Using zip ties, I bound my assignment to a particularly decorative wrought-iron fence around a family plot. Once he was secured—and stripped of his weapons—I took the little sachet of ammonium carbonate from my pocket to wake Jean-Claude up. I didn’t have the time or patience to stand around tapping my foot and waiting for him to regain consciousness. Nor did that steadily bleeding wound in his gut, for that matter.
“We’ll keep this brief,” I announced when he started groaning. “The Guild knows you’ve broken the secrecy protocols. We know all about the secret meetings with a journalist by the name of Gillian White, and the evidence you provided to her to expose the Guild. Rest assured, none of it will ever see the light of day.” I smirked, unable to help myself. “Nor will Miss White.”
Jean-Claude moaned in pain. He’d spilled Guild secrets during pillow talk, then allowed his bed-buddy to talk him into an exclusive interview. The kind of article that could make a young journalist’s entire career. The kind of article that got silly young journalists killed and their house burned down.
“What we want to know,” I continued, “is what on earth you thought you were going to achieve, Jean-Claude? Surely you knew you couldn’t get away with this.”
The dying man gave a hacking laugh, then rolled his head back to meet my eyes. His lips clamped tight together, and his gaze held steady. I knew that look well. He wasn’t talking.
Shrugging, I pulled a pair of ear plugs out of my pocket. It was my job to ensure Jean-Claude’s death was painful, but I sure as shit didn’t need to lose my hearing in the process. So I popped them into my ears and smiled at the instant quiet all around me. It was a surreal thing, torturing a man and barely hearing his screams.
Jean-Claude’s mouth moved in horror, his lips rounding with terror as I went to work with my pliers. Removing his fingernails took no time at all, really, then because I was in no mood to be caught in the act, I quickly cut out his tongue and went to work stitching his lips shut.
Jean-Claude ultimately drowned in his own blood, which was a terribly dramatic way to go. It sent a message, though.
When I was done, I placed a call to the closest cleanup crew on Guild payroll. We valued our secrecy, so I wouldn’t risk leaving the body strapped up in the cemetery for any unsuspecting Shadow Grove local to find. But the message would be clear to the cleanup crew. And word would spread from there. The Guild didn’t tolerate loose lips.
I stood for a moment, staring down at my own handiwork. It was neat stitching across Jean-Claude’s mouth. The recent uptick in defectors had given me plenty of practice, that was for sure.
It took almost a whole packet of disinfectant wipes from my coat pocket to clean up my hands and tools, then I effortlessly blended back into the shadows some distance away to keep an eye on the kill site until the cleaners arrived.
Leaning against a stone cross, I folded my arms and settled in to wait. I didn’t ever have a problem simply waiting without turning to a fidget like smoking. But a few moments later, my phone vibrated in my pocket with a call coming through.
Frowning to myself, I pulled the phone out and checked the caller ID, then stood up straighter.
3982
I normally would have ignored all distractions until my assignment was complete, cleanup included. But this… I couldn’t seem to resist taking this call.
Connecting the call, I brought the phone to my ear and said nothing. Listening.
In the background, gunshots rang out and glass shattered, but I was more interested in the gasping breath of the caller.
“Leon,” the husky female voice coughed out, closely followed by a series of louder gunshots.
I smiled as my blood pumped faster. She was calling me from the middle of a firefight? This was new.
“Danny,” I replied. “Sounds like you’re in the middle of something there.”
She laughed, low and rough. “You could say that. Hold on a second?”
More rapid gunfire and short, sharp breaths from Danny as she no doubt finished up whatever she was working on. Then after a minute, the shots stopped. I waited patiently, eagerly, as a woman’s high heels clicked on a hard floor, seventeen steps—I counted them—then three more shots in quick succession.
“Sorry, Leon,” she said with a heavy exhale. “What was I saying?”
I couldn’t help myself, I grinned. Danny and I had worked together on a handful of assignments, but I hadn’t heard from her in a long time.
“I have no idea,” I admitted. “What were you saying?”
She huffed an irritated sound. “Right. I need a local medic that can stitch up a GSW. I’m in Prague.”
My brows raised with curiosity. “Who got shot?”
Danny gave a small growl. “Me. Can you help or not? I can’t go to the Guild medic here. I need someone outside the organization.”
Danny got shot? No way. I must have heard her wrong. Danny DeLuna was Guild royalty . She was totally untouchable… in more ways than one. But shit, consider me curious enough to play her game.
“I can help,” I confirmed. She already knew I could, or she wouldn’t have called me. The real question was would I? “I’ll send you his number. Why can’t you go to the Guild medic in Old Town?”
She gave a short sigh. “Because the Guild just tried to have me killed.” A car door slammed on her end, and an engine revved. “Send me that number, Leon. I’ll owe you one.”
The call ended abruptly, and I smiled as I forwarded the number for a discreet medic in Prague to Danny’s phone. The Guild tried to kill her? Not possible. If a kill order had been issued for Danny DeLuna, I’d have been the first one to hear about it.
But someone must have been believable enough to have Danny spooked.
Tapping my foot on the ground, I brought up my secure flight booking app. Looked like my next mission would need to be rescheduled, because I was heading to Prague.
2
T he dull ache of my freshly stitched gunshot wound made me hiss in pain as I paced the dirty carpet of my shitty hotel room. I needed to move on to a new location, a new country, and lay low for a while. My easy job had turned out to be an ambush, and I’d left one hell of a mess over in the east side of the city. If I hadn’t been shot in the process, I’d have already been halfway around the world by now.
As it was, I was stuck in my hotel room and trying to work out how the fuck I’d been set up like that. And why. I was barely even listening to my phone, which was wedged between my ear and shoulder. The bullet had gone through my side, not hitting anything unfixable, but holy hell it hurt now that the adrenaline had worn off.
I refused to take painkillers, either, which didn’t help.
“Do you know when you’ll be back in town?” my friend asked on the other end of the phone call. “I was thinking it’d be good to get together with Sabby if we can line up our free time. It feels like forever since the three of us have hung out in person.”
I grimaced, peeling the hem of my shirt up to check my aching wound. It’d been neatly stitched up, though, and the dressing was still perfectly in place and not seeping blood. I was just being paranoid.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted with a sigh. “Things have gone a bit… off plan here.”