Page 59

“How do you do that?” I ask.
She smiles. “Do what?”
“Every person you meet isn’t a stranger, instantly. You somehow not only signed that contract, but got an invite to come over for dinner tomorrow.”
“Oh my god, I know!” she beams. “Mrs. Murtagh was just the cutest old lady, there’s no way that I’m going to say no!”
I laugh. “See? That’s what I’m talking about. You don’t have a single bad thing to say about them. Everyone, even strangers, love you. Like, instantly.”
She shrugs. “I guess it’s my mom. She was raised by people who were Hollywood stars for the past… well, since movies started coming out. If she knows how to do anything, she knows how to socialize, because she and her family basically invented it.”
“Well that’s all well and good,” I say, following her into the stationery shop. “But you somehow find something to like about everyone you meet.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Stassi beams. “Everyone has something they bring to the world. It’s just a matter of seeing it.”
Good lord.
For a moment, I’m insanely jealous of Stassi. How in the world she and I both managed to be raised by men in the mafia, with mothers adjacent to it, and we turned out so… different, is beyond me.
I don’t see the good in everyone I meet.
Because I’m too busy trying to figure out the ways that they could hurt me, so that I can hurt them first.
Stassi waves at me. “Over here! Look, these are the invites that I was telling you?—”
The door to the shop tinkles, and a chill of fear instantly skates down my spine.
Something isn’t fucking right.
My hand instinctively goes to my hip, where my Interpol-issued gun would usually be, but I feel nothing except soft cashmere instead.
Fuck.
Stassi is chatting, looking at paper samples. I don’t want to turn to confront whoever just walked into the shop, but the little room is so small, I don’t have any other way to look and see them.
So, slowly, I turn.
I lock eyes with someone that makes my heart skip a beat.
Andrei Moretti.
He’s a famed assassin. Most recently, he’s been in Brazil, and he’s got a list of crimes so long they span the Atlantic.
And he’s here.
In a fucking paper shop in Ireland.
Behind us.
There’s absolutely no way that he’s here for anything except something bad. Moretti has been nicknamed the Grim Reaper, and some other names that are rolling through my mind.
Angel of Death.
Assassin’s assassin.
We need to get the fuck out of here.
I look over at Stassi, trying to catch her eye.