Chapter 1

TEN YEARS LATER

ROSALIND

People think an assassin's life is glamorous, but it's full of indignities. Nobody talks about the grueling torture training, tedious escape techniques, or the stomach-churning process of building a resistance to alcohol, drugs, and poisons.

I've crawled through alligator-infested sewers, rifled through rotting guts to find a microchip, and once, I fucked a decrepit old billionaire into a sex-induced heart attack.

Of all the demeaning shit I've endured for the job, none has been worse than being rejected by a man I never wanted.

Leroi slams me against his living room wall. It smells freshly painted, and the sofas look brand new. I make a note that something messy must have happened since my last visit. When he presses the barrel of a gun into my temple, I'm forced to stop spying and look up into eyes that burn with hatred.

I despise older men, even if our age difference is only six years, yet I play the part of a woman desperately in love. Arching my back, I push my breasts into his broad chest and wrap a leg around his ass, trying to get him aroused.

My horny act worked fine enough with Leroi until now. It's never failed on a red-blooded man, except that Leroi acts like his heart pumps cryogenic fluid. His personality is equally frigid. I've never once seen this bastard crack a smile.

He flashes his teeth. "First, I told you never to come here uninvited."

The sneer in his voice makes me want to stab him with my emergency syringe, but I need to keep up the act. Leroi is the key to gaining access to the real targets—his cousins, Benito and Cesare Montesano, mafia princes with million-dollar bounties on their heads, protected by an army of loyal henchmen.

Roman, their older brother and leader, is on death row. The client wants to leave his demise to the electric chair.

"Leroi," I whine. "Please."

He slides the gun's barrel down the side of my face in a mockery of a caress. "Then I told you never to return."

"But I need you," I whisper.

His gun slides over my bottom lip, smearing my red lipstick. "Now I'm thinking the only way to make you listen is with a bullet."

Anyone acting so thirsty for a man deserves to be shot. Leroi has told me to fuck off in a dozen humiliating ways, but I have a mission.

I slip my hand between our bodies, trying to reach for his cock, but he snatches my wrist with a punishing grip. Sweat breaks out across my brow. Seduction training wasn't part of my academy's curriculum, and I'm naturally inclined to despise men. My boss knows I'm no honey trap, but he always sets me up to fail.

Shit. If I can't maintain this man's interest, then I'll never get invited to the Montesano mansion and I'll never reach my targets.

Movement at the far end of the living room snatches my attention. I glance over his shoulder and lock gazes with a tiny blonde who can't be much older than Miranda.

Bile rises to the back of my throat. Leroi must be like Matteo, dating age-appropriate women in public, but privately, favoring the young. I'm tempted to stick Leroi with the syringe, but I'm already in enough trouble with the Moirai.

Instead, I spew some bullshit so heinous that Leroi just laughs. He hurls me out of his apartment, and I make a mental note to myself: Men with lumps of coal instead of hearts don't react well to the news of fake pregnancies.

I hang around outside his closed door for several minutes, wondering how the hell to salvage my mission. Maybe I could arrange the blonde's unfortunate disappearance?

No way. I'm a murderer, not a monster. Monstersleave their victims alive to wallow in trauma and pain.

With a sigh, I hobble down the hallway toward the elevator. Fuck Leroi and his humongous dick. That soulless bastard made me break my fake Louboutins.

At this time of the morning, most of the rush hour traffic has died down, leaving the streets relatively quiet. I hobble past office blocks, apartment buildings, and the occasional cafe, daring anyone to ogle me in my slutty red dress.

When a black van slows in my periphery, every fine hair on the back of my neck stands on end. This vehicle can only belong to the Moirai Group, New Alderney's largest firm of assassins, and my employer of fourteen years.

The vehicle makes a right turn at the next intersection and stops in my path, making my steps falter.

Shit.

I'm supposed to be in bed with Leroi, pursuing pillow talk, not pounding the pavement.

There are only so many times I can bullshit my way out of this failing mission, and I've already exceeded my quota.

As I approach the van, a side door slides open, revealing my recruiter and handler. In the almost fifteen years I've known him, Gunther has been perpetually thirty-five. He flashes me a grin of ice-white teeth, his pale blue eyes glittering with suppressed annoyance.

I step into the van, take a seat, and try not to sigh.

"What progress are you making with infiltrating the Montesano stronghold?" he demands.

"Leroi only communicates with his cousins at the nightclub or via text," I reply.

"So, what's he messaging them?"

My jaw tightens. It's this level of intrusiveness that wrecked my progress with Leroi. After catching me snooping through his texts, he choked me to the brink of unconsciousness. The only thing that saved my life was humping his leg until I climaxed.

That was enough to convince him I manipulated him into breath play by fucking with his phone. He kicked me out for topping from the bottom, and I left with my life.

"He's deleting those messages now," I lie with a shrug.

Gunther's eyes narrow, an impressive feat considering all the Botox. "Is he getting suspicious?"

"Not of me." I smooth down my mahogany hair. "Leroi is completely infatuated."

He turns his gaze to a laptop, and some of the tension in my shoulders melts. "Keep working on him," he mutters. "He might be helpful with a potential job that's paying multiple seven figures."

I perk up. "Who do I need to kill?"

Gunther chuckles, the sound mocking and harsh. "Nice try, but you're still demoted."

"This makes no sense. I'm the closest we've ever gotten to the Montesano?—"

"The last time we trusted you on a large-scale mission, you damaged two-hundred grand's worth of assets on a side quest."

My jaw clenches. He wouldn't understand, even if I explained why I went to rescue my daughter. Gunther would only use his knowledge of Miranda as a weapon to get me under his control.

"Didn't you make mistakes when you were eighteen, or are you too elderly to remember that far back?" I ask.

His amusement fades, leaving his face a tight mask. "Don't tell me you're falling for Leroi Montesano."

"I prefer men in their twenties."

"Some say you don't prefer men at all," he mutters.

No amount of nips or tucks or fillers can compensate for Gunther's antiquated views. No amount of time can make this decrepit old bastard forget I once rejected his advances.

He and others from the Moirai think I'm in a relationship with Britt because she helped on my side quest to save Miranda and doesn't shun me like everyone else, but we're just good friends. She's the only person in the Moirai who isn't a backstabber.

I'm not looking for any form of romantic relationship—I fuck enough assholes as part of my job. Besides, if I didn't want Gunther ten years ago when he didn't look half as gruesome, I sure as hell won't want him now.

My gaze wanders to the laptop. "We both know I can complete this job. Authorize me to take out the brothers directly?—"

"Denied." He leans back in his seat.

"Why?"

"The client wants a swift execution with no chance of retaliation, which means simultaneous assassinations and no loose ends."

Pursing my lips, I exhale my frustration in an outward breath. Gunther has already demoted me to an analyst. If I tell him the truth about losing my connection with Leroi, I may as well dig my own grave.

"Leroi isn't taking anyone into the Montesano estate. Let me hook up with one of the brothers."

"Impossible," he says. "The oldest is safely behind bars, and the middle brother hasn't shown an interest in anyone since his broken engagement."

I rub the back of my neck and sigh. "You're just reciting information I gave you."

Gunther double-clicks a recent photo I took of Cesare the last time I spotted him at the Phoenix nightclub. "And of course, the youngest is so protected, he only gets to fuck the help."

Cesare Montesano is classically handsome with sharp blue eyes and a Roman nose but hides his masculine beauty with piercings, floppy hair that he ties back, and tattoos.

At twenty-four, he's four years younger than me. Bestowed with two parents, siblings, cousins, and a spectacular mansion at the top of Alderney Hill, he's had a dream life. While I was creating cadavers, he was dissecting them at Beaumont Central Medical School. And when he dropped out, his family handed him a nightclub with an attached restaurant.

I shake my head. What a waste of gifts.

The picture disappears, bringing my attention back to Gunther. "So you see, the only way into the family is through a trusted relative."

I reach for the laptop and open another file. "Or there's the bodyguard, Gilberto Agostini. He drives into the club with the brothers. He's at their house every day, is a natural flirt, and has a closer relationship to the family than Leroi."

Gunther slams the laptop lid shut. "You're not authorized to approach him."

"Why not?"

"Because another operative is working on him." Before I can call him out on his bullshit, he rises off his seat and flings open the door, letting in the scent of a freshly mowed lawn. "On the subject of family… How's your sister?"

My stomach plummets, and I glance past Gunther's smug features to what's beyond the van's exit. We're at the gates of Tourgis Academy.

He's threatening Miranda.

Who is, of course, not my little sister.

I don't correct his mistake. Only three other people know Miranda's true parentage. I shot one between the eyes and took care of the second with a grenade launcher. Britt is the third, and I trust her with my life.

"She'll be fourteen now," Gunther says, his voice carrying a hint of nostalgia.

I maintain a poker face, using all my training to appear detached. This is exactly why I've kept Miranda at a distance. Gunther will exploit any vulnerability to keep me under his control.

"Same age you were when I recruited you from your academy."

Dread crushes my chest like a boulder. Gunther's message is loud and clear. If I don't find a way to infiltrate the Montesano mansion, he'll come for Miranda.