1. Bianca

"You can start."

I nod to the prostitute as I take a seat. The chair is parallel to the bed, and this angle allows for perfect visibility. Raising my gun just a little so they can see I"m not kidding, I lean back and make myself comfortable.

The woman drops to her knees, her hands trembling as they struggle with the fastening of the man"s pants. I roll my eyes at her obvious anxiousness and spare a glance at my watch. Vlad will not like this.

"Faster!" I snap, thinking I"d already wasted enough time with the threats. If she keeps this up, I"ll have a furious Vlad on my hands, and all for nothing.

"Y-y-yes," she stammers and finally takes his dick out. Surprisingly, he"s hard. Then again, given his age, he probably took something to help him out. I motion for her to continue.

She lowers her head, and opening her mouth, she takes him in. I narrow my eyes, trying to look at her technique. I"m busy observing when the door bursts open.

"B, what"s taking so long?" Vlad groans as he enters the room, locking the door behind him. He takes one look at the bed, then his eyes find me before shaking his head.

"He was having a tête-à-tête with a prostitute," I shrug, pointing toward the mid-coitus couple.

"So?" He arches an eyebrow, hand on dagger as he playfully rotates it in the air. "What are you waiting for?" he asks, exasperated. I knew I should have been more succinct in my threats to get the action going faster. Vlad is not the patient type.

"Don"t you see?" I stand up, coming around the bed and pointing toward the huddled figures. "This is my opportunity to learn from a professional. Miss . . ." I look at her.

"Abigail," she breathes out, her lip trembling.

"Thank you. Miss Abigail here was just about to demonstrate the act of fellatio."

We"d been ordered to assassinate the CEO of an oil company — Mr. Horace Bentham. I don"t know if it had been luck or fate, but I"d got to him just as he was about to dip his wick in Miss Abigail. Now, I am not one to miss an opportunity when it"s staring me in the face. Mr. Bentham would be dead, but only after I"ve assuaged my curiosity.

"A blowjob, you mean." Vlad rolls his eyes at me, swinging his knife around and making sure the guests understand the unspoken threat.

"Same thing." I wave my hand dismissively, and I take my seat once more. "Come, watch! You might learn a thing or two, as well."

"I"m fine," he replies drily. "You have ten minutes. No more. We need to hand in the proof that he"s dead." He takes two steps and positions himself next to the windowsill.

I frown.

"Ten minutes? Is that how long sex lasts? I thought it was longer." I try to think back to all the magazines I"d read, but I realize none of them gave an explicit duration.

"B," he groans, bringing his hand up to massage his temples. "I don"t know how long sex lasts, but we are on a mission. He should have been dead half an hour ago. You"re taking a risk."

"Pretty please?" I bat my lashes at him, watching mild annoyance turn to defeat in one . . . two . . . Yes!

"Fine. But you owe me."

"Of course!" I beam. I know the rules. It"s always quid pro quo with Vlad. We"ve been partners for three years now, and while our teamwork had been rather patchy in the beginning, forced proximity and a similar approach to life — or death, rather — made it easier to bond. We"re in this together, and so we"ve learned to make allowances for the differences in our behaviors. You might say that temper-wise we are completely different, I"m rather indifferent to things, and tend to be cool, while Vlad . . . well, safe to say it"s better to not find out.

I pull up another chair and place it next to me. Patting it, I motion for Vlad to join me. He shakes his head, muttering something, but relents and sits down.

It takes a little more urging to get Abigail and Bentham moving, mostly in the form of me waving my gun around and shouting some directions. But soon, we are back on track and Abigail is once again sucking him off.

I crane my neck, intently watching the movements of her mouth and tongue.

"She"s focusing too much on that area. Is it more sensitive?" I nudge Vlad.

"For God"s sake, B, how would I know?"

"Well, you have one." I roll my eyes at the obvious, but then another thought crosses my mind and I whip my head to regard Vlad suspiciously. "You do, don"t you?" Considering his nonexistent love life . . .

"You"re getting too personal and in my personal space." His hand comes to my forehead, giving me a flick that has me wince in pain.

"That hurt, asshole," I mutter, keeping a distance between us.

Back to watching the couple, I tell them to switch positions and get to the nitty gritty. I already know Vlad won"t stand still for much longer, so I might as well get to the highlight of the show.

Bentham is on his back and Abigail climbs on top of him, lowering herself onto his dick and riding him. From my vantage point, it looks rather . . . simple.

"Hmm . . ." I muse, bringing my thumb up and placing it under my chin. It can"t be too hard.

So focused I am on watching Abigail"s movements that I don"t realize Vlad swiping the gun from my hand. I turn to him in time to see him aim at Bentham. Everything happens in slow motion as I open my mouth to scream no, before remembering I shouldn"t draw any attention. The silencer on the gun ensures the shot is inaudible. I look in horror as a red circle appears on Bentham"s forehead.

"You didn"t!" I breathe out, my eyes widening at his audacity. Not only did he just ruin my show, but he also stole my fucking kill. "Vlad. You . . ." I purse my lips, holding myself together. It won"t do good to explode right now. Not when Abigail is wailing by Bentham"s dead body.

"You." Vlad points to Abigail, his voice dull and emotionless.

Really?

Vlad has certain triggers that make him . . . volatile. The easiest way to recognize the signs that he might succumb to his malady — whatever that is — is to watch his voice. He"s learned to perfect an amiable, sarcastic tone, mostly so that people will find him harmless and normal. He"s anything but, though. And when his voice becomes cold . . . I shudder instinctively, my eyes going to the window. We"re on the fifth floor. I wonder how many bones I"d break if I were to jump. I mentally remember the layout of the hotel and the outside architecture, hoping there"s at least something to whichI can hang on. One thing"s for sure: if Vlad goes mad, I"m out.

"Get back on top and fuck him," he commands. I tilt my head very slowly, and I see that his eyes don"t have a glazed look — yet. Ok, maybe he"s not that gone.

"But . . . he"s dead," the girl whimpers, trying to cover herself.

"I don"t care," Vlad continues. "Now!" His voice booms, and Abigail finds herself unable to refuse.

Bentham"s dick is still hard, even though his eyes are blank. Abigail lowers herself on him once again, this time with uncoordinated movements.

"What do you think you"re doing?" I hiss at Vlad. This wasn"t what we"d discussed.

"I want to see if a corpse can ejaculate," he states in all seriousness.

"W-what?" Even to my ears, that sounds crazy. But one glance at his face and I can see he"s invested in this. Great! Another one of his science experiments.

I settle back in my chair, and we both watch as Abigail keeps on fucking herself on a dead man"s cock. Time goes by, and nothing happens.

"Let"s finish this and go." I get up to leave, already miffed with Vlad.

He doesn"t seem to hear me, as he tilts his head to the right, his eyes focused on Abigail.

"Vlad!" I snap my fingers in front of him, but he just swipes my hand aside. He raises his eyes to look at me, a bored expression on his face.

"Fucking hell!" I curse, snatching my gun from his hand. "One thing I asked. Just one. And you had to ruin it."

"But how often do you get to see someone fuck a corpse?" He asks me, looking so innocent. I narrow my eyes at him.

"You"re sick," I mutter under my breath. While I am not quite normal myself, I"m certainly nowhere near Vlad"s level of fucked up. That is a competition I will always lose, as much as it pains me to admit.

Grabbing onto his jacket, I pull him to his feet, ready to end this. He seems to have other ideas, though, as he wraps his hand around my arm, pushing me out of the way.

My mouth drops open, my eyes wide as I look at him incredulously. Did he just push me? It"s instinctive as my fist shoots out, nabbing his cheek. Head to the side, he checks his jaw for any damage, before slowly turning toward me, his eyes glinting with excitement.

"You want it rough, little goddess?" he says a second before he delivers an uppercut straight to my gut. I don"t even get to wince in pain as I get ready to parry his next hit, all the while landing others of my own.

Fists flying, we"re messing around at this point.

Then it all stops.

Vlad"s got one hand wrapped around my throat, and with the other, he throws his dagger so it lodges straight in between Abigail"s eyes as she was about to make her escape. Releasing me, he goes to check on both bodies.

I massage my neck, stretching a little.

"This is on you," I add when he turns his face at the blood pooling on the carpet. "We could have done it so much cleaner." I shake my head.

"If it wasn"t for your brilliant idea to watch them fuck, maybe we wouldn"t be here, would we?"

"Hey!" I exclaim, outraged.

"Let"s call it a draw," he sighs. "You wanted to learn about sex and I . . . well, I wanted to learn about sex after death. I"d say we both got what we wanted."

"No, I did not." I cross my arms, pissed at how everything had turned out. "You ruined a perfectly good chance! How am I supposed to get good at it now?" The more I think about this failed attempt, the angrier I get. Next time, I"m making sure Vlad is as far away as possible from me when I try anything similar.

"I don"t know, practice? Should be like fighting. Practice makes best," he says with a shrug, setting about decapitating Bentham. We need to show proof that the man is dead.

"But I can"t do that." I frown. He"s right that practice makes best, but it wouldn"t work for me in this scenario. "There"s only one man I want, and I need to be the best at sex so I can blow his mind. Then he"ll fall madly in love with me, and we"ll live happily ever after." My soliloquy finished; I breathe out a dreamy smile.

"I don"t know, B. Figure something out. Seduce him in disguise if you must, but stop compromising our missions. This isn"t the first time you"ve been absentminded because of that wimp."

For once, I overlook his insult as I latch onto his previous words. Seduce him in disguise? Get him to fuck me? My mind is slowly working, putting together all the variables, when suddenly a big smile stretches across my face.

"You"re a genius!" I jump up and down in excitement. I dash to his side and give him a big kiss on the cheek. "That"s exactly what I"ll do!" Why didn"t I think of this before? It"s simply the best solution.

***

"This is you trying to make it up to me, isn"t it?" I arch an eyebrow at Vlad as he"s pretending to check out the wigs.

"Who? Me?" He feigns innocence, passing me a white-haired one. I put it on and then look in the mirror.

"It makes me look old," I scowl, turning my attention to the other colors.

"Might be in your favor. He might not be into the whole snatching the cradle thing you got going on."

"I"m not that young." I say, even though, objectively, I might be too young for him. But he doesn"t need to know my age. I put the wig back and browse the other colors. I can"t seem to decide what I want to go for.

Vlad passes me another one, and I"m about to refuse, given his obviously questionable tastes, when I notice the color.

Pink.

I snatch it out of his hands, putting it on immediately. A short, straight bob cut, the wig has a pink, almost magenta hue to it. The bangs end just above my eyebrows. As I study all the angles, I get another idea.

"I should get some contacts too." If my goal is to eventually blow Theo"s mind as myself, then I need to make myself as unrecognizable as possible.

Vlad grunts, already preoccupied with something else. I snicker at him and go to the checkout. It takes us a few hours of navigating different shops before my disguise is finally coming together.

"Don"t you have someone else you can bring along? Like a girlfriend?" I hear Vlad mutter under his breath as I"m trying on a dress in the changing room.

"You know I don"t." I pull aside the curtain to address him. "The last girlfriend I had decided to betray me after I pulled on her ponytails." Thinking of that incident has me fuming. I"d just wanted her hair tie — it was a pleasant color.

"And how long ago was that?" Vlad asks sarcastically, and I punch him.

"Shut it!" Yeah, it was during kindergarten, so what? I"ve had plenty of opportunities to make girlfriends, but it"s too much effort. Why should I waste my time with another human being when there"s only one person deserving of my full attention?

"That looks good," he suddenly mentions when he gets a better look at what I"m wearing. I"d chosen an incredibly short, skin-tight purple dress. "I"ve seen hookers wear that," he continues, and my face falls.

"Gee, thanks," I reply drily. Now I see why he"s perpetually single — he simply has a way with compliments.

"Why? That"s what you want, no? Hookers dress to attract." He shrugs.

I pause, digesting his words. He"s not wrong. I may need to pull out the big guns, and by that I mean put all my assets on display.

"Fine. I"ll take this." I pull the curtain deep in thought. I need to make this the perfect outfit to attract Theo's attention. Vlad is right in that regard. I need to make Theo salivate at the sight of me.

We spend the rest of the day going from shop to shop, buying more things until my outfit is done.

The last stop is at a beauty salon. Vlad checks out though, saying his duty is done. Seeing how restless he"s become; I take pity on him and release him from best friend duty. I"m almost offended at his sigh of relief when he leaves, but then I remember he"s not used to people, anyway. I must have worn him down.

Good!

The lady at the beauty salon is nice enough to explain what she"s doing, and I pay careful attention so I can emulate the steps. I"d told her I wanted to become someone unrecognizable, and she"d complied.

Heavy contouring, highlight, bold eyeshadow and red lipstick. All that paired with the pink wig and the new green contacts will ensure I"m unrecognizable.

Now there"s only one thing left to do — create the circumstances of our meetings.

For the past three years, I"ve been keeping tabs on him, venturing out to see him now and then — the reality is just much sweeter than pictures. I know exactly what he"s been up to, and who he"s been meeting. And I"d made sure there were no women. I mean, not that hard in the first place, since he doesn"t seem to have a particular interest in dating.

Which brings me to my current dilemma. I"ve put in so much effort to tempt him, but I still need an opportunity to work my charm on him.

I dial my go-to P.I. and I tell him to pay careful attention to where Theo goes.

One way or another, he"s mine.