Page 12 of The Hitman’s Final Job

She studies me for a moment. Then she uncrosses her legs and sets her full drink down on the bar. “Silas, what you’re asking of me is impossible.”

Vaughn is checking his watch now, like he’s waiting for someone. Still unaware that fifteen yards away, two people are deciding whether he gets to keep breathing. He leans back in his chair, one arm draped over the side, tension gone from his face, and I remember what Rowan said about the conference. Maybe this was the last day and he’s relaxing before going home tomorrow.

“Zuza,” I say carefully. “We’ve worked on countless jobs together. There’s no one else I would trust with my life. I know you’re risking everything. Your job. Maybe even your life. But I need you to trust me.”

She lets out a deep breath, and then she smiles. “You did say I was Draven’s best agent, right?”

I laugh. “No chance.” She knows it’s a lie.

“Okay,” she says finally. “I trust you. So what do we do now? We don’t have much time before we need to report back.”

Before I can answer, movement at the edge of my vision pulls my attention to Vaughn’s table.

A man approaches him.

He seems around my age—early thirties—well-dressed, effortlessly attractive. The glasses make him look smart, but it’s the way he walks toward Vaughn that churns jealousy inside me. He’s there because he can be.

When Vaughn glances up and sees him, he smiles. The way they hug, briefly but with a lingering touch, suggests they’ve already met. Maybe at the conference?

I hate the direction my thoughts are heading.

“We need to interrupt that,” I say.

“Who’s that?” she asks.

“I don’t know. A date?”

“How do you know it’s a date?”

“Vaughn isn’t straight, and the way the fucking guy is eyeing him, he may as well be under the table with his mouth in Vaughn’s crotch.”

“Wow,” she laughs. “There’s a story there and I want to know every detail, but right now I agree with you. We need to get rid of the other guy, and something tells me you growling at him will do the job.”

She reaches into her clutch and produces a small listening device between her thumb and forefinger. It’s the size of a small button.

“Hold still,” she says.

She leans forward and attaches the device to the second button of my shirt. Then she reaches into her clutch again and fits a small earwig into her right ear, adjusting it until it disappears.

“There,” she says, sitting back. “I can hear everything you say. I’ll follow what’s happening and adjust accordingly. Now, go.”

I stand up but linger at the bar, watching the table where Vaughn Reeves is sitting with another man, laughing at whatever he just said.

After a moment, I straighten my jacket and walk toward the man I’ve been trying not to want for the best part of a decade.

Some things, it turns out, are more complicated than killing people.

When Vaughn looks up and sees me with those blue eyes I know so well, his expression shifts from confusion to recollection to something I can’t tell.

Yep, killing people is way less complicated.

FIVE

VAUGHN

“—and I’m telling you,” Seth says, leaning forward, “the spider was the size of my hand.”

He’s even more interesting away from the conference. He’s relating a story about a spider that once got into his bed, which is pushing Australia further down my list of places to go with every word he says, when I see him.