An excerpt from:
“Mark?”
Sleepily, Blue heard the bedroom
door creak open. She stirred, frowning into the glimmering darkness. Sometimes
her minder came in to check on her during the night. It was ridiculous to have
a minder at her age, but the lawyers had insisted. Nineteen years old, and she
could not be left alone for more than five minutes, not even to visit the
little girls’ room.
But that was what came from having
witnessed a crime perpetrated by the mob. Having to live her life in fear,
constantly looking over her shoulder in case one day …
A gloved hand came down over her
mouth, silencing her. A man’s hand, she realized in horror, and struggled.
The mob had found her!
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There was a pause.
“Nod if you understood that,” he
told her.
Blue thought about it, her eyes
searching for his face in the darkness but seeing nothing. He was wearing a
black ski mask, she realized. An assassin. A hitman sent by the mob to clear up
their mess.
If she had not yet seen his face
though, there was still a hope he might let her go alive.
She nodded.
“Wise choice.”
The hitman removed his gloved hand
from her face, then clicked on the bedside lamp. His eyes glittered through the
gap in the ski mask as he studied her scared face, her mussed-up long blonde
hair, her silky PJ top which was all she was wearing, apart from a pair of red
lace panties.
“Nice,” the man murmured, then sat
down on the edge of her bed. “I’m going to ask you some questions. If you lie
to me, I’ll hurt you. Understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered croakily.
He handed her the glass of water on
her bedside table. “Here, you sound dry. Take a few sips, get comfortable, then
we’ll start.”
She obeyed, thankful for the water.
She thought about throwing it in his face, then jumping off the bed and running
for the door. Mark, her minder – god, was he really dead? – kept a secret gun
taped underneath one of the kitchen drawers, in case of emergencies like this.
If she could reach the kitchen
before he caught her, she might have a chance to kill the hitman before he shot
her.
The hitman smiled drily, watching
her. “You’d never make it.”
She sipped the water again, then set
it down on her bedside table, sat up in bed, and looked at him defiantly. He
was going to kill her, she knew that. But it was possible Mark had managed to
alert her father or the authorities that they were under attack before he was
killed.
Perhaps if she played for time…
“Tell me your name.”
Her name? He must know it already.
This was a test. She drew a slow breath before answering.
“Sylvia.”
His hand moved so fast she did not
see it coming. The slap was not violent, but it made her head snap back.
“Let’s try that again. What is your
name?”
“Blue,” she muttered, rubbing her cheek.
“You know why I’m here, Blue?”
“Because of that man I saw. The man
with … with the guns.”
He nodded approvingly. “Good.”
“Are you … are you going to kill
me?”
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A sob broke in the back of her
throat. “Please,” she whispered, staring up at him, desperately trying to
connect with the real man behind the killer’s gray eyes, “I’m only nineteen. I
don’t want to die. I … I will never tell anyone what I saw. I swear on my
life.”
“Everyone says that.” He smiled.
“Then they forget all about their “promise not to tell” when they’re standing
in court surrounded by lawyers and police officers.”
“This time it’s true.”
“Sure. And I believe in Santa
Claus.”
“Please, you don’t understand.” She
touched his arm. He was wearing a black jacket, fine wool silk. His arm felt
strong and muscular underneath. “There’s so much I want to do with my life. I
was sick when I was younger. Real sick. I couldn’t go to school, I couldn’t
meet other kids … Only last year I was finally cured. I got strong enough to go
out and meet people. Then it happened. I saw those terrible murders, and the
man who did them. And suddenly I’m in prison again, watched by a minder
twenty-four seven, always looking out of barred windows, never going out into
the world to shop or see people, constantly waiting … ”
“For your day in court?”
She closed her eyes, chilled by the
murderous look in his. “Oh god, oh god, oh god!”
His hand came down over her mouth,
still gloved. “Don’t freak out on me, Blue. Stay cool.”
She gathered herself again, then
nodded. Slowly he released her.
“So you got no friends, no one to
talk to?”
She swallowed. “There was a boy
once, but … He left before I could get to know him properly.”
The hitman’s gaze narrowed on her
face. “Once?”
“I’ve never been very popular.”
“A knock-out like you?”
She looked down, unsure whether to
be flattered or creeped-out by that compliment from a man about to murder her.
“I told you, I wasn’t well for years. I always thought there’d be time for … ”
“Sex?”
She drew a sharp breath.
“Relationships!”
“That’s too bad, it really is. I
hate having to kill a virgin. It’s not right, you know?” He stroked a loose
strand of hair away from her face. “And you’re so pretty, Blue. You look like
you’d suck cock like a nice girl too, all lips, no teeth.”
Her blood ran cold. She looked up at
him. Was he serious?
His lips under the ski mask were
smiling, his cold eyes glittering as he studied her face. Then his gaze dropped
lower to examine her cleavage in the pink silk bed top.
“Small tits,” he murmured, “but I’m
not keen on big titties anyway. What do you say we try a kiss or two? Find out
what you’ve been missing all these years?”
Oh Christ, she thought, and felt her
heart beat faster.
“Roman assassins who were sent to
murder an entire family used to deflower the younger girls before cutting their
throats, did you know that?” He looked down her body, then up to her face
again. “It was kind of an assassins’ tradition. Not because they were bastards
and enjoyed hurting their victims, but because it was considered very unlucky
for a Roman girl to die a virgin. They believed she wouldn’t be at peace
afterwards.”
He shrugged, watching her. “Or
something like that. I guess some of them were probably just bastards though.”
She sat there motionless.
“So we can kiss for a while first,
then I’ll have to ask you all the usual questions, the ones my bosses want to
know. What you saw, who you told, whether the police know the name of the guy,
you know … all that shit.”
He waited a moment, then drew a
narrow-snouted gun from the inside of his jacket. It had a silencer on the end.
“Or we could just get straight down
to business. Which would you prefer, Blue?”
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