Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
There’s nothing out of place, nothing that screams I’m a deadly assassin who’ll steal your hit right out from under you, but there certainly are some things that I’d sell my fucking soul just to see her in.
There’s no hint of anything.
No hollowed-out books that hide small handguns.
No decorative bowls that are weighted for defense.
No heavy paperweights strategically positioned.
No discreet high-tech security systems.
It goes on and on, and I look everywhere. Under the bed, in her dresser, and even in her bedside drawer. But apart from the stack of vibrators stashed in there, I come up blank.
Moving out into her kitchen, I head directly to her cabinets, when the big purple box of sex toys on the counter catches my eye. A chuckle pulls from my chest.
Screwing with her has been way too much fun, and then just for shits and giggles, I peer into the massive box, looking over the selection of toys that some lady put together for me while I was on my flight to Barcelona, and my jaw drops as I take out the biggest dildo I have ever seen.
“What the fuck is this?” I murmur to myself before going to put it back, only I think better of it and suction it to the table beside the box, letting her know exactly where I’ve been.
With the massive dildo slowly swaying side to side, I keep searching the apartment, looking in every nook and cranny, and apart from her kitchen knives, a small bedazzled handgun in the entryway table, and a baseball bat shoved behind the door, I come up blank.
So, maybe I’m overthinking this. Maybe she’s not the woman who stole my hit, and her weekend vacation to Barcelona was just that: a vacation.
There’s nothing here that raises any flags.
Sure, there’s a gun in the hallway table, but that’s nothing to blanch at. A single woman living alone in a busy city should have a gun to defend herself. As for the gun itself, there’s nothing special about it. Apart from the fact that it’s been bedazzled with hot pink and silver rhinestones, there’s not a single bullet in sight. I don’t know what she plans to do with it if she were attacked. Maybe we need to have a little chat about that, but she’d likely try to use me for target practice.
Deciding that it’s all my imagination, I turn to head back into her bedroom and slip out the same way I came in, but as I pass the kitchen, my gaze shifts to the digital planner on the fridge, and I pause.
Do I really need to know when she goes to her yogalates class? No, but I’m about to commit it all to memory.
Stepping in front of the planner, I learn what her days look like. I see no evidence of yogalates, but there’s definitely something here. Her trips and, more specifically, the dates she was there.
Obviously, her trip to Barcelona is there, and judging by what this says, she’s planning on returning home tomorrow, giving herself another day on the beach, but what gets me is the timing of her trip to the South of France two weeks ago. But why?
Something is tickling my brain, and I pull my phone out before pulling up her Instagram page and finding the last few posts that detail a two-week vacation to Nice. But despite already knowing how she likes to exaggerate the length of her vacations to her followers, there’s something about the specific timing of her trip.
Her posts show her down on the stunning sandy beach in Nice, and the flight logs on her planner tell me she was there for no more than three hours, a time frame that directly lines up with the assassination of what must be one of the dirtiest politicians to have ever graced France. And right in the background of the selfie she has on the beach is the exact location that assassination took place.
Coincidence? I think not.
A million-dollar contract for that job came through two weeks ago, but it was scooped up by another assassin before I got the chance to accept. And that assassin is Kiara St. James.
There’s no doubt in my mind.
Barcelona alone could have been seen as a coincidence. It’s completely plausible that she just happened to be in the city the same time that Javier Rodríguez was killed. And it’s absolutely plausible that the same could have happened in the South of France.
But the likelihood of that happening twice in a row? No chance in hell.
Kiara St. James is an assassin just like me. I have no idea who this woman is or how she ended up so central in my life, but I intend to find out, even if it’s the last thing I do.
CHAPTER 13
KIARA
Pulling into the underground parking garage of my apartment complex, I drive around to my designated spot only to see the most infuriating Audi RS7 not only parked between the two spaces, but parked completely horizontal across them with a neon-yellow wheel clamp to keep me from moving it.