Chapter 3
SYLVIE
THIS JOB WOULD be significantly easier if the target weren’t so fucking hot.
I’m weak for a tall, polished man in a dark suit.
The James Bond type that is well spoken in public but whispers filthy things in bed.
Yum. I hate that this ends with a bullet in his brain, because quite frankly at the moment, I’d rather end up on all fours underneath him.
I touch the back of my hand to my mouth and feel the moisture at the corner of my lips.
Uh-oh. Am I actually drooling? It’s quite possible I’m a cat in heat.
Or…I just haven’t had sex in ten months and my twenty-six-year-old hormones are protesting, loudly.
But they can shut it. Because I’m a professional…
having very unprofessional thoughts about Mr. Jeffrey Callen.
I’ve been on him for three days and between the brief from Salisbrie, and quietly stalking him, I know a lot.
But also, nothing useful. Supposedly the bunker he keeps disappearing into is full of sordid government secrets I’m not particularly interested in.
I’m sure there’s something useful there, but every time he enters the business building and gets in that elevator, it’s like he disappears off the map.
No reception, no traces. About a thousand people enter and exit that building daily.
I can’t tell who matters and who doesn’t.
Call it laziness, but I stopped watching him at his job.
It’s easier to work my way in from his home to his extracurricular activities, which for this stick-up-the-ass suit is scones from the corner bakery, his building’s gym, Indian takeout—two nights in a row I might add—and Netflix documentaries.
So, to be very, very clear. I’d happily fuck him. But date him? Not a chance. This dude probably thinks checkers is a sport. How was he ever a SEAL on covert missions?
Tonight was a little more interesting. He took an extra-long shower, and thanks to the surveillance I snuck into his fancy little apartment, I got a glimpse of everything extra long in that shower.
No sound though. The bugs with mics are too big.
I’m assuming he’s smart enough to eventually notice surveillance.
I had to use something small and subtle—blurry visuals, black and white, basically, just a tease.
He put on a good suit and a great watch and walked into a sushi place near the bridge like a nervous puppy.
There was something about the way he walked, a little pep in his step, I was actually rooting for the poor sap.
I had no idea what I was rooting for, but still—I kind of wanted to see him smile instead of those nervous pressed lips he normally sports.
But I sat across the street in a blacked-out sedan and watched his whole world fall apart through the window.
I couldn’t hear it. I didn’t need to. He ordered two drinks, and then a beautiful woman joined him at the table.
At first they were smiling and flirting, and no there wasn’t even an ounce of jealousy in my veins, thank you very much.
But then the vibe shifted. She was crying, talking fast, like a woman in a confessional with a whole life to apologize for before the priest dismissed her.
He didn’t get angry. That’s the part that confuses me.
The way his shoulders slumped, his lips fell apart, and his brows collapsed on himself—either she dumped him or killed his puppy.
Either way, a man who’s been trained to kill gets news like that, you expect a flinch, a fist, something of a reaction.
He just got very still. Folded his hands. Took it.
The cruelest thing he did was leave her at the table.
He couldn’t even do that viciously. He dropped a few bills on the table to pay for a meal he didn’t eat, and then he quite notably said goodbye.
No drink in her face, no biting last words from what I could make of her expression.
Then, he walked south with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders weighted down like he was carrying something heavy yet invisible.
I followed because that’s my job. I also followed because I wanted to.
And he decided for both of us in that moment, with his wounded, kick-in-the-teeth expression, the facade of nonchalance, the mask of endurance, that tonight is the night I finally meet Jeffrey Callen face to face.
Not to end him. Calm down. That comes later.
The brief is clear about what I need, and it isn’t his death.
Not yet. His death is the easy part, the part I could do tonight from across a room with a sniper rifle and be three states away by morning.
The hard part is everything that has to happen first. There’s proof somewhere that Salisbrie needs to bury.
A black box from a helicopter crash and a few witnesses who know the truth.
I don’t know where they are. I don’t even have their names.
But Callen does. And a good hitwoman won’t burn the only map she has.
I need him talking. Which means I need to be charming. Someone worth talking to.
I kept the sedan parked two blocks away and pursued on foot so as not to draw too much attention.
It’s a dive. A filthy one at that. His building demands a seven-figure salary, yet he wants to drown his sorrows in this sticky place that only shelves whiskey under twenty bucks per bottle? Bleh. I guess it’s fitting. Dirty jobs in dirty places.
I walk in about twenty minutes after Jeffrey Callen does, so it’s not obvious.
No, no, little antelope. I haven’t been a lioness hunched in the weeds watching you all day.
Go ahead and drink your drink in peace. I cringe when the bells wrapped around the inside door handles alert everyone to my arrival.
Except everyone is Callen in a booth, a drunk at the bar, and a bartender who is definitely hyped up on something besides liquor. He’s swatting invisible flies with a grimy dishrag and now I’m certain they won’t serve a decent lemon drop here.
Callen’s already four shots deep and working on a fifth.
He’s a big guy. Six-three, maybe? Definitely built like a SEAL.
All buff in the right places, with muscular thighs and arms, and a defined chest, and a broad back.
God, if he only had a few tattoos. That’d be the icing on the sexy cake… or maybe a piercing. Okay, I digress.
At first I opt for the bar to start my game of cat and mouse. But there’s a looseness to how he’s sitting that wasn’t there at the sushi restaurant. Everything about his posture says: the wall’s come down. This antelope might as well gallop right into my mouth.
Perfect.
If this place had a bathroom that didn’t look like a torture chamber from a scene in Saw, I might freshen up. But there’s a good chance I’d catch herpes from a squat on the toilet, so instead, I wriggle out of my long coat and slide into the booth, opposite Jeffrey like I belong there.
His eyes widen, then narrow, so fast it’s one fluid motion. “No.”
“Excuse me?” Hard to accomplish, but I’m caught off guard. “No to what?”
He points in a random direction, indicating away. “Go. You’re too young and hot for me. Don’t even try it.”
“Somebody’s too drunk for manners.”
“Fine,” he gruffs. “Go away, please.”
But I don’t budge. “I’m not that young.”
“How old ’er you?” He’s slurring now, the liquor poisoning his veins and holding his brain cells captive.
“Thirty-two.”
He smirks. “Liar.”
“Fine. Twenty-eight.”
“’Nother lie.”
“What’s it to you? I’m old enough to drink, which means you’re not in any trouble.”
He surveys me. I feel a sweet warmth as his eyes trail up and down my torso. His eyes linger on my chest, my cleavage purposely displayed in the deep V of my neckline. Then his gaze returns to mine, glued, like a fly trapped in honey. No chance of escape.
“What?”
“Have we met? Y’r eyes…look f’miliar.”
Again, he takes me off guard. “No. We haven’t. But I’d like to get to know you.”
He clears his throat and swallows hard, as if his saliva is the secret to instant sobriety. Still, he cleans up his words. “Kind of forward of you, isn’t it?”
“We’re in the twenty-first century. Can’t a woman admit what she likes?” I lean into the table, letting my breasts speak for me. “I kind of like what I see in front of me. Is that okay?”
After a beat of silence, his lips relax into a tepid smile. “I’ll tell you what, tell me your real age, and then you can stay. But I’ll warn you, I’mma human lie detector.”
I have to stifle my snort because no he’s most certainly not. He’s gullible with a capital G, but it’s kind of sweet. Earnest. I like it when people are easily tricked because it means they still have faith in others, and that’s something I lost a long time ago.
“Twenty-six,” I answer because he’s earned at least one truth from me.
He nods. “Sounds about right. Like I said, too young for me.” He shifts his hips, reaching for his wallet.
I roll my eyes as he tries to pull his tortured-hero move again, slap a few bills on the table, buy me a round he won’t join, and disappear into the night.
But that would ruin my cover. I won’t get two chances at a first encounter.
“Were you a SEAL?” I blurt out.
That stops him mid-scoot. “S’cuse me? Why would you ask that?”
I scramble quickly for an explanation. “You just have a presence about you. Something hauntingly regal. The only other man I’ve met that moves like you was a Navy SEAL.”
He lifts one brow. “I’ve hardly moved.”
I shrug nonchalantly like I’m not fucking panicking inside. “I don’t know how to explain an instinct.”
He sinks back into the booth, studying me even harder. “In my line of work, those kinds of loaded questions mean trouble.”
“Well, I’m definitely trouble.” Another truth.
“What’s your name?”