Requiem for Immortals E-Book

Lee Winter

• Herausgeber: Ylva Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Requiem Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 435

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

What would make the most dangerous ice queen of them all, ruthless underworld assassin Requiem, hesitate? This enemies-to-lovers lesbian thriller will make you question everything. Professional cellist Natalya Tsvetnenko moves seamlessly among the elite where she fills the souls of symphony patrons with beauty even as she takes the lives of the corrupt of Australia's ruthless underworld. She has a mocking, karmic signature and little pity for her victims. One day the aloof, exacting assassin is hired to kill a woman who seems so innocent that Natalya can't understand why anyone would want her dead. And, as she gets to know her target, she can't work out why she even cares. This powerful, award-winning lesbian thriller has compelling characters and twists galore.

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Table of Contents

Other Books from Lee Winter

Acknowledgement

Dedication

Title Page

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

Requiem for Immortals soundtrack

About Lee Winter

Other Books from Ylva Publishing

The Red Files

Collide-O-Scope

Driving Me Mad

Blurred Lines

Coming from Ylva Publishing

Four Steps

The Lavender List

Other Books from Lee Winter

The Red Files

Books in the Series The Law Game

Requiem for Immortals by Lee Winter

Archer Securities by Jove Belle

Daughter of Baal by Gill McKnight

Evolution of an Art Thief by Jessie Chandler

If Looks Could Kill by Andi Marquette

Acknowledgement

It takes a huge leap of faith to green-light a novel about a lesbian assassin cellist. Astrid at Ylva Publishing miraculously said yes, and allowed me to breathe life into Requiem. Thanks from the bottom of my heart for that decision, which changed so much for me.

My novel would not exist without my South African violinist mate, Milena, whose tales from the dark side of orchestras greatly enriched this book. She also helped find the key compositions that defined my cellist’s musical soul perfectly.

I would not have stayed sane without my beta reader Charlotte filling me with encouragement at every turn.

Thanks, finally, to the wordsmiths Sheri and Blythe, who poked at and massaged my words until even the perfectionist Requiem would be impressed. And that’s saying something.

Dedication

To Milena, a music immortal whose dark genius inspired every word.

Prologue

To say Requiem felt nothing was incorrect. A common misconception about those in her line of work.

Disdain was not nothing.

She adjusted her black leather gloves, ensuring they sat snugly in each indent between her fingers.

Requiem circled the barren room. The concrete floor was lit by a dust-filtered arc of moonlight streaming through the cracked window. With a measured step, she moved to the centre and studied the timber walls, which were as wet as the floor. She crouched and placed a large box on the ground. From it, she removed a Chinese paper lantern. Some people called them wish lanterns. Her father had bought one for Requiem when she was a little girl. Together they had made a wish and watched it sail into the night sky, propelled by its naked flame until it disintegrated and fell back to earth in pieces.

This lantern was made of light white paper that encased a bamboo ring with a tiny fuel cell in the centre. A teepee of six long-burning incense sticks had been stuck to the bamboo frame, pointing toward the fuel cell.

Requiem lit the flame and checked that each incense stick was also ablaze. They contained a resin that gave off a unique aroma. As the lantern rose, she stepped back. It was beautiful. Like the perfect stillness of a lake at dawn or the soft curve of a woman’s bare breast.

It bobbed against the dusty ceiling, casting an ominous glow over the room. After watching it for a moment, she turned and left, closing the door firmly behind her.

Requiem slid onto her motorcycle, a Kawasaki Ninja H2, and pulled her small, silver MP3 player from her vest pocket. She pressed play, verified on the screen that the volume was at exactly the level she desired, and then put the earbuds in. After she zipped up her leather jacket and slid on her helmet, she revved the engine and roared away.

The soul-cleansing strains of Arvo Pärt’s Fratres (String and Percussion) played on.

* * *

Three days later, Melbourne’s Herald Sun reported that a man, found in the hogtied position, had been burnt to death in a small room in an abandoned building. Squatters had stumbled upon his remains and alerted police.

The newspaper noted that, over the past seven weeks, the derelict industrial estate had been targeted by an arsonist who had set small, contained fires. So, on the night of the blaze, fire units had not responded to reports of another incident. They were unusually busy, and it was deemed a waste of resources.

Dental records determined that the deceased was a career criminal wanted for the torture and assault of the daughter of a Melbourne crime family boss, Carlo Trioli.

The Victorian Arson and Explosives Squad told the media they were initially baffled after discovering a small, melted, plastic substance in a room that had been doused in petrol. In addition to the petrol fumes, there was also a distinct smell they couldn’t place.

Herald Sun police sources later identified the plastic as being from a fuel cell commonly used in wish lanterns.

“Someone clearly got their wish for this individual,” a source said. “Investigations are continuing.”

Chapter 1

Natalya Tsvetnenko glanced around the packed concert hall, seeking one face among many. The July mid-year launch of the Victorian Philharmonic Orchestra’s program was taking place on an unseasonably warm night and had attracted the who’s who of Melbourne’s cultural elite. And, much to her satisfaction, it had lured in a particular reclusive chemical entrepreneur.

Uli Busch was an enormous man. The CEO of a German corporation, BioChem Farming Solutions, used a polished silver cane to walk and wheezed with every step. His sway was exaggerated owing to two knee replacements and, so rumour had it, a once badly broken back.

Natalya drew her gaze back to her sheet music, listening intently for the end of the movement. She lifted her bow, placing it precisely, and drew a deep, guttural growl from her cello.

Four minutes, twelve seconds later, she paused as the lead violinist began her solo.

Her gaze drifted back to Busch’s ruddy face.

One might think he would be an exceptionally easy target to erase from the mortal coil. Natalya knew better.

It wasn’t that he rarely left his luxury yacht, which was moored in a different location each day. Natalya had a well-placed insider within Victoria’s close-knit yachting fraternity. She already knew what he had for breakfast (nine sausages, four buttered Brötchen, and a black coffee), how often he washed his 4XL Y-fronts (not often enough), and which high-class escorts he preferred (Sasha on Fridays, random redheads on weekends).

No, it was his bodyguards—a quartet of mean-eyed ex-Mossad agents who had been so ruthlessly trained that everyone in her business gave them a wide berth. Facing just one of these vicious rottweilers would be testing. But four?

Well. She did enjoy a challenge. At least, her lethal alter ego certainly did.

Natalya had seen a lot of Busch over the years. The billionaire happened to be a devoted classical music fan. His collection of official live recordings was reputed to be the finest anywhere. Every major orchestra in the world had been graced with his imposing presence at least once every season.

His need for bodyguards had a lot to do with how Busch made his money. He liked to bulk-buy any pesticide outlawed by a country for next to nothing. Sometimes, instead of purchasing it, they would pay him to destroy it. Instead, he would on-sell it to Western countries which hadn’t yet implemented the bans Europe had, or poorer nations susceptible to bribery.

When things got too hot, such as BioChem being linked to too many birth defects or farm worker deaths, he’d move on to the next unwitting nation, rinse, and repeat.

At the moment, Busch’s obnoxiously named yacht, Breakin’ Wind, was moored off Victoria, which meant he was busy selling his toxic wares to Australians. And that, in turn, explained why Requiem now had a wealthy Australian client with a farmer brother who was on life support after he’d tested BioChem’s newest pesticide.

The client needed Busch to know exactly what his brother had endured. He had sought out Requiem because two previous assassins had met ends too grisly to be explained to their loved ones. The client had learned a valuable lesson about settling for less than the best.

She had already anticipated this and prepared accordingly.

Busch, Natalya knew, had a special fondness for Tchaikovsky, which was the Victorian Philharmonic’s theme for its new season. A theme Natalya had casually suggested four months ago when she’d heard of the second assassin’s failure.

If she’d been wrong about the client likely approaching her, it hardly mattered. She liked Tchaikovsky well enough to play him all season.

Natalya snatched glimpses of Busch in the VIP box throughout the rest of the concert, his beefy hand mopping his brow with a white handkerchief.

She rose with the rest of the orchestra as they duly marked their respect for the composer, taking in the ecstatic applause. Normally, Natalya would be on a high from performing. Tonight, though, she was in a rare and uncomfortable position: she was mixing business with pleasure for the first time.

The question remained, which was the business, and which the pleasure?

In her twenty-four years of dual careers, she had never found an answer for that. Each had highs that were unmatched.

She packed up her cello, nodded to her colleagues who were buzzing about the after-party, and then asked the VPO’s security guard to lock her instrument away for a few hours. She reached for a glossy, black handbag she’d prepared for the occasion. Natalya removed from it her MP3 player, pressed play, inserted the earpieces, and slowly walked the two blocks to the VIP after-party.

With each step, as Arvo Pärt emptied her mind, she shed Natalya Tsvetnenko and became Requiem. Her eyes focused. Her expression flattened out to neutral. Her mind replayed over and over what she had to do, sharpening, homing in on the most dangerous aspect—the last thirty seconds before Uli Busch would take his final breath.

She would kill one of the most protected men on earth in front of his vicious lapdogs, and no one would say a word. Busch would probably smile at her, never knowing he’d heard his last Tchaikovsky.

Pedestrians stepped away from Requiem as they neared her. She was peripherally aware of them but did not make eye contact. No better than cattle. Slow. Blinkered. Weak. Telegraphing their every move.

She did not even consider herself to be a member of the same species.

Calmness settled over her, and her movements became liquid as she smoothed out any errant thoughts.

A block from the venue, she stopped at a bench, removed her earphones, and sifted through her bag. She pulled out a small pearl ring from a protective box, and positioned it on her left, middle finger. Sliding the bag back over her shoulder, she resumed walking.

The after-party was taking place at Nova, a spacious, modern, inner-city nightclub, supposedly the hottest “it” spot in town this month. It was the closest place to the VPO that could easily handle the swell of 400 dignitaries expected tonight.

Nova was wedged between a kebab shop and an Italian restaurant and had a rabbit’s warren of rarely used back alleys behind it. Only the street cleaners knew where this tight tangle of back streets went, and few people ever had a need to use them.

At night, the darkened area was silent, save only for the faint rumble of traffic from the main road. Not so at Nova.

The theme inside the club was Phantom of the Opera, and Requiem had to admire the work that had gone into the decorations, even though it seemed a baffling choice for a Tchaikovsky season. She supposed the party planner’s limited imagination on musical themes could only extend to the populist. Either that or a long-dead Russian composer was considered too uncool.

Ghostly white masks hung from fishing wire at different heights from the ceiling. Waitresses swished by with smoking cocktails as the music thumped around them. The venue’s corners were as dark as tar, giving ready hiding places to those who might need them. She would have to be exceptionally careful.

Busch stuck to drinks supplied by his bodyguards. Wise. Especially given several assassins over the years had attempted to get to him through his food or drink. She sneered. How unoriginal. Far too easy to anticipate.

The German usually stayed at these things for four or five drinks, no more. Requiem picked her position and never took her gaze off his face. Waiting.

“Why, Natalya!” a perky voice said beside her. “What a lovely ring. I’ve never seen it before. Wherever did you get it?”

Requiem snapped her head around, schooling her features into a pleasant mask. Violinist Amanda Marks. Concertmaster of the VPO. High priestess of the social media crowd and adoring arts luvvies.

She glanced at her ring and back at Marks. “An associate,” Requiem answered honestly. “Who wished me well.” She shot her a thin smile.

“Oh.” Amanda pouted. She probably hoped the story came with a salacious romance. The irritant opened her mouth to ask more, but Requiem had at last spotted her cue.

Busch grunted, muttered something to his closest bodyguard, and eased his thick jacket off his shoulders. Behind him stood a man with sharp eyes who took it.

Show time.

“Do you…” Amanda began.

Requiem waved towards her ear, feigning being unable to hear over the music, which had turned into some not-even-slightly-music techno mess.

She stalked away, letting the violinist get back to her adoring groupies who were far too old and immaculately dressed to be asking for selfies. Not that it stopped them. As she left them, her gaze fell on one woman in her early to mid-thirties with brown hair and fine features.

This one was watching everything with an awed expression, as though she didn’t get out much. Since she was within the periphery of Marks’s posse, the woman’s judgment was clearly flawed. Suddenly, the mousy creature turned, and their eyes met. Then, equally suddenly, she smiled at Requiem. For no reason whatsoever.

Requiem paused in surprise. What had possessed the woman? Did she just randomly smile at strangers? Was this another of those maddening, socially expected female things?

Requiem dismissed her and strode onwards to her goal. She forced herself not to quicken her pace. She headed into a darkened area, lit only by a green fire escape “exit” sign.

Requiem looked around again. Nothing but a deserted, dead-end corridor vibrating faintly with the background bass thump of the (non) music from three rooms over.

Still in the filmy, long, black evening dress she had performed in, she dropped easily to a crouch. She turned her hand face up, rotated her “pearl” ring, and gently unscrewed the hollow bauble, leaving only a flat, round base with a tiny, threaded ridge.

In the centre, jutting up from this base, was the thinnest needle that money could buy—almost invisible to the human eye and no longer than two grains of rice. Such needle nibs were remarkably easy to acquire—one only needed to find a pharmacy selling diabetic supplies.

Taking a deep breath, she reached into her bag, opened a small vacuum-sealed container, and gently rolled a gel capsule onto the floor. It was the size of a pill, but its contents—a small amount of liquid—were anything but medicinal.

Requiem flipped her hand and lowered the tiny spike until it pierced the capsule’s thin skin. She wiggled her hand slightly, ensuring the tip was liberally coated by the liquid within. She reached for the tweezers in her bag and with painful slowness pulled the gel pill from the wet needle tip. She dropped the tweezers and pearl bauble back into her bag.

Requiem rose, cautiously keeping her hand face down as though she were about to pat a dog. She kicked the gel pill into a gap in the old timber floorboards.

As she walked back to the party and made her way to her conductor, Anthony Lyman, she was careful to avoid any jostles. At least it looked like she was headed towards Lyman. As it happened, he was talking to Busch.

The sharp scent of the German’s perspiration filled her senses. Four suspicious ex-Mossad agents snapped their gazes toward her to assess the possibility of threat. They relaxed when the conductor waved her over and introduced her as his “prodigiously talented cellist.” He did this condescending routine over the VPO’s women every time he had a VIP to impress.

For once, she didn’t mind. It suited her purposes.

“Now, Natalya,” Lyman continued, “have you met Mr Busch yet? Mr Busch, Natalya Tsvetnenko.” The hopeful look in his eye told her he was desperate to bail on the man. Her nostrils twitched at his steep body odour, and she understood only too well Lyman’s eagerness.

“No, we haven’t met.” She smiled and held out her hand to shake Busch’s. “It’s an honour.”

“Well, I must mingle,” Lyman said hastily and scuttled away. Requiem ignored him, focusing her entire being on this moment. Blood rushed in her ears, her heart thumped faster. She controlled her breathing, and a soothing coolness settled over her.

Busch shook her hand firmly, his sweating, meaty grip engulfing her fingers.

She smiled again, hiding her revulsion, and casually brought her left hand up under the fleshy forearm of the hand shaking hers, presidential style, and then pressed firmly.

The needle pushing into his flesh from her ring was so fine it was highly unlikely he felt it. She exhaled slowly as Busch merely smiled benevolently at her and started to talk.

“Your favourite composer,” Busch asked, pinning her with a stare. “Who is this? Why is he this?”

She carefully lowered both hands, acutely aware of the position of the lethal needle nib, and studied his white sleeve. There was about a thirty percent chance of a tell-tale pinprick of blood being left behind as the needle withdrew.

No red spot appeared.

“Arvo Pärt,” Requiem replied, satisfied. “A modern composer who fills the soul that is empty, and empties the soul that is full.”

He looked at her, clearly startled by her answer. She gave him another smile, mentally ticking away how many seconds the toxin had been pumping around his system, doing its damage. It was the most fast-acting poison known to man. It was completely natural, but unlike a snake or spider bite, there was no cure. A single drop could kill ten men.

Very soon, Uli Busch’s breathing would become impaired. A little after that, the mere act of inhaling would start to feel impossible.

By the time he fell to the floor, twitching in what might look like a seizure, his entire diaphragm would stop rising and falling with a paralysis that forced a person to hold his breath forever.

That’s when the terror would strike—and, if she calculated correctly, it would be exactly what a young farmer on a wheat station felt when he, too, discovered he could no longer draw breath. The panic at not knowing what was happening. The horror of wondering if this was his last moment. BioChem’s CEO was moments away from becoming intimately acquainted with his victims’ pain.

Busch turned, barking for his men to provide him more wine. He turned back, mouth opening, most likely to offer her a drink, but Requiem was already slipping away. Steadily she walked, ignoring the greetings of other orchestra members as she disappeared into the remote fire exit passage.

Requiem gingerly reattached the pearl bauble over the deadly needle, then slid the ring off, put it in the container, and sealed it. Under the light of the neon green exit sign, she dropped it in her bag, and then rapidly dressed herself in the leathers, boots, and gloves she'd stashed in a dark corner here right before the concert.

She had tested the fire exit two nights ago for an alarm. There wasn’t one. She eased the door open, slung her bag over her shoulder, and slipped out into the darkness.

Halfway down the fire escape, she heard the first shout for an ambulance. Good luck. Busch would be dead before it arrived; possibly before they even placed the call.

When they examined his body, they would see no entry wounds.

She navigated the twists and turns of the back alley to find her Ninja H2 waiting for her, crouched beneath a lone security light. The moths darting all around provided a mottled lighting effect to the area—nature’s own mirror ball.

She’d planned ahead with her Ninja. If Busch’s rottweilers actually got a clue, she would need a demon of a machine which topped 400 km/h. Even if they didn’t catch on, Requiem, unlike Natalya, travelled no other way.

She stowed her bag in a small custom compartment at the rear of the motorbike, slid onto the seat, and settled. By rote, she reached for her MP3 player. Her maestro would strip any mess from her mind, tucking away unschooled thoughts like errant hairs behind an ear, and ground her.

As she lifted her helmet, she saw it. The faintest movement glinted in the shine of the helmet’s glossy black paint. Requiem reacted instantly, diving from her bike and rolling away just as a figure in freefall dropped from a drainpipe and landed lightly a foot away.

How the hell had the rottweilers worked it out? This particular quartet’s skills lay in torture and knife-work, not in grasping the complexities of a brilliantly conceived plan. Requiem was irritated that somehow she’d given herself away. She must have made a mistake somewhere. That did not happen.

At least there was only one of them to contend with. The other three were likely still trying to save their dying master.

She twisted away from the shadowy form just as it lunged at her, and Requiem kicked out blindly. Her foot connected, and she pushed back, the force of her powerful thigh flipping the attacker’s body over. There was a startled “oomph” as he landed on his back and the air whooshed from his lungs.

Requiem threw herself onto the figure, and flipped her wrist up, positioning the base of her hand to break the attacker’s nose and ram the bone fragments up into the brain. Just as she was about to strike, her attacker’s head rolled to one side and light fell on the face. Short black hair, dark, narrow eyes, a flat nose, and curling, mean lips greeted her.

She stopped.

Mean, sensuous lips.

Her hand froze. Sonja bloody Kim. The best bodyguard of Ken Lee’s gang, not to mention his enforcer and occasional assassin.

The Korean was lethal at close range and slippery as hell to pin down. She was a champion wrestler who had an ability to twist men’s bones like pipe cleaners. And that was before you got to her skills with concealed weapons. She loved to play with kunai throwing knives.

“You!” Requiem spat. “Tell me you’re not freelancing for Busch now?” She grabbed a fistful of Sonja’s shirt, wrenched it up, and then slammed her head into the ground. “You do pick the bottom feeders.”

“Says the great Requiem who has no loyalty to any family,” Sonja shot back.

She bucked beneath Requiem who, despite being almost twice her size, struggled to contain her. In the middle of it all, Sonja inched her left hand toward her waistband.

“Why the hell can’t the families stay in-house?” Sonja complained, scowling. Her hand suddenly flew to her waist but Requiem snatched it and pinned it by Sonja’s ear.

As though her sneaky move hadn’t just been interrupted, Sonja continued, “But no, they choose you for the dirtiest work. A freelancer! You, who’d kill any of them for the highest price. It’s so stupid. They are weak!”

“They like my creative touch.” Requiem smashed Sonja’s head into the road again. “I send a message. Sometimes all they want is the message. But you? You’re about as subtle as a two-by-four, with the brains to match.”

She slipped her hand under Sonja’s T-shirt, searching for whatever Sonja’s fingers had been creeping towards, and pulled out the knife tucked in her waistband.

Requiem held it up to the light and examined it.

“How many others?” she asked, indicating the weapon.

Sonja shook her head, refusing to answer.

Requiem placed it at her throat. “How many others?”

“Shi bai kepu seck yi!”

“Even if I had an Oedipal complex, my mother is dead,” Requiem said coolly. “So no, I can’t.”

“You speak Korean?” Sonja started.

“Just the essentials,” Requiem said. “Last chance.” She scraped the edge of the knife lightly down Sonja’s jaw. The fine hairs on her cheek bent under the blade and then sprang up again. “How many more of these are you hiding? Or shall I strip you naked to find them?”

“Bite me.”

“You’d probably like that,” Requiem said. She offered a dangerous smile. She took the blade and slashed from the top of the T-shirt to the hem.

Pale brown skin, criss-crossed with scars, greeted her. She moved the knife to Sonja’s white sports bra and sliced it in one motion. Each half fell to the side.

Sonja stared up at her pugnaciously, but there was something odd about her expression.

Requiem considered Sonja for a moment, and then her gaze dropped. She took in the muscled, flat stomach, and slid her attention higher to soft mounds tipped with brown nipples, hardening in the night air.

“Like what you see?” Sonja asked, her voice teasing and provocative. Requiem didn’t bother to respond. Pleased as she was with the view, this was just business.

She returned the knife to Sonja’s throat and slid her other hand around and then shoved it under Sonja’s shredded T-shirt between her body and the road. Skidding her fingers over the imperfections of scars and softness in the spaces between, Requiem checked her back. She found nothing taped or hidden there. Then, she brought her hand around, slid it up to her skull, and expertly ran it through Sonja’s hair. Clean. Behind the ears was also nothing.

Requiem shifted her knife hand down to the jeans. The change in Requiem’s centre of gravity was all it took. No longer properly pinned down, despite Requiem’s weight across her hips, Sonja’s hand shot out, grabbed Requiem’s wrist, and jerked it back—hard. The knife flew into the distance and clattered against the road when it landed.

Sonja’s left leg flew straight up behind Requiem, and the steel toe of her boot impacted the back of Requiem’s head. Pain lanced through her. She fell forward, collapsing onto Sonja’s chest, dazed. Sonja wrapped her legs around Requiem’s waist, then moved her knees higher to her ribcage, and locked them in place. With a malicious glint in her eyes, she clapped her hands around Requiem’s throat and squeezed.

“How smart are you now, huh?” Her breath dusted across Requiem’s lips. “Stupid gae saeki.”

Requiem, her brain still jangling, tried to shake off the vice-like grip around her ribs, but it only tightened. Christ. She should have known better. You never let Sonja Kim within wrestling distance. She’d simply been biding her time to strike.

Requiem’s entire body creaked with the pressure, her breath shortening. It was like going up against an anaconda.

“Mr Lee heard there’s a hit out for him,” Sonja said, pulsing her thighs in crushing squeezes. “He knows they’ll hire you to come for him. Consider this a pre-emptive strike.”

The hands at her throat tightened. Requiem’s consciousness flirted with the darkness, and she couldn’t believe the power Sonja held in her compact body. Poor judgment on her part, clearly, as she knew Kim had once snapped a man’s shin bone in two when he’d laughed at her diminutive stature.

Requiem wasn’t laughing.

She tried shifting her arms, but they were firmly locked against her sides by Sonja’s thighs. Requiem stared down into Sonja’s eyes, black and piercing.

She was reminded of a vision from years ago. A man in a workshop, a wide-eyed little girl at his side.

She smiled at the memory, and Sonja blinked uncertainly.

“What the fuck are you smiling at? You’ll be dead in seconds. The Great Requiem dead. The end!”

“Nabi,” she said with dawning recognition.

The fingers at her throat slackened. “What?”

“I was just remembering the day we met. You as a girl. So adorable.”

The hands unclasped and fell to Requiem’s shoulders.

“At your father’s workshop,” Requiem continued, sucking in a lungful of air. “Carrying his tools while he maintained the Lee family’s equipment. Years ago. Before the Lees got into the flesh trade.”

Requiem smiled. “If I recall, Nabi means butterfly. Or kitten or something?”

Sonja flushed. “Fuck you.”

“You wish,” Requiem purred softly. “Don’t you?”

She recalled the young girl, barely in her teens, following her around for weeks when she’d first returned from Vienna after completing her cello scholarship at a top conservatorium. Natalya had been what? Nineteen? Twenty?

Some of Lee’s associates had sponsored her after one of their ambitious wives had taken an interest in the young Natalya—in both her prodigious talent and the possibilities she presented.

Natalya had been doing the rounds, thanking the appropriate men. They, in turn, expected her to fulfil her end of the bargain. Shortly afterwards, she resumed her secret tutelage for an apprenticeship of a most unusual kind.

Requiem’s weapons training over the next few years had been unmatched, which wasn’t surprising because Lee’s weapons expert, Dimitri, was the best there had ever been.

This had been before the crime family wars, before Dimitri had left to create a rival house and everything had gone to hell. And in this relatively peaceful window of her life, a Korean girl, eyes wide with adoration, had followed Requiem everywhere.

“My shadow,” Requiem said, slowly. “I called you my shadow.”

“I’m not her anymore.” Sonja’s eyes flared.

“Aren’t you?” Requiem taunted. She leaned closer. “You did what you said you would do. Do you remember?”

“No.” Sonja’s face turned darker. The lie was obvious. Her legs, finally, began to loosen around Requiem’s ribs.

“You said you wanted to be just like me.” Requiem chuckled. “And look at you now. A killer, a lethal body for hire.”

Sonja looked at her, clearly confused by this turn of conversation.

“I’m curious, Nabi, why you chose to jump me here. There are much more private places. My own home, for instance. Your boss knows exactly where I live. But no—here we are, in a dark alley, in public. How curious.”

“Not curious. Convenient.” Sonja looked away.

“I have never seen anyone better at knives than you, Nabi, not in all my life. Not even Popov,” she continued conversationally, “and that man was a master of the blade.” Requiem leaned forward. “So, my question is, why am I not lying in that gutter with your gleaming little ninja knives poking out of my back already?”

“In the back? That’s such bullshit. I’m no coward.”

“Or my front, then?”

Sonja glared at her but had no answer.

“Anyone would think you, or at least a part of you, are desperately hoping to be interrupted by choosing a city street. The problem is, you don’t know what I do. You don’t know how deserted this particular area is.”

“You’re making no sense.”

“No? Because I think, deep down, you don’t actually want to kill me at all. After all, it’s hard to kill a woman you’re in love with.”

The slap came lightning fast, but Requiem had slithered an arm free and was prepared. She caught Sonja’s hand and then forced the arm back to the ground.

She leaned forward until her lips were in line with Sonja’s, inches apart. “Am I really wrong?”

She noted dispassionately the quickening rise and fall in Sonja’s breathing. She smiled. Oh, Requiem knew arousal when she saw it. Her own pulse picked up at the promise of what lay ahead. Of showing Sonja that she didn’t rule the game, that the game was Requiem’s, balanced eternally in her favour.

A part of her was vastly irritated at how close she’d come to being throttled at the hands of this slip of a woman. She grabbed Sonja’s other hand and angrily slapped that into the ground, too, and shot her a glare.

For Requiem, the sex act itself held little appeal. It was hot and sweaty and chaotic and left a mess. Worse, she lost control at one pivotal moment, no matter how hard she tried to maintain it. But power? Requiem was addicted to its sweet taste. It was a high that had no peer, so she would tolerate one to indulge in the other. Even if it involved a public alley and— she wrinkled her nose in distaste—dirt.

“A fucking lie!” Sonja spat in protest. “Kuh-juh!”

Requiem lowered her head until it was just inches above Sonja’s. “Is it a lie?” she goaded. She released one wrist and ran a fingertip over a nipple, circling it until it puckered into a hard knot.

A blush rose on Sonja’s cheeks, and her eyes narrowed into a glower. Requiem gave a low laugh.

“So conflicted. You want to tell me to fuck off, but you’re so aroused at the thought that I might finally give you what you’ve always wanted—what poor little Nabi wanted—that you can barely see straight.”

Requiem rolled her hips against her, and Sonja’s crushing grip fell away completely. Requiem’s diaphragm gratefully expanded properly for the first time in seven minutes. Her relief was enormous.

She should probably kill Sonja now. Or flee. Or both. But she wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. No, no. It comes along so rarely, the chance to show another person who really holds the power. The chance to crush the pitiful idea that Sonja had any control at all when playing in Requiem’s arena was truly delicious. Teach this lesson right the first time, and it would last a lifetime.

Sonja was about to become an apt pupil. She would walk away tonight and never again doubt who was in charge.

“You’ve wanted me for how long?” Requiem demanded, lips curling.

Sonja gritted her teeth.

“No need to be shy. Tell me, and I might even let you have a taste.” She gave her a lingering, dark look filled with every illicit promise.

A tremor ran through Sonja’s body, and Requiem offered a knowing smile. Then she struck, her teeth latching onto Sonja’s neck, biting hard. To her satisfaction, Sonja actually mewed. Requiem pulled back and laughed that Sonja looked appalled by her own response.

“Oh my dear, little Nabi, you liked that. Didn’t you?” Requiem taunted.

Sonja scowled and shook her head.

“I don’t believe you,” Requiem said. “Last chance—nod for me if you want this, or I’ll just stop right now and leave you all hot and bothered.”

Sonja glared at her, but there was hunger in her eyes. Slowly, with a reluctant jerking motion as if it physically pained her, Sonja gave the smallest of nods. A heady rush of power surged through Requiem, and she smiled triumphantly.

She bent over Sonja and latched onto a plump brown nipple, viciously attacking it. Sonja squirmed beneath her. Knowing her strength when it was unleashed excited Requiem all the more.

Something clawed at Requiem’s pants. She looked down to discover Sonja’s hand worming its way up her leathers, towards her centre. She growled, snatched it back, and flattened Sonja’s wrist to the ground. “You want to play with me, you want me to allow this, then you play my way.”

Sonja tossed her an irritated look but complied. Moments later, Requiem unbuttoned Sonja’s jeans, shoved her gloved hand inside, and pushed past the flimsy cotton to find a slickness. She rubbed fiercely as Sonja wriggled and gasped.

Requiem paused, looked her directly in the eye, and positioned her gloved fingers at Sonja’s entrance. In the strange, dappled light, she wondered what this looked like, this frantic coupling of a towering woman engulfing her smaller, willing prey.

She entered her with two fingers and no preamble, and Sonja issued a low moan, followed by a string of Korean too fast for Requiem to decipher. It didn’t need much translation. Sonja’s heat warmed her sleek black gloves, and the sticky, obscene sounds of their meeting filled the night air.

Sonja’s gasps were choked but loud enough to draw attention. Requiem slammed her hand over her mouth. “Shut up,” she demanded.

Sonja viciously bit her glove, and Requiem snarled, jerking her hand away. She grabbed a handful of hair, tugging her head back roughly. That exposed Sonja’s neck, and she couldn’t resist. Requiem made short work of claiming it with her teeth, scraping, then licking to ease the pain, and then nipping and biting once more. Sonja cried out as she undulated against her.

Requiem pulled her hand out of the pants, rolled back onto her haunches, and in one powerful move, yanked down Sonja’s jeans and underwear until they were at her knees.

This was exactly where she wanted her. Unable to move, unable to attack, bare and exposed to Requiem’s gaze.

Requiem studied her as one might consider a specimen under glass. Sonja’s hairless lower lips, delicate, pink, and swollen, were wet with arousal. Sonja shivered before her. In anticipation or cold, Requiem couldn’t say.

“Such a lovely body, little Nabi,” she purred. She traced several scrapes and nicks on her torso and thighs with her fingers. “Love bites from our colleagues, I see,” she said. “How thoughtful of them to leave souvenirs.”

Sonja smirked. “I left worse on them. Those still walking, anyway.”

“I have no doubt,” Requiem agreed with an amused smile and continued her slow journey south, her finger slipping lower until it found her slit once more. She dipped into the wetness, running up and down, then lifted her slippery leather-clad finger higher. She rolled the protruding clit in a circle. Sonja made an excited gasp, so Requiem focused on the exposed little protrusion, teasing, twirling, rolling.

“You want this, don’t you,” Requiem said with a purr. “Me, fucking you? How long have you thought about it? How long have you wanted me? Tell me.”

Sonja moaned. Requiem flicked her clit hard. Sonja gave a small, startled grunt of pain, so Requiem did it again and was satisfied to achieve the same result.

“You get off on this,” Requiem said in a low voice. “The danger. The killing’s just incidental for you, isn’t it? The excitement comes from everything else. The build-up…” She pulled her fingers away from her clit, slid them down her swollen lips, pleased at Sonja’s soft whimper of regret at the loss of sensation. She rammed her fingers deep inside her, three this time.

“The build-up beforehand and the high after the pay-off,” Requiem pumped again, “that’s what turns you on. Danger and thrills. Not the kills.”

She listened to the noise, the slippery, sucking noise of leather pushing in and out of soaked flesh. “But what you love is this, with me,” she continued, slamming her fingers in harder, “most of all.”

A whimper was her answer.

“No comment?” Requiem lifted her eyebrow and looked up to study Sonja’s upturned face, flushed red, eyes blinking into the night. “If I sat on your face, if I made you lick me, would you like that? Little Nabi finally gets her tongue on the great Requiem’s cunt.”

Sonja whimpered at the deliberately provocative word, and her head rolled listlessly to one side, her breath coming in pants. Requiem withdrew her sopping fingers and gave her clit another powerful flick. “Well?”

“Screw you.” Sonja gasped. The words seemed wrenched from her.

“Not unless I allow it.” Requiem sneered. A siren wailed in the distance. “Not long now.”

She thumbed Sonja’s clit in circles, smirking as it twitched, begging for more. Sonja made a low keening noise.

“Say it,” Requiem ordered. “You’ve wanted me since?”

“Fuck off.” Then came another stream of Korean. This time, she recognised more than a few words, each worse than the last.

“No need to be crass. I might just leave you like this if you don’t choose your words better.”

She pulled her hand away, wiping her essence down Sonja’s bare thighs. Then she leaned forward, mouth just over her prey’s. “You want me,” she told Sonja cockily, looking her in the eye. “Desperately. You always have. And that is not a lie.”

Sonja reared up until her lips brushed against Requiem’s mouth. Requiem snapped her head away in distaste. “No kissing,” she snapped. “I’m not your fucking girlfriend.”

“Requiem,” Sonja moaned. “I…please.”

“Better.” Requiem rewarded her by moving back to hip level and watching her closely. She bent just above Sonja’s clit. “How long have you wanted me? Mmm?” she murmured over the heated skin.

Sonja hesitated. Requiem tapped her clit with her tongue. “Since before Dimitri left Lee’s crew?”

Sonja nodded, and Requiem rewarded her with another quick flick of her tongue over her clit. Sonja’s thighs trembled, and she reached for Requiem’s hair.

Requiem slapped her hands away. “No.”

The ambulance’s wail grew louder.

“Answer me! Since when?”

“The day you started training at Mr Lee’s.”

Requiem looked at her triumphantly. “So—it turns out I didn’t lie, then.”

“No,” Sonja said, her voice defeated. Ragged. She didn’t even bother to curse her existence this time.

“No,” Requiem agreed and covered her cunt with the flat of her tongue, luxuriating in the creamy, piquant taste, lavishing the skin with her warmth and leaving shining wet trails. Her tongue’s rough flesh slipped over the clit, swirling and jabbing.

Sonja squeezed her eyes shut, started to speak, then gasped, shrieked and came. Hard. Requiem lapped up her essence, then pulsed her tongue inside her. Sonja’s thighs trembled anew.

Requiem rose up on her haunches.

Sonja looked at her. “My turn,” she said quickly, almost fearfully. And there was so much desire in those eyes that Requiem had to glance away. First loves were a powerful thing. Hell, she knew all about that.

“You promised,” Sonja added. She seemed ashamed of her neediness and bit her lip. Requiem experienced the same surge of power she’d felt the moment she realised she could teach this one a lesson about the game.

Requiem stood fluidly, walked over Sonja to plant a boot on either side of her ribs, and stared down at her. “Eager, are we?” she said. “Well, it’s true; I did promise.”

She paused there for a moment, cocking her head as she listened to the wail of the ambulance growing incrementally louder. Then she glanced back down again, to take in the eagerness in Sonja’s glazed eyes as she watched her.

She unbuckled the belt on her leather pants and, achingly slowly, slid them down her muscled legs. Sonja stared, unblinking, as though memorising every detail.

When Requiem reached just above her ankles, she ran her hands back up her legs. They were mainly smooth with only two scars—one from a stray bullet; the other a knife that missed its mark. Her thighs were powerful, and she was aware enough to know she was a remarkable specimen of her gender. It wasn’t vanity. Simply a fact to be exploited when necessary.

Sonja’s irises grew wide with desire, and pride welled within Natalya.

“Impatient?” she teased her as she trailed a finger over her own mound, over her underwear. She smiled at the frustrated growl.

Requiem hooked her thumbs in black cotton—tight, practical, boy-cut panties—and slid them down her legs. And then she stood, hands on hips, like a goddess. Sonja absorbed her so intently that she seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.

Sonja’s nipples had grown erect again, and her breathing had begun to deepen.

“Oh god,” Sonja whispered so softly that Requiem almost missed it. “Neh…”

Slowly, Requiem knelt, one knee to either side of Sonja’s head, one ankle over each shoulder, and the straining stretch of her leather pants now pressed into Sonja’s chest. Requiem bent forward, scooped the back of Sonja’s head in one hand, and without a word, pushed her mouth into her folds.

“As promised,” she said. “You have five minutes. I need to be gone before that ambulance arrives. Impress me.”

She leaned back slightly and watched as Sonja eagerly went to work, sliding her tongue over her slit, slipping in and out, scraping the clit. She had some talent; Requiem had to give her that. Her muscles turned to liquid, and then came the tell-tale twitch in her cunt that said someone was doing something very right to it.

Requiem held her firmly against her neatly trimmed mound, not giving an inch. She knew her face would appear the picture of control. She reminded herself who she was. Who was receiving the lessons. Whose game this was. Who always won.

Her nostrils twitched, though, when that tongue tapped her in exactly the right place. Her thighs quivered with the effort of holding her position, and her bare knees drilled painfully into the dirt.

Sonja found her wellspring. Requiem was completely soaked from this display of submission from the second-best assassin she’d ever known.

“Clean it up,” she ordered, her voice strained as the tongue stroked and plundered her. “That’s it.” She tugged Sonja’s head tighter to her and, much to her chagrin, groaned when Sonja’s tongue performed a sublime little pirouette that made her want to fuck her properly. In a bed. For a week.

But that wasn’t who Requiem was. Or Natalya, for that matter.

The siren’s wail was much closer now. It had to be only a couple of blocks away.

“Time’s up,” she ground out. The frenzied lashing increased, and her clit ached to come. So close. The power and adrenalin surged through her. Sonja was trembling, too. Requiem realised the other woman was close to coming again.

Well, Requiem smirked, Sonja was tasting an immortal. Who could blame her?

Sonja’s tongue froze mid-stroke, her body shaking, and she made a strangled noise at the back of her throat. Requiem exhaled, lowered Sonja’s head to the ground, and rose, unsated physically, but emotionally feeling like a god.

She looked down at herself. Her sex dripped in the faint light, moisture from her arousal clinging to the tiny hairs. She stood stock still for a second, allowing the night air to hit her. The coolness washing over her furnace was heady. She gave herself a brief rub over her clit, enjoying the sensation as it sat up in delight, purring. Had she been alone, she might have allowed herself to come right then.

Instead she cleared her throat. “Close but no cigar,” she told Sonja. She pulled her underwear and leathers back up her thighs quickly, watching the disappointment on Sonja’s face.

“Was it everything you dreamed of?” Requiem taunted as she rebelted her pants. She walked languidly over to her Ninja, found her discarded MP3 player and helmet, then slid onto its seat, unable to resist rubbing herself against the smooth, hard surface. An electric frisson shot straight to her centre.

Christ, she was close.

“Did I live up to your teenage fantasies? Was it the same as when you fucked yourself under the sheets every school night?”

Sonja’s chest rose and fell swiftly. Even from this distance, her embarrassed flush was visible in the low light.

“I’ll take your two orgasms as a yes. I, however, remain less impressed.” She slid her helmet on, flicked up the visor, and studied her. “Oh, but you can tell your boss that he’s right. Ken Lee is on my dance card in the near future. I have a very special exit planned for the man who sells the bodies of innocent young girls.”

She gave her a cool, twisted smile. “It’s quite shocking really.”

Sonja scowled, sitting up. She couldn’t go anywhere with her pants in a twisted mess and she’d apparently just remembered her main mission.

“Fuck!” she said, scrabbling at her jeans.

Requiem watched, revving her bike as a pointed reminder that she was now too far away for Sonja to stop her.

“I believe I already did.” Requiem let her gaze linger over the half-naked form. “You’re welcome,” she said with a cruel smile. “Oh, my little Nabi, look what you let me do to you when you should have been killing me. You’re a terrible assassin.”

Requiem gave her bike another rev and pulled away with a roar of the engine. She didn’t look back.

She passed an ambulance screeching to a stop outside the nightclub. A crowd of onlookers stood on the footpath, including many of her colleagues and several agitated bodyguards who were gesturing frantically to the emergency vehicle.

She focused on the cleansing sounds of Arvo Pärt as it filtered into her brain, drowning out the chaos. The thrum of her black beast vibrated between her legs.

Well, she’d had worse nights. A lot worse.

Requiem smiled.

Chapter 2

Three months later

Natalya woke precisely at 5:15am. She carried out her morning routine efficiently, made her bed with military corners and then dressed in black leggings and a form-fitting sports T-shirt.

She made a quick tour of her home, checking positions of locks as she went. Then she turned on her computer’s security bot program and set it to run through overnight camera footage and look for anomalies. It would beep if anything was amiss.

From the street, her residence might be dismissed as an old warehouse, hidden behind twelve-foot high brick walls. Only the roofline was visible to passersby.

Natalya padded down to her indoor gym and stepped onto the treadmill. For a moment she stopped and stared out of the floor-to-ceiling window at the strip of dismal grey sky above the riot of vines scribbling across the wall that encircled her property. She gave her head a shake and began her usual seven kilometre run.

She increased her pace quickly and began her mental exercise of tuning out distractions. She was a rock. Powerful. Solid. She controlled her world. The world didn’t control her. Her feet pounded like a metronome, ticking away in her brain: One-four, two-four, three-four, four-four, inhale, exhale. Repeat.

Precisely thirty minutes later, she stepped off the machine, breathing more heavily but not hard. She shook out a neatly folded towel from the stack next to her equipment and mopped up her perspiration. She began to stretch her arms and shoulders in preparation for her weight-training session, which would be followed by an hour of yoga. A faint beep sounded in the distance. She paused to listen. A rapid series of beeps followed.

Her alarm. Her home’s security system included cameras and movement sensors to go with the coiled barbed-wire and the poisonous, prickly climbers running along the top of her walls. No intruder could get far without detection—or pain. Because, if they made it over the wall, an array of thorned plants and a tight row of Hippomane mancinella trees would cause a most painful reaction.

She jogged to the lounge, opened the sliding glass door, and stared out over her property. Sergei Duggan was attempting to cross her lawn. Attempting being the operative word. She lowered herself onto her travertine bench, crossed her legs at the ankle, and watched as the renowned killer’s skin reacted violently to her aptly named “little apple of death” trees.

It was pathetic, really, a big strong man like this reduced to his knees by flora. It was almost educational. She flicked invisible lint off her leggings as he floundered before her, a fleshy sack of human failings.

He grimaced in pain, rubbed anxiously at his blistering skin, and cursed furiously. He looked at her, his dark eyes filled with an anguished plea he was too proud to utter.

It would be pointless anyway. What did he expect her to do? Save his slimy neck?