Page 16 of Cozen

It wasn’t often he stared into a mirror. Not for too long, anyway. Sometimes, he didn’t recognize the golden-skinned, brown-eyed, black-haired man looking back at him. Sometimes, he was too busy being someone else to remember where he came from.

Scrubbing a hand down his jaw, Sargon watched the man in the mirror mimic the action. He kept a short, well-trimmed beard, but he liked a clean throat. His throat needed a shave, according to the reflection.

His mother liked to tell Sargon that he looked like his father. That he’d taken the strong, prominent jaw, russet eyes, and thick, straight brows from his dad. His nose, and lips came from his mother, though.

For all purposes, on paper it looked as though Sargon was adopted by his parents, although that was just their way of muddying a paper trail so that they could not be found. They changed their clearly un-American names to something more fitting of the country they decided to run and hide in, and it was here in America that Sargon was born.

Although, if anyone looked for his parents, it would simply appear on paper as though they died shortly after coming to the States from Iran.

Sargon’s gaze drifted to the mirror again, and the man staring back at him. Seeing his reflection reminded him of his mother and father, and that he missed them. That tug deep in his heart was painful in that way.

This was why he didn’t like mirrors.

Sargon straightened a bit when the man in black from the front of the restaurant appeared at the end of the hallway. The guy pressed his finger to the Bluetooth in his ear, and nodded once as his gaze traveled to Sargon.

“Easy to handle,” he heard the man say. “No worries—it’ll be done before you are.”

A thump echoed from inside the private room, followed by a loud pop. The kind of sound a bullet made going through a shitty homemade silencer.

Yeah, he knew this was going to go bad. Kale should have kept the fuck up with the program when Sargon tried to voice his concerns. Look at them now.

Shit.

Sargon glanced up at the ceiling, and wondered why nothing in his fucking life could be easy. The man in black strolled closer in his direction, while Sargon slid his hand into the pocket of his slacks. In a sheath he kept hidden in the pocket, he wrapped his fingers around the curved handle of the Obsidian. It was protected for now in its cocoon of leather. At least, until he brought it out to play.

He didn’t like guns.

Heavy fucking things.

A knife was far easier.

An Obsidian blade was the best.

“Sorry to tell you, man,” the guy started to say, “but your boss isn’t going to be needing your services anymore.”

Sargon looked to the right at the guy. “That so?”

The man’s jacket opened a bit—a purposeful move—to showcase the gun resting at the guy’s hip. He gave Sargon a pointed look, and then nodded down the hall.

“I think you should probably come with me, and let’s not make it a fucking hassle, all right?”

Sargon lifted one thick brow. “I think not, no.”

“No?”

“I don’t stutter.”

Or repeat himself.

A haughtiness flashed in the guy’s eyes which just made Sargon roll his own. Everybody working for anybody in this world all thought they were some kind of hot shit. As though they were the very best, and the only one made for the job.

This guy wasn’t different.

“You got it, fucker,” the guy muttered.

The man reached for his gun.

Sargon slipped the blade from the leather sheath.