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PROLOGUE: CIRCE

“Circe, stopbirdwatchingand focus on our target.”

“Stop watching me through your scope and do your job,Artemis.”

“That guy does have a nice ass, I’ll admit.”

“Shut it,” I grumble, pretending to be more annoyed than I am.

“You’re so cute, but you get so ugly when you’re defensive. This is why you do not have a boyfriend.”

“Right. Or it could be the fact that I am an assassin, trained from birth to kill for money. Try putting that in your Tinder profile.”

“It actually works better than you think. They all think I’mmysterious.”

“It’s no mystery. You’re a slut, Arty,” I snort, loosening up my neck and wiggling against the blanket I laid out on the concrete of the abandoned building’s top floor.

“You’re such a downer. And rude to boot. Can we at least go out after this?”

“One drink.” I shift my weight, flex my fingers. Calm. Relaxed. The only way to do my job effectively.

“Wow. Way to let loose, cuz.”

“Completing missions is enough of a high for me.”

“There’s something wrong with you, then.”

“Fine. We’ll go to that club you like, and I’ll play arm candy to a scruffy shitbag sidekick while you take home the jock who pretends not to be intimidated by your height.”

“When you put it that way…I’m in.” Artemis snickers, the radio clicking off.

I am ready. Always.

My job has always been my life. It’s the thrill of execution, in more ways than one.

Research. Set up. Stake out. Take out. And vanish.

The waiting would make most people insane. For me, it’s cathartic. Meditative.

Never to be confused for casual or careless. This job is literally life and death. Held in my hands.

I take it more seriously than anything. And I do not let it get to my head. I am not a goddess. Just a tool used to shape the world.

The lives we Lyras take are carefully chosen, contracts scrutinized and meticulously vetted. We work as an entity for change. Money is just a necessity to see our means to an end.

That’s what my Papa and Mama taught me, growing up on the small island in the Mediterranean that we called home. Our way of life is a necessity for the world, to maintain balance among the powerful, the elite, and the less than moral families working in the shadows.

Not to say we are some moral authority.

The council of each branch head of our family meets to keep one another in check.

No unit chooses its own jobs. Every family trades children as tribute to balance loyalty and to curb single-minded, religious-type obsession or the risk of one group becoming overly powerful.

Which is exactly what used to happen centuries ago. According to our family history, anyway. There’s always bogeyman stories to keep the kids in line.

Now, things are professional. Clinical. Somewhat political.

But I do not care a whiff about any of that.