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Well, hello to you, too.“There’s been a complication.”

The man stopped short in front of me. His jowls quivered. “A complication? A fucking complication!”

I didn’t shout back, didn’t engage with his protest. The last thing I wanted to do was sit here and let the embodiment of a goblin yell at me.

Fucking hell, I hated meeting with clients.

“It had better be a big complication,” he seethed.

“It is.” Big enough to provoke this meeting.

Big enough to make me cancel the job. Not that the client knew that was what this was. No, I couldn’t end it and leave. The fallout would be too great. I had to stay and stall; had to maneuver the politics; and find a way to stop the wheels set in motion. While I hadn’t started them, I was part of the cogs and mechanisms making this operation run.

Spittle flew from the client’s lips. “How much to fix it?”

I cocked my head. That was the way these types worked. Throw enough money at the problem and make it go away.

Only, I didn’t operate like that.

“This is more complex. I need more time,” I said simply.

That set the arsehole off.

He raged, calling me names and threatening to revoke the contract.

While that was exactly what needed to happen, it had to be me pulling the plug. Not him. I’d been hired to do a job. That was what I was here to do. No matter how my feelings came alive, questioning every move I made. Until I could walk away with the assurance that the city wouldn’t be in ruins behind me, I had to stay.

“I need more time,” I stated, cutting off his tirade.

“That’s it? No specific date? Just ‘more time?’” the client sneered. “I thought you were the best.”

I rose. “I am. That is why when I say what I need, you’re going to bloody give it to me.”

A stubby finger pointed in my direction. “I want this done.”

You and me both.

Except…there was no amount of time long enough to change my mind. I was breaking this deal. A first for me. The bullshit line I fed the client was a stall, a tactic to pacify him while I grappled with the circumstances out of my control. The worst one, the one I never would have seen coming, was meeting Isabella.

I didn’t ask to cross her path. Didn’t mean to engage with the pixie. Never wished for her to trip daintily into my world of death.

Now that I had, I was rethinking everything. I spent the last two days questioning my every decision, trying—and failing—to come to terms with this contract.

As I walked away from the client, the fallout over this job consumed my every thought. It would be far stretched, and anyone living in this area was in possible danger. Including Isabella. It was her fault, really. I came to town to do my work, and now I was breaking a deal.

All because I met her.

I felt her kindness.

I watched from the shadows how she affected the lives around her.

Before I realized it, I was following the path Isabella took. I wanted to go back to watching my girl.

She’s not my anything.

But the thought that my callous actions caused her tears drove me to the point of madness. Death and I were old friends. For that matter, his cousin Pain and I were on equally familiar terms. Yet those tears made me hate myself.

I’m bad for her. The worst possible person to have ever crossed her path.