I looked at my rifle case in the corner. Then at Vincent, now doing some kind of squat-thrust combination that should be illegal in forty-eight states. Then at the special penny on the windowsill. Its ferryman symbol absorbed the light just as it had when Prometheus first pressed one into my six-year-old palm. Each penny opened doors normal money couldn't, and I'd saved up thirty-two of them. That was enough to buy a lot of favors.
What if there was a third option?
I squeezed the penny until the metal bit into my palm. The ferryman's toll. The price of a soul. In a few hours, I'd be sitting across from Vincent in his office, pretending to be Julian Keller, insurance investigator with anxiety issues and a fake backstory. He'd have no idea that I was actually there to end his life.
My love life was shit, but this was a new low even for me.
Vincent finished his workout and headed for the shower. I gave myself exactly sixty seconds to appreciate the view of him stripping down before forcing myself to look away. I had a therapy appointment to prepare for.
I stood, knees creaking from sitting too long, and caught my reflection in the window. Dark hair overdue for a cut, stubble approaching beard territory, ice-blue eyes that Jane always said could freeze hell. I looked exactly like what I was: a predator who hadn't slept in weeks.
It was time to shower, transform myself from Luka the assassin to Julian Keller, the patient, and prepare for my first face-to-face encounter with my target. I surveyed my den of dysfunction. Empty gummy worm packages covered pretty much every surface. My notebook looked like something from a stalker's fever dream. The apartment smelled like sugar, cat pee, and desperation.
"Pull it together, Keller," I said, using the fake name to get into character. "Time to go lie to a therapist about your feelings. How hard could it be? Men like us don't do feelings, anyway."
I laughed, dark and bitter. The real joke was that I wouldn't have to lie much at all. Julian Keller, orphaned young and raised by violence? That was just Luka with better paperwork. The best covers were the ones closest to the truth.
In a few hours, I'd walk into Vincent's office as Julian Keller, a broken man seeking help. What Vincent didn't know was that broken men like me didn't get fixed. We just learned to break things better.
At least this job had come through Frankie. I hadn't had to see Prometheus in months, and I planned to keep it that way. The Pantheon's North American Director could stay in whatever luxury hellhole he was currently occupying, far away from me.
I had a feelingabout my four o'clock.
Not the usual professional intuition that helped me navigate complex patient needs. This was something else entirely. A persistent buzz at the base of my skull that started the moment I read the intake form.
Julian Keller. Thirty-two. Insurance investigator. Presenting issues: Difficulty connecting with others. Anger management. Possible attachment disorder.
Standard stuff on paper. But something about the handwriting caught my attention. It was too controlled. Each letter was perfectly formed. The pressure was so intense it left ghost impressions on the pages beneath. People with nothing to hide rarely wrote carefully enough to carve through three sheets.
"You're projecting again," I muttered, straightening the already perfect stack of journals on my bookshelf. My supervisor would crucify me for this. Dr. Vincent Matthews, PhD in psychology,reduced to analyzing handwriting like a carnival psychic with too many student loans.
But still. That feeling lingered.
I glanced at my watch. Three forty-five. Fifteen minutes until I met the man behind that fascinating handwriting. Fifteen minutes to center myself and remember my professional boundaries. Boundaries that had become increasingly important since The Todd Situation, as my friend Natalie called it.
The Todd Situation being my pathetic pattern of answering my narcissistic ex's two AM booty calls like the textbook anxiously attached disaster I was. A humiliating irony given that I literally wrote my dissertation on attachment disorders.
"Physician, heal thyself. Or at least stop fucking your ex." I sighed, absently stroking the leaves of Ferris Bueller, my favorite ivy. Unlike my patients, my plants required nothing but water, sunlight, and the occasional one-sided conversation about my poor life choices.
Ferris offered no judgment. Plants were wonderfully neutral that way.
My office was my sanctuary. Soft lighting, comfortable seating arranged for psychological safety without forced intimacy, plants strategically placed to add life without overwhelming the space. The room was designed to whisper, "you can tell me anything" without a word being spoken.
I sank into my chair and reviewed Julian Keller's paperwork again. He was an insurance investigator. That tracked with the precise handwriting and attention to detail. This was a profession requiring emotional distance but also interpersonal skills. He would be someone who witnessed trauma but wasn't supposed to absorb it. An interesting choice for a man self-reporting attachment issues.
The buzzer sliced through my office silence at exactly four o'clock. My stomach tightened. Punctuality. Another check in the "control issues" column of my mental assessment.
"Send him in, Amanda," I said into the intercom, standing to greet my new patient.
The door opened and oh.
Oh no.
He was gorgeous. My throat dried instantly. He was devastatingly, catastrophically beautiful in a way that made my professional objectivity evaporate on contact. His dark hair looked deliberately mussed, like he had been running his hands through it on the way over. His piercing blue eyes caught the light like a predator's. His jawline could cut glass. My pulse hammered against my ribs as if trying to escape.
But worse than the attraction was the wrongness that crawled up my spine. Some primal part of my brain screamed danger, even as the rest of me noticed how his henley clung to his chest. His body somehow broadcast threat and sex in equal measure, even in simple clothes.
Shit. This was not good. This was the opposite of good.
