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My chest glows with warmth, something new for me. No one has ever defended me like this. “I knew I was different from the moment I stood over my parents’ bodies. Instinctively, I knew I wasn’t going to be like other children. They never understood me, and I never got them. It was simply easier to be alone.”
He covers my hand with his. “Friends are overrated, anyway.”
Something soft settles inside me. He’s not judging me, and it’s liberating. It feels a lot like peace. “It did make me an ideal sniper candidate. So there’s that, I suppose.”
“I bet.” He pulls me tighter. “A perfect little killer. Is that what you always had in mind for a career?”
“At first, I wanted to take out the bad guys. Then I realized good and bad are very gray concepts, and that the bad guys could be your own comrades, the very men who took an oath to have your back.”
“And that’s when you became a freelancer.”
“Yes.” I look up at him with an ironic smile. “Though I’m still selective with the jobs I take.” When his face darkens, no doubt at the recollection that I allegedly framed him as a terrorist, I quickly change the subject. “How about you? Was it hard the first time?”
“Easier than it should’ve been.” His gaze turns unreadable. “You said it felt fantastic. Me, I felt nothing. I felt the flesh part when I drove the knife into that filthy bastard’s side. I felt the warmth as his blood ran over my fingers. But that’s as far as it went. Nothing else. No need to spill my guts afterward. No remorse. Just another box on a list to tick off.”
Interesting. And he was only sixteen. Does that mean he’s even more dysfunctional than I am?
My shrinks would’ve had a field day with him.
“Why don’t you have a professional name?” I ask.
He laughs softly. “I don’t need one. That’s for fancy assassins like you.”
I punch him on the arm.
“Ow,” he says, although I know he hardly felt that. When I don’t rise to the bait, he drops a kiss on my temple and asks, “Why Mink?”
I inhale deeply. “Just before the hijacking, I asked my mother for a cookie. She said I had to wait for dinner.” It was such a mommy thing for her, healthy food first. “I wanted that cookie so badly, but I didn’t nag because I was still a good girl back then, right up to the point when I started walking alone down that road.” Pushing aside the memory, I continue. “The cookie brand was Mink. Chocolate-chip mint was the flavor. It went off the market a few years ago. Did you know it?”
He shakes his head. “Cookies weren’t thick on the ground where I came from. If I’d ever eaten a Mink, I would’ve remembered.”
I fold my arms around his waist, giving him comfort, because all kids deserve cookies.
“What happened after you started walking?” he asks.
“I walked for hours, I think. A car eventually came past. The driver pulled over. She was a kind lady, on her way to visit her family. She gave me a lift to the nearest police station. They contacted my grandmother.”
He brushes a thumb over my side. “When did you get the tattoo?”
“The minute I turned eighteen. It’s my own version of a memorial stone.”
“That’s nice. I’m sure they would’ve approved.” He lifts his hand to my neck and traces the tattoo there. “What about the hummingbird?”
It’s hard not to stiffen and give myself away. “It symbolizes life.”
And what good does it do me now? I got it after my first treatment of chemotherapy as a small token of victory, a symbol of my fight to live. For the majority of that first year after being diagnosed, I hated my body for its defect, for failing me when I ate healthily, worked out religiously, and needed my dangerous job like I needed air and food. And it wasn’t only because of the money. The adrenaline of the missions made me feel alive. It was the only thing reminding me I still have a heart.
Until Yan. Now he reminds me of that, too. In so many other ways.
“I like it,” he says.
“You do?”
He traces the piercings in my ear with a finger. “Everything.”
“Why?” A part of me wants him to admit to liking more than just what he sees on the surface.
“You know why.”
“I don’t.”
“I’m sure you’re aware of the effect you have on men.”
This time, I’m not quick enough to hide the rigidity that sets into my muscles. Yan isn’t a fool, and he’s exceptionally clever at reading people. Especially me, it seems.
He grips my chin, his perceptive gaze narrowing. “After Budapest, how many men did you sleep with?”
He means after we fucked like animals in his bed. I give him the truth. “None.”
