Assassin Bride of the Mafia Heir novel · Chapter 1 of 9
Chapter 1: The Last Night Before
Celia breaks into James Ray's safe house to kill him, but he is awake and waiting, reveals he knows her real name and has been protecting her for seven years, and she drops the knife as he steps toward her.
Celia slipped through the fire escape window like oil through a crack, boots silent on the hardwood, the city's wet spring air curling in behind her.
The penthouse was dark except for a thin blade of light under a door at the far end of the hall.
Her knife was already out. The weight of it sat in her palm like it had grown there over twelve years.
The broker's voice was a scratch in her earpiece, the same voice that had handed her the address, the floor plan, the photograph of a man with raven hair and hazel eyes.
'Two a.m.,' the broker had said. 'He'll be asleep. Make it clean.'
She moved through the living room without a sound, past a leather couch and a chessboard mid-game, the pieces carved from something pale that caught the light from the street.
Her heart was a slow, steady drum. It always was before a kill.
That was the part of her that had survived twelve years of training. The part that never hesitated.
She reached the bedroom door and found it already open.
He was sitting in the dark, in a chair by the window, shirtless, watching her.
'You're early,' James Ray said.
She crossed the room before the word finished, her body moving on its own training, and she had him by the shoulder, the chair tipping, the knife coming up under his jaw in one motion that ended with her straddling him on the floor.
His back hit the rug and she was on top of him, her knees pinning his arms, the blade kissing the soft skin over his pulse.
He did not fight.
He did not flinch.
He looked up at her with hazel eyes that held the light from the window, and there was no fear in them at all.
'You're not surprised,' she said.
'I'm not,' he said.
His voice was low and even, like a man ordering coffee, not a man with a knife at his throat.
The earpiece crackled. 'Status.'
She ignored it. Her thumb found the pressure point under his jaw, and she pressed just enough to make him feel it.
'You know why I'm here.'
'I know why you think you're here,' he said.
Something cold moved through her. It was not fear. It was the first prickle of a trap she had not seen.
She had cleared the building. She had counted the guards. She had mapped every exit.
'Who ordered it?' she asked.
'You won't get paid for this one,' he said. 'The broker's gone quiet. Your client is impatient. They sent you to do a job that was already compromised.'
Her grip on the knife did not waver.
'You're lying.'
'I don't lie,' he said. 'It's inefficient.'
He shifted under her, just slightly, and she felt the heat of him through her tactical gear, the hard muscle of his chest against her thighs.
She pressed the blade harder. A thin line of red bloomed on his skin.
He did not blink.
'You've been running for a long time, Celia Hargrove,' he said.
Her real name.
Her hand went still.
The world tilted, just for a second, and she forced it back into place.
Nobody knew that name. She had buried it at nineteen, along with her father's empire and the family that had disowned her to save their own skin.
'How do you know that name?'
'I've known it for seven years,' he said.
Seven years.
She had been training in a basement in Queens seven years ago, learning how to break a man's arm in three places. She had been nobody. She had been no one.
'I've been watching over you,' he said. 'From a distance. Quietly. You were never supposed to see my face.'
The knife trembled in her hand.
'You're lying,' she said again, but her voice cracked on the second word.
'I'm not,' he said. 'I know about the fire escape cat you won't name. I know you drink black coffee. I know you run before dawn.'
Each detail hit her like a punch to the sternum.
'You've been in my life.'
'I've been in the spaces around it,' he said. 'Keeping you safe. Keeping you out of the crossfire.'
'Why?'
'Because you're not just another contract killer,' he said. 'You're the exiled scion of a business dynasty that my family helped destroy. And I've spent seven years trying to make that right.'
Her father's empire. The rival who had crushed it. The family that had thrown her out to protect what was left.
Ray.
'Your family did this to me,' she said.
'My uncle did this to you,' he said. 'Prentice Ray. The same man who has a standing kill order on my head. The same man who hired you tonight.'
The earpiece crackled again. 'Status. Do you have the target?'
She reached up with her free hand and pulled the earpiece out. It clattered across the floor and went still.
'You're telling me the man who paid me to kill you is the same man who destroyed my family.'
'I'm telling you we have the same enemy,' he said. 'And I've been waiting for the night you'd finally come to me.'
'Waiting.'
'Waiting,' he repeated. 'Because I knew the moment you learned the truth, you'd stop seeing me as a mark and start seeing me as a way back.'
Her jaw tightened. 'You think I'm going to trust you?'
'I think you're going to let me show you something,' he said. 'There's a length of red cord on the table by the window. Rigging cord from a climbing kit I carry. The same kit I used to climb the fire escape of a basement in Queens seven years ago to make sure you got home safe.'
She glanced at the table. The cord was there, thin and red, coiled like a sleeping snake.
'You climbed my fire escape.'
'Every night for a month,' he said. 'Until I was sure the men following you had given up.'
Her breath was shallow. Her chest was tight.
He was not afraid of her. He had never been afraid of her.
He had been waiting for this exact night.
The knife felt wrong in her hand now. Heavy. Stupid.
'You should have let them kill me,' she said.
'I couldn't,' he said. 'I'd already seen your face. I'd already seen the way you fought. You were never meant to be a ghost, Celia. You were meant to be a queen.'
Her hand opened.
The knife fell.
It clattered to the hardwood, spun once, and lay still between them.
He did not look at it. He looked at her.
Then he moved, slow and deliberate, and she did not stop him.
He sat up, her weight shifting on his thighs, and he reached for her wrist.
His fingers closed around the serpent tattoo, warm and sure, and she did not pull away.
Behind him, the door to the bedroom stood open, the darkness inside waiting.
He rose to his feet, drawing her up with him, his hand still on her wrist.
'Stay,' he said. 'Let me show you what we could be.'
She did not answer.
She did not move.
And he took one step closer, his hand reaching for her other wrist, his eyes never leaving hers.
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