Page 10 of Agent vs. Assassin

“True,” he says, “but do you really want to let your father get that close to that kind of power?”

“I like the idea of snatching it right out of his hands. What do you know about Murphy?”

“I don’t.”

“Then how did you know about Walker?”

“Only what’s necessary. I don’t have a moral compass that requires I check off a box to do a job.”

“Was this a job?”

“Call it whatever you want.”

He’s not giving me much here. “Did he kill Murphy?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. One of them did, so they both need to die.”

“To give you your number one killer status.”

“Assassin,” he amends.

I ignore the comment that drives home the ego behind his actions. “Where’s the sister now?”

His lips quirk. “She thinks she’s hiding.”

“Where is she?” I repeat.

“I don’t know, and that’s the beauty of the hunt.”

He knows, I think.

He pushes to his feet, and I follow, discreetly sliding the blade into my palm and hiding it at the back of my thigh. “Why’d you tell me your secret,Lilah?”

Still Lilah, not Agent Love or Mendez, and this time he says my name as if it’s silk on his tongue, foreplay to his intent to kill me. “The same reason you’ve made no effort to conceal your face.”

“You’ve seen me before.”

“You look different. You’re…different. And you know it. Whatever you showed me in the past wasn’t this you.”

“I have different versions of me for different people.”

“And this is the real you.”

“Is it?”

“I think it is. We both came in here with the assumption one of us wouldn’t be walking out of here alive. Why hide in that situation?”

His lips curve slightly, his eyes dark with a lusty hunger that only a killer has for death. Let him hunger, but in the end, he’ll be a body Kane gets to bury. Seconds tick by, heavy in their implications and promise of violence.

The coffee table separates us, a barrier of little consequence to me, the sweet strawberry pie sitting on its surface with berries as red as his blood soon to be spilled. Iwillkill him, and the narrowing of his eyes tells me he sees that truth in mine; he recognizes the killer I am and denies every moment it doesn’t suit me.

It suits me now.

“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” he assures me.

“Are you sure? You are only the number two assassin in the world right now. I think it takes the number one assassin to kill me.”

He chuckles. “Ouch. That almost hurt. I like you, Lilah. I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to do you a favor instead. When I get my number one status back, I’m going to kill your father.”

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