Page 51 of Imperial: The Corvidae Family
I sighed. “It’s not. I’m curious though. How do you end up in this life? You’re young...” I frowned and then thought about it. “Wait how old are you and I would ask if you know how old I am but I’m sure you do.”
He smiled and nodded. “You’re twenty-nine.”
I rolled my eyes because of course he knew…
“I’m thirty-two.”
“Okay so like I thought, that’s young and yourthat. How?”
His eyes moved over my face, as if weighing how much he wanted me to know before he leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees.
“It was inevitable.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He raked a hand down his beard. “My father was a contract killer before us. One of the best. Me and my brothers grew up in it. There was no escaping this shit. We followed the path we were given.”
The words were delivered so casually. He spoke like he accepted this life because he never had another option and was okay with not having one.
“You grew up knowing this was what you would do?”
“We grew up knowing the world doesn’t work the way most people think it does. My mother would have preferred we chose something else and my father never forced us but this is what we wanted. All of us, and it’s just how things are.”
“How does it work then?”
His expression darkened, but his tone stayed infuriatingly arrogant. “There are people who make problems disappear. People like me.”
The reality of who I was sitting across from registered. My mind filled with a million and one questions. Some I wasn’t sure I even wanted answers to, but still, I asked.
“I get that but likehow?”
Emir studied me for a moment. His body was still relaxed, but his expression was tight.
“It’s not important,” he said smoothly.
“Emir.”
“You really want to know?”
He ran a hand over the mass of curls that were on his head after I nodded. “Encrypted contact on the dark web. That’s where requests are made. We decide what we take, what wedon’t. Half up front, the rest when the job is done. Some jobs are paid in full up front because they’re high-profile. I do this because killing is a rush and it’s my balance. I’m good at it and I don’t lose sleep over any of the jobs I accept because it’s really just a job.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that,” he confirmed.
I narrowed my eyes. “Do you take every job?”
His expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes did. “No women. No kids. That’s the line we never cross.”
I wasn’t sure why that mattered to me but it did.
It was a strange thing, sitting here, curled up on my couch, talking about killing people like it was really that simple, because to him it was.
I studied his face, taking in the confidence in his expression. He was dangerous and calculated, a man who accepted the life he was in and navigated it with arrogance.
But I wasn’t afraid of him…
Maybe I should’ve been but instead, I wasintrigued.
