Page 3 of Fastest Kill

And yet, here she was.

Frederica closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. The concrete was cool against her skull, soothing the dull throb of the hangover that had settled behind her eyes.

The problem of Dario Colleoni had started at Leo's wedding. No. Before that. It had started in Treviso, when they had stood over two dead men and laughed like it was the funniest thing either of them had ever seen.

Something had shifted between them after that. The barbs had softened. The rivalry had become something else, something that crackled with a different kind of energy, and Frederica had told herself it was the impending siege and adrenaline.

At the wedding, she had saved him a seat. She still didn't know why she had done it. The chair had been empty, and she had put her hand on it, and when Dario walked in, scanning the room with easy confidence, she had caught his eye and dared him to sit down beside her.

They had spent the entire reception tearing strips off each other, and she had enjoyed every second of it. Dario was the only person she knew who could keep up with her.

Not her friend Kon, who was patient and wouldn't push back when she needed pushing. Not Altun, who saw too much and knew when she was picking fights for fun. Not her parents, who loved her with an intensity that could be suffocating.

Dario fought her. He met her sharpness with his own and didn't flinch. He called her Spartana just to piss her off, took her insults as compliments, and gave them back with interest. He was infuriating and relentless, and she didn't know why she liked it.

This is pathetic. You are pathetic.

Her mother, Despina, would say she needed to stop and think about it. She had the emotional clarity of a sniper scope—see the target, pull the trigger, deal with the consequences. Do you like him? Tell him. He says no? Break his kneecaps and move on.

Frederica was not her mother. She was not soft curves and easy warmth hiding a killer's instincts. She was all edges and angles, and people saw that. They saw the Spartan build, the direct stare, the calluses on her hands, and they made their assumptions about her on sight. Too intense. Too aggressive. Too much.

The men she had been with over the years had all hit the same wall eventually. The moment they realized she wasn't going to soften, wasn't going to dim, wasn't going to become the yielding, gentle woman they had been hoping was hiding underneath the muscle and violence, they all bailed.

She wasn't hiding anything. What they saw was what they got, and what they got was a woman who could kill you six ways with a butter knife and didn't have the patience for a man who needed her to be anything less.

And Dario has never expected you to be less. The thought surfaced before she could drown it.

She opened her eyes and stared at the flickering light. Forty-nine minutes now.

When the police officer asked who she wanted to call, she ran through her options.

Her father. No. Tore would arrive with a bag of tools and a plan to break her out, far more elaborate than the situation warranted. He would also tell Despina.

Her mother was firmly on the do-not-call list. Despina would come with a lecture, a gun, and the kind of maternal disappointment that made waterboarding look merciful. Worst of all, she would know why Frederica had been drinking. Despina always fucking knew.

Altun? It was mortifying just thinking about it. The sorceress had enough on her plate without bailing out a grown woman who couldn't handle her alcohol like an adult.

Kon would come with a smirk that she had fucked up, which was almost worse. He would bring Athena, who would demand to know why she had been dumb enough to get caught.

That left the one person who would find this genuinely funny instead of concerning. The one person who would walk into a Greek police station and treat the whole thing like the greatest entertainment of his week.

Dario Colleoni. You called Dario fucking Colleoni.

She hated that she knew his number by heart. She hated that when the officer had asked for a name, the words 'tell the big idiot bear malakas dickhead he owes me a favor' had slurred out of her mouth without conscious thought.

She hated that some traitorous part of her, the part that wasn't furious and starting to have a hangover, was looking forward to seeing his face.

This is what rock bottom looks like. You finally made it.

Time passed. She refused to count the light flickers anymore because it was becoming obsessive, and Frederica tried very hard not to be obsessive. She was controlled and a professional, and if she let her obsession start controlling her, she would end up counting the bricks in the wall over and over again.

There was a ruckus, and she opened her eyes.

The voice came first, filtering through the heavy door that separated the holding cells from the reception area. Deep, warm, and booming with such cheerful confidence that it was almost impressive.

"Good evening. I'm here for a woman in your cells. Tall, dark hair, looks like she could kill you with a pencil faster than John Wick? Yes, that's the one."

Frederica's stomach did a complicated roll, and she hoped she wouldn't spew up the bottle of ouzo she had downed. At least, she thought it had been ouzo.