“Very,” I reply, chuckling lightly and stepping in his direction as if headed to the urinal myself, “rare as a talented young dancer from Yakutsk.”
In the mirror, I see Jean’s brow furrow as he digests what I’ve said, and in half a breath, I bring the garroting wire around his neck and yank back tight.
“I have a message from a loving mother,” I growl into his ear in my lightly accented English as the wire digs into the skin of his neck, and I see him try to shout something as he watches his face turning purple in the mirror, arms flailing uselessly.
I pull the wire tighter around his neck much harder than usual as the thought of Cassie in Sonya’s place flashes into my mind. Jean’s body is lithe, but he’s out of practice. I was expecting more of a fight from him, and after only a short time, I feel his body go limp, eyes rolling up into the back of his head as I let him gently to the ground on the bathroom floor.
With white-gloved hands, I drag the strangled man to the handicap bathroom stall and set him up on the toilet. That should buy me all the time I need to slip out of the building. I lock the door on the inside and crawl out under the door.
I adjust my tie, checking myself over for blood in the mirror. I’m clean. There’s always a certain weight off my shoulders just after the job is complete. After that point, all I need to worry about is the getaway. After checking over the sinks for stray hairs I might have dropped, I start to head for the bathroom door.
Then I hear a sound that makes my blood curdle.
A choked voice croaks something out in French from the bathroom door. “Brother...murder... the Russians…”
As soon as I hear the voice, I sprint back to the stall, sliding under the door with practiced dexterity, my heart pounding a thousand beats a minute.
To my horror, Jean is holding a cell phone to his ear, his face still swollen and blood trickling out his mouth as he gets a message out, bloodshot eyes staring straight into me.
Springing to my feet, I deliver a swift strike to his neck that ends the last sliver of life in his cold heart, and the phone clatters to the ground.
I hear a voice crying something from the other line in alarm. “Jean?! Jean! What’s happening?” Before another word comes out, I crush the phone under my heel.
Shit.
I crouch down and put my fingers to Jean’s neck, checking his pulse. Nothing. Crawling out from under the stall again, I make my way out the door and take a walk that feels far longer than it is down the stairs and out the doors of the Metropolitan Opera House, knowing that every second I lingered now put me closer to being caught.
* * *
Some time later, I’m back at my apartment, slipping in as quietly as I exited.
My heart calmed itself long ago; I’d had to learn to become adept at maintaining composure even in the midst of disasters like that. But while I manage to keep panic away, the fury I feel at myself for making such a slip-up is unmitigated.
One more second, and I’d have been out of that room. Jean would have survived, and I would be exposed.
I recognized the name on the phone Jean had uttered his last words into. It was his brother, a lesser known but well-off gentleman back in France. I’d have to do some careful research on him, but the name alone doesn’t send off any alarms. But no matter what, when the investigation starts, the police will have a lead.
I’m going to have to grease some palms in the NYPD to take the heat off me.
As I slip out of the ridiculous outfit I had to don for the evening, I stare out the windows in the living room, watching the city skyline in the distance.
Does being so cold really define my skill?
I was distracted by the thoughts of the bed I shared with Cassie earlier today, that much was without question. But putting that man down after he had been allowed to victimize a woman not at all unlike my new wife, knowing that I was saving Sonya’s life by my actions...I felt a unique purpose in executing Jean Bouchard that was new to me entirely.
I’ve defined my career by my coldness. Just a killer from Siberia, I’ve been a lone attack dog for so long. But how long can I be so detached? How long before I’m called upon to take another life like the one I spared in the beach house?
The last of my clothes stripped from my body, I quietly get into bed alongside Cassie. Unconsciously, she presses herself into me as I take up space on the bed, her body warming my side as I get comfortable.
I pause for a moment, then slip my arm around her, and she murmurs quietly in her sleep.
No. I can’t be cold forever.
I cannot continue as a mere killing machine when there are men alive in the world of the kind that would sell women like cattle. Who would push them to the limits of their lives for prestige.