“You’re clean so far. Got to say few people would kill a groom on their wedding day. No moral qualms about ruining the start of a married life?”
“Is that a serious question?”
“Hey, you’re better at this shit than me. I couldn’t have done it on the wedding day.”
“Even knowing he fucked underage kids while his wife to be worked her ass off to try to clear their debts?”
“You sound like you would have done it even if you weren’t getting paid?”
“I’m not a charity.”
“That’s what I thought. For a minute there, I thought you had some values.”
“I do. Get the jobs done until I can retire.” I rip open the envelope. “Ukraine?”
“Problem?”
“Getting in and out could be tricky.”
“That’s why they want you.”
I read the rest of the target profile while she keeps talking. “Produced a drug that would wipe out the coke market. Addictive as hell and one hundred percent legal.”
“You taking orders from coke dealers now?”
“Organization gives me the assignments and I give them to you.”
“Yet you said I did the right thing taking out Firenze.”
“Sometimes your job involves doing the right thing, sometimes the wrong thing. Same as any workplace. You know that.”
“I know it might take weeks to track this guy.”
“Try months. He’s good, this one. Well embedded and well guarded.”
“Payment as standard?”
“Expenses until you get back. Full payment on completion. It’s a tough one. Don’t fuck it up.”
“Do I ever?”
“Hey, it’s my ass as well as yours if you fail. We both end up whacked, not just you.”
“I never fail.”
“I know, I know. You’ve got quite the rep at the office. The man who never fails. The man who feels nothing at all.”
A tingle in my lips. A brief memory of Clarissa coming while she rides me. Sure felt something that night.
“What?” Imelda asks, noticing I’ve gone into my memories. “I said something?”
“Nothing.”
She points at me. “You want Isobel back, don’t you?” Her voice is subzero.
“I won’t fail, don’t panic.”
“You better not. You’re a cold bastard who feels nothing, remember? Nothing at all.”