale sharply. “Tall? Blond?”
Ian takes a half step closer, his gaze trained on me.
“Late thirties?” I continue. “Wearing a suit? Sipping champagne?”
Ian stops an arm’s length away, and our eyes lock. “How do you know that?”
“He’s my husband.”
—
“You accepted a hit on your own husband? That’s the ‘friend’ you were talking about?” Ian and I sit side by side on the rooftop, our backs against the storage unit.
“I didn’t know it was him when I accepted it.
I asked for a big hit after we talked last week, and John said he’d ask, and—” I wave a hand.
“Then it was him. Except—” I stop myself, because I feel like an idiot.
And around Ian, I much prefer to feel like an intelligent assassin instead of one who somehow never caught on that her husband is not who he says he is.
My phone vibrates again.
“I have to go, I’m supposed to be on this date.” I hop to my feet, then turn back and pin him with a searching gaze. “Don’t kill him, okay? Not yet, anyway. Promise?”
Ian’s face wrinkles, filled with concern, hesitation. He’s thinking about it.
“Ian, this is my husband.”
“Who you’re supposed to kill.”
His words hit harder than they should—not only that I am supposed to kill Brian, but that Ian nearly did.
Had I not caught the glare of light, had we not moved inside so quickly, had Ian been a little faster to get the job done—my husband would be dead.
The girls’ father’s head, sprayed against the restaurant patio.
Again, I conceptualize just how awful that would be, the knife twisting a little deeper.
Worse, a second assassin was hired: Ian.
Which means either they don’t think I can do it—being a mom and all (insert eye roll and middle finger)—or someone really wants him dead, and fast. It’s entirely possible Ian’s not the only other killer sent after Brian.
So Brian is in danger. And realistically, anyone nearby is too. Me. The girls. Our freaking dog.
“Because I consider you a friend, I won’t kill him—yet.”
I nod. “I have to go, but can you stay in town? There’s more to it. And since when do they send multiple killers after one mark?”
Ian tilts his head, raises a dark brow, like he hadn’t considered that. “Just what does your husband do, Nadia?”
I start to say He’s a management consultant, but the words die at my lips. “I don’t know,” I say instead. “He’s been lying to me about a lot of things.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Can you meet me tonight? Around midnight?”
Ian nods. “Sure.”