Killer by Francine Pascal

course. But he and Tom were made of the same genetic material. The exact same stock. Gaia
was
his. She was a Moore, first and foremost.
    Finally he sighed. He leaned back in the white sofa of his sparsely furnished Upper West Side apartment and glanced up at Pearl. The woman refused to sit. She looked very calm, very collected ...except for one telltale sign: a tiny muscle in her jaw that kept twitching. She was afraid. And he drank in her fear. It was like an oasis in the desert. It sustained him. All powerful people should fear him.
    â€œLet’s get down to business,” he said.
    Pearl nodded wordlessly.
    â€œAs I understand it, Ella’s still breathing,” Loki stated. His gaze flashed to the window, to the Manhattan skyline, glittering in the twilight of the setting sun. “Is that correct?”
    â€œYes,” she said softly.
    â€œYes,”
Loki repeated, imitating her meek voice. “You sound like a mouse, not a murderer. If you were in my position, what would you do?”
    Pearl shrugged. The muscle twitched again.
    Before she could answer, Loki reached inside his jacket and pulled out a custom-made nine-millimeter pistol. The silencer glinted in the fading sunlight. “I was thinking of putting a bullet through your skull.”
    â€œI realize I didn’t deliver my part of the agreement,” she stated stiffly, her poise crumbling, “but I’m sure you understand that there were extenuating circumstances—”
    â€œI’m not an understanding man, Pearl,” he interrupted. The safety latch released with a satisfying
click
.
    She took a few steps back, her gaze riveted to the shiny metal in his hand. “Everything was going according to our plan,” she insisted. “If Gaia hadn’t shown up . . .”
    He paused. “Are you blaming my niece for your mistake?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œGood.” Loki raised the gun and aimed the barreldirectly at Pearl’s forehead. Pity she would make a mess on his nice hardwood floors. That was something even
she
could appreciate. “You’re sweating, Pearl. It’s not very ladylike—”
    â€œGive me another chance!” Pearl cried. “No one is closer to Ella than me right now. I have an idea that absolutely
cannot
fail.”
    Loki hesitated . . . then lowered his arm by his side. Well. Hiring another assassin
would
be an inconvenience. Aswould cleaning thisplace up after he killed her. So he’d wait—then kill her after the job was done. Yes. She was lucky enough to have caught him in a good mood. She probably didn’t even know
how
lucky.
    â€œLet’s hear it,” he said.
    Â 
    A Way Out
    ELLA BLEW THROUGH THE PERRY
    Street brownstone with a force that rattled every hinge and musty floorboard. But in spite of her flailing limbs and pounding feet, in spite of her wild fantasies of smashing Gaia’s smarmy little face with an ax, a part of her mind was surprisingly calm. It was the part thatpictured Loki’s cold, arrogant eyes. The time had come to make him pay—to make them
all
pay. Loki. Gaia. Sam.
    But now there would be hell to pay. For all of them.
    â€œYou don’t control my life anymore,” Ella whispered. Her words drifted off the walls of George’s office, off the glass doors of his antique bookcases. Loki thought he’d molded her into some sort of puppet that couldn’t think for herself. One of hisminions. And maybe he had, in the past. Which was all well and good. That’s precisely what she wanted him to believe about the present.
    He was powerful, and he’d controlled her. Yes . . . she had to admit that to herself. She remembered thinking only very recently that she craved him the way an addict craved a drug. She was powerless to resist. But not anymore.
    Bending over beside George’s desk, she reached into the unused fireplace, her frantic hand feeling along the inside of the chimney. Shit . . . she