“I don’t care,” he said, his voice unwavering, authoritarian. “You are to eliminate the target on Friday.”

Since she’d never uncovered information to prove a Veiler innocent, she wondered if this would have been his standard reply on previous cases. She didn’t think so. Something about the way he didn’t move a muscle, didn’t let any more air escape his weathered lips than was necessary, told her this time was unique. Why?

“Actually, information I’ve found proves he’s—”

“Guilty. I told you this was your last chance. If you do not follow through with the elimination, there will be consequences.”

“Like me at the bottom of the river? You told me. I know.” Suddenly, his threats held little power over her. Once she found Dobson and figured out a way to save Hugh, he could put twenty-pound ankle weights on her for all she cared.

“Not you. Kensie and Francesca.” His lips barely moved yet the message came through loud and clear.

A weight knotted the back of her throat and plummeted to her stomach. Horror at the words he’d said swept a chill over her lips and down her spine.

He didn’t care about Hugh’s innocence. And he didn’t care about punishing her friends—and his employees—if she didn’t comply.

She’d dedicated herself to P.I.E. and in the blink of an eye she hated herself for it. The man she’d thought worked with integrity did no such thing. He’d just solidified her worst fears and confirmed all her doubts.

She hated him. Hated him for taking her loyalty and…and… God, if she’d been complicit in eliminating other innocents, what did that make her?

Goddamn him. She held her breath as she willed her body not to shake and her voice not to waver when she said, “This is my deal. Take it out on me and me alone.”

“I’ve come to the conclusion there’s no fun in that. You’re reckless, brash. Couldn’t care less about what happens to you. And despite your recent failures, still my best employee.”

She studied him, wishing like hell she’d figured him out sooner. “You don’t care whether or not this Langston guy is innocent?” She tried to sound detached, apathetic, while her insides twisted at the mention of Hugh’s name.

“Last chance,” he reiterated, returning his hands to his lap.

The client definitely had an ulterior motive. And her boss…was he in on it?

During her twelve years with P.I.E. they’d never talked much about Veilers. Funny, she thought, staring him right back in the eye—something that made up such a big component of her occupation was the subject least talked about. Instead, they all carried out their jobs without examination.

“Can I ask you a question?” she ventured.

“You can.”

“Have you ever met a Veiler you liked?”

The slits of his eyes narrowed further and while slight, his eyebrows furrowed, causing a wrinkle above his nose. She’d caught him by surprise. Seconds ticked by before he shifted his weight to the side of his high-back leather chair.

“Yes.”

An honest answer, she surmised by his contemplation, and one that scared the hell out of her.

Two days later, a cool breeze wafted in through the bedroom window as Tess sat motionless in the middle of the floor. Her legs were crossed, hands on her knees, back straight, head forward. She stared at a tiny speck on the wall beneath the open window.

She took a cleansing breath in. Held it, slowly let it out. Repeated this for the umpteenth time. The wind picked up outside, the Santa Ana breezes stirring up pollen, dust and trouble. The unsettling air tore her attention away from the focal point she’d tried to maintain for the last twenty minutes.

Trouble. She was shoulder-deep in it.

The digital numbers on the clock next to her bed said 8:26. Three hours and thirty-four minutes until Friday. Not that she was counting.

The elimination she’d been assigned to take over for Francesca turned out to be more difficult than she thought. It had taken the entire allotted time. Not because she’d lost her touch. No. She was still the best goddamn eliminator out there. She could have had the deed done in the first few hours. No one would have been the wiser. There was just one problem.

She didn’t want to do it.

She couldn’t bring herself to kill him.

The him was a forty-something working-class man and demon. He owned his own business, had a family and yes, had done some nasty things.

But he wanted to change.

When Tess had caught him earlier that evening in the act of stealing a man’s soul in the alley behind his small Italian restaurant, he’d slumped to the ground and confessed his sins…

“I can’t help myself, Tess. I want to better myself and what better way than taking the good I see in others?”

“You’re killing innocents, George,” she answered.

“I know,” he groaned, “I’m cursed. If my wife finds out, she’ll divorce me. My kids won’t want to see me. I’ve been trying to stop, really I have, but the devil won’t let me. Says I traded my soul to marry the love of my life.”

She looked down at him, his potbelly stomach hanging over his belt. “Did you?”

“Of course I did. But that’s beside the point.”

“What’s the point then?”

He pushed himself up against the brick wall, but still his double chin was evident. “True love.”

“Come again?”

“I want to be a better man for my wife. I want the goodness in me to overcome the demon. To beat it. What the hell did I know twenty years ago when I agreed to the deal? All I knew was that I was madly in love and would do anything to marry her.” He took a deep breath, looked up at her with reminiscent eyes. “There was another man, you know. A better man than me. He had money. Lots of it. She would have left me for him.”

Tess felt sorry for the guy. “How do you know?”

“Just a feeling I had. In case you haven’t noticed, I still don’t have much self confidence.”

“So you bargained with the devil.”

“She was my sunshine, my rainbow on a cloudy day. The way her eyes sparkled made me weak in the knees. She laughed at all my jokes. Liked her pizza the same way I do. Zucchini and pineapple.”

“Yuck.” Tess liked her pizza with mushrooms and red onions.

“I had to have her. It would have killed me if she walked away. So you see, I had no choice.” There was no mistaking the sadness in his voice.

“There’s always a choice,” she replied.

One of the cooks poked his head out the screen door. “We’re getting low on provolone, boss. You want I should switch the special to mozzarella?”

“Sure,” George answered. “Whatever you think.”

The screen slammed shut with a thud. George flinched.

As usual, Tess didn’t know who had put the hit out on George, but she wasn’t sure he deserved to die. Be punished, yes. Stealing souls was so not okay. But however messed up his reasons were, they were sort of unselfish. He did it for love. Yes, he cheated and molded his wife’s free will to fit his own desires, but love made people do stupid things. And the marriage was still working and they had children together.

Still, she had a job to do and it was now or never.

His head lolled forward into his hands. Perfect. She couldn’t ask for a better position. She pulled out the small sword from underneath the back of her shirt, knowing it would take all of two seconds to slice it through his neck and be done with it.

There was just one problem. When she lifted the sword ready to swing, her arms started to shake, sweat dripped from her temples, and her conscience screamed for her to pause, to think about what she was about to do. The man was hopelessly in love. She couldn’t fault him that.

But this wasn’t about him.

It was about her.

She didn’t want to kill anymore. Regardless of what George had done or if his sins were pardonable, she didn’t want to be the one to end his life. She didn’t want blood on her hands anymore. She had a choice to make and she wanted to stop. Stop eliminating.