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That’s another nice thing about smoking. It really lets you punctuate a moment.

She doesn’t have to say think, hard, about this option. I’m happy to kill your ex-boyfriend.

The cloud of smoke does it for her.

It’s a sweet offer, really. She wants to spare me this pain. She’s a true friend. Not just because she’s the only person who really understands my world.

Because she’ll do anything for me.

And I’ll do anything for her.

“I can make it fast. Painless,” she sweetens the deal. And she can. She’s a total pro. Hell, she’s a David Fincher character. Group home, military past, failed relationships.

I shake my head. I don’t want to hurt him. Even after he responded to my I miss you text by showing up with a SWAT team, arresting me, and holding me in a French prison.

I don’t want him to die.

But if someone has to take his life⁠—

It should be me.

“Oh, you want slow torture? I can arrange that,” she says with a teasing lilt.

“Screw you,” I say, but there’s a laugh in my voice.

“You know I won’t seduce him first. He’s not my type.”

This time, my laugh fills the entire room. Elena with Matteo, with any man, but especially with one as traditionally masculine as my stoic, protective ex-boyfriend.

It’s ridiculous. She’s like a frat boy with her insatiable appetite for pussy.

The tightens in my chest eases. It feels good to laugh. It feels… right.

That’s what I do. I look at the absurdity of my life and I have fun. I won’t let him change that.

I meet her gaze. “I want to do it myself.”

“Oh? Is that a new kink?” she asks, cocking her head.

I flip her off.

He deep, throaty chuckle fills the room. “Oh, I know. You could record it. Add it to your collection,” she says.

“Record myself committing a felony? Smart.”

“Hot?” She raises a brow.

“No, you sicko.” I take another sip of gin. It washes away the smoke. It tastes too much like him. It’s the lime. The coriander. The juniper. “Let me see the rest.”

And there it is.

It’s not a simple job.

I need to win his trust. To find a file with enough info to put everyone in this organization in jail.

Then I need to kill him at his boss’s party.

Why? It doesn’t say. It rarely does. People pay to not answer those kinds of questions. And this job pays handsomely.