Shay’s muscles burned as she hit the roof of the building. She hurried to the edge to reestablish a visual on the hunter and the prey. The old man ducked into another alley.
Shay winced. If he’d stayed near other people, he might have at least had a chance. She blinked and raised a brow, her esteem suddenly rising.
The old man hurried and ducked behind a small truck parked in the alley. He pulled on his cane, revealing a long, thin blade.
“Oh, sword cane, nice,” Shay murmured to herself from her rooftop perch. She liked the idea but didn’t see how a young woman like herself could pull off carrying a cane without looking odd.
The hitman reached into his coat and yanked out a pistol. He stepped around the corner into the alley. He slowed, looking back and forth, keeping his gun ready. To his credit, he moved to the opposite side of the alley from the truck. Still, no one’s looking up.
Shay reached under her jacket, feeling the cold metal of her 9mm. She might not be able to land a shot on the hitman at this distance, but she could scare him.
He doesn’t see him. She eased her finger off the trigger. Not your business, anyway.
The hitman turned to leave. The old man leapt up from behind the truck and charged. His pursuer spun toward him and squeezed off three rounds. Shay aimed her gun, able to get a clean shot.
The crack of the hitman’s gunfire echoed in the air, and the victim slumped to the ground, his sword now useless.
His killer holstered his weapon, straightened his tie and pulled out a phone, aiming it at the dead man, presumably to take a kill shot. An inside joke in their trade.
A distant siren sounded, and the hitman rushed away from the alley.
Shay’s heart thumped hard in her chest, and she took a deep breath. The memory of how it felt to take down a mark was hard to push out of her head.
The ex-killer licked her dry lips and shook her head.
Regular people don’t carry around swords hidden in canes. That old man was another hitman past his prime… just like Natalie. Just like I would have been if I stayed in the job.
With a shudder, Shay made her way to the ladder. She had a flight to catch.
Chapter Eight
Shay rolled into Warehouse Two feeling pretty good. Even if she didn’t snag the magical persuasion pin, it was buried under so much mud and wood that no one else would be getting it, along with the gold. Denying someone else a victory was at least part of the game, maybe even just as much as an actual win. She could always go after the rest of the treasure in the future. At least now she knew exactly where it was.
Walking away from an overseas trip with a bag of diamonds didn’t exactly fall into the failure category, anyway. The diamonds weren’t the highest quality according to a fence she’d stopped by on the way to the warehouse, but it would still be a good payday and help keep her knee-deep in pizza and sports cars for at least a little longer. Might even buy Peyton a few technological toys to help the business.
Ignoring the money, the entire mission again confirmed she knew what she was doing. Shay wasn’t a killer fumbling around and pretending to be a field archaeologist and tomb raider. She was the real damned deal and now could claim the successful location of two magical artifacts.
Failure to recover the second artifact came with the job as far as she was concerned. Like the man once said, no plans survive first contact with the enemy. She couldn’t control the logs, but there had been treasure there, and likely magical treasure. That’s all she cared about for the moment.
Shay almost wanted to whistle at how impressive she was as she stepped out of her car.
Peyton emerged from the office, this time in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt decorated with koala bears and eucalyptus trees.
“I…” Shay began, staring at the man’s outfit. “That was in one of those boxes?”
“What? My outfit?”
Shay rolled her eyes. “No, your face. Yes, your outfit. It looks like you got mugged by the Australian Board of Tourism.”
Peyton laughed. “No. These weren’t in the boxes.”
Shay narrowed her eyes. “Where did you get them, then? Please tell me you didn’t go shopping when I was gone.”
“Well, kind of. Not the kind you’re thinking of.” Peyton grinned. “This was paid for anonymously and delivered nearby.”
Shay groaned. “How did you pay for it anonymously?”
“I’ve got a lot of cryptocurrency holdings. Bitcoin, Ethereum, lots of Trollcoin and Oricoin, too. If you know what you’re doing, it’s all but impossible to trace. You should really look into that, if you haven’t already.”
“Sounds to me like you took a risk with the life I went to a lot of trouble to save.”
“Not much of one.”
Shay sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Whatever. The point is you shouldn’t have left this place. It’s not safe. Someone could take you out, especially if I’m not around.”
Peyton shrugged. “I’m already dead, remember? You got paid for it. No one’s even looking for me, and what am I supposed to do, sit here all day? It’s not like you’re sitting around hiding in a warehouse, and the contract on your life was worth way more than the one on me.”
Shay scoffed. “Degree of difficulty to take me out… turns out they were right.”
Peyton smirked. “Duly noted.”
“Okay, okay, fair enough. I get it. You have cabin fever.” Shay put up a finger. “But let’s be smart about this. My fake death was more thorough than your death, okay? But I get it, you’ve been locked up in here, and you’re going stir crazy. I’ve got a solution for that.”
“And what’s that?”
“We should just go out.”
“Go out? After all that big speech about safety? Are you just fucking with me
