Page 6 of The Kill Clause
The truth was no. I had honestly just signed anything Nora put in front of me, so naive, so desperate was I to please her then. I had glanced through the pages, intimidated by the legal language, pretending not to be, and put my scrawl onthe dotted line, rewarded by a wide smile from Nora, a warm hand on my shoulder.Welcome to the Company, sweetie.
“Did Nora ever tell you about the termination agreement?”
Silence was my answer.
“The termination agreement,” he repeated as if I hadn’t heard him. “That if you get caught, or fuck up, or endanger the firm in any way, the Company will end you without warning.”
“You mean fire, disavow?”
“Right. Sure. At the Company, they call it the kill clause.”
I experienced a cold dawning. “Do you know anyone who’s beenterminated?”
“I mean, I have known people who are now ... just gone? It’s not like there’s an interoffice memo and a funeral. Nora chooses carefully, in case you haven’t noticed. When we disappear, no one comes looking.”
It made a brutal kind of sense.
“All I’m saying is make sure you have an insurance policy, a bargaining chip if things go sideways.”
“Like what?”
“For example, I keep a journal of every job, everything I know about the Company. Multiple copies in various locations. I can use that to negotiate my freedom, when the time comes. And if anything happens to me, I have a contact who will put those documents in the right hands.”
I nodded, but inside I felt an arrogant flush. I was Nora’s favorite. She loved me. I didn’t need an insurance policy. Anyway, that’s how it seemed to me at the time. But maybe that’s how you feel when you’re a rescue. Anything that’s not harm looks like love.
Buz is waiting for me outside Nora’s office, standing with arms folded, legs wide—a cop’s stance, a principal, a prisonguard. But he smiles as I approach. He’s a beast, all muscle and heavy brow, dark gaze. But there’s something secretly cuddly about him beneath the hard exterior.
“She’s waiting for you,” he says, putting a strong hand on my shoulder.
“Why is this such a big deal? I made a judgment call.”
He shrugs, gives me an eye roll. “Talk to the boss. She knows the big picture. We’re just pieces on her board.”
He swings open the door, and I step inside.
4.
That first night in the field with Julian went smoothly.
We connected with our targets at the blackjack table: Roxanne, a wiry brunette dripping in diamonds, and Nick, a too-handsome man-baby who sulked when he lost. He hadDeath Before Dishonortattooed on his thickly muscled arm even though he’d never served in the marines.
I had spent the day in the salon and wore a dress Nora had sent for me. When I looked in the mirror, I hardly recognized myself. Alice, young newlywed, fitness influencer, wealthy, stunning, a big ring on my finger. Not little Paige, abused child who watched my father kill my mother while I hid in a closet; not the foster kid whose clothes were always borrowed, donated, or given, never her own, who went to bed at night praying that the door to her room wouldn’t open; not the teenager who was emancipated from the foster care system with nowhere to go and was taken in by Maxine just by sheer luck—or where would I have wound up?
No, in Vegas I was Alice, rich, married, and safe, with a knife strapped to the inside of my thigh under my painted-on dress. My weapon of choice. I flashed on the doe whose throat I had slit, her big eyes staring, her leg twitching. There was grief, sadness. But there was also power. No one would ever hurt me again.
After a big win, and more vodka than I’d ever seen two people consume, some cocaine, a joint, Nick became quietly aggressive, his hand on my waist, his voice low in my ear. Paige retreated deep inside, while Alice lapped up the attention, even letting him put his hand inside her dress while Roxanne flirted with Julian.
“My love with Roxanne,” he whispered. “It’s generous. We both like to share. Do you understand?”
I made a show of looking over at Julian and Roxanne. She had her arms around his neck, and he was smiling broadly, then issuing a belly laugh at something she said.
“I think I do,” I said shyly.
They were so outrageously intoxicated that neither of them noticed Julian and I were stone-cold sober, hadn’t consumed a single drop of alcohol.
“There are cameras everywhere,” I whispered to Julian as they stumbled down the hallway ahead of us, laughing.
“We’re ghosts,” Julian said. “Alice and Steve Egan don’t even exist.”
