Page 17 of The Hitman’s Final Job
Her response comes immediately.
Zuza:
Got it.
I pocket my phone and keep walking. It’s not my first time in Warsaw, so I know these streets well. I could catch a bus to Zuza’s neighborhood, but the less my face shows up on camera, the better, so I keep walking. The chill in the air helps me focus on something other than Vaughn.
The thing about having a photographic memory is it doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t file things in order of importance or filter out the details you’d rather not keep. It captures everything with equal fidelity and stores it without your permission, which means I am now in possession of a perfect, permanent record of the last three hours, whether I want it or not.
Anything is possible when you’re in an impossible place.
I don’t know what came over me.
That’s not entirely true. I know exactly what came over me. I’ve known it for thirteen years. I’ve just been extraordinarily disciplined about not letting it out. Tonight, for reasons I’m still in the process of understanding, the discipline slipped.
I flirted. I sat across from him in that hidden restaurant and basically told him in no uncertain terms that I’d interrupted his evening on purpose. That I could give him what he’d expected to get from Seth. And then watched his expression tell me, clearly and unmistakably, he wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea.
Which was why I didn’t press it. I did the right thing and kept it friendly, and then I walked away after kissing his cheek.
I’ve been careful around Vaughn for thirteen years. If Rowan knew I’d crushed on his dad the moment we met, he’d kill me, and then he’d use his contacts at the FBI to hide my body. I’ve been declining invitations to visit because with every minute I spend with Vaughn, I find something else that fascinates me. Every minute then replays in my mind like a movie for days until I can replace it with something else. Usually the next job. The next kill.
Today I practically jumped the man, and my brain, instead of feeling all kinds of embarrassment, is fixating on the microexpression that changed everything. Vaughn isn’t completely unaffected.
Zuza’s apartment is on the fourth floor of a building two streets back from the river. She opens the door before I knock, which means she heard the elevator.
The apartment is warm. On the kitchen counter two things are waiting: a glass of red wine and a coffee.
“Which one?” she asks.
“Coffee, please.” She hands it to me and then picks up the wine and settles into the armchair by the window with her legs crossed. The beautiful emerald dress is gone. The makeup is gone. Somehow, without all the accessories, Zuza seems more lethal. “Or maybe a cigarette? Given what I was listening to tonight, you might need one.”
I sit on the couch and wrap my hands around the coffee cup. “You’re imagining things.”
“Am I?” Her eyebrows rise and her lips curl up even as she takes a sip of wine.
“I was playing a role. Getting close to him and trying to find out what’s going on.”
“You’re his favorite person,” she says, dragging out the word favorite.
“That was—”
“You told his date that you go way back.”
“I was trying to get rid of him.”
“You practically offered to jump his bones, and from the silence I heard after that and your swift change of topic, I can only guess that he would be up for it and you chickened out.”
I drink my coffee while Zuza unfolds herself from the armchair and leans forward, elbows on her knees.
“You know him better than you led me to believe. Significantly better. And I think,” she pauses, choosing her words carefully, “that the reason we’re sitting in this apartment right now instead of having completed the job is not because you think there’s something suspicious about the contract.” Another pause. “Or not only that.”
I say nothing.
“I think it’s time to put all the cards on the table, Silas.”
The apartment is quiet. Outside, a tram moves along the street below, its light sweeping briefly across the ceiling.
I set the coffee cup down on the table in front of me and lean back against the couch cushions.
