A missed shot.
It was also perfect for Penny.
Or rather, perfect for what she needed. The large metal shades on the system kept her hidden from view of anyone who might be on a higher, nearby roof watching for her. The roof of the office building itself, despite the crosswinds, allowed her a perfect view directly inside the front of the restaurant through the windows, a good portion of the road, and the entrance of the business.
It couldn’t get better.
With only the barrel of her rifle sticking out on the side of the roof, Penny laid flat to the cement and came eye-level with the scope on her gun. The case lay open beside her, waiting and ready for her to dismantle and pack up the weapon as quickly as she arrived to unpack it.
The butt rested comfortably against her shoulder as she moved the sights to scan the road and entrance of the restaurant. Cars were already arriving, dropping off the only people who would have access to the business for the evening. Guests of the engagement party between Senator Gilles Tracey and Allegra Hatheway.
Penny checked the windows, too, and the people inside. Some faces she recognized, but that was only from old family ties. She wasn’t late—or too early. History and the expectations of people like her mother’s family told her that some shit never changed. The party might have started ten minutes ago, but the guests of the hour were never late. Everyone else was always early.
Penny didn’t mind waiting.
Soon, a black car with a familiar flag attached to the front and rear of the vehicle pulled up to the entrance of the restaurant. Even if Penny hadn’t noticed the political flags, the security that quickly moved from the entrance of the business to the sidewalk where they could open the rear doors of the car said more than enough. Another black car pulled up right behind, suits stepping out from every angle just to surround the town car with legs spread shoulder-width apart and hands folded at their backs.
She didn’t care about them.
Gilles Tracey stepped out of the car first—then, Allegra. Wearing a royal blue gown that matched the color of her soon-to-be husband’s vest and tie. The wind in the city streets had the skirt of the gown billowing around the two as they shared words, and the security stepped further back with neutral expressions.
At least they were neutral.
Allegra and Gilles were anything but. The man with gray at his temples whispered something Allegra’s way, his narrowed gaze and shake of his head saying more than what Penny could understand through the sights of her scope.
The man wasn’t happy.
Allegra tried to soothe ... like she did.
It didn’t work.
Body language spoke volumes—theirs was screaming. Yeah, Penny bet it was hard to sleep next to Allegra lately what with all the trouble Penny had caused for her mother and the senator. She couldn’t say she was sorry for it.
The only problem?
Penny didn’t have a clear shot.
But she might if only the senator would just mo—
“If you shoot,” she heard a dark, but familiar, voice say from somewhere behind her, “then anyone looking for you within a five-block radius will know exactly where you are. This building is twenty stories high—you’ll never make it down before someone is here.”
Penny had been holding her breath. The air slipped out with a name as her shoulders sagged, “Luca.”
She didn’t look away from the scope—didn’t know where he was except behind her. She didn’t take her finger off the trigger, either.
“Let’s be real, they’re all here—anyone wanting to claim the bounty, people from The League ... definitely protection for Allegra. You’ve made it entirely possible for them to connect the dots. Why wouldn’t they be here? You’ll have, at most, two minutes. Can you do this in two minutes, babe?”
God.
She still didn’t move even as she asked Luca, “How did you find me?”
10.
Luca
“HOW did you find me?”
Luca drew in the cold whisper of the wind with his next breath, wishing for even a second that he could remember what it felt like to be sane again. Penny’s question hung in the air between them, although from his vantage point where he had exited onto the roof through a hatched door, he could see her body flattened against the roof. He imagined he didn’t have the same vantage point as her, though, seeing as how she hadn’t looked away from the scope on the rather impressive rifle for even a blink in time.
Who was she seeing?
Someone driving on the street? A passerby on the sidewalk? Her target?
Allegra?
Luca couldn’t help but wonder if he was too late—it always felt like he arrived seconds after the big bang at every fucking point in his life.
“Well?” he heard her ask. “How?”
The question seemed simple. It wasn’t.
“Details aren’t really important,” he tried to say.
Hoping she took the deflection. She didn’t.
“But they always are. Especially in your business,” she tacked on for good measure. As if he needed the goddamn reminder.
Details were what got him here in the first place.
He’d been awake for going on forty-two hours. All it took was a single, early-morning phone call from his godfather. Cross confirmed what Luca already believed—Penny was going to take her chance of making a hit on Allegra at the woman’s official engagement dinner in Manhattan. Luca suddenly found himself in the heart of a city pouring over every square inch of a six-block radius that he could because ...
Shit, she had to be there. That’s where she was going to be.
No one could tell Luca that in all her years of training as an assassin that Penny would leave things to chance. She was exactly the type to stand out in a crowd—dangerous for her considering the current circumstances of a bounty on her head—so he expected he would have to find her in the shadows.
But the days turned into hours. And then minutes.
Luca should have been used to chasing ghosts by now, but it didn’t get easier. For whatever reason, the universe had decided to bless him with putting him in the right place at the right time that morning as he watched Penny scout the office building with several floors currently undergoing construction.
She was just there. He thought he’d hallucinated.
But no.
“In most cases,” he said, staying back behind the shadowed line that the hatch door afforded him. A three- or four-foot space on the roof separated him and Penny—a stream of yellow light illuminating the nothingness between them from the security light overhead. He doubted anyone could see her from the position she rested under the metal hood of the air conditioning unit, though. “But not for you. See, when I treated you like anything—anyone else—that I was tasked with finding, it always led me nowhere. You were never the same. You’re not like other people ... or things. How can I expect you to act like it?”
She made different choices. Her reasoning came from a different place. It couldn’t be the same.
He watched Penny’s back rise with a deep breath that he had to wonder was meant to steady her when she said, “If I ask you to leave—”
“I won’t.”
“You have to.”
She still hadn’t looked away from the scope. That crosswind came in strong with the next gust, and Penny cussed as her elbow tucked back along her side, telling him she had been preparing for a shot.