4. Silas
FOUR
SILAS
The lobby of the Bristol Hotel is everything Warsaw’s old money wants you to experience: marble floors worn smooth by a century of expensive shoes, ostentatious crystal chandeliers that make the space feel like a ballroom, and well-groomed staff trained to please.
I’m sure this hotel has seen its fair share of royalty and famous celebrities walk through its doors, but tomorrow morning, when we’ll be far away from here and any signs of our presence deleted from security camera footage, it’ll be known for something else.
I walk in with my hand placed on Zuza’s lower back and scan the room. The concierge assesses us in a single efficient motion before deciding we belong. Security cameras are located at the four corners, and it’s likely two more are placed to cover the angles near the entrance.
Normal. Manageable.
The bar is to the right, through an archway framed in dark wood.
We step through, and Zuza slows naturally; I fall into step beside her.
We’ve done this enough times that the performance of coupledom requires almost no thought.
My hand goes to her back briefly, gently rubbing the soft exposed skin, my little finger touching the grip of her concealed weapon.
She leans almost imperceptibly toward me. We look, to anyone watching, like people who have been sleeping next to each other for years.
“I’m always ready, baby,” she says.
“It’s one of the things I love about you, my dear.”
She snorts. “Awww, I knew you loved me. Just wait until you find out where I hid the rest.”
I scan left to right while Zuza does the opposite.
Man alone at the bar, late fifties, Eastern European, talking too loudly into a phone.
A group of four near the window, Western European business types.
Two women at a corner table with tablets in front of them, working, not talking.
An older couple who might have been in love long enough they don’t need to demonstrate it.
I drift slightly closer to Zuza. “Is the guy here?” I say quietly, near her ear.
“Not yet. Let’s get a drink.”
She takes my hand, and I follow her to the bar, where she picks the two seats with the best view of the entrance to the restaurant.
I call the bartender and order two drinks we have no intention of consuming.
Zuza turns in her seat to face me. She has the best view, which makes sense because she’s the only one who can identify the mark, but my view through the bar mirror is good enough.
My phone vibrates in my jacket pocket.
I already know who it is. The vibration pattern is Rowan’s.
My contact list is short, and everyone has a distinct pattern, because I learned years ago that the half-second between looking at a screen and registering a name can matter.
I hold Zuza’s gaze for a moment while I take the phone out of my pocket.
“We don’t stop for personal calls during—”
“I don’t rush jobs,” I say, low and even. “You know that.”
She knows that. She turns back to the room.
I answer. “Hey.”
“Finally.” Rowan’s voice is warm. “Are you alive or did you get eaten by your schedule again?”
“Still alive.”
“Allegedly.” There’s something comforting about his voice, the ease of it, the way he talks to me like I’m a slightly wayward but fundamentally beloved problem he’s claimed as his own.
I’ve never told him how much that costs me, that ease.
How much I’d rather deserve it than just receive it.
“Where are you? Be a good best friend and please don’t say somewhere interesting.
I’m in a conference room at Quantico, and I need you to be somewhere boring so I feel better about my life choices. ”
I watch Zuza as I listen. Only she could make it seem like her attention is on me when in fact she could probably describe every single person in the room right now.
She places her hand on my knee and turns her head slightly and points.
One finger. Toward the entrance to the restaurant.
A man is walking through it.
I know him from forty feet away before I’ve consciously processed a single feature.
Six-foot-two, silver-gray hair, confident gait.
Gray suit pants and white shirt, but no jacket.
The jawline I’ve memorized in worse light than this.
The slight furrow between brows I’ve cataloged in a hundred different contexts.
The world doesn’t slow down, like in books and films. It doesn’t slow. It simply stops, a single frame frozen in time. My best friend’s father, Vaughn Reeves, crossing a marble floor in Warsaw, and Zuza’s finger pointing at him like an accusation she can’t take back.
“Silas?” Rowan says in my ear.
“Warsaw,” I say, the word coming out before I can stop it because I’m not thinking. I’m panicking.
A pause. “Wait, really?” Rowan laughs. “You’re in Warsaw?”
“Yeah.” I haven’t stirred. I’m watching Vaughn move to a table near the window, the one with the view of the garden because of course he’d choose that one. A waiter appears at his elbow almost immediately.
“That’s wild. My dad’s in Warsaw,” Rowan says, delight in his voice. “He’s there for some soil science conference, some international thing. You should meet up. You haven’t seen him in ages.”
Vaughn takes a seat. Thankfully, he doesn’t notice my presence in the bar.
“It’s a big city.”
“It’s, like, not that big. And that’s what phones are for.” I can hear Rowan settling back in his chair, warming to the idea. “He’d love that. He never sees anyone when he travels—you know how he is. Just work, work, work. Call him. I’ll text you his number if you don’t have it.”
I have his number. I’ve had his number in my head since I saw it on Rowan’s phone years ago, and even though I’ve never used it, it’s still there. Saved for the day I’m smart enough or reckless enough to use it.
“I’ll try,” I say. “I have to go.”
“You always have to go.” But it’s fond, not wounded. “Call my dad. Seriously.”
“I’ll try.” I hang up.
Zuza’s eyes are on me. Vaughn is thirty feet away, studying a menu, one hand resting on the white tablecloth. He glances at his watch like he’s waiting for someone.
The room has been still this whole time. I just hadn’t noticed until now that I was the only thing in it that had stopped.
“So,” Zuza says, “the question is, how do we approach this? Which one of us has a better shot at keeping him occupied long enough for the other to search his room and find a way to get him alone there?”
I don’t need to read each expression as she forms a plan. My gaze stays locked on Vaughn, refusing to waver, because I can’t believe I’m here to kill him.
The panic in my chest hasn’t subsided. If anyone else had been given the job, Vaughn would be dead by now. My best friend would have lost his father. I would have lost …
Fuck.
“Damsel in distress? Or younger guy looking for some fun? It worked in Budapest, after all.”
I don’t answer. Ten years as a professional hit man, and my worst nightmare is happening in real time. I can’t move. I can’t think.
Zuza waits, but unlike Draven, she doesn’t use silence as a weapon. After about ten seconds, her hand lands on my leg with a firm press just above my knee. It’s grounding, but it doesn’t take away the fear, the what-if questions swimming in my head.
“Silas.” Her voice drops. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t take my eyes off Vaughn.
“We can’t kill him,” I say, the words coming out quiet and flat.
Zuza’s hand stays on my leg, and I can feel her gaze on the side of my face.
“What are you talking about?”
“The mark.” I watch Vaughn lift the glass of red wine the waiter brought him a moment ago. The mark. I want to say his name out loud, but I can’t. Not until I figure out what’s happening. “We can’t kill him.”
Zuza shifts on her stool, angling her body toward me.
“The organization doesn’t go after innocent people, Silas,” she says, her voice softer than I’ve ever heard it.
It’s the kind of voice you reserve for when you think someone might be having a breakdown on the job.
“You know that. If this man was targeted, there’s a reason for it.
Draven always does his due diligence.” She pauses to let that land.
“A job being requested doesn’t mean he’ll accept it.
You know how many contracts he turns down.
If we’re sitting in this bar right now, if we’re actually here, then this man has done something to earn it. ”
I finally turn to her.
“What is he guilty of?”
She meets my eyes. “We don’t need to know. That’s not part of the job.”
“You agreed to check the guy out and follow our instincts, right? Well, I’m following them.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m staring at him, and I don’t see someone who’s capable of the things that would grant our presence here.”
She laughs. “You don’t even know the guy.”
“I … ” This is the moment of no return. The moment I put all my trust in Zuza. “I know him.”
The words sit between us. Her expression doesn’t change dramatically, but I see the shift. “How well?”
“Well enough,” I say, which is both nothing and everything.
She studies me for a moment. Then she uncrosses her legs and sets her full drink down on the bar. “Silas, what you’re asking of me is impossible.”
Vaughn is checking his watch now, like he’s waiting for someone.
Still unaware that fifteen yards away, two people are deciding whether he gets to keep breathing.
He leans back in his chair, one arm draped over the side, tension gone from his face, and I remember what Rowan said about the conference.
Maybe this was the last day and he’s relaxing before going home tomorrow.
“Zuza,” I say carefully. “We’ve worked on countless jobs together. There’s no one else I would trust with my life. I know you’re risking everything. Your job. Maybe even your life. But I need you to trust me.”
She lets out a deep breath, and then she smiles. “You did say I was Draven’s best agent, right?”
I laugh. “No chance.” She knows it’s a lie.
“Okay,” she says finally. “I trust you. So what do we do now? We don’t have much time before we need to report back.”
Before I can answer, movement at the edge of my vision pulls my attention to Vaughn’s table.
A man approaches him.
He seems around my age—early thirties—well-dressed, effortlessly attractive. The glasses make him look smart, but it’s the way he walks toward Vaughn that churns jealousy inside me. He’s there because he can be.
When Vaughn glances up and sees him, he smiles. The way they hug, briefly but with a lingering touch, suggests they’ve already met. Maybe at the conference?
I hate the direction my thoughts are heading.
“We need to interrupt that,” I say.
“Who’s that?” she asks.
“I don’t know. A date?”
“How do you know it’s a date?”
“Vaughn isn’t straight, and the way the fucking guy is eyeing him, he may as well be under the table with his mouth in Vaughn’s crotch.”
“Wow,” she laughs. “There’s a story there and I want to know every detail, but right now I agree with you. We need to get rid of the other guy, and something tells me you growling at him will do the job.”
She reaches into her clutch and produces a small listening device between her thumb and forefinger. It’s the size of a small button.
“Hold still,” she says.
She leans forward and attaches the device to the second button of my shirt. Then she reaches into her clutch again and fits a small earwig into her right ear, adjusting it until it disappears.
“There,” she says, sitting back. “I can hear everything you say. I’ll follow what’s happening and adjust accordingly. Now, go.”
I stand up but linger at the bar, watching the table where Vaughn Reeves is sitting with another man, laughing at whatever he just said.
After a moment, I straighten my jacket and walk toward the man I’ve been trying not to want for the best part of a decade.
Some things, it turns out, are more complicated than killing people.
When Vaughn looks up and sees me with those blue eyes I know so well, his expression shifts from confusion to recollection to something I can’t tell.
Yep, killing people is way less complicated.