“Apparently so was I.”
Natalie let out a wet hacking cough. “Don’t get too cocky. You’re just twenty-five years younger than me. It’s not luck. It’s just time… and time’s gonna catch up with you in the end, too.”
Shay shook her head. “So, this is how it ends for you, after a lifetime of killing people? Bleeding out in someone’s kitchen?”
“How the fuck else was it going to end? It’s not like there’s an old killer’s retirement home.”
“But you had money. You could have retired. Shit, you could have moved and set yourself up as some retired businesswoman or some other fairytale. Why stay in the game?”
Natalie shook her head and coughed up blood. “People like us can’t leave the game, Shay.” She looked up, a grin on her face despite her imminent death. “We don’t do it because we have to, but because we want to. It’s exciting, a rush, and you know it. You started earlier than I did.” More bloody coughs followed as she struggled to breathe. “You put your own life… against someone… else’s. Just… like… you…”
Shay pulled the trigger, finishing off her rival and would-be assassin. She stared down at the dead body for a good minute, taking several deep breaths.
She crouched down and took a closer look at Natalie. “Damn,” she whispered.
If even her friends were willing to come after her, the payout for the hit would bring every greedy asshole in the world to her door. The cartel had almost kept it quiet.
She stood back up, still holding the gun by her side. I might miss the next callout, especially if it went wide. She had confidence in her skills, but she didn’t think she could win against the entire east coast.
Her attention drifted back down to the dead woman at her feet.
Is this what I want? To end up dead in some bitch’s kitchen? Fuck that.
Shay snorted and looked down at her hands. Her conscience stopped bothering her a long time ago. It helped that most of her kills had been assholes who had it coming, including the attempted rapist fuckwad who had been her first kill.
She looked down at her gun. Killing had been the only thing she’d ever been any good at, but maybe it was time for a change. The only thing she needed to do first was die.
Shay glanced over at Peyton. He didn’t need to know everything about her past, not yet. Trust would be earned, not given.
“Natalie came after me. I killed her. The whole thing made me understand it was time for a career change. Even if I wanted to keep killing people, I needed to disappear permanently, so no one would ever think to come looking for me. Doing the same job in a new location wasn’t going to accomplish that.” She shrugged, straightening out a wrinkle in the linen gray pencil skirt that hugged her hips. “I set fire to my own house. I had a convenient bullet-riddled body to burn beyond recognition already inside. It wasn’t that hard with the help of a little money to make sure DNA testing linked the body to me.”
Peyton stared at her, not saying anything.
Shay shot him a bright smile. “You see. That’s the difference between you and me. When my life caught up with me, I killed the bitch who tried to kill me and used her not only to convince everyone I was dead, but to earn me a payday. You, on the other hand, needed my ass to pull you out of there before you ended up floating in the East River in several pieces.” She pointed at him, looking up and down at his outfit. “And I’m still trying to figure out whether me helping you out was stupid or not. Remember what I said. I’m not doing this as—"
A loud yowling echoed in the warehouse.
“What the hell was that?” Peyton said, looking over his shoulder. “You have some sort of rogue troll running around here?”
“Oh, stop wetting yourself. It’s just a little alert system I set up. It’s telling me I might have a possible lead on one of my jobs.”
Visible relief descended on the man’s face as he pressed the heel of his hand to his chest. “Or, you know, I could just hook that annoying ass sound up to your phone, so you’ll hear the alert that way, anywhere you happen to be. Like someone living in the 21st century.”
“Phones can get lost or misplaced.”
Peyton snorted. “And when’s the last time you’ve lost something? Come on, just let me try.”
“Knock yourself out. You can check out how I’ve set it up on the office computer, but I have to go now.”
“Wait. Go where?”
“To another warehouse. I need to get some things to verify the job.”
“Let me come with you then. I can help.”
Shay shook her head. “You already know too much about Warehouse Two. If I give up another warehouse’s location, I’m almost asking you to screw me over.”
“You did save my life, you know. I kind of owe you.”
“And I just got done telling you how a good friend of mine tried to kill me over money. I haven’t put it past you to sell me out to save your ass.”
Peyton’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything back.
Shay shrugged. “We’ll do this a day at a time. You’ll earn my trust, and then we can talk about other shit.”
“You have to give me a chance if I’m going to earn it.” Peyton locked gazes with her. “How do your alerts work?”
“Huh? Why do you suddenly care about the details?”
“Because I’m trying to begin planning how to make them better.”
“Spiders crawling the web and the dark web, mostly. They are looking for certain combinations of information.”
Something approaching interest appeared on Peyton’s face. “You’re better at this kind of thing than I would have thought.”
“It’s useful not to have to rely on others when you’re killing people for a living. Makes people nervous. That
