Stalking His Assassin

Chapter 2

two

CHRISTOS

“Fucking asshole took out the whole damn operation. Killed a dozen operatives, the trainers, and a fuck-ton of German soldiers. Not to mention torching the whole damn place until all that’s left is a giant black hole where the building was,” Willy complains.

I have to bite back my laughter because this dumbass assumes, like most do, that the assassin known as Ghost is a man. Very few are left alive who know the truth of who the Ghost is… anyone whispers the name Eris into the wind, and they disappear like they never existed. I can hardly blame her for disappearing like she did all those years ago. Not after what fucking Steve Sheridan did to that poor girl.

I doubt she remembers me. We met several times over the years she lived with Steve, but never as me. No, I was a gentile businessman from a privileged background. A trust fund kid investing the family fortune in various businesses. In reality, I didn’t have parents. I grew up much like Lucy Granger, a.k.a. Eris the Ghost. I was raised to be a killer. A weapon made of flesh and blood.

When I learned little Lucy wasn’t sent to a cushy boarding school like Steve claimed, I wanted to swoop in and save her. She was a sweet girl and deserved a happy childhood, but I wasn’t in a position to save her at that time. The men who I was forced to work for still owned me, and saving her would have just added a target to not only my head but hers as well.

I watched her in secret, though. I watched her train and grow into a beautiful woman. I nearly lost it when I learned they were teaching her to be a Lolita. I would have intervened at the first sign of someone touching her, but sweet little Lucy never let it get to that point, and all her training was in a practical sense, not a hands-on approach.

When she came home after “graduation,” I was out of the country on my own mission… the one that saw to my freedom. I was finally ready to cut the head off the snake to the organization that owned me. I planned to take care of my business and then come for Lucy. I liked to lie to myself and say that I was just going to set her free, but the truth is, I planned to keep her for myself.

Call me a sick bastard if you want, but watching her grow into a beautiful killer made me feel things I've never felt before. I fucked many women over the years, but none of them stirred up even a tiny portion of the feelings I have when I think about my beautiful killer.

My sweet little Lucy. My vicious, blood-soaked Eris. Both versions are mine. It’s been four years since I’ve laid eyes on her. It took me three years after she disappeared to find her again. My brilliant girl took out The Agency and Steve while I was busy freeing myself, then vanished like the ghost they call her.

I would have had her four years ago, but like any true assassin, she’s always prepared for anything. After completing her job and making a clean getaway, I grabbed her. Before I could inject her with the sedative I had prepared—I’m not an idiot; I know she wouldn’t go down without a fight—she buried one of her little blades into my side and twisted out of my hold. She grabbed the needle and plunged it into my thigh faster than I could react.

She ripped my mask off and studied my face for a moment as she held a knife to my neck. She could have killed me, but she didn’t. Instead, she released me. I wanted to ask her why, but the sedative was quick acting, and I was fading fast. She spun around to walk away, and with my last bit of strength, I surged up, grasping the end of her long black braid. It slipped through my fingers as I collapsed face down on the ground.

I woke up in an upscale boutique hotel the next day. The room was in my name, and paid for using my credit card. My real name, Christos Caputo. Considering the only identification I had on my body was for Mark Saunders, it was a shock. I shouldn’t have been surprised that my little wolf took the time to figure out who came for her. The real question that’s bothered me all this time is why she left me breathing.

Obviously, checking me into a luxury hotel using my name and credit card was a warning to back the fuck off, but it just fed my obsession. And that’s what it is. I’m fucking obsessed with her. Obsessed with finding her. Obsessed with claiming her. Completely, utterly obsessed. And she’s a fucking ghost. She doesn’t exist. No matter how many times I run the best of the best facial recognition software at every airport in areas where I suspect she’s been on jobs, she never pops up.

It's impossible for someone to completely disappear in this day and age, but she has managed it. I thought for sure I would catch her in Germany. When I heard about children being trained, I knew she would take action. I had this grand plan to meet her there and help her take them out. It would be our first date. We would kill a bunch of assholes and save a few kids from our same fate.

I watched the building for two days and never saw her. I heard about an attack happening on a secret German military base, and I immediately knew it was her. It took three hours to locate the base; she was long gone by the time I got there. The building looked completely untouched. If it weren’t for the blood decorating the floors, walls, and ceilings, you would just think the people who worked there went home at the end of the day.

No bodies. No proof anyone was there. I watched hours of security footage, and there wasn’t even a hint of something awry. One minute, the feed shows men laughing and going about their business; the next, the rooms are blood-soaked and empty. Eris never disappoints with her messages. The fact that she made an entire group of trained military men disappear told whoever was in charge that if you fuck around you disappear without a trace.

When I returned to the facility to wait for Eris, it was already burning. The minx knew I was watching and waiting. She always knows. She tempted me away with the military base. While I was there admiring her work, she came and finished the job at the facility. I spent a week reviewing security footage from every camera I could find between the base and the facility and then from the facility to the airports. I ran facial recognition for everyone who walked onto any airport in a hundred-mile radius of the city and nothing.

The only proof I have that it was my Eris was the gift she left in my hotel room. Again. A simple black hair tie. The exact same type that I woke up clutching that day four years ago. The one I pulled from her hair as I collapsed. The same one I wear on my wrist like it’s a wedding ring.

It might as well be. I haven’t been with a woman in years. Not since my obsession over Lucy morphed from that of a guardian to the lustful obsession it became as she matured. I never saw her as more than a kid who deserved better when she was a child. She was too young for a grown man to lust after even when she was old enough to be legal. It didn’t change the fact that I wanted to make her mine.

Once that decision was made, no other woman would do it for me. My cock only gets hard for my murderous little wolf. Willy’s bark of laughter drags me out of my thoughts.

“Can you believe that Mark? This idiot thinks the Ghost is a chick!” I raise a brow and turn to the man pouring drinks.

Tomas is a retired assassin. Well, as retired as one of us can be. He bought this shithole bar and pours drinks for the scum of the earth. That is why he’s only semi-retired, in my opinion. He picked this place because it’s in neutral territory for multiple gangs and even the bratva and mafia use it as a safe place to do business.

Tomas doesn’t allow any kind of bullshit to happen within these walls. Anyone starts shit, and he will end it quickly. It only took a few dead bodies for people to quickly respect his rules. From then on, it became the place in New York City for all the baddies to meet, including people like me and my not-so-good friend Willy.

“There’s no fucking way a chick pulled that job off. At least ten men would have been needed to take on the German military and the people running the Alliance. My guess is the Syndicate didn’t like the Alliance growing in numbers,” Willy says conspiratorially.

Tomas gives me a look that screams how dumb he thinks Willy is. He’s right. Willy is a fucking idiot. He’s a decent mercenary when you need someone to do your dirty work for you, but not an intelligent man. The fact that he’s talking so openly about Ghost is telling. Ghost is someone you whisper about and pray speaking their name doesn’t end in your death, and this idiot is blabbing loud enough for the entire bar to hear.

I’m surprised Tomas spoke up about the Ghost being a woman. He’s been in the game a long damn time and knows the rumors as much as anyone. I don’t know his complete history, but I know he had bad blood with the Agency and hated Steve Sheridan as much as I did. Pretty sure he threw a party when word spread that the Agency was no more and that poor ol’ Steve died.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask Tomas what he knows about Ghost, but I didn’t survive this long by making stupid choices and questioning him is a step above stupid. I’m no Willy. I take another sip of my bourbon as Willy continues to whine about all the money he’s missing out on now that the Alliance is gone.

“Hey, Tomas, do you know how can a guy get with the Syndicate?” Willy asks, slurring his words.

My eyes flick to Tomas when his body tenses. Interesting. I’ve heard of the Syndicate; anyone who walks in the underbelly of society knows about them. A group of deadly assassins that’s been around since before the Agency. Tomas’s reaction was barely anything. I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn’t trained to catch even the most infinitesimal changes in body language.

Was Tomas part of the Syndicate before he retired? The question is on the tip of my tongue, but I keep quiet.

“No one gets in with the Syndicate,” Tomas says. His Russian accent is more pronounced than usual… another subtle tell that talking about the Syndicate bothers him.

“They have to recruit somehow,” Willy presses.

“The Syndicate does not recruit,” Tomas replies with barely controlled disgust. “They approach those who are worthy.”

“Worthy,” Willy scoffs. “I’m the fucking best. They’d be lucky to have me.”

Tomas laughs. It’s disconcerting. I’ve never seen the man so much as smile let alone laugh. It’s not a friendly kind of laugh. It’s unhinged, and I can imagine him laughing like that while carving up one of his marks. That’s what Tomas is known for… they called him the Carver. What he does is worse than butchering. It’s one of the many reasons people respect this bar when they realize who owns it. Willy must find Tomas’s laughter unsettling, too, because he’s looking at Tomas like he’s seeing him for the first time. Not to mention, the entire bar has gone silent.

I slap Willy on the shoulder in a friendly sort of way. “Think it’s time you settled up and head home.”

He gives me a jerky nod and drops a wad of cash on the bar top before stumbling off his stool. Everyone in the bar watches as he weaves drunkenly through the bar and out the door. As soon as the door closes behind him, the conversations resume. Tomas grabs Willy’s money and empty glass and goes about his business while I continue to nurse my drink.

“Did you enjoy your trip to Germany?” Tomas asks conversationally a few minutes later.

The only way I keep from giving away my surprise is through my years of training. “It was disappointing.”

He nods in understanding. “Chasing a ghost is maddening, I’m sure.”

I can’t stop my reaction to his words this time. Not the way my eyes widen or how my hand flexes around my glass. Definitely not the way my heart starts pounding in my chest. Tomas knows that I’m looking for Eris. How does he know my little wolf?

“Beyond maddening,” I admit, downing the rest of my drink.

“Hmm. Yes, ghosts are fickle things. Haunting us mere mortals. Driving us to go to extreme lengths to find out their secrets.”

It’s only by sheer force of will that I manage to keep quiet and not demand answers. Tomas isn’t someone to cross, and berating him with questions will get me nowhere. If he wants to tell me something, he will do so in his own time and only if he feels I deserve the information.

“The question is: are you worthy of those secrets?”

The question is spoken aloud, but I know that’s not an answer I can give. Especially since I know I’m not worthy of the ground Eris walks on, no one is, but I still want her. I want to take care of her in a way I’ve never craved before. She’s mine. I think she wants me too. Why else would she seek me out and leave me gifts? I finger the black hair tie on my wrist. I never take it off. It lost her fresh apple scent long ago, but it’s the first. The one I earned. The rest are hidden away in my home, the sweet smell of apples still clinging to the little pile of black elastic. That she leaves me the hair tie from her beautiful hair must mean something. She could easily leave a new one but takes them from her hair instead.

Tomas’s shrewd eyes narrow on the hair tie wrapped around my wrist, and he nods. He heaves a sigh, and the formidable assassin looks troubled for the first time ever.

“The Syndicate requests your presence,” he says quietly, sliding a matte black card across the bar top. “Don’t be late.”

I look at the card and find a gold-embossed address and nothing more. “What time?”

“Don’t be late,” he repeats.

“Thanks, Tomas.”

“You really shouldn’t thank me,” he says with a shake of his head.