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They’re because I’m in Rome. Because I keep hearing ti amo bounce off the cobblestone.
They’re because I need a fuck as talented as he was.
This is just—
Uh—
I take the envelope from my best friend. Run my fingers over the soft edges. Let my imagination fill with wild possibilities.
A Prime Minister dies on top of his mistress.
A drug lord who overdoses in a clinic.
A cheating husband who falls off a balcony.
Okay, that last one needs work. A little more irony. Something fun and specific. Something that suits him and him alone.
I need to stretch myself.
“How was your day?” Elena’s voice pulls me back to the moment.
“It was easy.” I’m bored. That’s the problem. That’s why I keep thinking about my ex-boyfriend. Because I need a challenge.
I toss the envelope on the table and pour myself a glass of water.
“This is a fast turn over. I usually only get a gig every two weeks.” If that. There are only so many people with enough money to hire us. Murder is expensive business.
"Maybe Hera knows you need the work,” she refers to our ruthless yet maternal boss. “You do take a lot of fancy vacations." Elena laughs at the absurdity of the idea I need back-to-back fifty to a hundred-thousand-dollar gigs to pay for my fly first class to Malta on a whim lifestyle.
She’s not wrong. I enjoy the finer things. Top shelf gin, orchestra theater tickets, Wagyu beef.
But I can’t drop all my cash on five-star hotels when I’m undercover. The get-in, pose as a tourist at a cheap air BnB, get-out lifestyle of an assassin doesn’t leave a lot of time to spend all my money.
My Swiss bank account is stocked. My investments are healthy. And that art heist from the scenario I always use with Mattie? That was real. Long story. Short version: I walked away with a few million dollars.
I don’t need to keep doing this for the cash. I need to keep doing this because it’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at.
Because this is the only place I’ve ever felt myself.
And, well, because people who quit end up dead.
Maybe if I’d paid more attention to Scorsese movies I mocked, I would’ve understood: criminals go to jail or they die in the line of fire.
Elena pulls out a cigarette and places it between her lips. “At least you’re not paying the sin tax on these things.”
My eyes go to the no smoking sign on the fridge.
She shrugs who cares and flicks her lighter anyway.
She takes a long, slow drag, then turns her head to the window to exhale.
“Who still smokes?” I try to focus on our banter, but the whole I have to keep killing until I die thing weighs on me.
She notices, but she doesn’t sink into it. She stays light. “You’re so American sometimes, doll.”
Cultural differences. That’s a good space. “You’re the one who loves the Big Mac.”
“That’s our secret.” She points at me with her cigarette, drawing a little circle in the air like she’s drawing a cone of silence. “I’ve killed for less.”
