Page 17 of April's Fool
Someone steered me into a seat in the break room and pressed a cup of weak tea into my hands.
“I think he’s in shock. Can this wait?” someone said from nearby. A hand rested on my shoulder.
“We need to get the details of what happened now before anything is missed.”
Distantly, I heard a muttering of a “tragic accident.” Parker laughed in my ear and my lips twitched.
Eventually, I let them know that this was my first day, and I had the responsibility of picking up Austin’s lunch and bringing it to him. They would examine the camera footage later and not find anything suspicious. Austin’s allergic reaction to the peanut oil in his salad would be chalked up to careless cross contamination in the kitchen.
It was just so tragic that Austin’s epi-pen was missing. It must have gotten lost in the move to the new office. In fact, they would find it in his old desk if they looked.
The epi-pen in the break room, though? That was negligent on behalf of the company. Out of date and damaged? There was no way for the epinephrine to work. It had gone bad. Austin had basically injected himself with water for all that it had helped.
Hours later, I was let go from the company with a glowing letter of recommendation, a hefty check for my troubles, and a number for a therapist.
I felt no remorse then. Just for a second, which worried me.
“He deserved it,” Parker said when I returned to the apartment.
“Maybe so. Didn’t mean we had to do it.” Regret filled me. I worried Cody would be upset when he found out what I’d done.
Parker clicked a few things on his screen. “Want to feel better?”
“Sure.”
With a couple of clicks, Parker pulled up another hit ordered by Austin.
This one was on me.
“Better?”
“Much.”
A New Hit
Damon
“How is this possible?I thought he was blacklisted?”
Parker seemed hesitant to answer. “This is… look, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to tell you this—“
“Well? Spit it out!” Taking my anger out on Parker was a bad idea. He was bigger than me and could put me on my ass if he tried. Even after losing a lot of muscle mass to the beta sickness. I softened my tone. “Sorry, this has just…”
“I get it. This has me freaked out. Can you… um, can you ask Cody if you can go stay with him for a bit? I’d feel better if you were with him and Toth.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t explained why.”
Red flags of anger striped his cheeks, his eyes flashed with his bird and I swear I saw talons, which was impossible, that only happened with alphas or maybe omegas with their children under threat. “Someone, I don’t know who, has overturned the blacklisting and instead, they put you on the list. You are persona non grata right now. They seem to haveforgotten about my other aliases and access, because I can see shit, but not who has done this to you.”
Parker’s eyes were suspiciously bright, like tears would fall any second. He was afraid for me. “Damon, you need to go into hiding.” He held up a hand when I went to interrupt. “No. It isn’t safe. I’ll work on the case from here. Call in every favor I can. There are rumblings of dissatisfaction in the subgroups. No one gets why this is happening, but too much money is flowing for the rest of them to ignore. You’ve also—“
“Made enemies. Yeah, I know.”
It was a fact of life that a successful hitman will have made a list of enemies a mile long. Sure, I did what I could to mitigate the damage, yet there was always going to be someone jealous of how well I’d done for myself. I had resources that many other assassins could only dream of having. My team, or just Parker now, was the biggest thing that made me stand out. Too many of those people on that list only trusted people transactionally. They hired people for jobs and discarded them. They never gave them the whole story and never stayed in touch. These people didn’t have friends, loved ones. Life was killing and making cash.
“Will you please ask Cody if you can spend some time with him in the demon realm? No one can get to you there, and having you with both of them, andtheir magic, will give me peace of mind while I figure out who we need to kill.”
Damn, Parker was bloodthirsty as well as panicked. Rather than roll my eyes at how overprotective he was being, I gave it a thought. There were plenty of reasons why a vacation in the demon realm was a good idea.
