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Cover adapted from a design by Crystal Ben

Author photograph © Teresa Lee Photography

The right of Lisa Renee Jones to be identified

as the Author of the Work has been asserted

by her in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in this Ebook edition in 2018

by HEADLINE ETERNAL

An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING

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About the Author

New York Times bestseller Lisa Renee Jones is

the author of the highly acclaimed Inside Out

series, which is now in development for a

cable television show to be produced by

Suzanne Todd (Alice in Wonderland). In

addition, her Tall, Dark, and Deadly series and

The Secret Life of Amy Bensen series both

spent several months on the New York Times

and USA Today lists. Since beginning her

publishing career in 2007, Lisa has published

more than forty books translated around the

world.

Lisa loves to hear from her readers. You can

reach her at

www.lisareneejones.com

, or find

her on Facebook at

www.facebook.com/AuthorLisaReneeJones

and on Twitter

@LisaReneeJones

Praise for Lisa Renee Jones’s

stunningly sexy romance:

‘Edgy, brilliant and all-consuming, Dirty

Money is THE series of the year! Lies, danger,

secrets, and a hero you will fall HARD for. A

must read!’ Katy Evans, New York Times

Bestselling Author

‘Lisa Renee Jones excels at creating powerful

men and women who are determined to live

life on their own terms, and fans will be

immediately drawn to the dangerous world of

Brandon Enterprises’ Romantic Times

‘High-octane romance set above the glittering

lights of Denver is enhanced by the dominance

of a powerful man and the cunning sweetness

of a woman who isn’t cowed or swayed by his

wealth… a fascinating mystery and characters

with distinct voices’ Publishers Weekly

‘Angst-y, sexy contemporary romance with big

emotional and financial stakes set against the

backdrop of two dynamic families. Sure to

leave readers desperate for the next

installment’ Kirkus Reviews

‘Holy smokes what a ride! Lisa completely

nails yet another kick ass read. I loved this

book! It’s the beginning to a new series and I

am already nearly begging for book two since

the ending of book one was completely effed

up! What a cliffhanger! … Once again I’m

reeling from another Lisa book and I couldn’t

be happier about it’

Christina Gobin, NetGalley & Goodreads

‘Amazing book could hardly put it down. I love

how it jumps from character perspective so

you get to see things from everyone’s point of

view. Emily and Shane are great together the

energy and attraction you can just feel it

through the book. Completely enjoyed this

read!’ Stephanie D’Amico, NetGalley &

Goodreads

‘This was my first book by this author, and it

definitely won’t be my last! I was hooked from

the start and ready to drop everything to keep

reading’

Belinda Scott, NetGalley & Goodreads

‘Wow!!! This story was like a chess game,

clearly waiting for a checkmate move and that

created a lot of suspense and the same time

keeping your breath for something big to

happen’ Nicole Th, NetGalley & Goodreads

‘This book is another 5 stars by Lisa Renee

Jones. This book is different from the others

that I have read and wow I think this is her

best of all. You will fall in love with the

characters of this book. I can’t to read the next

book’

Elaine Kelly, NetGalley & Goodreads

‘This was my first Lisa Renee Jones book but it

will not be my last. This book has the mob, the

Feds, too many manipulative people to count,

lies, deceit, intrigue and a few good people

attempting to clean up the mess that is
Brandon Enterprises. Jones weaves an

intriguing, suspenseful story full of well-

defined characters and just the right amount

of really hot sex’ Vanessa Romano, NetGalley

& Goodreads

By Lisa Renee Jones

The Dirty Money Series

Hard Rules

Damage Control

Bad Deeds

End Game

Poison Kisses

Part 1

Part 2
Part 3

About the Book

Sexy. Dark. Edgy. Part Two of the sexy,

thrilling three-part Poison Kisses serial.

I loved her. She left me. She betrayed me but

now it’s time to open the closed doors.

I’ll tell her my secret if she tells me hers.

Our history is more than lies. It’s our story,

and I will do whatever it takes to reveal it all.

I’m the Assassin, She’s the Poison Princess.

We’re going to kill the bad guys, but we’re still

deciding if we’re enemies. The one thing for

certain, is we’re both going to strip down and

get bare.

Are you ready to play by the hard rules

of the Brandon family empire? Look for

the enthralling Dirty Money series:

Hard Rules, Damage Control, Bad

Deeds and End Game.

Character Profiles

Amanda Skye—31, blonde, used to be
brunette. Former CIA agent and scientist. Her
poison of choice is . . . poison. She’s the Poison
Princess. Seth’s former lover and undercover
partner. Has been on the run for three years
until the CIA and Seth find her to track down a
terrorist, Franklin Ross. Amanda is the only
scientist left in the world who can deconstruct
the toxin that Franklin works with. During
their undercover operation, Amanda gets word
from her mother that there is a kill order on
her and her parents’ heads which may have
been ordered to Seth “the Assassin”.
Seth Cage—“the Assassin”—35, blond, close-
cropped hair. Former CIA agent, now head of
security at Brandon Enterprises. He is on
contract for the CIA to go after Amanda, his
former partner in an undercover op where
they fell in love. Seth was betrayed by Amanda
when she ran from him, and inadvertently
caused their handler Danny’s death.
Franklin Ross—Former CIA agent, turned
terrorist. He works with chemical agents to
destroy who he sees fit. Amanda almost took
him down in China years ago, but when she
failed, he fled. He is now back on the CIA’s

radar and is about to launch a massive toxin
attack through the US water systems.
Danny—Seth and Amanda’s handler in that
fateful operation three years ago. When
Amanda ran from Seth, she was the
inadvertent reason for Danny’s death when he
was captured by the bad guy (Ming) on the
mission. Seth was told that if Amanda didn’t
show back up and reveal everything that was
known about Ming’s operation and plans
Danny would die. Amanda didn’t come back . .
.
Bear—35, goatee, built like a linebacker. Seth
and Amanda’s handler on their current
mission going after Franklin.

Author’s Note

Dear Reader:

This is Poison Kisses Part Two, which

starts the moment after Part One ended. First,
let me recap Poison Kisses Part One.

We catch up with Seth Cage, from the Dirty

Money series, when he is pulled back into his
CIA days. The woman he has been searching
for, to kill, to love, to destroy, is back on the
map. But he can’t kill Amanda just yet. He,
and the agency, need her to help track down
the terrorist, Franklin Ross, who uses toxin
agents to kill mass crowds. Amanda is the
woman who sent Seth’s life spinning on its
axis. And she happens to be the only one who
can deconstruct the toxin that Franklin uses.
Well, the only scientist that can do it after her
parents were murdered three years ago on a
fateful night, during one fateful mission.

During said mission, Amanda and Seth

were sent undercover for the CIA, though their
cover as a married couple became a little too
realistic. They fell for each other. They found a
solace in one another. But the night the
mission was coming to a head Amanda got a
call from her mother saying there was a kill
order from the CIA on her and her parents’

heads and that Seth Cage is known as “the
Assassin.” This information spooks Amanda
into running. She assumes she is Seth’s target
and he’s been after her from the get-go.

In Amanda’s absence, her and Seth’s

handler, Danny, is captured and killed because
she does not return. Seth holds that against
her. That apparent guilt, along with her
decision to flee from the scene, and the kill
order on her all looks very incriminating.
Flash forward to the present and Amanda has
been found, Franklin Ross has an impending
attack, and the CIA needs Amanda on this op.
Seth is tasked to go after her. But he wants her
for his own reasons . . . to kill her. But when
they are in each other’s sights again the old
familiar tug is still there. The passion. The
intensity. But can Seth and Amanda both find
the trust that was completely shattered back in
New York three years ago? They can sure as
hell try, for the greater good of the country.
They’re partnered back up and through one
scene of bullets flying and car chases, they’re
off to Texas by means of driving to Vegas and
hopping a plane to their destination, with
Amanda’s kitty, Julie, in tow. But it’s time to
lay their cards out if they’re going to capture
or kill Franklin Ross. Their past needs to be on
the back burner and the only way to do that is

to know exactly what happened the night that
Danny died . . .

In a flashback from three years ago we

know that Seth and Amanda both got a call
right before Amanda disappeared. Seth’s from
the agency to receive orders, which we know
are related to Amanda, but nothing more.
Amanda’s from her mother. We learn that
Amanda’s mother left her a message and she
plays that message for Seth at the end of
Poison Kisses Part One. And let me leave you
with the message Amanda has just played for
Seth:

Amanda, a woman’s calm voice says. Listen

carefully. There’s a death order on our heads.
Mine. Your father’s and yours. Someone in the
agency is behind it. We’re going underground
and you need to do the same. Ghost protocol.
And sweetheart. Seth Cage, the man you’re on
assignment with. They call him “the Assassin”
in the agency.

And so we begin after that damning

message . . .

Chapter One

Seth

Amanda and I sit in the lounge of the private
jet carrying us from Vegas to Texas, facing
each other, Amanda’s Oriental Shorthair cat,
Julie, in a carrier that is buckled into the seat
next to her. The end of that damning voice
mail from Amanda’s dead mother lingers in
the air between us now, echoing in the hum of
the engines. Hours of running from our
enemies is apparent on my blood-stained jeans
and a borrowed T-shirt that covers the
bandage on my arm, the wound beneath it left
by a bullet. Amanda is not much better for the
wear, having replaced her skirt and blouse for
a pair of souvenir store sweats, her long
blonde hair wind-blown and tangled. The
craziness of the past eight hours led us here, to
this plane, to that call that takes us back to the
past, to three years ago when we’d both
received a phone message at almost the same
moment. My call had been directly related to

Amanda. Her call, the one that she just played
for me, was a warning about a kill order on
Amanda’s head, which named her assassin as
me.

“What were your orders?” Amanda asks,

repeating a question she’s already asked but I
have yet to answer.

I stand, and by the time I’m on my feet,

Amanda is on hers as well. Our actions and
skills are not what pit us against each other as
trained killer to trained killer, but rather, the
circumstances do. Instinctively, I know she
does not want to kill me, at least not now, and
I have no doubt she knows the same of me. We
both want answers. We both want to fuck
again, and we both wish like hell we didn’t. My
hands come down on her waist, and I use my
bigger body to turn her. In a few steps, I have
us in the tiny hallway behind the seating area,
her pressed between me and the wall.

“My orders mean nothing,” I say. “You

leaving, you running instead of trusting me,
does.” Her hand closes down on the butt of my
gun and my hand immediately covers hers.
“You don’t want to do that.”

“Don’t I? Because I’m really thinking I do.

When did you accept my kill order? Before or
after you fucked me night and day for three
straight months?”

Anger ripples through me and I shackle her

wrists and not gently, pulling them between us
and pulling her to me. “If you believed we
were a lie, then that’s about guilt and a crime.
That’s not me. That’s not who we were.”

“My mother named you, Seth Cage. You.

No one else. Just the man in my bed.”

“Someone inside the CIA leaked my

identity as the intended contract holder before
I ever got the call. That means nothing.”

“But you taking the order means

everything and we both know you took it.”

“If I didn’t take that order someone else

would have. And I would have told you I held
it. You should have come to me.”

“So that you could kiss me, and make me

believe you loved me, long enough to kill me?”

“I would have kissed you and proven that I

loved you.”

“Love,” she says dryly. “Right. You said you

loved me and that makes it all better.” She
doesn’t give me time to respond. “Why did the
agency tell you to fuck me? What did they
want?”

“You were never my assignment. Ming was,

just like he was yours.”

“You keep forgetting that I now know that

you were always the Assassin. You can’t tell me
that I wasn’t paired with you without the

intent of you killing me.”

“Exactly my thought when I got that call.

Why did the agency turn on you? And what
happened to make them do it when we had
Ming within a hair’s reach?”

“I have no idea. I did nothing but serve my

country from the day I was born.”

“And yet, when you were in trouble, you

ran from me.”

“You held my kill order.”
“And I seem to remember you once telling

me you’d trust me with your life.”

“You, Seth. Not the secret assassin I didn’t

know you to be.”

“If you really believed I betrayed you, you

would have come at me.”

“You had months to plan my murder. I had

moments to digest the fact that you not only
betrayed me, and fucked me over and over,
quite literally, but you also held the kill order
for me and my parents.”

“I told you, I took that order so no one else

would get it. And they didn’t offer me your
parents’ order. I called in after I dealt with
Ming, and tried to get it, but they said they
were already dead.”

“Wait. You’re telling me that my parents

died the night I left you?”

“Yes. They did.”

“Then no. They are not dead. My mother

left me another message seventy-two hours
after that order was issued. I have the
recording.”

“Have you talked to her since?”
“No, but I expected that. Ghost protocol

means we fake our deaths.”

“But you didn’t fake yours,” I point out.
Her chin lifts, her gaze colliding with mine.

“Maybe I wanted my would-be assassin to
show up so I could face him. So he had to face
me.”

Something sharp and hard cuts through

me. “I would have been here sooner,
sweetheart,” I say, my hand sliding under her
hair, to cup her neck and drag her mouth to
mine, “if you wouldn’t have hidden so damn
well.”

“Maybe I wasn’t ready for you. Maybe I am

now and I sent you an invitation.”

“Invitation accepted, Poison Princess. I’m

right here. What are you going to do with me
now?”

“Nothing until Franklin’s dealt with. Then,

we face off. Then we conclude our story.”

“Until then?”
“Until then, we tolerate each other.”
My mouth lowers, lingering a breath from

hers. “And how do you suggest we do that? By

fucking?”

Her fingers curls around my shirt. “As long

as you know your kisses will never make me
trust you again.”

I kiss her, a deep stroke of tongue against

tongue before I say, “And your kisses will
never make me trust you again.”

I kiss her again, the same deep stroke of

tongue before I pull back, letting the taste of
her linger on my lips, our breaths mingling.
“Did we ever trust each other?” she whispers.

I pull back, my gaze meeting hers. “Yes. We

did.”

“And now there is none. Now we’re

enemies. And you—”

“Loved you,” I say, my lips brushing hers.

“I loved you, Amanda.” And with that gut-
wrenching confession, my mouth closes over
hers once more, and while I don’t normally
allow myself the dangerous luxury of anger, or
hate, I feel those things now. I kiss her with
those things in my mind, and on my tongue. I
let them bleed into her mouth, bitter and
harsh. She betrayed me. She betrayed Danny.
She may well have betrayed her country and
still, I fucking love her as much as I hate her.

And what I taste on her lips is accusation.

She kisses me like I’m the man who betrayed
her. Like I’m the man who would have killed

her, and it just pisses me off all the more. I
tangle fingers roughly in her hair, pulling her
head back, forcing her gaze to mine. “It didn’t
have to be this way. I didn’t say I loved you. I
did. And you loved me.”

“Yes,” she whispers. “I did and that kind of

emotion is dangerous. I realized that when I
heard your name on that recording and didn’t
know what was real or fake. And if it was real,
if I was wrong to leave, then you are asking the
same thing. There’s no coming back. We will
never trust each other again.”

“You’re right. There isn’t. So we focus on

the one thing neither of us can fake. Pleasure.
Fucking.” I lean back, my legs shackling hers,
and reach for my holsters, unhooking them.
Shrugging out of both, I set them on the seat
around the corner to the left. “No guns. Just
us.”

“Fucking,” she says. “Not fucking each

other?”

“I’m damn sure going to fuck you,

sweetheart. And I’m perfectly fine with you
fucking me as long as you do it naked.” I snag
the hem of her silk tank she’d hidden under a
hoodie earlier. “Just remember. Poison me too
soon, and my tongue will never get to all the
places you like it.”

“I’m not going to poison you,” she says. “At

least, not yet.”

I believe her. She won’t poison me. Not

now. She might try later, but that works for
me. And even if it didn’t, I still want to fuck
her and I’m going to. I tear her tank over her
head, my attention shifting to the swell of her
breasts in her lacy black bra, my fingers
shoving down the material and teasing her
nipples. She pants out a breath that I swallow,
brushing my lips over hers. “Now we fuck hard
and do it again.”

“Yes,” she whispers and then we’re kissing,

crazy-hot kissing, drinking each other in, like
we’re never going to get a drink again. And
maybe we won’t. Maybe one of us will die
before this night is over. But that’s how we
always fucked and loved. Like there would be
no tomorrow.

Her hands shove under my shirt, soft and

warm, in that way that I am only warm when
this woman touches me, and I tug my shirt
over my head, tossing it aside. Her hand
comes down on my bandaged arm, her eyes
lingering there, the plane shaking around us.

“Amanda,” I say, her gaze lifting to mine.
“You aren’t invincible. One day one of

those bullets will hit the wrong spot.”

“Is that another threat?”
“No. It’s another reason not to love me.”

“I didn’t think you needed another reason.”
Her hands move to my shoulders, her eyes

darkening, unreadable, as her palms flatten on
my shoulders. “Let’s get back to fucking.”

“Yes. Let’s get back to fucking.”
I reach up and unhook the front clasp of

her bra, and she shrugs out of it, my gaze
raking over her high, full breasts, her rose-
colored nipples puckering with the cool air
and my hot stare. My gaze lifts to hers, the
collision of our stares electric, but a sudden
jolt comes from turbulence that sends my
hands to the wall above her head, and her
hands to my waist. It’s then that I feel the rasp
at her finger, which I know to be a film of
poison she keeps there. From watching her
work, I know that she could use it to kill me
with one quick move.

Chapter Two

I grab Amanda’s hand and hold it up, that
poison film now between us. “You wanted me
to know it’s there.”

Her eyes radiate with a mix of challenge

and familiar heat. “You already knew it was
there,” she says.

She’s right. I did. Just as she knows that I

can kill her before she can ensure I hit the
ground, and that idea is darkly arousing. I turn
her to face the wall, forcing her hands to its
hard surface, my body framing hers. “I can kill
you. You can kill me. It was always part of the
high that was us, now wasn’t it? It turned us
both on.” My hands come down on hers, my
lips near her ear. “You’re mine right now,” I
say, nipping her ear, and not gently. She sucks
in air, her body arching into me, not away
from me, refusing to give me any sign of
submission. “I could do anything to you and
you couldn’t stop me,” I add. “Are you afraid
of me, Amanda?”

“I’ll kill you before I fear you.”
“But I’m the Assassin, remember? You ran

from me.”

“I left you. That’s different than running.”
She’s right. It is. And I don’t know which

premise I dislike the most. Her running or her
simply choosing to live in that shithole of an
apartment like the fugitive she became. Like a
woman with something to hide, something I
may not like. Shoving aside that premise, I
focus on exactly what I said I’d focus on:
fucking her before she gets the chance to fuck
me again.

Snagging the waist of the sweats she bought

in the souvenir shop when we were on the run
earlier, I squat down, dragging them down her
hips, her thigh-highs from the skirt she’d worn
earlier still in place. Wrapping my arms
around her waist, I lift her, shoving aside the
sweats, and with a little extra effort, I slip off
her sneakers with them.

I set her down, and turn her to face me, my

hands bracing her hips. My gaze meets hers as
I grip her panties. “I wonder if you still taste
like my kind of poison.” I rip away her panties,
and I don’t wait for a reply. I lick her clit and
she breathes out, her lashes lowering, hips
arching. My cock thickens, but I deny her what
she wants, what I want, which is my mouth on
the most intimate part of her. Instead, I press
my lips to her belly, my gaze lifting to hers,

and when she offers me a heavy-lidded look of
anticipation, I say, “I’m not ready to find out
just yet.”

“That’s evil.”
“Yes,” I say. “It is.” I stand up, my hands

caressing a path up her body, until my palms
cup her breasts. “But we both know that’s how
you like me.”

She gives a tiny pant, her hands covering

mine. “I really hate that I want you right now.”

I tangle fingers in her hair, dragging her

mouth to mine. “Show me. Show me this hate
you feel for me.”

And I’m not sure who moves then, me or

her, or both of us, but our lips collide, our
tongues tangling, stroking, but it’s not hate I
taste. It’s not anger I feel anymore. It’s that
something, that indescribable something, that
is what happens between us. Drugging and
addictive, it tastes and feels like every sin I
should run from, but can’t help but indulge in.
And when I tear my mouth from hers, when I
pull back to look at her, the impact of our
connection is a force like none other in my life.
I feel this woman in ways I never wanted to
feel another human being. I want to fuck her. I
want to protect her. I want to own her. I want
to watch her come while she pants out my
name.

I reach down and tease her nipples again.

Her lashes lower, her hand going to the back
of her neck, in her hair, just one of the sexy,
familiar things she does when she’s aroused. I
lean in and kiss her neck, tugging her nipples
now, and when she moans, that sound tells me
a story that is about more than pleasure. It’s
about how easily she gives herself to me now,
when that wasn’t always the case. It’s about
inherent trust she might deny, but it exists. It’s
about her daring to surrender to me, us, and
whatever comes next is a prelude to me
demanding more from her, now and later.

I pull back, wanting to see that heavy-

lidded look again in her eyes, the look that I
know follows surrender. Her hands go to my
arms, her gaze lifting to mine, a flicker of
something sharp in her eyes, here and gone,
before she says, “Seth Cage. The Assassin.”
And I see that reaction for what it is: She’s
trying to pull herself back from that surrender.
Reminding herself not to trust me.

And I’m not going to let that happen.
I cup the back of her head. “The only

assassin you’ll ever know,” I say. “The only one
that will ever get the chance to kill you.”

“You always were a romantic,” she replies,

her hand flattening on my chest.

“Your kind of romantic.”

“More like my personal poison,” she says,

but before she’s ever finished the words, I’m
kissing her again, maneuvering us out of that
hallway and into the lounge area, but we don’t
stop kissing. I’m undressed in a few shoves
and tugs, and then I mold us together, three
years between us, but nothing else. I sit down
on the bench as I had that first night we met
and fucked on the plane. She straddles me,
hands on my shoulders, our foreheads coming
together, and for several beats, or a minute, or
longer, we linger there, breathing together.

“I need—” I begin.
“Me, too,” she whispers.
We’re not talking about fucking, but about

each other, the past, the way we were, but
we’re lost and I don’t know if we can be found.
I just know that I need to feel her close. I need
to be inside her and I wrap my arm around her
waist to lift her. My free hand grips my cock,
pressing it to her sex, and inside her. Wet heat
consumes me until I’m buried in her, and
when we look at each other, a world of hate,
love, and damage radiates between us,
somehow all as right as it is wrong. But then
that is how it always was for us. Right. Wrong.
So damn right.

“Deja vu,” I say softly, hands settling on her

waist. “The past comes full circle. Right back

where we first started fucking each other.”
And again, I’m not talking about sex.

Her lashes lower. “I hate so many things

about this moment,” she whispers, her voice
tormented, her expression all shadows and
secrets.

I slide my hand under her hair, my hand

cupping her neck, her pale green eyes
opening, meeting mine as I ask, “But do you
hate me?”

Her answer is no answer. She presses her

lips to mine, and what I taste on her tongue is
still not that hate she claims. It’s not the
accusation of past kisses. It’s that need we’ve
both proclaimed. The kind of need that
demands satisfaction but can’t be sated. The
kind of need that I felt every day since she left,
and that every woman I fucked since couldn’t
satisfy. The kind of need that feels like it’s a
part of you, like your next breath that saves
you, but in another moment, steals it away.
And so you draw in another and another. And
that need, that all-consuming need is what
takes hold of us, the pulse behind every touch
and kiss, but this is not the wild fucking I
thought I’d craved. It is intense, every touch, a
collision of my need and want. Hurt and
betrayal. Desire and lust that builds and
builds, a fire that begins to rage, turning into

something that is wild, primal.

We sway together, rocking and grinding,

touching. I pull her down against me, even as
my cock thrusts into her, over and over, until
she is panting, stiffening, her sex clenching
me, dragging me into release with her. I
shudder with the impact and she trembles
against me, her body collapsing into mine. My
hand flattens in the middle of her spine, and I
hold her there, not ready to let go. Not ready
for us to be back in a world where secrets and
lies decide what we do or do not do. But as the
seconds tick by, I can feel Amanda
withdrawing, returning to the hate she feels
she has to claim, even if she would not in the
heat of the moment.

She shifts and leans toward a table at the

end of the bench we’re on, grabbing a tissue,
but when she would move away, I hold onto
her. “We need to talk.”

“What can either one of us say that the

other will believe?”

“Let me rephrase. We’re going to talk.”
Julie meows and Amanda’s eyes go wide.

“Oh no. I left her in her carrier without food or
water.” She shoves away from me and as
tempted as I am to hold onto her, now
obviously isn’t the time. I stand and take her
with me, helping her to her feet. She is quick

to twist away from my reach, my consolation
prize her gorgeous backside as she grabs her
clothes and rushes toward the opposite lounge
area and the seat where Julie is buckled into
her carrier. Despite our recent fuck, I have
three years to make up for with Amanda, and
my cock twitches. And since that conversation
I’ve demanded needs to be had, preferably
while in the air, with her captive to my
demands, clothing is now critical.

Amanda seems to have the same idea as

she murmurs sweet things to the cat and starts
to dress.

Tearing my gaze from the view of her

tempting backside, I turn away and snatch up
my pants, stepping into them. I pull on the
49ers T-shirt she’d grabbed for me at her San
Francisco shithole of an apartment, as well as
my shoes, and walk into the bathroom to
splash cold water on my face, my version of a
cold shower. Returning to the double lounge
areas, I find a litter box on the floor—because
what CIA agent doesn’t travel with a litter box?
—and Amanda is placing Julie back in her
carrier where it remains strapped to the seat.
She then squats down beside Julie, and sticks a
bowl of food in front of her, to which Julie
attends with about as much eagerness as I
could easily show Amanda’s backside, which is

no longer naked nor in full view.

I step into the aisle, and face the lounge

area where Amanda is tending the cat, when
the plane shudders and shakes, my hands
gripping the ceiling. “We need to talk.”

Amanda drags her fingers through the sexy

mess of her blonde hair, which was brown
three years ago, and stands up, facing me.
“You’re right. We do. I want answers and I
don’t want them from the man who just fucked
me. I want them from the man they call the
Assassin.” She sits down in her chair beside
Julie, an action that forces me to join her to
have a reasonable conversation. It’s her way of
claiming control that she hasn’t claimed at all.

I walk into the lounge area and sit down

across from her as I had during take-off, and I
waste no time getting to the point. “What
haven’t you told me?”

“That’s the kind of vague and generic

question those at the CIA call ‘fishing.’ You’re
connected to the agency. You should have all
the answers that I don’t, and didn’t dare look
for while hiding.”

She’s right. I should have answers, but her

file, and her parents’ files, are sealed. But I
don’t want her to know what I know or don’t
know. I want to hear her words, her story, and
so I move on. “The ghost protocol you spoke

about says to me that you knew you were
tempting fate, and expected trouble.”

“Inferring inaccurately that I was guilty of a

crime. My parents trained me on some level of
ghost protocol from practically the day I could
walk. It was just part of being my parents’
child. What were you told when they placed
you with me?”

“You’re inferring inaccurately, again, that

you were my assignment, and therefore I was
briefed on your history. I was not briefed. And
you were not my assignment. At least not
officially.”

“Not officially? What does that even

mean?”

“I don’t take long-term jobs with partners.

Ever. So when they kept us together to chase
Ming, I assumed that you were on their radar,
and without question, they knew I’d make
such an assumption.”

“And you didn’t question why?”
“I didn’t have to. I knew it meant they

considered you a potential high-risk liability.
In other words, they wanted to ensure that,
should they decide to issue a kill order, you
would really die. And when I decide someone
will die, they die. I’m one hundred percent
reliable and unemotional about my job.”

“Until me.”

“Sweetheart, I never wanted you dead or

you’d be dead, but the interesting part of this
equation is my hard rule: I don’t kill fellow
agents unless I know they’re dirty. Really
damn dirty. The agency knows this and they
still chose me for you, which means they
believed they could convince me to take your
kill order.”

“You literally lived with me for three

months. Did you ever find evidence that I was
dirty?”

“No, I did not.”
“Then if I am dirty, that makes you blind

and stupid, and we both know that’s not true.”

“I could say the same to you of me, and yet,

you convicted me of a betrayal without so
much as a question. Translation: you’re
innocent of the charges made by the agency
and—”

“Which are what?”
“We’ll come back to that. We’re going to

work two hypotheses, which is how you like to
work. In this first hypothesis, you are innocent
of anything and everything, and left because
you doubted me or your own instincts. Or
maybe both. Which was it?”

“I left because my mother named you.”
“Like I said. You either doubted me or you

doubted your own instincts.” I don’t give her

time to reply. “For now, let’s conclude that we
were really in love and that you knew me and I
knew you well. And we still do. That means
you aren’t dirty and I wasn’t fucking you for
the agency’s benefit, but rather because I liked
it. I wanted you, and I loved you. And since
we’re concluding those things, we can
conclude that you were set up. Somewhere
along the line, you crossed the wrong person,
directly or indirectly, through your parents.
And I’d assume you’ve already asked yourself
that question, which led you to who?”

“You and I both could name hundreds of

people we’ve crossed. And since I haven’t
worked with my parents in years, the only one
I know that ties me to my parents is Franklin,
and he’s a former CIA agent. He’d have ties to
insiders to set us up. Have you looked at a
Franklin tie?”

“I didn’t even hear about Franklin beyond

the China incident until forty-eight hours ago.
That’s one option. Give me another.”

“I keep thinking about Ming. Why would

they place a kill order on me the night we had
him in our sights? What if he had an insider in
the agency?”

“We were paired for Ming. That means you

were on the CIA’s radar as a problem before he
was involved with you, or us.”

“Did you look for a connection between

him and my parents?”

“No. I ruled him out as a problem based on

timing.”

“Unless he has contacts inside the CIA and

connected us to him in order to get to me.”

“Then why drag out meeting us for three

months? It makes no sense.”

“Something feels off there. How did Danny

get on his radar at all that night?”

“He got made following Ming, and Ming

saw him with us. And Ming didn’t take the
trade we planned. He decided it would be
Danny’s life for the dirt we had on him. He
had me call you and give you an hour to bring
it, or he’d kill Danny.”

“I threw the phone away,” she whispers.
I inhale, feeling a hot spot in my chest, my

forgiving mood shifting, darkening. “And his
life with it,” I say. “Because your mother said
my name.”

“Seth—”
“I sat in a chair facing Danny while that

hour ticked away, seven men pointing guns at
us. And I waited for you to show up. Danny
waited for you to show up, fear in his eyes that
I’d never seen in that man’s eyes, ever.”

“I would never have left him to die.” Her

voice rasps with emotion that does nothing to

bring Danny back. “If I could turn back time—”

“But you can’t. I didn’t expect you to show

up like Danny did, and I’m not sure what that
says about us. I knew you were gone. And so I
waited for the right moment to kill everyone in
that room, but it didn’t come until after Ming
put a bullet in Danny’s head. I killed them with
nothing but the blade they missed when they
searched me. All seven of them, and I actually
enjoyed it, Ming especially, who I saved for
last and made suffer.”

Her eyes go wide. “All seven armed men

with just a knife?”

“Yes. Seven against one and all I had was a

knife. I’m a killer, Amanda. I’m good at it.
Really damn good at it, and my body count
reflects that. That’s why they call me the
Assassin.” I wait for the question I expect her
to ask, and she doesn’t disappoint.

“How many kills?” she asks.
And yet despite prompting the question,

despite planning to shock her with the
number, I don’t deliver. “It’s not a number I
plan to share.”

“Mine isn’t small,” she says.
“Yes,” I counter. “It is.”
“A hundred?” she presses.
“I’m not giving you a number,” I say, when

I know it would rattle her and rattling her lets

me see beneath her many protected layers.

“A hundred and fifty?” she asks now.
“That number is why I didn’t tell you about

my nickname.”

“Because you thought I couldn’t handle the

number?”

“You can’t.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong.”
“But you’re all but telling me now. It’s the

same.”

“Yes,” I agree. “It is, and yes I am telling

you now, and for a reason.” I lean forward
again, elbows back on my knees, my gaze
meeting hers. “Which brings us to the next
hypothesis.”

“You were setting me up all along?”
“I was a blind fool and didn’t see the real

you, and the reason I was given for your
urgent death was accurate.”

“Which was what?”
“An imminent threat to national security,

which included espionage. So hear this, Poison
Princess. I am the Assassin. And I’m a good
friend to have, sweetheart, and a bad enemy to
make. And we’re going to have to decide which
I am, and what that means, before this plane
lands.”

Chapter Three

Amanda does not outwardly react to the
accusation of espionage. She doesn’t flinch.
She doesn’t gasp. She doesn’t look away. In
fact, she holds my stare. “I would never betray
my country,” she says, her voice steady, calm.
“That I’m accused of such an atrocity, though,
isn’t a surprise. A kill order was issued with
my name on it. That had to be justified with a
serious claim.”

I lean forward, my elbows on my knees, the

space between us small and somehow miles
wide. “Your parents were accused of the same
thing.”

“Of course they were. Their kill orders

were issued at the same time.”

“They’d been flagged by the agency for two

years.”

This time she blanches. “What?” She

recovers and shakes her head. “No. That’s not
possible.”

“And yet, it’s a fact. Two years, Amanda.”
She stares at me, her expression

unreadable before she leans back in her seat,

withdrawal in the action. “Why?”

I study her, looking for some tell sign that

spells guilt, but her expression remains
unreadable. But I’ve lived and worked with
this woman. I’ve seen her in a broad spectrum
of situations, and I know her energy, and right
now, it’s shock and fear.

“Why?” she presses when I haven’t

answered quickly enough to suit her. “Why
were my parents being monitored?”

“You tell me.”
Her eyes narrow. “You don’t know, do

you?”

“Not specifics. Just that they were flagged

and being monitored.”

“Which means I was as well,” she assumes,

anger and accusation lacing those words. “And
that you were, in fact, investigating me.”

“No,” I say firmly. “I was not.”
“How long have you known this about my

parents?” she asks, clearly trying to find my lie
that I’m not telling.

“Since right after you left,” I say.
“I need more than you’re giving me. I need

details.”

“My information came from a source who

had a source, who couldn’t get me specifics.”

“What source?”
“No one you know and no one I plan to

expose.”

“And the details of my supposed

espionage?”

“None given.”
“Then no.”
I arch a brow. “No?”
“I reject the accusation against my parents.

They are the ones who created my devotion to
my job and country. They would not betray
their country. I’m not guilty and neither are
they.”

“There was a reason they were being

watched.”

She leans forward again. “While you were

not investigating me, and just fucking me, did
you ever find one piece of evidence against
them or me?”

I lean forward again as well. “I was never

‘just fucking you’ beyond that first night, and
no. I never saw any evidence that you were
dirty. I was never in a position to evaluate your
parents.” I narrow my eyes on her, and ask the
question I’ve asked myself for three years,
“Are you, were you, covering something up for
your parents?”

“There’s nothing to cover up,” she snaps.
“You have to consider the possibility that

somehow, some way, your parents got pulled
into murky water that spiraled into

quicksand.”

“You’re asking me to believe that my

parents, the only people I have in this world,
are dirty. I reject that premise.”

“That’s an emotional response that you

don’t normally allow yourself.”

“It’s an educated response,” she corrects. “I

lived with my parents and I worked with them
all of my life.”

“Until five years ago, and a lot can change

in five years.”

“They aren’t guilty,” she insists

dogmatically. “I’m not guilty. And the one
mistake I made in all of this was to hide and
not fight. I should have gone after answers and
justice.”

“The one mistake you made was forgetting

that you didn’t just have your parents three
years ago. You had me.”

“This coming from the man who swore he’d

kill me just hours ago.”

“Change my mind.”
Her expression darkens. “You shouldn’t

need your mind changed,” she says. “You
should know that I’m innocent. You, of all
people, should have—and still should—believe
in me.”

“I did believe in you,” I say, my voice

hardening. “Before you ran.”

“Left. I left. And the bottom line here is that

I will always wonder if you really set me up.
And while I’m going to prove my innocence
along with that of my parents, you will always
be the man who didn’t believe in me. And to
you, I will still be the person who is
unforgivably responsible for Danny’s death.”

“You say I should believe in you. You

should have believed in me. That you say now
that you never will, tells me that Danny is
ultimately on me. Because either I misjudged
your character or I misjudged the trust
between us.”

Her expression tightens. “I did trust you,”

she says. “But you were right when you said
that I didn’t trust my own judgment about
you.” She sinks back into her seat and looks
skyward before back at me. “I don’t know why
I’m even telling you this. You can just use it
against me, but that night—hearing your name
on my mother’s lips—for a solid five minutes,
it paralyzed me. And then I hyperventilated
like I did the first ten times I killed someone.”
She leans forward again, obviously in a push
and pull of emotions. “It affected me in ways I
don’t ever plan to be affected again. I will not
let myself trust you again. And in your own
way, you feel something similar about me. I
see that in your actions. I see it when you look

at me.”

“If that’s what you see when you look in my

eyes, sweetheart, you aren’t really looking.”

“I see what is there to see, not what you

want me to see. You say that you’re a good
friend to have and bad enemy to make.
Without trust, there are just enemies. So, we
have a truce while we deal with Franklin. We’ll
protect each other. We might even fuck again
and again, even though I’d like to tell myself
we won’t. But when this ends, one of us will
die.”

Twenty-four hours ago, I would have

agreed with her, and in fact, assured her it
would be her that would soon be dead, not me.
Now, I’ve kissed her and fucked her and
touched her. I’ve looked into her eyes, heard
her story, and nothing is quite that cut and dry
anymore. “When you said that I know you,” I
say, “you were right. I do. And if your instincts
told you that I betrayed you, we wouldn’t fuck
again.”

“If only it were that simple with you,” she

says. “But it never was and it never is.” She
settles deeper into her chair, and with her
shoes still off, pulls her legs up onto the
cushion to her side. “I’m going to sleep the rest
of the way.” She rotates and faces the cat’s
carrier and sticks her hand inside, stroking

Julie and talking to her. I think about her
barren apartment, and the seclusion of the
past three years she’s lived inside, and I
understand the cat more than I had before
now. Loving that animal didn’t create a
weakness in her, which I’d first perceived. It
helped her control any urge she had for
human contact with anyone, including me.

I recline my seat and stare at the ceiling,

my mind chasing the trust issue. Even if she
reacted to her mother’s call out of caution, or
even confusion, space and time didn’t
convince her to trust me and make contact.
And she knew how to safely reach me. We long
ago came up with a plan, should we ever be
separated, to make contact. Yet, if I believe her
to be innocent, and my gut says that she is, I
have to have read her wrong. I have to have
read us wrong. And if I could love this woman
the way I loved her—still love her—and be this
wrong, what else did I miss?

I shut my eyes and think back to the past,

trying to see where I went wrong, back to the
first night we worked together as Mr. and Mrs.
Jones. Beyond the actual mission, to our rapid
departure to safety on a plane identical to this
one, her still in a formal dress. Me in a tuxedo.
I’d fucked Amanda at thirty-thousand feet, and
by the time we’d landed in New York, we’d

discovered we were re-assigned together and
would remain Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Details for
the time were limited, but everything about
our new mission had been set up for us in
advance to include a change of clothes on the
plane: A light gray suit for me. A light blue
dress for Amanda.

We arrive in a hired car near midnight at

our new luxury apartment overlooking
Central Park, playing our roles as the wealthy
diamond moguls, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, as we
greet the staff and made our way to the
elevator. While touching Amanda is part of
that role, it’s one I find myself more than
willing to engage. There is something about
her that I find rather addictive, and I don’t do
addictive. Something human and real that
may well be part of why the agency clearly
wants me paired with her, watching her, that
hits some chord in me I don’t quite
understand.

Once we’re in the elevator, cameras no

doubt watching us, I punch in the twenty-fifth
floor, lean on the wall, and immediately pull
Amanda to me. “Mrs. Jones.”

“Mr. Jones.”
“It’s late,” I say. “You must be tired. I know

I, for one, am looking forward to testing out
our new bed.”

“Are you now?”
“Yes. I am.”
“And here I thought you got all the ‘rest’

you could possibly want or need, on the
plane.”

“Not even close,” I assure her. “I’d equate

the plane to a nap that readied me for all
night long.”

“All night? Really. That’s an impressive

premise. Are you sure you’re ‘up’ to it?”

I laugh. Damn, this woman amuses me

when little else does. The elevator dings, and I
cup her head and give her a quick kiss before
the doors open. “Let’s go find out,” I say,
closing her hand in mine and leading her out
of the car.

We cut down a hallway to the right and

into a private entryway that leads to our
apartment. Releasing Amanda, I unlock the
door, aware that she is unzipping her purse,
her hand sliding inside, and around the
weapon I already know she carries there,
surprisingly cautious considering the agency
placed us here. But I like caution. Caution is
how you stay alive. I push open the door and I
don’t get the chance to enter first. She’s
immediately stepping forward, inside the
hallway door, no damsel waiting to be saved.
She might blink when she kills, but she’s

fearless.

I’m immediately on her heels, following

her down the short, narrow hallway, the floor
beneath our feet a shiny pale wood. Rounding
the corner, we enter the living area, a box-like
room with high ceilings, gray walls, and
windows lining the front and side walls,
giving the space a private, secluded feeling. A
bar, also gray, divides us from the kitchen,
with halls to our left and right. Amanda and I
share a look, and she heads down one
hallway, and me the other. I search an office
and two bedrooms before I meet her back in
the living room at the stainless steel and gray
steps. “This place must run five million
dollars,” she murmurs as, side by side, we
start up the steps.

“You don’t know Manhattan if you think

this place is that cheap. Try ten million.”

“This is familiar territory for you?” she

asks as we cut left to climb another flight of
stairs.

“Familiar enough,” I say, noncommittally,

which is about as committed as I ever get
about anything but my job.

We step into a small foyer with a fancy

light overhead, and then directly into the
master, a uniquely oval-shaped room
wrapped in windows, with a gray high-

posted bed in the center. And while my mind
could conjure about ten ways to fuck Amanda
right here and now, this isn’t the time.
Amanda heads into the bathroom, and I walk
to the doorway to my right, entering to find a
sitting room that has been converted into an
office for our use. A round gray table is in the
center, a file and two MacBooks on top. A
huge bulletin board is to the right. A white
board to the left. Two large chests in the
corner. A tech center on the wall with several
monitors, which I assume will display this
building as well as other key locations we
don’t know as of yet. Whatever this job is, it’s
big, and it’s important.

I walk to the chests and open one of them

up to find an arsenal of weapons. Amanda
appears by my side and inspects the selection.
“Impressive,” she says, stepping to the second
chest and opening it.

I glance over to find test tubes, bottles, and

syringes, as she glances over at me. “This is a
much more elaborate lab than I’m normally
given. They must be planning on us staying a
while.”

“And you poisoning a whole lot of people?”
There is a flicker of something in her eye,

there and gone, before she says, “Believe it or
not, my lab can be a resource outside of

killing someone,” and turns away, walking
toward the table.

Intrigued by this woman, I pursue her.

“Such as?”

She sits down at the table and opens one of

the MacBooks. “I’d tell you but I’d have to
poison you afterwards.”

Non-committal as well, another good

quality in an agent and partner, but rather
inconvenient at the moment. I sit down next to
her and pull the folder between us, flipping it
open. “Target,” I say, staring down at a photo
with a name at the bottom. “Fai Ming,” I read,
sliding the photo to her and picking up a sheet
of paper to read through Ming’s list of sins,
which includes money laundering for a
known terrorist operation. I bypass the data
collection on him and I hand Amanda what
I’ve already reviewed, giving her time to read
through it and make her own assessments.

I reach for documents detailing our

mission and start to read, and after a good
two minutes, Amanda says, “Ming appears to
be somewhat of a ghost. He lives in China.
Any idea why we’re in New York instead of
there? Because I’m not seeing it.”

“Apparently,” I say, summarizing what

I’ve read. “Brad and Laura Davenport, a
married couple, head up what is called ‘The

Circle’ for Ming, here in New York.”

“I’ll bite. What’s The Circle?”
“A group of wealthy investors who are

then allowed to invest in Ming’s packaged
deals.”

“Hedge funds?”
“Exactly,” I say, moving on. “Once you’re

inside The Circle, which apparently is nearly
impossible to enter, you have a link to Ming.
He has to personally approve you to officially
become a Circle member.”

“And we have the impossible task of

convincing the Davenport couple that we’re
the next ‘it’ Circle couple.”

“Exactly again.” I tap the document in

front of me. “They visit an elite private club
and spa every Saturday and Wednesday.
We’ve been made members.”

“Where we’ll run into them and bond,” she

supplies, scanning the Davenport profiles.
“Real estate developers and equity investors.”
She glances up at me. “Funny how there are
no mentions of international terror suspects,”
she adds dryly. “This sounds like a long,
tedious process, in which Ming could fund
many terrorist activities.”

I slide another piece of paper to her. “They

have a warehouse in Brooklyn and a house in
the Hamptons. If we find a link to Ming at

either of those places, we speed things up and
go to him directly.”

“We can’t make the Hamptons tonight and

get back here for Saturday morning spa time
fun,” she says. “And we don’t want to have to
wait until Wednesday.”

“But we can make the warehouse and still

have our morning visit with the Davenports,”
I say, thumbing through documents until I
find what I’m looking for. “We have the
warehouse schematics.” I grab an envelope
and dump it, to find a collection of banded
credit cards, IDs, and separately, two sets of
car keys. “And it appears,” I add, glancing at
the custom key chains, “a Porsche and a
BMW.”

“And two closets overflowing with clothes,

with an emphasis on black and covert. But
what we don’t have are my potions, as I call
them.” She lifts her finger to show me the film
she keeps there to distribute her poisons. “This
is the application with no chemical
compound. Until I have some lab time, I’m
without my magic.”

“You have me instead, sweetheart, and you

don’t know it yet, but I’m a good friend to
make and a bad enemy to have. And right
now, I’m the closest thing to a friend you
have.”

“I don’t have friends,” she says.
So, she’ll fuck me but not friend me, I think.

Smart girl. Because friends make easy
enemies and an orgasm isn’t worth dying for.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, we’re both in black
jeans and T-shirts, with black leather jackets,
allowing us to be discreetly well-armed. We
opt for the stairs to avoid cameras catching
our departure, exit the stairwell at the rear of
the lobby, and make our way to a side door to
avoid the staff. Exiting the building, we step
onto the now sparsely populated Manhattan
sidewalk, which would be considered busy in
any other city. “A cab driver means a
witness,” I say, motioning down a side street.
“There’s a parking lot this way. We’ll grab a
car there.”

“There are cameras at that lot,” she says.

“Two streets down, to the right, there’s
another option. We’ll find a car in that lot
without a camera capturing us.”

I glance over at her. “You know the city,

too.”

Her lips hint at a smile as she says, “Well

enough,” in a reply that gives me no more

than I’d given her with the same question,
proving she gives back as good as she gets.

“Well enough indeed,” I say, finding this

woman more interesting by the moment.

I motion us forward and we have a

natural chemistry, falling into even steps
together as we cross the street and make our
way to the location she’s indicated, to find the
street light above the lot burned out. “We
couldn’t have planned that better,” I murmur
as I scan the cars and choose one.

Ten minutes later, we’re out of the lot and

on the road in a gray Ford Focus, only twenty
minutes from the warehouse.

I exit to the highway, and cut Amanda a

look. “How many times have you been
married?” I ask, still sizing up the woman that
is now my partner, for an indefinite period of
time.

“In the real world,” she says. “Never even

close and I have no interest. This life we live
just isn’t a life that supports marriage. In a
fictional world, a half-dozen times.”

“Of those, how many of those did you

fuck?”

She laughs, not even slightly offended.

“Wondering how you stack up?”

“Assessing how you operate.”
“A girl doesn’t kiss and tell,” she says, “only

sadly, since a girl does have needs, there’s
nothing to tell. I scare everyone off, except
apparently, you.”

“Considering you tried to scare me off with

all your poison talk, I think you like it that
way.”

“I do, actually,” she says, offering nothing

more.

“Why?” I ask, wondering if there is

something other than that blink when she kills
that she’s hiding.

“Alone is safer,” she says without

hesitation, “and for the most part, beyond my
first year in the field, that’s how I work. The
agency picks and chooses where my skills will
come in handy, then drops me in and pulls me
out.” She shifts the topic to me. “What about
you? How many marriages?”

“I’m not the commitment kind of guy,

either.” I glance over at her and then back at
the road. “On or off the job. Most of the time,
there’s a specific need, or needs, that I can
satisfy, and like you, I’m dropped in and
pulled out.”

“And what exactly are the needs they call

you for?”

I could tell her that I’m really damn good

at killing people, but that would invite
questions that I’m simply not willing to

answer. “I don’t blink,” I say. “I’ll do what
other people won’t.”

“Translation,” she replies, “I’m not getting

a real answer. I can accept that, but on a side
note, it’s interesting to me that two people
who work alone, and on short term jobs, are
now paired together for what seems like a job
that won’t be fast.”

Yes it is, I think, as she adds, “They’re

sacrificing the two of us in the field, doing
what we do, for this. It feels like there is
something we don’t know.”

She’s right. It does, but I’m not sure if it’s

about Ming or her. For now, I’m focused on
Ming. “Let’s talk about the building setup.” I
reach in my pocket and hand her a map of the
property I printed before we left the
apartment. “There’s no alarm system, which
leads me to believe there’s nothing to find.”

“Sometimes people leave evidence they

don’t even realize they’re leaving,” she says.
“And let’s hope that’s the case.”

We spend the next ten minutes talking

through the floor plan and possible challenges
before we reach our exit, but I take a
necessary detour before heading to the
warehouse. I cut us to the side road, and turn
into a burger joint. “We’re a mile from the
warehouse and I don’t know about you, but I

need food.”

“Oh God, yes,” she says. “I don’t even

remember the last time I ate.”

I pull us to the drive-thru and roll down

the window. “Any idea what you want?”

“A number one with a diet whatever they

have.”

I lean out of the window. “Hello?”
“Can I take your order?”
“A number one with a diet whatever you

have, a number two with a coke, two
cheeseburgers, and a side of fries.” I wait for
the total and roll us forward.

“Are we feeding an army or what?”

Amanda asks.

“I once survived on Tic Tacs and water for

five straight days. I eat when I can eat.”

“If you eat all of that, you’re not going to

be able to move, and I’ll have to save you if
anything goes wrong at the warehouse.”

I laugh. “Sweetheart, I haven’t needed

saving since I was thirteen and Betty Jo Miller
broke my heart by kissing Tommy Arnold.” I
stop at the pick-up window and pull out that
black AmEx I’ve just acquired, handing it to
the attendant. Bags of burgers and fries
quickly follow, and it’s not long before we’re
parked and eating.

Amanda sighs with bliss. “God, I love

fries,” she says. “They aren’t good for me,
which is why I don’t eat them often, but they
sure are good.”

“Nothing good is good for you,” I say,

finishing off burger number two as she sets
her empty bag in the back seat.

“Does that include you?” she asks.
I toss a wrapper into my bag and turn to

face her. “For the record, Mrs. Jones,” I say,
“good is not the description a man wants used
about him after being naked with a woman.
It’s only slightly better than fine, which is the
ultimate punch in the balls. And I am never
just good or just fine and you didn’t moan like
you were feeling just good or just fine.”

Her lips curve. “Because you have a

comparison to how I’ve moaned when it’s
great?”

“Not yet. But every husband should know

how, when, and what, makes his wife moan,
so I will. And as for me being bad for you. I
am. Consider this your one and only
warning.”

“I didn’t need a warning. I know you’re

dangerous.”

I narrow my eyes on her. “And you like

that.”

“I understand it and therefore it’s

comfortable.”

“Let’s see how comfortable you are when

you get to know me.”

“I don’t scare off any easier than you do.”
I study her a moment, and find that some

part of me hopes that’s true, but there are few
who could stomach just who and what I am,
including a Poison Princess. I turn away and
put us in gear, before glancing over at her.
“There’s nothing easy about me, Mrs. Jones,” I
assure her before backing us up and driving
to the main street, and the instant I turn us
onto the road, the mood in the car shifts.
Personal is gone, my mind shifting to the
mission.

The streets are dark and empty as we

enter the warehouse district, industrial
buildings stretching left and right, the
parking areas for each operation we pass,
empty. I slow our speed as we close in on the
Davenports’ warehouse, giving Amanda and I
both time to scout for trouble. “It looks quiet,”
she murmurs. “But looks can be deceiving.”

Another smartly spoken statement that

lends to a slow build of confidence in her as a
partner. I drive us around to the side of the
building, and continue on to the rear, parking
us between two of six Dumpsters lining the
building. Killing the engine, I pull on a black
beanie low onto my brow, disguising my

short, blond hair, should we be spotted.
Amanda ties her hair back and then does the
same. We look at each other and nod our
readiness and I resist the urge to instruct her
to watch for cameras, that our recon says
aren’t present. Any agent worth their keep
knows what is supposed to be rarely is the
case.

In unison, we reach for our doors, popping

them open, and exit the car. Both of us quietly
re-sealing our doors, before we make our way
to a fire escape directly in front of us. In all of
sixty seconds we’re inside the warehouse, in a
storage room the size of a small bedroom. As
planned before we left the apartment,
Amanda and I share a look, and then set the
timer on our watches for seven minutes, our
intent to divide and conquer. Do what we do:
get in and get out. If either of us is not back
here on time, we know there’s trouble.

We cross to the doorway, pausing side by

side just inside the warehouse, as we scan
rows and rows of crates, stacked several feet
above our heads and leaving plenty of places
for someone to hide. I glance at Amanda and
motion to the rear of the warehouse. She nods
and impressively begins traveling a path next
to the wall that allows her to eye the
walkaways between the aisles. Taking a

similar strategy, bypassing my need to search
the crates, I make my way to the two offices at
the back of the building. Wasting no time
entering the first one, my search delivers
invoices and random documents related to
ceramic tile, which I suspect is somehow a
money laundering operation. I shoot pictures
of addresses and names, as well as financial
information, then repeat the same in the next
office.

Exiting the office, I do random crate

checks to find tile is indeed what’s inside.
Checking my watch, I’m at the six-minute
mark, and I make my way back to the meet
up point with Amanda. She’s ahead of me by
several feet when instinct stops me in my
tracks.

Amanda feels it too, no longer moving, her

hand reaching for a gun, but before she can
draw it, a man with a gun pointed at her
steps into the doorway. Amanda goes for her
gun anyway, and the next thing I know, the
man is on the ground. That’s when three other
men jump from the top of the crates above her
and she’s surrounded. I shoot two of them,
and she takes out the other, but a fourth drops
behind her, and points his gun at the back of
her head, yanking her around to put his back
to the crates.

I’m in front of Amanda, and several feet

back, in an instant. “Stay back or I’ll shoot!”
the man shouts, and I stand my ground. The
man, a foot taller than Amanda, with a
hundred pounds on her, towers over her, a
perfect target, I plant to take. “Drop your
gun,” he shouts at me, and then to Amanda.
“Drop the gun, bitch, or you’re dead.”

Amanda does not drop her gun. My gaze

shifts to his trembling hand, and I can’t know
if his finger is on the trigger from behind, but
I have to assume it is, and anyone as nervous
as he is might just shoot. My eyes meet
Amanda’s and I drop my gun, my silent
message to her urging her to do the same. I
give her the slightest incline of my chin,
willing her to do as I bid. Her eyes go wide
with objection and my lips tighten. The man
starts shouting at me in Spanish about his
dead brother, who is apparently lying at my
feet.

He’s going to shoot Amanda and I act

then. No hesitation. The blade in my sleeve is
out and in his wrist in seconds, the gun hitting
the ground. The next blade lands in between
his eyes and he drops. Amanda’s eyes go wide,
but she doesn’t miss a beat, rotating and
scanning for our next attacker that don’t exist.
We are quick and efficient, making our way to

the fire escape.

It’s there that she gives me an incredulous

look. “What you did—”

I cup her head and pull her to me. “Now

you know what kind of needs I satisfy for the
agency. Trust me next time and don’t fight
me.” I kiss her hard and fast before I release
her, and we get the hell out of Dodge.

The plane shakes and I open my eyes,

listening to the hum of the engine with the
realization that I’ve been asleep, and my arm is
now throbbing. Shoving aside the pain, I focus
on the memory I’ve been living, remembering
that night in the warehouse once again. Trust
me, I’d said, and from that point forward, I’d
been certain she had, at least on some level.
The real trust came later. Or so I’d thought.
Assuming her innocent of a crime, then she
left me after hearing my name on that
recording, and that doesn’t say trust. At this
point, I have to accept that the trust that I’d
known to be between us existed in only one
layer of our relationship when there were
many. And I’m sure me warning her that I was
dangerous that night didn’t help.

The throb in my arm becomes a

hammering sensation, and I raise my seat to
find Amanda’s seat is back as well, and she’s
lying on her side, the cat curled in the crook of

her body.

I walk a few steps and grab my jacket,

removing the medication there, and taking out
a pain pill and an antibiotic. A bottle of water
sits in a drink holder and I open it and suck
down the meds. When I’m done, I set the
bottle down and Amanda has yet to move. My
mind flashes back to that long flight from
Rome to New York, that first night with her.
She’d fallen sound asleep and I’d watched her,
amazed at not only how beautiful and tough
she was, but how damn sound asleep. When
she’d woken up, I’d ask her how she managed
to sleep that soundly.

“How the hell did you sleep that soundly?”
“Don’t you on a plane?” she asks. “It’s the

one place we know that no one can sneak up
on us and attack. It’s a safe zone.”

But I was there. A stranger she seemed to

instinctively trust. And now, I’m not a stranger.
I’m the man she loved and still the man she
considers her would-be assassin, and yet she’s
sound asleep. Nothing in the facts I’ve
explored or in my gut says that this woman is
dirty. Nothing. Not in the past. Not now. So, if
she really trusts me, and right now, watching
her sleep, I believe she does, then why did she
run?

Chapter Four

I spend the next fifteen minutes in my seat, the
pain slowly easing from my arm, while I watch
Amanda sleep and mentally weed through all I
have learned since finding her again. Chasing
theories that keep leading me back to her dead
parents, who she doesn’t think are dead. The
reality here that I haven’t discussed with her
yet is that I looked for them in order to find
her, and everything about them was wiped
away. As if they never existed. To me, this
meant they were as dead as the agency
claimed, but now I know about the ghost
protocol. And Amanda hid so damn well that I
couldn’t find her, using skills they taught her.
Maybe they are alive, and they have answers
that clear Amanda’s name. Or not, in which
case, Amanda loses the parents she has
claimed as all she has in the world.

Except for me and that cat curled up next

to her.

The engine shifts speeds, and we begin our

descent into Texas, and still, Amanda has not
moved. I stand up and take the few steps

between my seat and hers directly in front of
me, kneeling beside her. Julie lifts her head
and gives me a curious, green-eyed look, and
then goes back to sleep. My hand comes down
on Amanda’s leg. “Amanda. We’re going to
land soon.”

She makes a soft, sleepy sound that I swear

I feel in my heart and my groin, and shifts
slightly to blink up at me. “Seth?”

“Yes, sweetheart,” I say. “Seth.”
“Seth,” she breathes out, and damn, her

eyes warm the way they use to when I’d wake
her in the morning and make love to her.

“We’re about to land in Texas.”
Her eyes go wide and understanding

flashes across her face. “Oh. Yes.” She hits the
button to raise the seat and Julie sinks back
into the cushion and snuggles next to her hip.
She straightens, scooting to the edge of the
seat, her gaze shifting to my hand that I can’t
seem to make myself move from her leg. She
draws in a tiny breath and lets it out before
looking at me. “You know I always sleep well
on a plane.”

“I do,” I say, and I don’t even think about

getting up. “Because there’s no one to attack
you while you sleep.”

Understanding once again seeps into her

face. “Except this time my would-be assassin

was on the plane,” she supplies for me. “We
made a truce. I felt safe.”

“No truce with an enemy would allow you

to sleep that soundly and we both know it.”

Instead of withdrawing as I expect, her

hand closes down on mine, her gaze steady. “I
did trust you,” she says. “Too much. You don’t
trust anyone that much in the world we live
inside.”

“You trusted me but you stayed away for

three years?” I don’t give her time to reply.
“No. I reject that answer completely. I was—”

“—the man enlisted to kill me. And the man

who—”

“—loved you.”
Her lashes lower and lift, and when she

looks at me again there is torment in her stare
that she doesn’t try to hide. “Loved me,” she
repeats, emphasizing the past tense. “And yet
you believed that I would betray my country
and you?”

Those words are etched in the accusation

and pain she fails to conceal, if she tries. And
there is something in her face that reminds me
of the barren apartment she’s lived in, of the
three years alone that should have been with
me. And I know that if I want this woman in
my life, and I know now that I do, it’s time to
shift the narrative. It’s time to be honest with

her and myself.

“No,” I say. “I do not believe you betrayed

your country. I never believed that you were
guilty, but your disappearance made me doubt
my trust in you.”

“You don’t do doubt.”
“Apparently, I do, and as I’ve always

known, it’s a dirty, dangerous emotion.”

“So, to be clear, are we trying to kill each

other or not? Because I’d hate to be on the
wrong page of that topic.”

“We are not trying to kill each other.”
“No?”
“No.”
“What changed while I napped?”
“I realized that I can’t ask you to trust your

feelings for me if I don’t do the same myself.
Do I think that you’re guilty of any crime? No.
Do I think you would cover for your parents?
Yes.”

“My parents—”
“Are not what concerns me right now. You

are. We are. Because I told you. We need to
firmly decide if I’m that friend, to put it mildly,
or an enemy, before we get off this plane. And
while I believe we’ve made that choice, I don’t
believe that you left without me because you
were afraid of trusting me too much.”

“Trusting your assassin—”

I twine fingers into her hair and drag her to

me. “I’m Seth. Just Seth.” I lower my head, my
lips a breath from hers. “You know him. You
know me like no one else does.”

Her fingers curl around my shirt. “Do I?”
“Yes,” I say, and as much as I want to kiss

her, wanting her, her wanting me, is a
distraction from the decisions being made
here right now. And so, I release her again, my
hands settling back on the arms of the chair,
my eyes meeting hers as I allow her to see the
simple truth I’m speaking. “Yes,” I repeat.
“You do.”

The intercom buzzes with what will be our

orders when we land, but I don’t immediately
move. “Don’t make us the enemies neither of
us want to be,” I say before I stand and turn
for the phone, only to hear her say, “Ditto,
Seth Cage.”

I pause a moment, my lips curving with the

use of my name, not “Assassin.” Crossing the
aisle, I pick up the phone in the hallway to
hear, “Ten minutes until landing and the
ground is clear.” The connection ends, and my
brow furrows, alarm bells going off at the
absence of any other directive, one that was
promised when I arranged the flight options
for our escape.

Hanging up, I turn to find Amanda

standing at the edge of the lounge area, a
question on her face. “The ground is clear,” I
say, knowing what she wants to know. Because
I know her, like she knows me, and I’m going
to remind her of that fact, every chance I get,
some of which should definitely be naked.

“Do we know anything about our cover

when we land?” she asks.

“Nothing yet,” I say, offering nothing more.
“As a contractor, did you expect more?”
I could lie to protect her, but I’ve never lied

to her and we both need to be prepared should
things go south when we hit the runway.
“When I’m given an assignment, I am treated
as an active agent.”

“And they lined up our travel?”
“Yes.”
She inhales sharply, a tell I know she

wouldn’t show anyone else, and I wonder if
she even realizes she is still comfortable
enough with me to show me. She’s worried
there’s a CIA ambush waiting for her when we
land. She turns away. I take a step, fully
intending to pull her to me, but the plane does
a hard shimmy, stalling my progress. My guns,
still in the seat to my right, where I’d put them
while getting naked earlier, start to fall. I catch
them and go ahead and pull the holsters onto
my chest and shoulders, watching as Amanda

rushes to secure Julie, and she has no sooner
zipped her up, packed a blanket around her,
and checked the straps around the carrier,
when the plane suddenly jolts and drops.

Amanda and I both lift off the ground, but

as light as she is, she rockets upward, but
catches herself on the roof with her hands. I
catch her on her way down, pulling her to me,
both of us immediately checking Julie, who
gives us a curious look through the mesh of
her bag, which is still snug in her blanket. Still
holding onto Amanda, one hand on her hip,
the other flat on her lower back, I turn back to
her, and her to me.

“You say you trust me, then trust me now.

The agency doesn’t need an ambush. They
think they have me.”

“Think?”
“I didn’t come after you for them. You

know that I came after you for me, and to be
clear, I’m not leaving without you.” The wheels
hit the runway and I grab the ceiling again,
holding us steady, and only once we stop do I
cup the back of her head and kiss her before
saying, “Trust me.”

“I told you. I do.”
“Good,” I say, releasing her. “Then get your

cat and let’s get out of here.”

“The cat is Julie,” she corrects.

“Julie,” I concede, grabbing my blood-

soaked coat, and out of the necessity to
conceal my weapons, I pull it on, then remove
the medication bottles from my pockets.
“We’re going to have to do a fast clothing
change. I’m putting these back in your medical
bag, where they won’t end up dumped.”

“Did you take another antibiotic?” she asks,

packing Julie’s bag.

“And a pain pill.”
She gives me a smile. “I’ll bet you did. Too

bad we didn’t have this trust talk before you
took a needle without that shot first.”

“At least I’m prepared for interrogation by

needlepoint.”

She laughs, sobering quickly as the plane

stops, her mind instantly back on what might
come next, as is mine. Amanda and I both
move to the windows, looking for trouble, the
extent of what that tells me being that we’re in
a private hangar. Straightening as Amanda
does the same, I say, “Let’s just get the hell off
this metal box that could turn into a trap.”

“Agreed,” she says, pulling back on her

hoodie, then placing Julie’s carrier strap over
one shoulder, her purse on the other, her hand
inside it, and close to her weapon. I load up
the other bags on my shoulders, my hands free
to reach for one of the two guns I’ve holstered

to my chest.

Amanda and I exchange a look and I start

for the door first, leading us toward potential
trouble I’ll find before her in the front
position. The captain steps into the front of the
plane and gives me a wave as the sound of the
door opening fills the air. I don’t stop to drill
him. He’s told me what he was instructed to
tell me, and he won’t have more to offer. I
continue on and step to the top of the stairs
now pushed to the door, scanning to find the
hangar I’d expected encasing us, and by
obvious appearances, it’s free of that trouble
I’m trying to avoid. Amanda joins me and does
her own scan. “What’s the plan?” she asks.

“We’re going to find a car, and a cheap

hotel where you can have lab time and we can
plan.”

I’ve no sooner said the words, when one of

the black sedans the agency loves so damn
much pulls into the hangar, and stops. The
driver’s door opens and a familiar agent
appears.

Bear, now sporting a University of Texas

burnt-orange shirt, rounds the vehicle, nothing
about his posture screaming trouble, but then
he’s too skilled and experienced to have a tell
sign.

“Do you know him?” Amanda asks.

“I know him,” I say.
“And?”
“He’s my handler on this job. I respect his

skills.”

“Then he’s dangerous.”
“Very,” I say, as Bear leans on the vehicle,

legs and arms crossed. Waiting on us.

“And you didn’t expect him to be here?”

Amanda asks.

“No. I did not.”
“Is there any chance the Franklin story was

simply to get me to him?”

“Doubtful,” I say, “but if it was, Bear is

going to have a reality check on who’s the
better man. Stay here.” I start to move.

She catches my arm. “The last thing I plan

to do is appear weak to the agency, or anyone
else. I’m going with you.”

I want to reject this idea. She’s been in

hiding. Her skills are rusty, mine are not, but I
do not wholly disagree with her thinking.
“Leave the cat.”

“No.”
“Just until—”
“No,” she says again.
I grit my teeth, but don’t push. Every

second we stand here, we look weak. “Well
then, let’s go meet Bear.” We start down the
stairs, with Bear in our sights and Amanda in

his, and the agency’s, for the first time since
her kill order was issued.

Chapter Five

Amanda and I close the space between myself
and Bear, our pace even, unrushed. We stop a
foot from him. Bear gives me a nod and then
focuses on Amanda. “Dr. A. Isn’t that what
they call you?” he asks, still leaning on the car,
which I’m certain is because he’s six-foot-five
and, for the moment, doesn’t wish to
intimidate Amanda. As if he could.

“That was in my tamer years,” Amanda

replies, setting Julie down, and proving my
assessment as accurate with her quick-witted
reply. “Before I became the killer the agency
wanted me to be,” she adds. “Now, I’m called
the Poison Princess.”

“I’ve heard not to touch you,” Bear replies.

“That it could be lethal.”

“She doesn’t have to touch you to kill you,”

I offer, setting the bags down. “I’ve watched
men across the room drop.”

“A good friend to make and a bad—”
“—enemy to have,” I supply, a saying that

actually originated with me when I was on a
mission with Bear years ago.

Bear eyes me. “And yet you always survive

her.”

“Yes,” I say. “I do, which is why you called

me to get her, and we both know it.”

Julie meows, and Bear’s eyes rocket to the

carrier. “Is that a cat?”

“Since dogs don’t meow,” Amanda says, “I

think that makes you good at stating the
obvious.”

“Why do you have a cat?” he asks, looking

between us. “Does Franklin like cats?”

“She’s an attack cat,” Amanda says. “Lethal.

I’ve trained her to rip her claws right across
the line of the neck.”

I manage a straight face with effort, which

isn’t a problem I often entertain. Bear studies
her a moment, and laughs. “Attack cat,” he
says, stroking his goatee. “That’s funny. I
actually love cats. I grew up with a cat as a best
friend. Sheila, I called her. Best woman I’ve
ever known.” He pushes off the car, towering
over Amanda now by a foot, but his energy is
relaxed. “Can I say hello to her?”

“No,” Amanda says firmly. “She doesn’t like

you.”

He arches a brow. “She hasn’t met me.”
“But I have.”
He levels a stare on Amanda, clearly

focused on her in this meeting, not me, and

while I could intervene, I do not. Amanda is
also focused. She’s re-establishing herself
again with the agency, and I let her do her
thing. “I didn’t have anything to do with your
kill order or that of your parents.”

“That’s a lie,” she says. “The standing order

is to kill me before I can be captured and
forced to help Franklin. That’s a kill order.”

“She’s correct on that count,” I interject.
He glances at me and then Amanda again,

as he says, “That wouldn’t be necessary if the
agent is loyal to their country, because a good
agent would kill themselves before helping a
man like Franklin.”

“A good agent,” she says, “would make the

most of being captured, and ensure she, or he,
not only left with the secrets needed to save
innocent lives, but that the people involved
were captured or killed.”

“Are you a good agent?” he asks.
“My work speaks for itself, excluding the

false claims of my defection.”

“The agency wants to question you when

this is over,” he says, “which gives you the
chance to prove your innocence.”

“You mean interrogate me before they kill

me,” Amanda says. “That’s not going to
happen, so I guess you just have to order Seth
to kill me again. Unless you want to try your

luck yourself.”

“You really are fearless, aren’t you?”
“I fear things,” she says. “Just not you.”
His lips curve and he looks at me. “You

sure you don’t need backup?”

“What I need is a cover story and the hell

out of here,” I reply.

“I have an Uber button,” he says. “So, I’ll

play Uber driver and fill you in on the way to
your destination. I also have a change of
clothes for you both in the car.”

I respect Bear. He’s a good agent, but he’s

also an agency man. This feels off. “Why
weren’t the details of our cover left on the
plane, including our change of clothes?”

His eyes meet mine. “They wanted me to

see her and feel her out.”

“Then why the fuck did you pull me in on

this?”

“You were on assignment with her for

three months. You know her. She knows you.”

In other words, the agency knows we were

more than partners three years ago, and have
been watching me, expecting me to be as dirty
as they label her to be. I don’t do anger any
more than I do doubt, but if I did, I’d be
pissed. “It’s the middle of the night,” I say. “We
don’t need a change of clothes. We need a
plan, a shower, and a bed. Tell us what we

need to know and we’ll get our own Uber.”

He seems to have known this was coming.

“All right then.” He reaches into his jeans and
produces a hotel key. “For now, you’re in The
Joule Hotel, which is a five-star hotel, thus
why you need the change of clothes. Full
assignment details wait for you in your suite.”

I accept the key and Amanda asks, “What

does ‘for now’ mean?”

He glances at Amanda. “One of your ins

into Franklin’s operation is John Reynolds, a
real estate broker to the elite who’s close to
Franklin, at least indirectly. He also manages
the highly sought-after warehouse district
property owned by a man we believe to be an
active partner with Franklin. This man,
Eduardo Chavez, has a warehouse in that
district that we believe could house the toxin.
We’ll have you approach Reynolds to get a
lease on one of those spaces. Chavez approves
all leases himself, and even meets the new
tenants.”

“That doesn’t explain why you said ‘for

now’ in relation to the hotel,” I say.

“Right now, we have your cover as it was in

the past. Diamond moguls, but Amanda is a
fashion designer launching her own line, much
like the Brandon empire you’re already
working with. Chosen because you have

knowledge you can use to establish and
maintain the cover. You’ll open a store in
Manhattan, but you’re looking for a more
affordable state to manufacture.”

“And we chose Texas why?” I ask.
“They’re friendly to businesses. We’ve

included data giving you those hot points in
the files provided.”

“Why do you believe Chavez is attached to

Franklin?” I ask.

“The water in the border city of Matamoros

was tainted four weeks ago. Thirty people
died. A photo of Chavez and Franklin was
caught at a border checkpoint. And yes. You
have a copy and details of all of this.”

“Thirty people,” Amanda says, shaking her

head. “He’s such a bastard. Do I have a sample
of the toxin used?”

“And a full lab,” Bear assures her, before

glancing at me. “That ride offer is still open.”

“We’ll pass,” I say. “Where’s that change of

clothes?”

“The trunk,” he says, reaching into his

pocket and removing his key fob to pop it
open. “I’d walk that way, but we both know
you’d be suspicious. Feel free to change back
there if you want. We cleared all cameras from
the hangar.”

With me closest to the rear of the car, I

walk in that direction, locate a Louis Vuitton
bag, and unzip it. Inside I find clothes for a
male and a female, Louise Vuitton wallet,
phones, and two velvet rings cases.
Additionally, there are two weapons: a Glock
and Ruger sized for a woman. There is also a
wig and contacts for Amanda and two extra
Louis bags for us to transfer our things into. I
remove the black polo shirt and jacket from
the bag, and set it aside before making quick
work of removing my bloody jacket, which I
toss in the trunk. My holsters are next, but I
set one of my guns within fast reach. I slip on
the overdone diamond studded gold band, and
without looking at Amanda’s, assume it will be
very large, which, under different
circumstances, would meet her satisfaction. In
thirty seconds, I’m in that clean shirt with the
holsters back in place. Next, I change my pants
and boots, and stick the wallet and passport
with my fictional name on them in my back
pocket.

Leaving the bag for Amanda, I round the

car again. She gives my new attire a once-over
and I motion to her. “Use the back seat or the
plane,” I say, not liking the idea of anyone
watching her change.

A flicker in her eyes tells me that she won’t

box herself into a place that might explode,

and she heads toward the trunk. Bear and I
move to the front of the car, giving ourselves a
small element of privacy before we step to
each other. And yes, he’s six-foot-five, but I’m
six-foot-two and see him as a target that has a
hard time hiding. “I’m not the enemy here.”

“Something doesn’t smell right here. Why

is that?”

“I inherited this situation, years after it

started. I have nothing but the facts as they
were handed to me to go on,” Bear retorts.

“You’re a part of it now, and I don’t accept

blind devotion to the agency without personal
responsibility.”

“I’ve never been blind or stupid and

neither have you. Don’t let a woman change
that, the way she changed your one-hundred-
percent kill ratio.”

“If I want you dead, you’ll be dead.”
“But you didn’t want her dead.”
“I don’t kill agents without proof they’re

dirty. Do you?”

“If you’re inferring that I killed her parents,

you’re off target. I told you. I got pulled into
this blindly.”

“Why would they pull you into this now?”
“I’m deep inside a Mexican terrorist

connection and I’m working that angle for
answers.”

“Then you should be across the border

now, finding answers.”

“Thanks for that directive, Cage. But,

asshole, I was in Mexico. I got back the same
day I enlisted you.”

I consider him a moment, and I don’t read

dishonesty, but I do read opposition. “I want
indisputable proof that her parents are dead,”
I say, my voice low, taut.

“They’re dead. I saw the reports myself.”
“If that report has proof, then provide me a

copy, including the name of the assassin on the
kill order.”

He narrows his eyes on me. “Where are

you going with this, Cage? Because it can’t be
any place good.”

“Get it for me,” I bite out.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“This is not optional,” I say. “And I want

the details of what Amanda, and her parents,
are accused of doing, as well as proof that
justifies her kill order.”

“I told you. They want to talk to Amanda

before enacting that order. Unless, of course,
Franklin turns her into a matter of national
security. In which case, your kill order stands.”

A matter of national security. Those words

punch at me for no clear reason. Yet. “Just get
me the proof,” I say.

“And if she committed espionage, will you

kill her?”

“I’d worry about you, not her, because if I

find out that she was set up, and you had any
part of it, even covering it up, you’re a dead
man.”

“I’m not an easy kill.”
“Good,” I say. “Easy bores the fuck out of

me.”

“Choose your friends carefully,” he says,

Amanda’s footsteps sound nearby as he lowers
his voice to add, “And sleep with your eyes
open.” Amanda appears by my side, and he
says, “I’ll text you the address,” before backing
up and walking to the driver’s side of the car
and disappearing inside. The car starts and
before he even leaves, my phone buzzes with a
text I don’t bother to look at. I know it’s him.

“You don’t trust him,” Amanda says.
I face her, finding her now dressed in some

sort of lacy pink top, and black jeans. “No,” I
say. “I don’t.”

“He told you to sleep with your eyes open.”
“I’ll fuck you with my eyes open,

sweetheart,” I say. “I’m sleeping with my eyes
shut. Let’s get out of here.”

She studies me for several beats, a flicker

of something I can’t name in her eyes, before
she nods and heads to Julie’s side, squatting

down to talk to her. I stand there a moment,
watching her, this woman I love so fucking
much, and I’m not sure what she was looking
for just now. I’m not sure what she thinks she
saw, or didn’t see. But I have a bad feeling that
the sins of my past, and the mistakes of the
past three years, are about to catch up with
me.

Chapter Six

It’s nearly three in the morning when Amanda
and I escape a cold January Texas wind and
climb into an Uber, her sandwiched between
myself and Julie. I pull her close, aligning our
legs, my hand resting on her knee, silently
telling her that my eyes are wide open and I’m
not going anywhere. Her hand comes down on
mine and I move it to her leg, my palm
covering hers. Her new wedding ring catches
on my hand and I part my fingers, and even in
the shadows, the stone is huge, luxurious even.
And I think of the one I intended to give her
three years ago. The one meant for the woman
I loved and trusted.

Inhaling a slow, heavy breath, my fingers

twine with hers. She inhales softly, an
emotional reaction that only makes me crave
more from her. And more isn’t ever enough. I
want that indefinable everything from her,
when I have never wanted anything from
anyone else. Not before her. Not since. She
turns to look at me, and even in the shadows,
the connection punches me in the chest, and I

feel about this woman in ways I would have
sworn I was incapable of feeling for another
human being.

I lean in and kiss her, a brush of lips over

lips, and her fingers curl on my jaw. “Seth,”
she whispers, a message in my name: no more
Assassin. I just hope like hell she remembers
that when everything is said and done. I kiss
her again, and lean in, my lips at her ear as I
whisper, “You’re still my Poison Princess,” and
I can feel, rather than see, her smile.
Reluctantly, but by necessity, I sink back into
the seat. Amanda and I don’t speak for the rest
of the twenty-minute drive. At least not to
each other. Amanda does a lot of sweet talking
with Julie, and the driver is one of those chatty
types I typically avoid. Amanda manages his
random questions and I don’t miss how her
voice lifts with any discussion about Julie. She
loves that cat, but I’ll feel better when we get
to our hotel room, and it’s safe, and we’re
safer.

We arrive at The Joule Hotel downtown to

be greeted by the doorman who is expecting
us, but then the months-long reservations in a
penthouse suite has a way of doing that. And
considering the thousand dollars in cash in my
new wallet, I tip him well, ensuring loyalty I
may need later.

We’re then hurried inside the modern Art

Deco-style lobby, and while I am for the most
part immune to the luxury of most places I
visit, today I am not. Today I’m aware of the
stark contrast of where we are now, and how
Amanda has been living, and I like that she
will experience luxury again, something I plan
to keep her experiencing when we’re done
with Franklin.

At the front desk, we’re gifted a box of

cookies, and informed that our assistant had
delivered our shipped bags to our room earlier
in the day. I have no idea who our assistant
might be, but it’s clearly the agency, and I
don’t like the idea of the agency moving in and
out of our room. I decline a bellman, and
Amanda, Julie, and I ride the elevator to one
of the penthouse suites. About the time we
arrive at our suite, Julie begins meowing in
her carrier, impatient for freedom. I open the
door and we enter the foyer, white glossy
floors beneath our feet, expensive art on the
walls. I leave Amanda to deal with Julie while
I walk into a living area wrapped in windows,
a telescope in the corner, a fireplace in the
center. Furnishings that match the Art Deco
style of the lobby.

Focused on safety, I make my way up a

stairwell, finding a bedroom, library, and

bathroom. Onward to the next level is an
outdoor space. Back downstairs, Amanda and
Julie are not immediately visible and I search
an office and the master bedroom before
making my way to an enclosed white and
stainless-steel kitchen. Amanda is facing me,
standing behind the round stone island, with
Julie on top of it, eating from a bowl. The wig
is hanging on a hook on the wall meant for a
pan, her long blonde hair in slight but sexy
disarray.

She motions to the double doors to my

right and her left, the knobs wrapped in cords
with a remote lock attached. “The remote has
a keypad,” she says, her voice tight. “I tried my
ID. It doesn’t work. I guess they don’t like to
give access to those they plan to use and then
kill.”

I walk to the island across from her,

reaching across it and stroking a wayward
strand of her hair from her eyes. “They don’t
matter,” I say, my fingers trailing down her
cheek before my hands settle on the counter.
“Catching Franklin is what matters and then
we’ll walk away together.”

She laughs without humor. “They are never

going to let that happen.”

“I’ll make it happen. Let’s get our mission

details, and hope like hell they leave time for a

shower. I’m still covered in blood.” I push off
the island and walk to the lock, keying in my
standard ID. It pops open and I pull the cords
away, and set them on the ground, pushing
open the doors. Amanda steps to my side, and
we find the basic setup that we had in New
York. A dining room table, with our mission
paperwork on top. Against one wall is a tech
center with monitors. Next to it, several chests
that I know will contain weapons and a lab for
Amanda.

Amanda and I walk to the table and sit

down, me at the end and her to my left, facing
the door, because no smart agent has their
back to the door. There are two cellphones
sitting on top of the files. “Let’s exchange
numbers before we do anything else.”

We quickly test our new iPhones and

memorize the numbers. I also give her my
current number which I intend, for now, to
keep as well. “In case we get split up,” I say
when we’re done. “The remote number I set
up years ago, for you to reach me or me to
reach you, is still intact.”

Her eyes meet mine. “I knew that.”
Which means she called it at least once, but

I don’t say that. Now is not the time, and we
both know it. Amanda cuts her gaze and
reaches for one of the files. “I need to see that

photo of Franklin.”

I grab another, and flip it open. “I got it,” I

say, looking at a series of photos that look like
they were indeed taken at a border post.

Amanda grabs random photos and starts

reviewing them. “It looks like him, but they’re
grainy.” She taps the image of the man with
Franklin. “This is supposed to be Chavez, our
link to Franklin, right?”

I flip through paperwork and pull out a

headshot of Chavez and set it on the table.
“That’s him. Do you know him?”

“No. He wasn’t in Franklin’s entourage in

China.”

“Is the other man Franklin? Are you sure?”
“I need a better shot to be certain.”
I thumb through a series of bad photos and

settle on one. “Here. This one is better.” I hand
her a shot.

Her lips tighten and she nods. “It’s him,”

she says grimly. “I’d really hoped it wasn’t.”
She looks at me. “Seth, he’s crazy. I’m sure you
know this but he’s a former agent that
defected. I don’t know the root of his hate, but
he hates Americans. He really will poison the
water supply if we don’t stop him.” She sets
the photo aside and frowns, picking up
another one. “That’s . . . odd,” she murmurs,
setting the shot down in front of me. “This

man in the background here.” She indicates a
man standing several feet behind Chavez and
Franklin.

“Who is he?”
“I don’t . . . know. Or . . .” She looks up at

me. “I think he used to work with my parents.”
She shakes her head. “Or not. I could be
wrong.”

Her parents and Franklin set off all kinds

of alarms. Could Franklin and those kill orders
somehow be connected? “What timeline are
we talking here?”

“It was a very long time ago,” she says.

“Perhaps when I was a teen, but if I’m right,
there’s a slight chance he knows more about
the compound we’re dealing with than we all
know.”

“He could help Franklin infiltrate the water

system,” I assume.

“Yes,” she says. “Maybe, and anyone with

skills and knowledge of that compound
working with Franklin spells trouble. We need
to find their lab and we need to find it now.”

“That brings us back to Chavez and his link

to Franklin,” I say. “His warehouses could be
the storage and even the development site.” I
search through the files and find one on
Chavez, reading through his data. “There are
ten warehouses, all in one concentrated area.

It’s going to take a good four or five nights of
recon to search them properly.”

“That’s time we don’t have,” she says.

“Surely the agency has done recon?”

“I see nothing that indicates that to be the

case,” I say, pulling my phone from my jacket.
“Let’s find out.” I dial Bear, who answers in
one ring.

“Obviously you missed me more than I

missed you,” he says. “How’s the room?”

I put him on speaker. “Amanda and I are

here, but before we discuss Franklin, let me
get one thing straight. Whoever came in here
to set up our room would be advised not to
enter again without permission. We like our
privacy. We’ll protect our privacy. Are we
clear?”

“That person was me,” he says. “And I

walked in on my mom and dad as a teen. I’m
still traumatized. I’m not repeating it with
you.”

Julie jumps to the table and suddenly a cat

face is in my face. Amanda laughs and I swear
I love that sound to the point that I might just
love this cat. I stroke Julie’s head, and she
plops down on top of the Chavez file. In the
meantime, Bear thinks he’s the source of
Amanda’s amusement. “Glad I’m able to make
you laugh, Amanda,” he says. “I was beginning

to think you were the Ice Princess, not the
Poison Princess.”

“I’m Amanda,” Amanda says, picking up

Julie and setting her on the ground. “Just
Amanda. Not Ice Princess. Not Poison
Princess. Not Agent. Just Amanda. Or you
could call me ‘The Girl With The Kill Order On
Her Head.’”

“Would you like to continue bonding with

Amanda, Bear,” I interject, “or should we
move on before you dig yourself deeper into a
hole?”

“Move on,” he says.
“Has recon been done on the warehouses?”

I ask.

“They’re sealed up like Fort Knox,” Bear

replies. “And I mean that literally. Not the
kind of security you typically see for a textiles
company. But the bottom line here is: we’re
going to need an insider to search the place.”

“We don’t have time to find an insider we

trust,” Amanda interjects. “Thirty people were
already poisoned. More will follow.” She grabs
the photo she’d been looking at earlier. “Bear,”
she says, “there’s a photo stamped with 11594.
I’m interested in the man in the background
behind Chavez. Can you use facial recognition
to identify him?”

“If it could be done,” Bear says, “it’d be

done. There’s a list of names in the file. What
are you looking for? Or who?”

“Hold on,” I say, grabbing the file and

thumbing through it. “I’ve got the list.” I hand
it to Amanda, who scans the list and shakes
her head.

“No one on this list is familiar,” she says.

“There’s a man in one of the photos that looks
like someone who use to work for my parents,
but I was very young. I may be wrong. But I
need a list of the lab assistants who might have
worked with my parents in the past.”

“I’m not sure I can give you that

information,” Bear says. “Many of those names
will be classified.”

Or they have something to hide when it

comes to her parents, I think, losing patience.
“We’re talking about finding a man who might
be helping Franklin poison thousands,” I bite
out. “Get us the damn list.”

There are several beats of silence before

Bear says, “I’ll see what I can do. What next?”

“Where is the sample from the Mexico

poisoning?” Amanda asks.

“In the refrigerator along with the

composition we found in tests,” Bear supplies.

“What kind of water system was it found

in?” Amanda asks.

“A well,” he says.

“A well is not a filtrated water system, and

this compound is unique. It dissipates in a
matter of two hours when it touches air or
water. When was the sample taken in
conjunction with the deaths?”

“Twelve hours.”
“That’s not good,” she says. “It shouldn’t

have survived that long. That means they’ve
stabilized it. We all need to pray that when I
test it again that the toxin is now gone. That
means it still has a shelf life. On the negative
side, if it’s gone, I can’t test it to see if this new
formula survives the filtering process.”

“And that, my friends,” Bear says. “Sums

up the shit show we are starring in.”

“Bottom line,” Amanda says, “we need to

find the lab. I need inside the Chavez
warehouses. I know what to look for.”

“Chavez is close to Franklin,” I warn. “Tell

me what to look for. He could be waiting on
you and we need you alive. You’re the only one
who can create the antidote for this toxin.”

“He won’t know it’s me,” she says. “Not

with my disguise, and I do a damn good New
Yorker accent. And we can’t take the risk of
you missing some tell that I’ll notice. Too
many lives are on the line.” Her eyes meet
mine. “I am the Poison Princess and capable of
taking care of myself. But as a plus I have the

Assassin by my side. If it goes south, we’ll be
there together. We’ll make him talk. We’ll get
the lab and Franklin.”

I lean forward, speaking to her, and her

alone. “I will kill him to protect you.”

“I know,” she says. “Which is why the risk

isn’t a risk at all. Because I trust you to be
there if I need you. Like I always did.”

We stare at each other, and I am reminded

of just how good we were undercover together,
while Bear obliviously continues onward.
“Right,” he agrees. “Tick tock. The clock is
moving. Breach the warehouse’s security and
go at this all spy guy if you can, but a nuclear
option is not off the table if we know we have
the lab.”

I give Amanda a nod, her eyes warming in

response, before I turn my attention to Bear. “I
know you have a plan. What’s the fastest path
to Reynolds?”

“He and his wife have dinner at the

restaurant next to the hotel every Saturday
night,” Bear says. “That why we put you at that
hotel.”

“Tomorrow night,” Amanda says. “That

works. That gives us time to study them and
prepare for a chance encounter.”

“Agreed,” I say. “I’m going to scout the

warehouses while you do your tests, and

before the sun comes up, which means I need
to leave now. I want a lay of the land and I
want to look for a way around the security in
place.”

“I’ll come stay with Amanda,” Bear says,

and Amanda’s eyes rocket to mine, anger
flashing in their depths.

“No,” I say. “You will not. And I have to tell

you, I doubt you’d survive an hour with her.”

“Nevertheless—” he begins.
“No,” I say flatly. “You’re trusting her to

save what could be massive numbers of
people. She can stay in her fucking hotel room
on her own.”

He’s silent two beats. “Then I’ll go with

you.”

“I work alone or with Amanda. That isn’t

changing now.” I hang up on him.

Amanda’s eyes meet mine, all of the good

and bad of the past with us now, colliding into
the present. I stand up and walk to her,
leaning down, my hand at her chin, tilting her
face to mine. “He doesn’t matter. The agency
doesn’t matter. We matter.”

“I’m not leaving,” she says.
“No,” I say. “You are not. Not without me.

Not ever again.” I brush my lips over hers.
“You know how to reach me,” I say, leaving
her behind, because that’s trust. And she’s

right. In the absence of trust, we’re enemies.
And she is not my enemy.

Chapter Seven

By the time I grab a car from a nearby parking
lot to head to the Chavez warehouses, it’s four
in the morning. By the time I get to the
warehouse district, which is about a hundred
deep, all one hundred owned by him, it’s four
thirty. His ownership leaves every one of them
as a possible cover for the lab. And timing-wise
in January, I might have hours of darkness,
but workdays and shift changes are
approaching, limiting me to not much more
than a drive-thru of the territory. What I find
is that none of the ten warehouses Chavez’s
operation occupies run night shifts. The other
ninety have random security levels, which
means they can be searched with ease. And
that is a little piece of hell and a big chunk of
time.

For now, I focus on those ten Chavez-

operated locations, and a flicker of a flashlight
here and there on the rooftops indicate human
patrols. And humans can override electronics.
Those security people become my focus as
potential insiders or clues to where we focus

our searches. They have to have cars, but
getting close enough to find out where they are
parked is too risky.

Instead, I park at a side street, and at six

thirty, a car finally pulls out of one of the lots.
Intending to follow it, I give it space and ease
behind it, shooting a photo of the plates, and
then pulling in behind it to a Dunkin Donuts.
The driver parks his BMW near the front door,
the car an indication that he’s no ten-dollar-
an-hour security guard. I park next to him and
size him up as he exits his vehicle and walks to
the door.

Big and muscular, he’s in jeans and a T-

shirt, not a uniform, with what I know to be
prison tats down his arms, and he carries
himself with the kind of confidence only
another killer understands. And you don’t hire
a guy like this to guard textiles. That toxin is in
one of the warehouses he monitors, with a
ninety-percent chance it’s in the one he exited
from this morning.

I don’t risk entering the donut shop, and

him recognizing me later if Amanda and I
manage an introduction to Chavez. I text the
plate number to Bear, and then back out of my
spot, pulling back on the road. It’s nearly seven
when I return the car I’ve borrowed without
incident, and make my way to the hotel. I text

Amanda on my way up the elevator, letting her
know it’s me who is about to be at the door.
She answers back with: Julie and I are
waiting for you in our new

operations center.

I stare at the text.

Amanda and her cat are waiting on me. I think
I now have a cat. I’d have rejected this idea
even a week ago, but the reality here is that
I’m not an agent anymore. Neither of us are,
and the cat’s not a pain in the ass or anything.
It makes her happy, and I’m not ready to say I
like it, but I don’t dislike it.

I exit the elevator on our floor, and

exhaustion begins to hit. I need a bed. I need
Amanda in it. At our door, I swipe the key
code panel that goes green, and enter the
suite, shutting us inside, and flipping the latch
into place. Heading through the living area, I
make my way to the kitchen and then dining
room, aka the operations center, to find
Amanda sitting at the table where I’d left her.
Only now her hair is obviously soft and freshly
washed and she’s changed into a black tank
top, while Julie now has her bed on top of the
table where she’s curled up sleeping. The cat
and my woman, who is as beautiful as ever,
her green eyes now focused on me.

It’s pretty damn surreal right about now.
But aware that I’m way past due for a

shower, one that she’s already had, I keep my
distance, leaning on the doorjamb. “Hey,” I
say.

“Hey,” she says. “How did it go?”
“They have the kind of hired help that

doesn’t get hired to look after textiles. I think
we’re on the right target. I’ll break it all down
once I have a shower and we both get some
sleep. Did you test the sample?”

“Yes,” she says. “And there was no toxin

left in the water.”

“Which tells us what?”
“A number of things,” she says. “The good

news in this is that the toxin doesn’t survive in
water indefinitely. That limits exposure even if
it makes it into a water supply. The bad news
is that we now know it can now survive twelve
hours in water, which means it could still
reach a lot of people. But the bad could be
worse than we know. The sample was not
tested at intervals, so we don’t know if it can
survive two days or even three. What is the
lifespan in water?”

“And you can’t make an antidote with that

sample.”

“No. Because it’s just water now. And the

lab that I was provided with doesn’t have this
toxin in it. Bear’s number was in my phone. I
called him. I told him that if they want an

antidote, I need that toxin.”

“And?”
“He did his thing and I did mine and

ultimately, I’ll have it first thing in the
morning, or rather later this morning. I
handled it.”

“Of course you did,” I say, reaching up to

grip the top of the doorframe, trying to get the
ache out of my arm, the muscle around the
bullet’s path knotting up. “I need that shower
before I get anywhere near you again.”

“Yes. You do. And a shave.”
I scrub my two-day stubble. “Yes, I do.”
I roll my shoulders and Amanda narrows

her eyes on me. “Your arm hurts,” she says,
reading me as few do.

“It’s an annoying throb,” I say, dismissing

the pain that is really nothing compared to
many of the injuries in my past. “We need that
sleep that I mentioned. Meet me in bed.”

“I need to finish up some notes from the

testing,” she says. “I’ll be there in a few.”

I nod, and make my way down the hallway

to the master bedroom. Entering the large
room that is a bit too boxy and colorful to suit
me, I pass the king-sized bed on some kind of
pedestal, and the curtains covering the wall of
windows. This entire place is not my style, but
it’s still luxurious, and that’s what I want for

Amanda. I head on into the bathroom that is
so damn white my eyeballs hurt, and head
straight to the walk-in closet at the back of the
room. Rows of clothing line the rectangular-
shaped space, mine on the left and Amanda’s
on the right. I want her clothes in my New
York closet. Her New York closet. But she’s
right: the agency isn’t going to just let her go.
Not without the war I’m prepared to fight.

I grab a pair of sweats and open a drawer

inside a built-in dresser where I discover in
this version of me, I’m a Jockey guy. Returning
to the bathroom, I open the shower door and
turn on the hot water, then strip away my
clothes. The bandage comes next, and judging
from how soiled it is, it’s well past due that I
change it, but the wound appears to no longer
be bleeding. I toss it in the trash, and step into
the shower, letting the hot water run over my
face, and then washing away what is now two
days of grunge.

I halfway expect Amanda to join me, and

damn sure want her to, but I finish up and she
has not. I dry off and wrap the towel around
my waist before walking to the sink to inspect
my arm now that the blood is gone. While it’s
one hell of a long line of stitches, it’s definitely
not bleeding anymore. I dig through the
toiletry bag sitting on the sink, and brush my

damn teeth before digging out the supplies
that I need to shave. Lathering up, I get to
work, and I’ve just finished half my face when
Amanda appears in the doorway, her tank top
paired with black leggings and bare feet,
bandages in hand. “I need to play doctor again
and check your arm, but I also brought you
meds and cookies.” She climbs on top of the
counter, beside me. “They’re on the
nightstand. You need to eat to take the pills.”

I arch a brow at her mid-swipe of my razor.

“Because I’m such a delicate flower?”

She laughs. “You are. Very delicate.” She

watches me a moment and says, “I was just
fantasizing about the next few minutes.”

I pause and look at her. “And?”
“I was thinking that I should offer to finish

shaving for you, as some kind of test of trust—
the dramatic blade to the neck kind of test. I’d
scoot in front of you, that towel all that is
between us, and the whole thing would go
from dark and intense to naked and intense.”

“What are you waiting for?”
“I’m eyeing your arm, and it’s not my best

work. In fact, I think you need to fire your
doctor and keep me away from the blade.”

“That was a tease, woman,” I say, dragging

the razor over my face several times. “And if I
wasn’t so damn tired, I’d make you pay for it.”

I look at my arm. “It’s just fine. It’s not
bleeding and it’s not infected. And I’m done
here anyway so you don’t need a blade.” I
clean off the blade, wipe my face, and lean
toward Amanda, cupping her head to pull her
close. “We have lots of time for naked and
intense.” I brush my lips over hers. “Tonight
I’ll settle for a bed with you next to me. I miss
you next to me.” I kiss her again, and because I
want to actually talk to her now that the
accusations are behind us, I release her and
grab the sweats from the edge of the tub to
pull them on.

She watches me, no shyness at all, but then

shyness was never a trait Amanda embraced.
“I still need to bandage your arm.”

I walk to her and help her off the counter,

setting her on the ground, my hands on her
hips. “Do it in the bedroom, where the bed is
waiting on us. Did you say cookies?”

She smiles. “Yes. And milk. Believe it or

not, they had it in the fridge.”

“Sold,” I say, kissing her temple and

walking to the bedroom.

“But wait until I check your arm!” she calls

out, and by the time I’m sitting on the edge of
the bed with a bite of chocolate chip cookie in
my mouth, she’s standing in front of me,
setting medical supplies on the nightstand.

“You didn’t wait,” she chides, at which

point the cookie is gone.

“A man has to eat,” I say, downing the

medication with a swallow of milk.

She gives a delicate little snort. “In your

case, enough to feed a small starving nation,”
she says, moving to stand directly in front of
me, smelling like some kind of sweet flower I
want to gobble up. My hands settle on her hips
again. “Now what, sweetheart?” I ask.
“Because I can offer a few ideas.”

She glances down at me. “You said you

wanted to sleep.”

“I said I want you in bed with me,” I rebuke

gently.

“I think you said both,” she replies, “but in

bed with you sounds good.”

“Does it?” I ask, inviting her to offer me

more of an explanation for leaving. “Because
you were away a long time.”

“Too long,” she says softly, her lashes

lowering a moment, while I wait for that more
I was looking for, but it doesn’t come. She
opens her eyes and immediately turns her
attention toward my injury, giving it a quick
inspection before reaching for some kind of
tube on the nightstand. “Antibiotic cream,” she
announces, holding it up. “Just so you know
I’m not poisoning you.” The words that might

have been delivered playfully a few minutes
ago are not now. I can hear the hint of betrayal
in her voice, the anger at me refusing that
numbing shot for the stitches.

Her mood has shifted. Mine has, too, and

we’re feeding off each other. We want what we
had together, but there is baggage now. There
is distrust on an emotional level that has
nothing to do with who might kill who.

“We were at a bad place when I refused

that injection,” I say. “And though I dislike
anger as much as I do doubt, I was angry.”

She inhales and lets it out. “I know,” she

says, still giving me too little when I still want
more.

“Stick that bandage on me,” I say. “and let’s

go to bed together for the first time in three
years.”

She gives a tiny nod and refocuses on my

arm, smearing it with the cream, before setting
the tube on the nightstand. “Bear made a
comment that seemed to indicate you are
involved in the fashion world. What kind of
contract work do you do?”

And here we go. In a place sure to lead us

to at least one of my many sins these past
three years. “I started out taking high-risk
CIA-offshoot contracts with big paydays. Jobs
that let me get in and out, and back to looking

for you. Eventually, I ended up working for
Shane Brandon. A good man with a bad family.
He ended up deep inside some bad shit. And
he fell in love with a woman who was in
danger. I have helped him navigate those
problems, and I’ve been working for only
him.”

She tilts her head. “Why do I sense there’s

more?”

“I gave up on you.”
“What?”
“Three months ago, when Shane’s family

was falling apart, I stopped looking. I focused
on saving Shane and Emily’s lives. I had to.
They’re good people and—”

She cups my face, and her reaction is not

pain or hurt or a sense of betrayal. It’s
something I think only Amanda could offer.
“And that’s why,” she says, “the Assassin never
scared me even though I knew what you were
capable of. What’s your number?”

I think she needs to know that she can

handle it, but perhaps she’s right. I do, too. I
tangle fingers into her hair and stare at her,
searching her face for something that changes
my mind before I press my cheek to hers this
time, my ear to her ear. And then I whisper the
number.

Her hand settles on my face, and she leans

back to look at me. “I guessed higher.”

“No,” I say, “You didn’t.”
“I did. I did the math. I thought through

the years you’ve been doing this. The
situations we face. And I guessed higher.” She
strokes my jaw. “You do what others can’t do
and you do it to save lives. And somehow, you
find a place to put it and stay sane. I loved you
for that. I still love you. You are so very strong.
I am not that strong.”

I wrap my arms around her and roll her

onto the bed with me, the two of us face to
face, my legs twined with hers. “You survived
three years alone, in hell, living in that
shithole. You are strong and beautiful and I
never stopped loving you. Not one day you
were gone.” I kiss her, my mouth closing down
on hers, licking into her mouth, and then
stroking deep.

She moans and arches into me, as if she is

not close enough. As if she can’t get close
enough, and I drag my mouth from hers. “I
want to feel you next to me,” I murmur,
dragging her shirt over her head, and tossing it
away. The absence of a bra entices me, and my
fingers splay between her shoulders blades
and I mold her chest to mine. “God, I missed
this.”

“Me, too,” she whispers. “Me—”

I kiss her again, slowly, deeply, drinking

her in like a man who hasn’t drunk in a
lifetime. Three years of a lifetime. I strip away
what clothing she has left, mine following,
every hard part of me absorbing every soft,
perfect curve of this woman. And for the first
time since we found each other again, there is
no anger. There is no fucking. There is just us,
touching each other, making love. Us, with
possibility between us. The us of the past, but
with newfound understanding of how easily
we can lose each other.

And as hard as I am, as thick and aroused, I

don’t rush to press inside her. I kiss her
shoulder, her neck, her nipples. Her stomach.
Her knee. Her sex, licking her, tasting her, but
not teasing her. Not now. Not this day. Today,
I just want her sighs, her moans, her pleasure.
And the way she shudders and shakes for me
when she tumbles off the edge. Finally, I am
on top of her, pressing inside her, kissing her
with the sweetness of her own arousal on my
tongue, and the bittersweet victory of being
inside her now, with three years lost. I savor
her, and us, watching her face while her sighs
and pants become a drug on my tongue, more
addictive than the one before.

I kiss her deeper, hunger taking hold, and

where we were gentle, we become wild. Our

hands all over each other, our bodies pressing
together. My cock thrusting into her harder,
faster, and I roll us to our side, my hand
cupping her backside, pulling her hard against
me as I thrust into her. She buries her face in
my neck and shudders into a new release, and
I follow, the insanity of my quaking matched
only by hers. And when it’s over, for long
moments we lay there, clutching each other, as
if we’re afraid to let go. And I am afraid to let
go. When not so long ago, I would have
proclaimed myself afraid of nothing.

We eventually ease apart and end up under

the blankets, the alarm set for four hours later,
but I lay awake, still holding her. Thinking
about what Bear had said tonight about her
parents and classified information, even in the
wake of the potential of innocent, mass
numbers of lives lost. And I’m back to my prior
questions: Could Franklin have been behind
the original kill order? Did someone in the
agency fuck up by allowing him to manipulate
the organization?

Those records related to her parents might

be gone, but someone, maybe even Bear,
knows what I need to know. And he will tell
me, if he does.

I grab my personal cellphone from the

nightstand, and text Bear: I’m still

waiting for that proof I asked for.
And don’t forget the list of lab
assistants and the samples for
Amanda’s work.

I don’t expect an answer and I don’t get

one. But when I think about my mistakes,
when I think about the time lost, and damage
done to my relationship with Amanda, I want
what I want on this, and I better get it soon. If I
don’t, I will do what I should have done three
years ago, when I was told Amanda and her
parents committed espionage. I will remind
the masses involved in this who they are
fucking with: I’m the Assassin and there are
consequences to manipulating me and lying to
me, and there is nothing but death to those
who hurt my woman.

I’m coming for whoever did this and that

body count I gave Amanda is about to get
bigger.

Chapter Eight

Amanda and I wake with the alarm and take a
jog to get a feel for not just the area around us
in daylight, but to ID the CIA surveillance
vehicle we know is there before we find it.
While we run, I update her on the sum of a
hundred warehouses I’d found last night. We
return to our suite and share a shower, a fuck,
and then dress in sweats and T-shirts, with a
plan to do research until our dinner tonight.
We then order what is now lunch from room
service. It arrives at the same time a delivery
person, who is actually a CIA agent dressed as
a delivery person, shows up with Amanda’s
samples.

She stores them in the refrigerator and

then we sit down at the dining room
operations table to eat and talk through
tonight’s plan, but Amanda is focused on the
bigger picture. “I have to come up with an
antidote,” she says, shoving aside her chicken
sandwich untouched. “We’re never going to
find that lab.”

“Is that realistic without a sample of the

toxin in its current state?”

“It’s difficult, and antidotes can come too

late.” She thrums her fingers on the table. “I
need to find a way to pre-treat the water
systems. Something that would work no
matter how the toxin was manipulated. A
preventative measure, and before you ask if
that’s possible, yes, but things like this can take
years. We could have hours or days.”

“If you want to work in your lab,” I offer, “I

can update you on what I learn about the
Reynoldses before we leave. I’ll study up on
them.”

“Yes. Please. Perfect.”
“One of the obvious questions here, that I

haven’t asked, is how did Franklin get the
toxin he’s using?”

“It’s been tested here and in Russia,”

Amanda says. “And he was CIA. He had to—”
She frowns. “Where are you going with this?”

“Just wondering if the man you recognize

may have gotten it for him from your parents.”

Her eyes harden. “They are not dirty,

Seth.”

“Easy, sweetheart,” I say softly. “That was

not my inference. I’m just trying to make sense
where there is none.”

“But you still think they might be dirty.

You’ve said it before.”

“I don’t know them. I know you.”
“And I’m telling you they are not dirty.”
“We need to look for the source of the kill

order.”

“We need to catch Franklin first.”
“Unless they tie together and this is all

related,” I say, appealing to the scientist in her.
“You like hypotheses. We need to create them
and prove them wrong, so we can move on.
I’m asking you to help me make a list. On that
list has to be your parents’ guilt and
innocence.”

“Yes. Okay.”
I shove my food aside. “If Franklin

somehow sourced the drugs from your family,
even years ago, your parents might have
known too much. You might know too much.
You recognized that man in the photo.”

“And Franklin was CIA,” she says, following

where I’m leading. “He could have insiders
that framed us.”

“Exactly,” I say. In which case, her parents

would have died for nothing.

Julie chooses that moment to jump onto

the table and lean over my plate to smell my
partially eaten burger. I offer her a fry. She
looks insulted and turns away, and leaps to the
ground. Amanda laughs. “You really don’t
know cats, do you? They don’t eat just

anything like dogs. And they darn sure won’t
eat anything on your terms. If you are going to
be a cat daddy, you have to learn these things.”

“You can teach me. Or I have a feeling Julie

will teach me once this is over and I take you
home with me.”

“Where is home, Seth?”
“Manhattan.”
“Our city.”
“Yes. Our city. And our apartment. I bought

the place we shared there.”

Her eyes go wide. “That would be ten

million dollars.”

“Twelve now,” I say. “I told you. I’ve made

a lot of money over the years, even before I left
the agency, doing side jobs. But now, with
Brandon Enterprises, life is calmer. You can
have a cat. You can be who you want to be and
use your skills how you want to use them.”

“You make this sound so simple. I have a

kill order on my head. I want to go with you,
but I might have to go underground again.”

I stand up and walk to her, pulling her to

her feet and close. “I bought that apartment
because I wasn’t ready to let you go. And I’m
still not. We’ll figure out what that means, but
we stay together. Say it. We stay together.”

“I won’t destroy your life.”
I cup the back of her head and pull her

mouth to mine. “You are my life. Say it. We
stay together.”

“Seth,” she breaths out.
“Amanda—”
“We stay together.”

* * *

For our dinner outing, I’m back in the attire
I’m accustomed to in New York: a gray suit
and tie, with a starched white shirt. Amanda is
stunning in a cream-colored dress, with a
flared skirt, that contrasts with the red hair of
her wig and looks straight off the runway. A
choice she makes after learning that Karen
Reynolds not only attends Fashion Week in
New York, but is all about labels and the “it”
crowd of Dallas.

Rather than walk to the restaurant that is

right next door, we pull up in the Porsche 911,
to which the keys were delivered right before
our departure. Amanda and I enter the
restaurant that is as Art Deco as our hotel,
with round tables, dangling lights, and
oversized, abstract artwork on the walls. We
greet the hostess and, aware of the favorite
table that the Reynoldses sit at, I tip her a
large bill to place us at the table next to them.

The Reynoldses, both attractive and in

their thirties, are already at their table when
we sit down, and the game is on. “I need
wine,” Amanda says. “Really expensive wine.
And it’s all your fault.”

“How is it my fault, sweetheart?”
“I just want to create my clothing line. I

don’t want to think about warehouse locations.
And I don’t want to leave our gorgeous
penthouse in Manhattan.”

The waiter stops by and I order what is

indeed a ridiculously expensive bottle of wine.
“Please bring that quickly,” Amanda tells him.
“It’s my sanity.”

The waiter gives her a wide-eyed look

before departing and Amanda is back at it. She
inhales and sets her hands on the table. “I’m
going to need a new Chanel bag to deal with
this.”

“What about your fashion brand?”
“Chanel inspires me to be better.”
“Right. Well, as for the penthouse, we

aren’t leaving it behind. We’re just adding a
second home here. And for five million
dollars, you’re going to find something you
love.”

“Maybe I will feel better after the wine.”
The waiter returns and fills our glasses.

Amanda sips hers and I ask, “Better,

sweetheart?”

“Yes,” she says. “You do handle my panic

attacks well. I’m sorry.”

I kiss her hand, amazed at how damn well

she plays these roles. We’re just looking at the
menu when John Reynolds steps over to our
table. He’s tall, thin, with dark hair, and
intelligent, calculating eyes, dressed in a blue
suit I’d tag at five thousand dollars. “I hope
you don’t mind me interrupting, but we’re at
the next table . . .” And so it begins. Five
minutes later, we’re at their table. They’ve
helped us order their favorites, sharing our
bottle of wine while Amanda chats it up with
Karen, an attractive enough blonde,
considering her face is frozen with what I
assume to be an early Botox addiction.

“Talk to me about what you want in a

house,” John presses, once we move to a
second glass of wine, while Amanda has begun
showing her designs to Karen on the internet,
on the website the agency apparently built for
her overnight.

“Someplace elite,” I say, “and I’m not just

talking about in terms of property, but who’s
who. While our diamond business is our bread
and butter, Amanda really wants this fashion
line to go well.”

Karen suddenly shrieks and then holds out

Amanda’s phone to John. “Look at this
diamond. Oh my God.”

John looks at it and then at me. “I think I

need to sell you a house to pay for the
diamonds she is now going to expect me to
buy. I’m a broker and an investor, which
means I might be able to help you in a number
of ways. Commercially and personally.”

“Really,” I say. “I’m interested.” I glance at

Amanda and Karen with their heads together,
and then back at him. “Just getting her
together with your wife has already calmed the
beast she can be.” I hold up a finger. “Between
you and I, of course.”

He chuckles. “Of course.”
“The sooner I pay for something so she

can’t get cold feet, the better.”

“We can certainly get moving on this

quickly.”

Two hours later, the bill is paid, with my

black card, of course, and we exchange
numbers with the Reynoldses. We exit the
restaurant with them, with the 911on full
display. John whistles and a conversation
about cars follows that drags the meeting out
another thirty minutes.

Finally, Amanda and I are in the car alone.

“Thank God, it’s over,” Amanda says,
collapsing against the seat. “That woman

exhausted me, and I’m not talking about
Karen. I’m talking about being that person I
created. Now we just have to smile and bear
the hotel staff so I can get out of this wig.”

“If it’s any consolation, you killed it in

there,” I say. “We’re in.” My lips curve. “And
let’s keep the wig for another hour or two. I
think I might like it.”

She cuts me a look. “How much do you like

it?”

“I’ll let you answer that question after we

test drive it.”

* * *

The minute Amanda and I walk in the door of
the suite, Julie is at our feet. Amanda kicks off
her heels and scoops her up, hugging her.
“Isn’t it wonderful having a furry child greet
you at the door?”

I have a flashback of the scar on her belly,

and shove aside the gruesome story of how she
lost her ability to have children, and just how
much of a sacrifice she’s made for her country.
“I might get used to it,” I tell her, and that
earns me one of the most gorgeous smiles I’ve
ever seen from her.

“I need to feed her,” she says, walking

toward the kitchen.

With that memory on my mind, I hold

back, and pull my phone out, texting Bear:
Meet me in the parking garage in
five minutes. Copy?

He replies instantly with: Copy that.
I head to the kitchen to find Julie on the

counter eating, and Amanda still in her red
wig. “Do you want the red-haired personality
to go with the wig.”

I laugh and stop at the opposite side of the

counter. “No,” I say. “I’ll take you with red
hair, right after I meet Bear downstairs to
update him.”

“Do I need to come?”
“He’ll piss you off and I’d rather that not

happen.”

“Agreed,” she says, at the same moment my

phone rings.

I dig it out of my pocket and glance at the

number. “John already.” I answer the call.
“John. That was fast.”

“I have a place to show you tomorrow. Are

you up for it?”

“Of course. What time?”
“I’ll pick you up at ten,” he says. “And

Karen wants to do some spa thing with your
wife. Can I put her on?”

“Not a problem.” I cover the phone and

offer it to Amanda. “Karen wants to talk to
you. I’m going to my meeting.” She nods and
accepts the phone.

“Karen,” she says. “I feel like I haven’t seen

you in ages.”

I walk to the operations center, unlock it,

and enter, grabbing my personal cellphone I’d
left behind in case something went wrong. I
re-enter the kitchen and hold it up to let
Amanda know how she can reach me. She
nods and I head to the door.

A few minutes later, I step into the garage

to find a black sedan waiting for me by the
elevator. I walk to the passenger door and
climb in. Bear is in the driver’s seat as
expected. “Before you bitch, look at your text
messages. I sent you the proof you wanted.
And I get why you wanted it handled. The
pictures and the kill order with your name on
it are now erased for good. But look at it now.
It’s a Code 1 message. It’s going to be deleted
in ten minutes.”

I glance down at my cellphone and tab to

the messages. “There’s no message.”

“The message is there.”
I go ice cold inside. “Please tell me you

didn’t send it to that phone you gave me.”

“Of course I did. That phone has special

technology attached. It’s protected.”

“Fuck me. Amanda has that phone. Show

me the message.”

“Holy hell.” He grabs his phone and tabs

through it, handing it to me.

“Fuck,” I whisper. “Delete it now.”
“I can’t. It’s a timed program and—”
I am already out of the car and running

toward the stairwell.

Chapter Nine

Amanda

Karen is talking and talking. And talking, but
finally we end the call. I stand there in the
kitchen and inhale a deep breath, the spicy
wonderful scent of Seth lingering in the air. I
love that man. I love him like I never thought I
could love. The phone in my hand buzzes with
a message and, afraid it’s something
important, perhaps from Bear, I open it. And I
suddenly can’t catch my next breath. My eyes
burn and my chest hurts. I’m looking at a
photo of my mother in a pool of blood, with a
bullet hole between her eyes. I start to
hyperventilate.

Afraid the next image is my father, but

having to know, I move downward, and find a
kill order. My parents’ kill order, assigned to
Seth Cage. I really can’t breathe. The buzzer
indicating the keycard sounds and I run for
the foyer, the agent in me, the trained killer in
me, kicking in. I’m behind the door, my gun

out of my purse and in my hand by the time it
opens. He steps inside, the door shutting
behind him, and I place my back against it. He
knows I’m there. He turns to face me and I
point the gun at him.

“The only reason you aren’t suffocating on

your own lungs right now is that I want
answers.”

To be continued in Part 3 . . .
Amanda’s side of the story and the conclusion!

Keep reading for an excerpt from

Coming soon from Headline Eternal!

I hold my gun on Seth, I will my hand to stop
shaking, but the image of my dead mother and
a kill order with Seth’s name on it I’d found on
his phone moments before just won’t stop
tormenting me.

“I did not kill your parents,” Seth says, now

trapped by the door of our hotel room, where
I’ve confronted him. The hotel room that was
supposed to be the place we fell in love again.
The place we’ve plotted and planned to take
down a madman who wants to poison
innocent people. Because I thought we were
better together. Instead, it was just him setting
me up again. “It’s a misunderstanding,” he
adds. “I did not do this, any more than you
committed espionage.”

“Obviously you are not getting the point,” I

say. “Let’s try this again. The only reason that
you aren’t drowning in your own lungs right
now, is that I want answers. The only reason.”

“No,” he says, calmly. “It’s not. It’s because

you know me and you know I would not hurt
you or anyone you cared about. You know
this.”

I motion to the door and, damn it, my hand

is shaking right along with my knees beneath
the fancy cream-colored cocktail dress that I’d
loved an hour ago and hate now. I hate
everything about this night. And the shaking is

not from fear. It’s from the pain of loss and
betrayal. My parents are dead and the man I
loved, and trusted, killed them. “Flip the locks
and make sure we don’t have any unwanted
company.”

He quickly does as I’ve ordered, and I can’t

help but notice how perfect his gray suit and
tie remain, not a wrinkle to be seen, when my
world is one big wrinkle. He’s always perfect,
so smooth, just as he was in our dinner with
the Reynolds couple early tonight, but he is
not perfect at all, and I am such a fool.

“I did not kill your parents,” Seth repeats,

“any more than you committed espionage.
Think about this, sweetheart. We were both
framed and we need to find out by who, and
why.”

“Do not call me sweetheart,” I bite out,

“ever again.”

“Hating me, dividing us, gives power to

whoever is behind all this.”

“Whoever. Right. The nameless whoever.” I

motion with my gun. “Go to the operations
room, where I have my lab set up. Where the
many ways I can kill you are at hand. And if
you think you might grab me and the gun, I’d
think twice if I were you. See, I never told you
all the ways I can poison you. I guess I never
really trusted you.”

“Yes, you did,” he says, moving toward me,

and I don’t back down, because I don’t back
down, not to mention I’m in slippery
stockinged feet, a small detail people like us
don’t miss.

He encroaches on my space, stopping

directly in front of me, the gun all that is
between us. That always spicy scent of him is
no longer delicious. I shove my gun at his
chest, over his heart, while my heart is
shattered, my eyes meeting his. “It would be
poetic justice to shoot you in the heart right
now.”