Assassins in Love (6 page)

“I hired you to kill him because I wanted to see you work.”

Her breath caught. “You wasted a man’s life for that?”

“
I
wasted?” he asked. “I’m not the one who killed him.”

She rose out of her chair. “You bastard.”

He hadn’t moved. Apparently, he didn’t perceive her as a threat. “Actually, I’m not a bastard. I’m legitimate in more ways than you are.”

That caught her. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged a single shoulder. “I am licensed. You’re not.”

“I don’t need a license to operate in the NetherRealm.” Which was true. This ship had to fly through the NetherRealm—an area of space between two organized governments, an area that no one claimed. She had waited to kill Testrial until the ship reached the NetherRealm.

“Technically, that’s true,” Misha said, “but this is what I mean by short-term versus long-term thinking. You hid your crime from security so that no one would stop you—”

“I didn’t commit a crime,” she said. “I was on the job.”

Throughout this part of the galaxy, assassination was a crime only for the person who hired it done, not the person who actually carried out the work. And assassination wasn’t always considered a crime, if the person who ordered the death could prove justification.

Technically, Misha was the one guilty of a crime if he couldn’t prove that Testrial’s death was justified.

Misha, because he hired her.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Misha said softly. That voice brooked no disagreement. It made him seem as dangerous (more dangerous?) than his posture did.

She waved a hand at him, pretending a calm she didn’t feel. “By all means. Finish. After all, you hired me.”

His gaze met hers. He clearly knew what she was implying, that the crime here was his.

“It’s illegal to take a job as an assassin in both Litaera and Sygn Sectors if you don’t have a license,” he said.

“And the NetherRealm is between them,” she said. “So?”

“So,” he said with a bit of heat in his voice. “This ship will dock in Litaera. That’s when the authorities will discover that Testrial is no longer on board.”

“I’ll be long gone.” She knew that because she’d used this very method before. No one had caught her then. No one would catch her now.

“You’ll be long gone and wanted,” he said. “Because there will be no proof when Testrial died. And when there’s no proof, then governments decide that they can charge someone with a crime.”

“Well,” she said. “You gave them proof with your stupid airlock stunt.”

“I gave them a possibility,” he said. “One they’ll ignore. They’ll decide that he went into the disposal system or into one of the engines or into the recycling system, something that would have also left no trace.”

He was starting to make her angry now. He had screwed up her job. She had killed Testrial right on schedule. Then she would have dumped him out of the airlock and left no trace. The only way anyone would know he was gone was when the ship’s purser figured out that the number of passengers who left was one shy of the number that originally boarded. The crew would search to see who hadn’t checked out, find Testrial’s name, and then conduct a ship-wide search for him. The search would take hours. And when they didn’t find him, they would have to review exit footage to see if he just forgot to scan his pass.

When they realized he hadn’t done that, then they would examine his credit slips to see when he ate his last meal. Then they would figure out that he hadn’t done anything for half of the trip—since the NetherRealm. That would be when they would start searching for evidence of foul play.

By then, she would be deep in Litaera Sector, enjoying a few days off before searching for her next job. No one would connect her to him. No one ever connected her jobs to her.

Until Misha.

“I really don’t understand what your problem is,” she said. “I was doing my job just fine. I’m good at it. And you’re the one who screwed it up.”

He shook his head as if she was the one being difficult.

“
And
,” she said with a bit of emphasis in case he wanted to talk over her, “you seem perfectly capable of doing the job yourself. In fact, if I can believe you, you’re
licensed
. So you could have finished the job in Sygn Sector or in Litaera Sector or in the NetherRealm, giving you a lot more opportunity than me. You didn’t need to hire me. And if you were worried about Testrial recognizing you or something, then you took a really big risk because you were on board anyway. So seriously, Misha—or whatever the hell your name is—”

He winced. The movement was so slight she almost didn’t see it. However, she did, and it didn’t stop her. She continued, “You’re the one with the problem. Me, I just did a job, and I would have done a better job without your little drunk act.”

His entire body tensed. “My little drunk act? My little drunk act probably saved your career if not your life.”

She snorted. “I don’t need saving.”

He slowly leaned forward, his arm dropping at his side. “Really? Because those security guards were on their way when I found you. If I hadn’t helped, they would have found you fiddling with that airlock door, a dead body beside you, and you would have been arrested.”

She crossed her arms. “I would not. They found us on a different floor.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Misha said. “You don’t think that the moment a passenger touches the airlock controls that someone notices?”

“I would have made the notice look like a glitch,” she said.

“With what?” he asked. “Your magic powers?”

She let out a small breath. She wasn’t going to argue that point with him. Once she had figured out the changes in the airlock controls, she would have made the changes.

“They weren’t going to arrest me,” she finally said, knowing it sounded a bit lame.

“Yes, they would have. The moment they saw Testrial’s body. Then, if you told them you’d been hired, they would have asked for proof, and you don’t have proof because I never gave you any.”

“Except the initial order for the job,” she said.

“Which isn’t enough for Litaera Sector.”

“Fortunately, if they had found me with a dead body in that corridor, then they would have known I killed him in the NetherRealm. Tell me, who would have prosecuted me? In case you’ve forgotten, there’s no government in that realm, and the ship’s passenger instructions clearly state that the ship has no responsibility for crimes committed on board. The ship gives those instructions to cover its ass, in case thieves work the ship, to make sure there’s no liability. But it works the other way. The ship has security guards, sure, but they have no way to prosecute criminals.”

“Right,” Misha said. He was leaning even closer, his blue eyes flat. “They give anyone they catch to the local government when they land.”

“And the local government prosecutes if they have jurisdiction. But they have no jurisdiction in the NetherRealm.” She stood up. “I’ve done this before. A lot. And no matter what you think of me, I know my job.”

“If you knew your job, you wouldn’t be causing so many goddamn problems.”

She raised her eyebrows. He looked a bit stunned, as if he hadn’t expected those words to come out of his mouth. Or maybe that was just an act.

“Problems?” she asked softly.

“I’ve been arrested three times for your kills,” he said. “I’ve had to prove that I had nothing to do with them.”

“Really?” she asked. Then she smiled. “Thanks for the confirmation.”

His eyes narrowed. “Of what?”

She grinned at him. “That my method works.”

Then, wrapping her hand in a cloth napkin, she grabbed the biggest, gooiest pastry. She waved at him with the other.

“Thanks for the great night. It always feels good to not only scratch an itch, but get some free clothes and food in the bargain.” She walked across the room.

This time, he didn’t try to stop her. She got to the door before he even stood up. Then she waved two fingers, said, “See ya,” and let herself out.

But before she closed the door, she leaned back in.

“Oh,” she said as if she had just remembered something. “Since you saw my work, you know that I completed the job. You owe me the balance. Might as well pay now, since the final balance was due on notification of completion.”

Then she pulled the door closed and headed down the hall.

She wished she felt as jaunty as she had sounded. Instead, she was off balance and a bit confused.

He had hired her? Why? Because she annoyed him?

Or because he had planned for her to get caught, so he could prove that she was the one responsible for whatever killings he’d been arrested for?

She stopped when that thought hit. The bastard planned to turn her into the authorities.

Which was why he kept her in his room. The good sex, for him, was just a bonus.

Suddenly she felt dirty. And angry. And used. If she was an impulsive woman—which she usually was not (last night’s proof to the contrary)—she would go back into that room and give him what for.

But it was better to stay away from him.

No matter how much she wanted to go back in there and kick his (really sexy) ass.

Misha stared at the door. He shouldn’t have let her go. For her own good, he shouldn’t have let her go.

But he couldn’t move. He still sat at the large table, eggs cooling in front of him, bacon looking soggy, a slight frown making his forehead ache. She was willing to let someone else take the blame for her work. And it apparently didn’t matter who.

So someone, some innocent someone, who didn’t have an assassin’s card or a proof of hire or even a partial justification, might actually go to prison because of someone she killed.

And some of the prisons in this sector—hell, in most sectors—were horrible places.

He stood up. He was shaking, and not because he needed to eat. He did, though. He was spent and tired and a bit achy, but in a tingly way—and he wrenched that thought out of his head. He couldn’t think like that. He couldn’t think about
her
like that, particularly now, now that all of his fears had been confirmed.

She really did have no ethics. She didn’t care about anyone else. Just like he had suspected when he started tracking her down.

Last night, he had thought she would be different. Last night, he had known she was different.

Naive, he told himself.

Confused.

Incompetent.

He’d even thought she was funny, the way she staggered under Elio Testrial’s weight, the curses she uttered as she tried to open that airlock.

Naive, confused, incompetent,
funny
—and beautiful.

He had found her attractive the moment he saw her on this ship, noting how she moved when he followed her, watching her laugh in the ship’s casino, watching her flirt in one of the ship’s bars.

And then he had touched her. At that moment, he had stopped thinking. He had gotten her out of her terrible little mess—which he had thought so cute.
Amazing
—he had thought, his arm around her shoulder, her body pressed against his, that scent of hers filling his nostrils—
how
someone
so
incompetent
had
managed
to
complete
so
many
jobs
.

He had actually thought she had bungled her way toward success, and as he led her from corridor to corridor, airlock to airlock, controlling her every move, he had two concurrent thoughts: first that she would be grateful he had rescued her, and second that she would beg him to teach her how to do the job right.

Beg him. Yeah, that had worked. He hadn’t expected the mad, no matter how it made her eyes flash and animated her face. He hadn’t expected her utter ruthlessness.

He hadn’t expected that passionate, passionate woman he had touched the night before to be so very cold.

He made himself sit back down. He took the eggs and shoved them into the heater behind the table. He put the bacon into the recycler, and made himself eat some of the fresh fruit while he was waiting for the eggs to warm.

Assassins
Guild
Rule
Number
65: An
assassin’s body is his first weapon. Therefore it must be in the best possible condition at all times.

He believed in the Guild. He believed in the rules. They had kept him alive. They had kept the other assassins alive. Assassins, like any other profession, formed a community. They had gotten most of the organized sector governments to agree, allowing the profession to proceed with honor. Ethics were a big part of that honor. Ethics made certain that random people didn’t die unnecessarily, that civilians didn’t get accused of a crime for which they would have no defense, that everyone—from the assassin to the client to the victim—understood the rules, even in the abstract.