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The hallway was empty; the other girls on this floor were either out or training somewhere in the mansion. Even after twenty years of living here, I still couldn’t get over how luxurious the place was. My hand trailed down the large banister as I descended the two flights of stairs and made my way through the halls to the sitting room. I waved at a few people but didn’t linger, knowing Man would expect punctuality.
Accessing the hidden stairs, I raced down the last flight into the training room, the vaulted ceilings and pristine floor taking my breath away. Darcy was in one corner kicking a dummy, and Naomi was in the armory, surveying the wall of weapons as I continued to Man’s office.
The door was ajar as I approached, so I entered the masculine and elegant space with a knock. My eyes took in the heavy drapes and the bookshelf before falling to Man. He didn’t look up, his salt and pepper head bent over a document on his large desk. Taking the seat in the chair across from him, I waited for him to finish, knowing he’d tell me what I needed to do when he was ready.
I tried to tell if any of the items on his desk had been moved, knowing Harlow and Royal disagreed on the proper placement of things in the house, shifting things half an inch to their preferred liking. But as much as I stared at the things on Man’s desk, I couldn’t determine if any of them were in a different spot than before.
A few seconds later, Man closed the file he was reading and met my eyes. Once we’d arrived at the mansion, Man had left me in the care of others, not speaking to me outside of a few words. I hadn’t minded it, knowing if he needed to say something, he would. His blue eyes held respect as he stared, and I had to stop myself from squirming under his praise.
“Sir,” I said in greeting. He nodded in response, sliding his customary envelope across the desk. Without any words, he returned to his files, leaving me to my task. Gripping the thick envelope, I hurried back to my room, eager to learn who my next mark was.
It was time for my killer side to come out and play.
3
RAVEN
Three names were writtenon the paper. Three names I’d been hired to kill. Three names that requiredmyskills.
I’d been called several names over the years in the few times my presence didn’t go unnoticed—from the Needle Assassin to Peppermint Killer and Doctor Death. And I hated them all. They were boring, and quite frankly, I wanted something more badass.
For one, I didn’t even use peppermint to kill, so that was false advertising. I just left one on their bedside table. A little “get well soon” gift and an ode to the boy I couldn’t forget.
The other two had taken zero creativity, and I had better luck using an assassin generator than whoever decided Needle Assassin and Doctor Death were cool. But it felt even lamer to name yourself, so I casually tried to drop my approved monikers and hoped they’d catch on.
Sounded easy enough, right?
Nope. It had been three years, and Peppermint Killer still made the headlines.
Anyway, back to the three names who required my skills.
Millicent Winters. John Mathis. Jerome Fulton.
The last three remaining members from the board of Good Meds Pharma, thanks to me. I’d hunted them down one by one over the years. Their company had done atrocious things, like keeping important medications from those in need, hiking up the costs on life-saving drugs, and creating drugs that made false promises.
Most recently, they’d been in the news for Artevac. A medication advertised as a miracle drug for addictions, targeting receptors to block signals in the brain. They promised relief for addicts, offering them a solution to break out of the addiction cycle.
Artevac had worked, at least at first, dramatically changing people’s lives.
However, the studies on the side effects had been grossly under-reported, hiding that while the addiction part of the brain was shut off, depression and suicidal thoughts increased tenfold. In the six months it was on the market, thousands of deaths were reported.
Good Meds Pharma couldn’t escape the fallout this time and folded; the board members went into hiding and left the mess for investors to handle. They’d thought they could hide behind their fortunes and avoid any accountability. It might’ve been the chemists that created the drug, but it was the board that had pushed it to market before it was ready, fully aware they were hiding the side effects.
And now we had found the last three, the president of the board included. These three were at the top of Good Pharma Meds and had known what was coming well before anyone. They could’ve stopped production or even taken responsibility for their greediness. Instead, they took all the evidence with them, so the families affected couldn’t even file a lawsuit. They changed their names and sequestered themselves away before the news broke. These three selfishly saved themselves, not even sharing the information with their fellow board members.
“Your days are numbered,” I whispered, excitement spreading through me at finally uncovering their aliases and locations.
Glancing at the clock, I calculated I had roughly twenty-four hours to prepare. Spreading out the blueprints, I reviewed the three buildings’ layouts, noting the entrances and exits and identified the best places to sneak in for each hit. Once I felt confident in my basic knowledge of the structures, I studied everything I could about all three marks’ habits, schedules, likes, and dislikes, so I could exploit them to my advantage.
Eventually, my neck cramped and eyes blurred as my muscles protested from sitting in one position for hours. Stretching my arms, I closed the laptop and hopped off the bed to change. I had to practice rappelling and balancing in case I needed to use either skill to escape. With the layout of one of the buildings, it was a likely possibility.
When I entered the training room, it was quiet; most of the house was asleep at this hour. I didn’t let it deter me, walking to the section I needed and hooking on the necessary safety equipment. Climbing up the rock wall, I practiced my balance as I crossed the thin beam from one corner to the other while twenty feet in the air. The muscles in my legs shook at the halfway point, sweat dripping down my face and I focused on not looking down.
Keeping my eyes on the wall before me, I stretched my arms out to my sides to help steady myself. A door slammed below me, and I cursed, jerking to the right and grabbing the cord holding me up as I swayed.
“Blue cheese!” I shouted, causing whoever was below me to laugh.
“Sorry, Raven,” Naomi yelled back. “Continue. You got this.”
