Page 16 of Hunting Snow

THANE

The summons from Sapphire lights up my burner at half past ten.

New contract. Closed. Dark Floor. Harlon wants you. Come now.

No pleasantries. I appreciate the efficiency. Small talk is for people who enjoy the sound of their own voice and I've never been one of them.

I holster my weapon, pull on my jacket, and walk out of an apartment that still smells like her.

Seven days. Seven mornings of waking to cold sheets and her scent still lingering on my pillow.

I can’t let go of the vanilla scent. It’s all I have left of her. There’s no digital footprint anywhere in this city, and believe me, I've torn Chicago apart looking. Every contact, every tool at my disposal, every dark corner of the intelligence networks I've spent decades building, and the woman who wrecked me in a single night doesn't exist anywhere I’ve looked. It is as though she’s turned into a ghost.

A contract killer who has tracked targets across three continents can't find one green-eyed girl in his own backyard. I’ve warred with myself for a week on how useless I feel. How does anyone keep themselves hidden all their lives? Like someone erased her from the world to protect her. Only a possessive husband or a protective father would do that and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

I’m assuming here, but doesn’t every woman her age have social media accounts?

The drive to Genesis takes eleven minutes. I count the passing streetlights out of a habit born from years of cataloging details that keep my mind focused. Fourteen between my building and the sub-basement entrance. The steady drizzle of rain has stopped, but slick reflections still bleed neon across wet asphalt from passing bars and restaurants.

Beneath the club, the sub-basement stretches wide and dim. Concrete pillars. Fluorescent strips. Two vehicles sit in the east row near the elevator bank. I park, cross the structure, and press my thumb to the biometric panel. The elevator climbs in silence.

The doors open and the quiet swallows everything.

Gunpowder and roses. Cool air sharp enough to prickle bare skin. Black carpet stretching in every direction, swallowing sound and light. Overhead, chandeliers throw gold across dark surfaces, elegant but insufficient. Why the fuck you need to dress up a murder-for-hire business is beyond me.

All I know is the Dark Floor at Genesis is a vault, and the silence pressing in from every direction is by design.

I've walked this carpet hundreds of times over twenty years. The layout is printed on the inside of my skull. Reception to the right, lounge straight ahead, parlor beyond, private rooms along the back wall. My boots land soft and muffled against the black pile. Three runners occupy the lounge tonight. One has a blade across his thigh, running his thumb along the spine in slow, absent strokes. The other two track my movement. Snake Eyes, the dock rat with a permanent death stare, watches me the way he watches everyone. That fucker stopped being human and became the job years ago. I keep my attention dead ahead. These runners take the low-tier scraps and dream about the contracts I get handed by name.

The receptionist lifts her chin as I pass. "Thane."

I return the nod without slowing.

Sapphire sits behind the horseshoe booth with her laptop open and those sharp blue eyes already locked on me. Dark hair pulled back from a beautiful face that shouldn’t be stuck here surrounded by so much death. But that’s my opinion and I keep that shit to myself.

She’s a compact woman dressed in black. She carries more lethal intelligence behind that calm expression than half the runners in the lounge combined. Her cousin Harlon put her in the undertaker's seat because she handles the ugliest transactions in Chicago without a flinch. In the years I've worked on this floor, she’s never blinked at what crosses her desk.

So again, though she appears too pretty and definitely has a sweet aura about her, I keep my opinion to myself. I have no doubt she could cut my balls off and hand them to me if she felt the need.

"Cross." She gestures to the leather chair across from her. "Sit."

I unbutton my jacket and lower myself into the chair. Cool leather. The faint glow of monitors pulses behind her on the wall. A glass of water sits untouched near her elbow beside two phones and a stack of folders.

"What's the job?"

"It’s a closed contract and came in tonight." She turns the laptop to face me, the screen displaying a clean summary. "Single target. Elimination, clean, no trace. Fee is ten point five minus our fee."

Ten point five million. A number that would change most men's lives. For me, it barely registers. I've earned more on a single job. The fortune in my accounts sits untouched. I've never turned a dollar of it into anything resembling a life. A ghost doesn't need a mansion. Doesn't need a legacy or a retirement plan. The money piles up because there is nothing else to do with it, and the man who earns it doesn't have anyone worth spending it on.

But I could have. She was in my bed. Within reach and I let her slip away. I flick the thought away.

"Client?"

"Anonymous on the runner paperwork. Castellano money in the escrow. You good with that?"

Castellano. The name triggers a quick mental file. Old Chicago money. Legacy empire built on blood, patriarch dead just over a year. Power vacuum. Inheritance disputes. The rumblings along underground channels have been consistent for months, but the Castellano world never crossed into my work before so I didn’t give a fuck.

"Timeline?" It’s easier to focus on work than to ruminate about the one who got away. That said, this time last week she was at that bar. Would she be back this week?