Death of an Assassin (Saint Roch City Book 1) by Ian Hiatt

face. Rosy cheeks. Full, crimson lips. His mouth parts just enough to let me know my hook is in.
    “Ivan will not stop until girl says who pays her to kill Mister Donahue.”
    Once I’ve pinned my prey, elaboration is really unnecessary. There’s no need to sink a separate hook once you’ve caught the fish. “But I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt anyone!” I cry, the warmth spreading across my face refreshingly not blood.
    “Tell Ivan, witch!” The beast of a man lurches toward me with the knife.
    Jessie launches up from his chair and grabs the curved butcher’s blade from Ivan’s table of instruments and swings it at the man. Ivan grunts as the blade sinks into his shoulder. “What is Jessie doing?” He may as well have been bitten by a mosquito.
    Jessie reaches for the next largest blade on the table and turns to Ivan, but before the knife can find a home in the torturer, Ivan swings a fist and grabs Jessie around the neck.
    “You will not hurt Ivan again, little boy!” Ivan shakes his fist, and with a sickening crack, the thug who bested me earlier in the night falls limp. Ivan flexes his hand and several more pops and crunches follow as he drops the lifeless body and turns on me.
    “What is this power, witch?” he bellows. He reaches up, and with a wet
thunk
pulls the butcher’s blade from his own flesh and levels it at me.
    I stare at him and sigh, fidgeting in my own chair. “What are the odds that Donahue’s torturer is gay?” I ask in annoyance to no one in particular.
    Ivan stares at me dumbfounded, his face showing the shock at my guess―the only explanation for why he’s not cutting my bonds to try to have me all to himself.
    He opens his mouth, but before he can utter a word, Jessie’s body crackles audibly.
    Ivan and I both glance at the lump of a man as the electrical static noise grows louder and voices begin to fill the room.
    “Contact! Contact! Contact!”
    From somewhere beyond, gunfire splits the night.
    “Who’s shooting?”
    “Where is it?”
    More blasts from guns. The pops of pistols.
    “East wing! East wing! Can’t get a lock on it, she’s moving too fast!”
    She?
    Ivan leans down and fishes a radio from Jessie’s coat pocket, and he fiddles with the knob.
    “She’s not going down. No… no!”
A shriek of pain. Choking sobs. Then nothing.
    “Dodgson, get a grip!”
    The repetitive booming of what I think is a shotgun.
    Moments of thick silence pass, and I fidget, trying to escape my ropes. Ivan stares intently at the radio, but I know damn well that no assassin ever had the pleasure of experiencing a rescue mission. Whatever hell is being unleashed past the four walls of my interrogation room, it’s not to my benefit.
    “She killed him! Shit… repeat, he’s dead. The
―
Oh, God!”
    Gunfire crackles over the radio and outside in the estate. The automatic fire of rifles. More pistols. Multiple weapons blasting away at some unknown enemy.
    The radio falls quiet. And so does the house.
    As I sit and Ivan stands, the only noise either of us can hear is his heavy breathing. It’s a strange thing to see three hundred pounds of Russian muscle quake, and while I know I’m in the same situation he’s in, I can’t help but enjoy this moment.
    I sigh, the noise making Ivan spin on me, holding up my knife and dropping the radio. It cracks and sizzles on the hard cement floor. Leaning back, I let my now blond hair drop down against my back. I’m covered in sweat, blood, and grime, but I still managed to halve my captors in only a few minutes. My hair returns to its darker shade as I relax.
    “So now what, big boy?” I ask, dropping the seductive tone for one of mocking.
    He shakes his head as if he’s knocking off an annoying bug. “Girl stays here. Ivan will go find Mister Donahue. Explain to him that girl killed Jessie.” As though the radioed events we heard were something that happened miles away, not just over our heads.
    Ivan walks to the door and grabs