Perfect Victim (Nadia Stafford 3.6)

Either Cypress didn't realize that the Americans were mocking him, or he just didn't care. He continued with, "You've got a boyfriend who runs this place with you, right?"

"I have a boyfriend who works for me, yes."

"But he's not around. That's what I heard. One of the other guests asked your housekeeper about fishing, and evidently, that's more his thing."

Well, no, Jack's "thing" was staying as far from the guests as possible. And for once, I really didn't blame him. However, he did handle the group excursions that bored me to tears, like fishing.

"Yes," I said. "John's in charge of the fishing trips, but he's not here. If you'd like, Owen can--"

"John, huh? When are you expecting 'John' back?"

"Probably not this weekend," I said. "So if you want to try fishing--"

"Oh, I know how to fish," he said as he walked off in the direction of the lodge. "I'll go when he's back. I'm booked here for the whole week."

Jack was away on a job. The same "job" that I did part-time. For him, though, it was a career, one he was easing out of. Not retiring. That implied reaching a point where he would never take another hit, and I couldn't see that happening. No more than I was ready to give up the occasional one now that I could make ends meet without the extra income.

"Making ends meet" was what got me into the business of part-time assassination. Well, no, it really started when I screwed up my career as a cop by shooting a serial killer . . . after he'd been arrested. After a very public shaming, I'd bought the lodge with my severance money and my mother's "please go away" early inheritance cash. One day, a regular discovered I was in danger of bankruptcy and offered me some side work. The regular happened to be part of a New York crime family, and his "side work" involved taking out a traitor. That became my part-time job, and I'd gained a reputation for two kinds of hits: criminal-on-criminal and what I must call vigilantism, as uncomfortable as the word made me.

I met Jack a few years later, when his mentor, Evelyn, heard of a new woman in our male-dominated field and sent Jack to investigate. He returned and suggested I wouldn't be a good student for her . . . and then proceeded to mentor me himself.

In the last few years, Jack had begun whittling down his clientele to those he couldn't afford to cut loose. Not "couldn't afford" financially--he was set for life there. But in a career like ours, there are clients you don't refuse, for the sake of your continued health. With the current job, a desperate former client had called him in after two hitmen failed to kill their target. Jack had done the job and was

just tidying up loose ends, expected home soon . . . I hoped.

Chapter Two

Jack

When Jack told Nadia that he'd be late tidying up, she'd hesitated, and he knew she was thinking that his work--like hers--didn't need tidying.

"Something with the client?" she'd asked.

"Yeah," he'd said, which was true, but he wasn't going into detail until he got home. She'd be furious, and he wanted to be there for that, to watch her curse out the Sabatos in a way he could not.

The Sabatos had fucked him over. It happened. Except it never used to happen with a family like this. Which made him feel like an old man, whining about the good old days, and what was the world coming to. Nadia would roll her eyes and say that fifty-three was hardly old. Sometimes he felt like it, though, when he was out here in the world with Nadia back home at the lodge. An old man too far from the fire, chilled to the bone and world-weary.

Truth was that this job had always been full of clients like the Sabatos. Sometimes betrayal was situational; other times it was generational--the new family members disrespecting the customs of the old. And sometimes, well, fuck, sometimes you had to face the fact that being a hitman meant you worked for people who solved their problems with bullet holes and shallow graves.

If Jack was cranky about the whole thing, it wasn't even that he was genuinely upset by the betrayal so much as that he'd find it inconvenient to resolve. He should be home with Nadia by now. Instead, he had to deal with this shit.

Jack sat in Ross Sabato's night-dark living room and waited. He didn't smoke a cigarette. Didn't go into the kitchen and grab a beer. Didn't put his feet up on the furniture. Because some people understood the concept of respect.

At 12:30 a.m., keys sounded in the lock, and Ross Sabato walked in, talking to his nephew. A series of fast beeps as one disarmed the security system. The two men headed to the kitchen. Opened the fridge. Popped a couple of beers. And then stepped into the living room.

"Holy--" Ross began. Then he went for his gun.

"Don't," Jack said.

Ross hesitated, but his nephew continued fumbling to pull his weapon.

"Don't," Jack repeated.

Ross motioned for his nephew to stop.

"Jack. How the hell did you get past . . . ?" Ross trailed off with a strained laugh. "Stupid question, huh?"

Jack said nothing.