AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s why I walked the fuck away from anything to do with the government. Why I stopped being a freelance elite-for-hire assassin.
I make more here. I can do what I want.
The first doesn’t mean shit to me. I don’t need the money.
But the second? That means everything.
Because there are jobs like the sex ring Mercer destroyed, like this one we’re closing in on, that only we can do.
Some people don’t deserve to live, and we’re the God hand that doles it all out. Justice, our way.
The door opens. Jones and Easton stop their conversation and Malone slides me a look as he puts his phone away. Black Widow—so named by the newspapers for a killing spree of men when she was eighteen—sashays in and trails a hand over Malone’s arm, handing him something. She winks at me and leaves.
They never caught her. They were on the wrong track, but in here, there are very few secrets.
Only one other person remains. Alicia, the cleaner, someone often overlooked. But she can transform a scene so the best forensics team can’t find a thing. She’s also pretty badass at setting up a scene to frame someone for a crime.
She hooks a stray strand of light-brown hair behind her ear and helps herself to a Coke from the bar.
Jones lights a cigarette, sprawls in his chair at the head of the table in his office, and looks at me.
“What the fuck, Orion?”
I take a slow sip of the rum. “Excuse me?”
“This operation, the one Malone’s on. You went in there and almost fucked it up.”
“Or saved the kid he was looking for,” I say. “Take your pick.”
Jones blows out a cloud of smoke, black curls hanging around his forehead. I’ve heard him described as almost angelic.
Like fucking Lucifer. He’s an evil, sadistic prick. And when he chooses to get out in the field, his almost magic-like ability to get out of impossible situations, get into impenetrable fortresses, torture fucks who need it, is legendary.
And I know Smith told him about me.
Which is one reason why I’m here.
“Normally the Knights don’t care what jobs you take. Or your reasons for turning them down. But each job goes through us. To stop this. The Collectors are big and we’re out for the main player.” Jones pauses and leans back. “The maestro.”
“Sounds to me,” I say, my fingers sliding down the sides of my glass, “like someone’s got you by the balls.”
His nostrils flare, eyes narrowing.
“Not a good look for a Knight, Jones,” I continue. “Who is it? The senator? The one who got his son back? If I hadn’t gone to get?—”
“Your fuck toy?” He shakes his head. “I don’t care who you screw, but when you’re brought in on something, you don’t take other jobs. You don’t fucking interfere.”
It dawns on me, like the sun suddenly burning into the back of my neck, that fucking Smith never told them who my client is. Never told them who she is to him.
They don’t know.
I could blow this up.
The coldness of my anger turns hot. The fallout will hit me. But it’ll fucking hit Smith, too.
I take another swallow of my rum.
I’m not going to do it. I won’t expose him.
