I peer into her apartment through the glass doors that open from her second-floor balcony. Nearly every light is on. I withdraw my gun from the holster hidden under my shirt. With practiced deftness, I spin the silencer onto the end until it’s secure.
Opening the door from her balcony, I pause when a low sound comes from the bedroom. After a beat, I slip inside, leaving the door open a crack for my inevitable departure. I glance around the living room that leads into a small kitchen. My brain captures snapshots that my photographic memory will store forever, whether I want it to or not. A thriving bromeliad on the window sill. A framed photo of her with her parents. An old purple crocheted blanket strewn over the back of the couch. None of it matters. Tonight will be the last night she draws air.
With that final thought, I move toward her nearly closed bedroom door. The gap reveals my target, but instead of taking action, I halt my advance. Where I didn’t care about the sounds of my approach seconds before, now I still my breathing and freeze my motions to become totally silent.
She’s on the bed. Her chestnut hair fans out on her lavender pillow, and the sheets are tangled around her ankles. With one hand, she’s massaging her breast through the sheer black fabric that clings tightly to it. The other hand is hidden under her panties. Her position reveals details I couldn’t have appreciated when I watched her from afar—graceful, toned legs, a line of unreadable text inked along her rib cage, and a smooth, firm stomach decorated with a tiny silver ring pierced through her navel. The pinched look on her face is one I haven’t seen before. Not even with her boyfriend. A fascinating mix of anguish and rapture.
With her eyes closed and her position on the bed, she can’t know I’m here watching her pleasure herself. The pendulum of my heart swings a little faster at my predicament.
Her beauty doesn’t give me pause. A nagging instinct that I know her from somewhere else doesn’t give me pause either, though perhaps it should. My weapon hangs heavily at my side now as I entertain both a slow burn of arousal and a rare moment of empathy that I’m about to end her life in the midst of her ecstasy.
I trace my fingertip over the cool metal trigger and attempt to rationalize my hesitation. Then I swiftly resolve to correct it. But not before Isabel’s body arches. She wraps her fingers around the edge of the mattress, taking a handful of sheet with her. Her movements quicken, and she sucks in a breath. I’m growing hard, cursing myself with every passing second for my inaction.
Fuck this.
I grit my teeth and lift the gun, lining the barrel up precisely to ensure a quick, painless end.
Her body undulates unevenly as the orgasm rolls through her. She trembles and moans, and my groin betrays the pleasure it’s giving me too.
Her lips part with a loud groan and then…
“Tristan…”
My name leaves her lips and fills the room like a gunshot.
I freeze, and the pendulum stops.
JAY: Please report on the status of Isabel Foster.
I chew on a thin red stir straw, rest back into the office chair that sits behind my desk, and stare at the text cursor on my screen. I’m still in disbelief. I’ve never hesitated like that. I sure as hell have never had a change of heart. I simply have no heart to change.
This was curiosity, pure and simple.
I mash the straw between my molars and quickly type a reply.
RED: In progress. Need a little more time.
Jay’s response comes quickly. I sense her displeasure before the words appear on the computer screen. We’ve spoken in person only once in three years, and the details are still foggy. She provided only the information that she felt I needed to go into my new life. There was a time when this unnerved me, but now I take solace in it. The less I know, the better. Everyone, including me, is likely safer that way. Except for my marks, of course.
JAY: The client is eager. Is there a complication?
I hover my fingertips over the keys, weighing my reply. Complications are rare and historically have never required her intervention. Still, I remain irrationally protective of my error, and I want to ensure enough time to fully investigate the source of it.
RED: She has a boyfriend. Waiting to
get her alone so I can keep it clean.
JAY: When will it be done?
RED: Within the week.
I hesitate and follow the answer she doesn’t want to hear, trying to allude to inevitable closure on the subject of my living, breathing mark.
RED: Where to next?
JAY: Take care of this and I’ll let you know.
Jay knows I prefer to disappear for a while after a local hit. Rio is vast and crime is rampant, but corruption is being confronted more vigorously, and at least some of the many homicides will receive the thorough investigation they deserve. In addition to being American, Isabel Foster is the daughter of a Pentagon official. Chances are extremely slim, but not impossible, that her death could be linked to my face, my untraceable fingerprints, my unregistered and unmarked car, or my apartment. All in all, incarceration would be easier to avoid if I were nowhere to be found.
After wrestling with my total fuck up all day, I turned my focus to research and compiled a more thorough profile of the girl—an exercise that offered no enlightenment. As far as I can tell, our lives haven’t intersected in the past three years. The Tristan on her lips could easily be someone else.
I try to reassure myself that she could be important, even if I don’t understand why yet. Then I remind myself that Isabel Foster is a beautiful woman who shouted my name as she brought herself to orgasm, and there is not a single iota of importance to that odd coincidence. I am being idiotic, male, and uncharacteristically human. Yet I stare at the photograph before me, and all of my instincts—all the ones that have kept me alive through God knows how many situations that certainly should have left me dead—tell me unequivocally that my hesitation has merit.
I blink a few times and type into the protected chat that allows both Jay and me anonymity, never knowing each other’s exact whereabouts. We deal in death wishes and wire transfers, with not a shred of trust between us.
RED: A hint?
I try for humor, knowing Jay has none. Still, having something to look forward to would be welcome. Rio is becoming intolerable. Sensory overload. Easy to blend in, impossible to tune out. I’ve had the strong urge to move on for months. Perhaps now is the time. Now, when I’ve faltered so irrationally, risking everything.
Yes, I’d move on after this. I’d take Jay’s next assignment, scout my next stop, and say goodbye to Brazil for a while.
JAY: How is your Russian?
I smirk. Jay’s reply is both humor and insult. She knows my language skills are shit and I hate the cold. I’ve never said no, though.
RED: Flawless as always. I’ll be in touch.
I close out the chat and pace the largely empty living room. Nearly every square foot of my apartment is dedicated to my work. The space contains an old teacher’s desk covered with connected monitors. A leather chair sits in the corner. The walls are cluttered with notes, all currently dedicated to the inauspicious woman who is hijacking my thoughts at the moment.
I have no need for couches or formal dining areas. Or friends, family, or lovers. I’ve never had a guest, and I suspect I never will.
I’m going to find out why Isabel Foster’s face feels like it’s been tattooed onto my brain. I’m going to eliminate her. And then I’m going to leave this country without a trace.
CHAPTER TWO
ISABEL
“I’m going to the store. Can I get you anything?”
I overenunciate each word and take in the wide-eyed stares from my classroom of students. They attend the Horizonte Centre to learn English, and I have the unfair advantage of being fluent in their native language as well as my own.