Page 10 of Emerald

Sloane

Istay a few days more in my hotel suite, then return to my safe house in the Frunzensky District, close to the Obvodny Canal.

I had planned to work a couple weeks longer at Raketa, so there would be no connection between Yozhin dying and me quitting directly afterward. But I’m thoroughly sick of the pole dances and the leering men, and I don’t want to be at the club if the man in the black suit returns to look for his flash drive.

I don’t want to give him another look at my face, or another chance to get me alone in a room with him.

I always stay at a hotel during jobs, to make sure no one is tracking me. I don’t want to risk anybody following me home. I know all too well that if someone can find you, they can kill you. We all have to sleep sometimes.

It’s a great relief to get home to my apartment at last. As soon as I unlock the door, I can smell the familiar scents of my favorite mint tea, my Moroccan oil shampoo, and the succulent in my kitchen that can stand the neglect of a long absence.

My security system is still armed, just as I left it. I review the surveillance tapes anyway, to be sure that I didn’t suffer any unwanted visitors while I was gone.

My apartment is sparse, clean, almost empty to most people’s eyes. But it’s exactly how I like it. Everything in it is for me alone. I never bring anyone here.

I have one chair at the table in the kitchen, one larger, overstuffed armchair in the living room. My bedroom contains a bed and a desk with a custom computer rig I built myself.

That’s where I head first, to check the recordings, and then to close the file on this most recent assignment.

I already received the second half of my payment, wired immediately upon confirmation of the kill.

Now I go through my files, scrubbing all trace of Yozhin: his picture, his profile, the meticulous notes I took on his workplace, his connections, his habits. I delete it all. None of it matters now that he’s dead.

Then I message Zima, my broker. He’s the one who brings me all my jobs. He’s my point of contact with my clients. I never speak to them directly; I never even know who they are. They talk to Zima and he talks to me.

It’s a layer of protection for all of us. And it helps keep things impersonal. I don’t want to know why the hits are ordered, or by whom. There can’t be any judgement or emotion in my job.

My rule for Zima is that I only kill professionals. Businessmen and women, politicians, criminals. People who have inserted themselves into the jungle, into the endless struggle for power and domination. They choose to play the game, and so they deserve their fate.

I have no interest in killing some housewife whose husband is tired of her, or some old man whose family wants an inheritance.

Zima knows this, and he only sends me jobs that fit my parameters.

I like to think I’ve built quite the reputation for myself over the last five years. Of course, no one knows my real name. I doubt they even know I’m a woman. But they might suspect it—Zima says I’ve been given the nickname ‘The Angel of Death’.

I don’t mind it. I’ve been called worse.

My father’s the one who taught me, trained me. At first, he was trying to protect me, in case any of the skeletons in his closet came crawling out, looking for revenge.

But after a certain point, he must have known he was creating a weapon. All those countless hours of study, of drills, of him repeating his endless lists of rules . . . what did he expect me to do with it all? Did he think I’d become a schoolteacher after all that?

“Every action, no matter how small, has a consequence.”

He said that.

So, he knew what he was doing. He knew what he was making.

He made a killer.

And I’m very good at it.

I’ve never missed a target.

If I ever do, it will probably be my last. The one you miss is the one that kills you.

Usually, when I finish a job, I take a break. Rest and recuperate. Do some reading. Travel somewhere new.

This time I’m thinking Asia, maybe Japan. I have to get out of the snow—I can’t stand a whole winter in St. Petersburg.

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