Page 3 of Pretty Little Assassin

I press one finger to his lips. “Shh.”

He doesn’t shh.

They never do.

He tries to grab my wrist, which is adorable, because I’m already inside his guard. My left hand catches his jaw for leverage, and I tilt his head back just enough to expose the thick column of his throat. His scent glands pulse with alpha musk. From arousal to straight terror.

That’s the part I like best.

“You know what I love about alphas?” I say, dragging the tip of Mercy along his collarbone. “You think you’re invincible, and that’s why you never see it coming.”

Mercy finds the soft spot between the third and fourth ribs. One precise thrust. The blade angles upward, piercing the left ventricle. He seizes, eyes wide, mouth open on a sound that never comes. His hands claw at my arms, but the strength is already draining out of him.

“That’s for the fourteen-year-old,” I murmur. “And for every one you thought nobody would miss.”

I hum as I start the countdown. A song my father used to hum, from before my mother decided gin was a food group.

He goes limp in eleven seconds, and then I’m looking down at the single drop of blood on my white stilettos and see my mistake.

Not the dead alpha on the Egyptian cotton sheets. That was the whole point.

The mistake is the blood.

One tiny, infuriating droplet, sitting on the toe of my left Louboutin. I crouch down and wipe it with the corner of the duvet cover.

Damn it.

Finding size-five stilettos that don’t make me look like a child playing dress-up is a genuine nightmare. I refuse to let Gerald Wallgreen III ruin them from beyond the grave.

I make a mental note to reward myself with a new pair.

I strip the scene in under four minutes.

I switch off the heat diffuser, a small device tucked into my clutch that broadcasts synthetic omega pheromones. The champagne flutes go into the bag, but I keep the bottle. Gerald gets arranged on the bed, a scene of cardiac arrest from a man who, according to his medical records Donnie dug up, had a pre-existing heart condition and a cocaine habit. The puncture wound is small enough to miss unless someone’s looking for it.

They won’t be. Gerald’s people will want this quiet. Dead philanthropist found in hotel suite with traces of cocaine and an omega’s scent? They’ll call it a heart attack before the body’s cold.

I take one last look at him. He looks peaceful. I hope he isn’t.

My phone vibrates in my clutch as I step into the elevator, after Donnie confirmed the cameras were offline.

NEW CONTRACT

Priority: URGENT

Client: ANONYMOUS

Payment: $2,000,000

I stop walking.

Two million.

That’s the kind of number the VEIL reserves for high-value targets. Government officials. Crime lords. People whose deaths rearrange the landscape. I’ve been doing this for six years, and the biggest payout I’ve ever seen was eight hundred thousand, and that was for a senator with a private militia.

I tap ACCEPT BRIEFING because curiosity has always been my worst trait, worse than the killing, honestly, and the dossier loads as the elevator doors slide closed.

My breath catches.