Page 1 of Tabitha

Prologue

TABITHA

Isit on the cluttered workbench in the garage, idly swinging my feet while I crunch on a crisp apple. Juice dribbles down my chin as I watch the car in front of me slowly fill with carbon monoxide. The man behind the wheel almost looks like he’s asleep.

Innocent, even.

He’s young, the blond barely twenty-five years old and handsome, if you like the muscular jock type. Despite his attractive exterior, the kid is much like an apple left too long on the tree—rotten to the core.

The sicko loves to drug girls at college parties. He started out just abusing them, eventually raping them, but he escalated to stalking, then mutilating, before ultimately getting his jollies off by choking them to death…either with his hands around their necks or while they choke on their own blood because he’d beaten them so badly.

By the time I’m called onto any case, it’s much too late for redemption.

Some might say I—an assassin for hire—am worse than the targets that I’m assigned, but sometimes, it takes a monster to kill a monster.

Yeah, I know I’m a monster. I accepted the truth a long time ago. My entire childhood revolved around survival and death, and it warped my mind…or so I’m told.

Unlike others, I don’t have that little voice telling me right from wrong, and while some might call me a freak or a psycho, it’s them I don’t understand. They hide behind polite smiles, lie to themselves and others that they’re happy, but they cheat on their diets, cheat on their spouses or partners, and abuse each other both mentally and physically. They worship the gods of money more than they care about their families or loved ones.

It just sounds like a lot of work.

Movement in the cloudy interior of the car captures my attention, and I smile when my target coughs weakly, fumbling for the latch on the door. Unfortunately for him, he owns an expensive car with a fancy security system—he is definitely overcompensating for tiny dick syndrome.

The vehicle was almost too easy to hack. No matter how much he yanks on the door or pushes the button to roll down the window, they remain firmly shut. I didn’t even have to tamper with the vehicle.

The fool was blind drunk when I switched out the last bottle of vodka, one that had a little something extra added to help him sleep. Nothing traceable, though. The carbon monoxide makes sure of it.

Our eyes meet through the windshield, and I give him a bright smile and a little finger wave. Anger contorts his features, murderous rage darkening his glassy eyes. His pupils are dilated so large that his piercing blue eyes are almost black.

He wrestles with his seat belt, glass liquor bottles tinkling around him, but it’s too late. Even if he escaped and an ambulance was waiting just outside the door for him, his body has already passed the tipping point, his face already taking on the telltale cherry red sign of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Nothing can save him from his fate.

It only takes a few more minutes for him to slump over. I watch his chest slow, his body shuddering as it finally loses the fight to stay alive.

When he falls still, I jump down from the workbench, a cheery whistle on my lips as I walk toward the car. Right in the center of the dusty hood, I use my fingertips to smudge out a clear print of a cat’s paw—my calling card.

I walk toward the rear of the vehicle, yank out the rag used to block the exhaust, and pocket the evidence. As I head out the door, I hit the button on my phone that kills the security override, then calmly stroll out into the early morning light, finishing up the last of my apple, pleased at a job well done. Whoever finds him will just assume he passed out and left his car running.

A tragic accident.

Only a handful of people will know the truth.

While I know removing one killer from the world isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, it’s everything to the family of the girls he killed.

It’s enough…for now.

Chapter One

TABITHA

Iadjust the scope I snatched from the playroom, where we store most of our weapons and supplies for our jobs. Scanning the apartment above the garage for my target, I impatiently chew on my lip as I wait for him to appear. Birds chirp like annoying pests just as the sun kisses the horizon, and it’s all I can do not to shoot the little flying rodents.

Their only saving grace is I didn’t bring my rifle with me.

That doesn’t stop me from fantasizing about seeing little puffs of feathers exploding from the trees and the blissful silence that would follow.

Just as I’m debating going back for my rifle, movement in the scope catches my attention, and I tense, my stomach swooping in anticipation.

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