Page 4 of The Assassin
Chapter Two
The sound of water and ice hitting flesh echoed against the bare walls of the room we were in. Concrete walls. Perfect for holding in sound.
We were going to need it.
Eyes narrowed on the man tied to the chair in front of me, I waited. For him to wake up. For the real work to start. I refused to think about anything but the cold rage gathering inside me. If that focus broke,I’d be no good to anyone.
I had one job: find out who had tried to kill us. That was it. The sooner the job was done, the sooner I could let the rage burn hot and deadly.
Another round of icy water finally got a response. The man lifted his head, sputtering. Dropped it back down. The second time was more effective—he opened his eyes then. Well, one eye. The other was barely a slit in the angryred, puffy skin surrounding it.
“Who—” He stopped to shiver as the wetness of his skin registered. “Who are you?”
“It would’ve paid to know that before you tried to kill me, wouldn’t it?” He tried to shrug but barely managed an inch. I was good with rope; that wasn’t conceit talking. “Doesn’t m-matter. Just a j-job.”
The ice was definitely kicking in.
“That’s where most of you make your firstmistake,” I said quietly, forcing him to strain to catch each word. I paced to a small tray waiting nearby. “You take a job, your eyes on the money. You don’t stop to think about who’s on the other end of your rifle.”
I picked up my KA-BAR from the tray. “But you should. You definitely should.” My brothers and I never took our safety for granted on a job. Always assume the other guy is better,and you’ll always be on top of your game.
The man was still groggy enough, still cold enough that the full weight of his situation hadn’t registered yet. If it had, he wouldn’t have argued.
“Doesn’t m-matter.”
His words were slurred, stuttered. The yelp that escaped him when my knife flashed out and kissed the skin of his cheek was crystal clear.
“Tell me who hired you.”
He eyed my knifewarily now. It occurred to me, staring into his muddy brown eyes, that maybe I should ask his name. A man shouldn’t die with no one knowing his name. Like me, he wasn’t carrying identification.
I circled around behind him. I didn’t need to know the name of the man who’d tried to kill me. Who might have killed Remi. He could die without a name.
Maybe they’d identify him by his teeth if he waslucky. Or maybe I’d just smash them to pieces instead.
I laid the edge of the blade beneath his ear. As I circled him, the tip sliced a thin line along the back of his neck, just deep enough to get the blood trickling out. The man hissed.
“Tell me who hired you.”
“I don’t know.”
I stopped. Laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. I proved it when I flipped the knife in my hand and stabbed down, straightinto his thigh.
His scream echoed even louder than the ice water.
“Come on; that’s just a scratch,” I assured him. Twisting the knife, I pulled it out of his leg. “Now that’s worth screaming over.”
The screams did something to me, something…different. My enemy’s pain should be satisfying, should fill something empty inside me. Instead that emptiness grew by the second. Remi hadn’t had timeto scream. He hadn’t made a sound as he fell back against the balcony railing and over. Had he felt himself slam into the ground? Had he been afraid?
I brought the KA-BAR down again, this time closer to the man’s groin.
This scream was part sob.
“I told you, I don’t know!” he yelled. When he tried to shift in the chair, probably to ease the pain, a bubble of blood pushed through the gash inhis pants. “You know how this works!”
Oh, I did. I’d killed my first man young, but that hadn’t been for money. The Assassin had made his appearance later. Much later.
“Here’s what I know.” I moved again, circling the chair. Ring around the rosie. He really didn’t want me to stop. “I know that you have a point of contact. I know that you have a bank account. You have something,” I said, pausingat his back, “and you’re going to give it to me.”
