THE POLYESTER HOUSEKEEPING uniform itched at my arms. I resisted the urge to scratch them as I wiped down the benches at the edge of the hotel lobby. The desk clerk had even made a comment to me about how the one near the door needed a lot of work, so I knew that at least she didn’t recognize me as an imposter. The position also made it easy to keep my face at an angle where it’d never be caught on the security cameras.
I didn’t normally like to do a lot of playacting for a mission. I’d rather have slunk in unseen, relying on stealth and strength rather than pretense. But Garrison had pointed out to me that while he was here, he might as well help pave the way to completing Anthea Noble’s job. My pride had wanted me to say no, but practicality had won out.
Better to do everything possible to ensure the operation went off without a hitch than to insist on doing it totally solo.
Right on cue, Garrison sauntered into the lobby as if he were meant to be there, wearing a dark leather jacket, sunglasses, and a chip on his shoulder larger than the massive hotel. He strode through the lobby and stopped before the farthest elevator—the one labeled PRIVATE. The two guards stationed there stopped him in his tracks.
“This car goes to the penthouse only,” one said, placing a hand on Garrison’s chest and nudging him a step backward. “There’s nothing you need here.”
Garrison’s dramatic gasp echoed through the lobby. “Do you know who I am?” he asked, and I held back from chuckling at the clear change from the voice I was used to. He spoke with a high-pitched, whiny tone that would have had Blaze in hysterics.
“Doesn’t matter. Mr. Fitzgerald doesn’t have any appointments.”
Garrison removed the sunglasses he’d been wearing and placed them atop his head. “He does with me, but what would you know about his schedule? You’re just the help.”
He made as if to waltz past the men, and one of the guards pushed him backward more forcefully. “I can double check if you’re going to make a fuss about it,” he grumbled. “But he doesn’t like being interrupted unnecessarily.”
“Oh, this is absolutely necessary,” Garrison insisted.
The guard whipped a phone out of his pocket, but before he could dial, Garrison snatched it out of his hands. “I think I’d better do the talking,” he said, and dashed for the front doors.
I was already ambling across the lobby with my head low, as if I hadn’t noticed the altercation. Garrison ran past me, and the guard hurtled after him. I placed myself in just the right spot that he couldn’t help bumping into me at the speed he was going.
“Watch where you’re going,” he spat at me, staggering, but his attention was still mostly on Garrison. I scrambled out of the way, and the guard hurtled out of the building after the phone thief.
The desk clerk stared at all that wide-eyed. “Should I call the police?” she asked the remaining guard.
He shook his head, looking bored. “Heath can take care of it.”
That’s what he thought. I meandered on in the general direction of the private elevator, tucking the keycard I’d picked from the first guard’s pocket into a pouch sewn on the inside of my sleeve.
It was only a few more seconds before Garrison dashed back in—alone. Somehow he’d made his face go pale as if in a panic. “He’s having some kind of fit,” he said to the remaining guard. “I don’t know—I didn’t mean to get him so worked up. Does he have epilepsy or something?”
“What the fuck?” The second guard barged toward the doorway to find out what was going on.
I had no idea how the rest of Garrison’s scheme would play out, only that he knew what he was doing. It was time for me to take care of my part.
The instant the second guard had barreled past the lobby doors, I darted to the elevator and swiped my sleeve past the scanner pad. The key card activated through the fabric, and the doors slid open. I slipped into the car and jabbed the button to close the doors before anyone could return and try to stop me.
The elevator car vibrated around me as it ascended. I kept my body turned away from the security camera, my head still tipped down. If anyone checked the footage later, they’d see nothing more of the murderer than the maid uniform and the brown wig I’d pulled over my hair.
Mr. Fitzgerald, the owner of this hotel, lived in the penthouse suite, and he had around-the-clock guards at every potential entrance for his safety. According to Anthea, there were none inside the room because he preferred a certain level of privacy. Naturally that also meant that once I got inside, I didn’t need to worry about cameras.
He was careful, sure, but I’d dealt with far more difficult targets.
As I neared the top floor, adrenaline began to course through my veins. How long had it been since I’d been out on an assignment, preparing to take down a target as only I knew how? The danger around me and the certainty that I could see this kill through exhilarated me in a way nothing else—not even chocolate—could. I’d forgotten what that feeling was like after the way my discoveries about the household had soured my memories of the work I’d done for them.
The thrill was momentarily dampened by a jab of guilt. Maybe those memories should have been soured. The people I’d killed… For a second, I pictured my father’s face if he knew, taut with disapproving horror.
But this mission wasn’t about Damien Malik or my birth family. This was about eliminating a man who absolutely deserved it. And there was no one better to fulfill that duty than me.
The elevator opened into a small foyer that led to the main penthouse. Another guard was stationed there.
The instant the doors parted, I sprang into motion. There wasn’t a second to waste if I wanted to stop him from raising the alarm.
The guard had inadvertently positioned himself right where I could take full advantage, standing facing the elevator with a gun in his hand and a frown on his face. I sprang at him, jerking sideways to throw him off, kicking the gun from his hand, and swinging out my arm with the knife I’d retrieved from my pocket on the way up.
The blade caught him across the throat before he had a chance to do more than draw in a breath to shout. I sliced through muscle and cartilage, severing his neck all the way down to his spine and shoving him away from me.
Blood spewed out across the floor, only a few flecks catching on the dark fabric of my uniform. As the guard crumpled to the floor, his head lolling on his nearly severed neck, I rubbed the droplets in so they wouldn’t show.
Mr. Fitzgerald’s closest bodyguards had stood by while he’d raped who knew how many girls, ignoring everything they’d seen and heard. Even if they’d been able to convince themselves there wasn’t anything outright violent involved, they’d known their boss was fixating on underage teens. Anthea hadn’t asked me to give this man as thorough a punishment as his boss, but I didn’t feel any regrets about his death.
The boss was so cautious that no one had the key to the penthouse door other than him. But he also had old-fashioned tastes, preferring to trust actual keys over digitized cards. I couldn’t have said he was wrong. If it’d been Blaze coming for him, the hacker probably could have found a way to hack an electronic lock in less than a minute.
Instead, I brought out my picks. The door had a complex mechanism, but I felt my way around the tumblers through the pounding of my heart. A push here and a twist there…
The lock clicked open. I eased the door open an inch, listening at the gap.
No one reacted on the other side. The sound of a TV show—a news report, from the staccato voice reaching my ears—carried from a more distant room. I caught a faint rustling as if someone had moved on a bed.
Perfect.
I closed the door behind me and slunk through the opulent penthouse to the master bedroom. The trappings of luxury often worked in my favor. The rug was so thick it absorbed my footsteps without much effort on my part.
The door stood halfway open. I peeked inside. A stout, doughy-faced man lounged at the edge of his king-sized bed as he watched the TV. I noted the steel chain of his necklace with a panic button on the central link. I had to work fast before he had a chance to press that.
I judged the distance and the height of the bed. Then I waited until he glanced away from the TV at the wall opposite the door.
The moment there was no chance of him seeing me, I sprang through the doorway. My first few footfalls were so silent he didn’t even realize anything was wrong until he turned back and I was nearly on top of him already.
A startled yelp jolted out of him, and his hand flew toward the panic button. But I was prepared for that. My first move was to snatch both his wrists, snapping the narrow bones as I yanked them over his head. When he fell back on the bed, I pinned his forearms under my shin and rammed the side of my hand against his throat.
The louder shout he’d been summoning died with a pained whistle. I’d crushed his windpipe to a sliver of its former self. He could still breathe, so he’d be alive for the vengeance Anthea had asked me to carry out, but he wasn’t going to be doing any hollering ever again.
It would have been easier to simply kill him outright, but I found I liked the idea of stretching out his suffering on Anthea’s orders. It still wouldn’t be anything close to the way his victims must have suffered—must still be suffering.
He started to flail against my hold, making little squeaks of pain when he strained his broken wrists. I put an end to all that struggling with a few plastic zip ties that I’d concealed in my uniform. I hauled him up the bed and attached his arms to the wrought iron headboard. Then I bound his ankles together and ran a rigid line between them and a post at the foot. It stretched him so tightly that he couldn’t bend his knees or his waist.
Mr. Fitzgerald stared up at me, wheezing, as I flashed my bloody knife. I jerked open his shirt, letting the buttons pop, and applied the tip of the blade to his flesh like a pen.
“This is for Mika,” I said, carving the full name Anthea had given me deep into the skin over his ribs. “And for Carmen, and for Tonya. You’re never going to violate anyone like you did them ever again. I’m turning the tables on their behalf.”
A whimper worked its way from his battered throat. Blood seeped from the wounds. His muscles twitched as I dug the blade in again and again, drawing every letter that told the story.
I didn’t let him bleed enough to lose consciousness. When I finished my etching, I held up the knife again and yanked down his pants.
The man’s face was already drenched in sweat and sickly gray. Now he made one last, futile attempt at escape. I shook my head as he jerked this way and that.
“If you lie still, it might hurt a little less,” I informed him. Not that I cared how much it hurt.
He didn’t heed my advice. He was still wriggling away when I slashed right through the base of his dick. Then a thin wail carried from his throat, only cut off when I finished the last piece of Anthea’s request and shoved his member down his throat to cut off his air completely.
It was vicious, but when I sat back and watched his body shudder and sag, there was a certain artistry to the act of justice. I was proud to have dealt it out.
My heart kept thumping on with the rush of adrenaline. Mr. Fitzgerald’s eyes stared blankly at the ceiling now. A smile crossed my lips. I stripped off the housekeeping costume to reveal the tight black stealth clothes underneath, retrieved the thin but sturdy rope I’d had wrapped around my waist underneath, and went to the balcony.
It only took a minute to rappel down to the ground through the cover of the night. Then I was darting away into the shadows like the ghost the criminal underworld had seen me as for years.
The wig went into a restaurant dumpster around the corner. By the time I reached Garrison where he was waiting outside a bar three blocks away, all my tension had melted away, leaving only the giddiness of the task I’d just fulfilled. I couldn’t help smiling again. Garrison took one look at me in the hazy light of the streetlamps and chuckled under his breath.
“Faster than I even expected. And I can tell you got the job done.”
“Hell, yes,” I replied, falling into step with him as we started walking down the street.
He looped his arm casually around mine. “I could do this every day if there were enough missions to keep us that busy. Such a fucking thrill.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, with a swell of emotion that had nothing to do with the job itself.
Who else had I ever known who’d really understood that feeling? Even Noelle had been more interested in my results than how I experienced my success.
How lucky was I that I’d found my way into the midst of not one but four men who could relate to the deepest, darkest parts of my heart?
