Chapter 1

• Chapter One
• Holland, November 2009
• “What the hell do you think you are doing?”
• Katarina Pajari looked up at her new assignment, Ellsa Jabari, her first ever babysitting gig. If the chic wasn’t a cool cat, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. Ellsa wouldn’t be having any kind of conversation with anyone, ever again. That’s how much Katarina hated babysitting operatives, especially when it’s clear they aren’t cut out for the job. She lived under the motto, ‘if you can’t do the job, get out of the game’, but Ellsa was a special circumstance.
• Katarina looked her over with a keen eye. No twitching, no glassy eyes, sweating or incoherent speech. She looked okay, in control, stable. Sane. They still had some time then before things got hairy. Good. She really would hate killing her so early in their new friendship. It was day three and counting without an episode and she really hoped Ellsa stayed on the roll for the rest of the night or the week. Highly unlikely, but she was trying to be an optimist.
• “What does it look like I’m doing?”
• Katarina turned back to look through her scope lens at the man in the hotel room across the street. He was undressing now, slowly like a professional stripper giving a sensual, seductive dance with the slightest of movements for his captivated audience, showing off his rippling yummy muscles. The perceptive fucker. He was putting on a show. For her.
• He knew she was watching. Katarina’s finger twitched on the trigger of the sniper rifle. She should put a round in his stupid mouth and destroy the web of desire he had her trapped in with one side of his mouth slightly lifted on one side. It was a seductive smile, like he knew exactly what he was doing to her.
• The palm of a hand filled her view, “Killing him won’t solve anything.”
• I beg to differ. Killing him would solve a slew of her problems and in particular one she was having at that very moment. She hated when someone toyed with her. She especially hated it when it was a sexual game against her; to test her, distract her, to defeat her. She used it on her marks and to have the tables turned on her just pissed her off enough to paint that floor length window with his brain matter.
• When it was clear the palm wasn’t moving anytime soon, with a raged grumble, Katarina stood from where she lay stomach down on the table and glared at Ellsa, “You have another solution?”
• Ellsa gave her an incredulous look as if the answer was right in front of her, dancing a gig on her nose and she couldn’t see it.
• “Yeah, scratch the itch and by scratch I mean fuck him not kill him. Just because a man drives you to distraction doesn’t automatically mean put a bullet in his head to get your concentration back.”
• Katrina scratched the nervous itch at the back of her head just below her hairline. Seeing Ellsa, this human side of her made her nervous. At the moment, she had this starry look in her eyes, a slight lift of her lips as if she was reliving a perfect memory and this pure look of contentment over her face. But that quickly disappeared and was replaced by a creased brow, wet eyes and trembling lips before she hid it all behind her perfected seductive assassin face.
• “I have a feeling you are speaking from experience and if I’m right, don’t you have a two-year-old running around somewhere because you scratched your itch?”
• Ellsa’s eyes narrowed threateningly, “Katarina, that’s my son’s uncle. I will not let you kill him!”
• “Fine!” she responded through clenched teeth and stomped to their hotel room door with determined strides.
• “Where are you going?” Ellsa called after her.
• “To scratch my fucking itch!” she slammed the door shut behind her.
• Five minutes later, she was at his door jimming the lock. It had occurred to her to just knock, but if he was a good spy, he wouldn’t be asleep in the same room he was exhibiting himself in. He’d walked in front of that floor to ceiling window drapes pulled all the way open so anyone could see the layout of his single room clearly. It was spy 101 when setting a trap. But then again he might be two kinds of idiot. The first, a cocky bastard who thinks he’s invisible because he’d survived a few brushes with death. The second, he was just a fool who didn’t pay attention in spy class and has been lucky not to be murdered in his bed, yet. But this guy, Derek Silva was not the latter. A little of the former, definitely. She was sure he was already in the adjoining room sound asleep.
• She finally got the door unlocked, but she didn’t push it open right away. She straightened to her full height then gave it a little push. The door swung open slowly and noiselessly until it hit the wall. She stared into the darkness and listened. Not even a whisper of movement. She smirked. She was right, cocky bastard but not an idiot. Hopefully the same can be said about her.
• She took a tentative step in, reached for the light switch by the door jam and right when she was about to flick it on, a massive hand wrapped around her wrist. Damn! She never considered he would move the bureau from where it sat before against the wall and close to the door to take its place. This was why she wanted to kill him, he muddled her thoughts. She let him pull her fully into the room. She felt him sidle up behind her, then the door shut taking away the little light from the hallway.
• “Katarina Pajari. Can’t say I’m surprised you dropped by,” he got closer, his front pressing against her back, his grip still around her wrist. Katarina stayed very still.