And now, here she was again, unknowingly knocking on my door.
I leaned forward and clicked open her file.
STD test: clean.
Psych evaluation: impressive.
No surprises there. Sophia didn’t leave loose ends—not even in her personal life.
Her headshot stared back at me. Polished. Controlled. Forgettable to someone who didn’t know better. But I remembered. The almond-shaped eyes that never stopped moving. The lashes that could disarm a man just as easily as her gun. The high cheekbones. The full lips. And the intensity that burned beneath it all.
The application was signed, and her consent was submitted. I smirked. If only she knew who ran this place.
I stared at her photo a moment longer and thought back to the first time I realized something about her didn’t add up.
It was two months ago when Senator Warren, a long-time client, turned up dead in his penthouse. On the surface, it looked like a textbook overdose. Cocaine scattered across the glass coffee table. Residue smudged across his face. Rolled-up bill still in hand. Slumped posture. Blue lips. Glazed eyes.
The cops didn’t blink. Open-and-shut. But I knew better.
The scene was too perfect. Too precise. The coke dosage was exact for a man of his size. No smudges out of place. No stray prints. No camera activity. It had been staged—flawlessly.
I’d seen something like it before, years ago, when whispers of an assassin calledEl Fantasmamoved through the underground. A ghost. Their hits were always clean, poetic, wrapped in irony—and always tied to the Bulgari family.
Back then, people said the Ghost had retired or disappeared. But assassins like that don’t retire. They either get taken out or go deeper underground. The job that killed Warren? It had the same signature. Only this time, the irony was sharper.
Warren had built his career on anti-drug campaigns while privately indulging in everything he claimed to fight. His death wasn’t just clean. It was a message.
That was when I started watching Sophia.
On the surface, she played her part well as Khalil and Naeem’s wild little sister, the party girl, the one no one took seriously, but I saw through the act. The way her eyes lingered on the exits. The way her body moved with purpose, not chaos. Her posture. Her presence. Her precision. Most people missed the signs. I didn’t.
I didn’t want to believe it at first. Why would a woman like her, a Bulgari, with money, protection, and power, ever need to get her hands dirty?
But then she spun around in a dark parking lot, Glock raised and aimed it at my chest without hesitation. She hadn’t been surprised to see me. She’dknownI was there. She’d had control of the situation before I even stepped into it.
That was the moment it all clicked. She hadn’t hesitated to kill me that day at the airport after the shootout with Naeem because she was afraid. She was deciding if I was worth the bullet, and now, as I stared at her Eros application glowing on my screen, I couldn’t help but smile.
The poetic kills. The silence. The discipline. It wasn’t just skill. It was art, and she wasn’t just a soldier. She was a ghost in heels.
Sophia was everything I’d suspected and more.
Leaning back in my chair, I approved her application without hesitation. She had no idea the club was mine, and I intended to keep it that way—for now.
I wasn’t letting her slip away. A smirk pulled at the corner of my lips as I leaned forward, running a finger along the edge of her mouth.
I was mid-thought when the door opened without a knock. Carla, one of my many conquests, walked in like she owned the damn place. A red dress that clung to her curves like a second skin, and she had a look on her face that said she knew she was about to get her way.
“Why the frown? I thought you would be happy to see me since it’s been a while,” she said, her voice sugary sweet.
“I’ve been busy,” I replied, not bothering to look away from the screen.
“Busy doing what? Counting your millions?” She giggled as she strutted over, leaning against the edge of my desk, her perfume hitting me before she did.
It was strong and overbearing. She was trying too hard to get attention.
I didn’t respond, though my fingers were still idly roaming over Sophia’s face.
“You’ve been ghosting me,” Carla pressed, her tone dipping into a sulk. “You used to make time for me. Now I see you less than I did when you were engaged to that bitch, Tatum.”
