"Well, how about dinner tonight? Let me treat you, the way a girl like you deserves."

I'm about to bite back and tell him I'm not a girl anymore, but I save my breath, remembering Dinah and Katya's words. They're right. I've been pushing men away for far too long. Maybe it's time for me to get back in the game.

"Okay," I reply hesitantly, fighting back my instincts that are telling me to run. Dr. Martin shoots me a brilliant smile and I do my best to replicate it, but I'm tense, nervous. "I would love to have dinner with you tonight, Dr. Mart… Andrew."

His eyes warn me not to repeat my mistake from earlier, and he smiles when I use his first name.

"Wonderful." He picks himself up and stares down at me, as if he's trying to devour me with his gaze.

I glance up too, picking up things about him I haven't noticed before. Like how light blond his hair is amid the streaks of gray. How chiseled sharp his jaw is, and how his faint hint of stubble reminds me of one of my foster fathers. It sends an uncomfortable shiver down my spine, and I shake my head to get rid of the thought.

"I'll pick you up at your apartment around seven thirty. Does that work for you?"

"Sounds good," I say, hoping he can't hear the uncomfortable edge to my voice. I rattle off my address and phone number, and he saves them both in his phone before flashing me another grin. "I'll see you tonight."

"Cannot wait." He rubs my shoulder for a second before disappearing down the hallway. I only notice I've been holding my breath when he finally leaves, and I exhale a sigh of relief just as Dinah reappears with the now empty box of donuts.

"So, how did it go?" she gushes, and I make a face at her.

"As well as it could have, I suppose. I'm meeting him for dinner tonight."

"How perfect!" She claps her hands together with excitement and I cringe inwardly. I'm really, really not looking forward to this date. Not only because of Dr. Martin... Andrew's expectations, but my friends', too. "You're going to have a great time. Now, for your clothes…"

As Dinah launches into a long monologue about date outfits, I wonder why I accepted the doctor's offer in the first place. I should've just let him down gently; explain I don't date.

Besides, there is a rumor I've heard floating around the hospital, gossip circulating about one of the other nurses, Janine, who got transferred to another hospital in the area – one that's well-known for being badly run, and not a great place to work.

I've heard it whispered that Dr. Martin was the man behind her transfer, and though I never thought to ask why, I have a feeling I wouldn't like the reason.

My mind instantly goes to Rebecca Serrano, another nurse, a head nurse to be specific, who left a few days ago. The staff has been busy gossiping about her reason for leaving.

Some say her husband is in the mafia, others swear they saw her with a known hitman in the city.

Whatever the reason is, Rebecca has gone. Just another unsolved mystery to add to the mix.

I shift my thoughts back to Dr. Martin. I have my doubts about the guy, but my friend seems so excited, I allow myself a glimmer of hope, too.

Maybe it's finally time for me to stop living my life like a recluse.

Maybe it's time for me to live a little.

Besides, there's no doubt Dr. Martin is the perfect date. Charming, kind and a talented doctor, he's everything a woman would want in a partner.

I just need to ignore the nagging voice of doubt in the back of my head, telling me something's going to go terribly wrong tonight.

 

 

3

 

 

Jasper

 

 

My little Petal leads such a boring life it should’ve turned me off — yesterday or the day before that.

Or the day I first saw her less than a week ago.

It hasn’t.

Here I am opposite her shabby building. The walls are badly chipped, as if they haven’t been painted since the place was built.

The security level is next to shit. Anyone can come in and out of that building without any problem. Even the guard is an alcoholic who pours vodka into his juice at ten in the morning.

I know because I watched. Correction. I’ve been watching for the past few days.

Since she smiled at me in that innocent, yet fake way, I haven’t been able to get my little Petal out of my head.

It’s not from the lack of trying.

I would rather be focusing on my next job, tracking Costa’s heir and finishing his miserable life, but no. Every morning, when my night research is done, I find myself here or at the hospital.

Rebecca Serrano took her daughter and left town as I told her to. After that, I had no reason to go back to the hospital or to stand near the parking lot, hovering over an ugly Honda, waiting for the one who drove it.

I followed Petal to her house that first day. Yesterday, I signed for the apartment right across from her apartment’s balcony. Mine is a newer and bigger building.

Finding a new apartment was one of my priorities anyway. I don’t live in one place for more than a few months. Being a creature of habit will only give my enemies a sure way to find and kill me.

Lucio Costa isn’t feared because of his wealth and his power, he’s feared because he kills efficiently and without hesitation.

Or rather, I do.

The reason Lucio’s enemies never catch up with him is because they can never catch up with me.

And not from the lack of trying. The moment they find me, my storage, my weapons, I’ve already moved along.

I’ve been called detached and cold. I would say I’m efficient. I get the job done better than anyone in my field and then move along.

Now, I live in this two-bedroom apartment that I forced the college student who used to live here to evacuate in twenty-four hours. I offered him the apartment downtown that Lucio had given me a few years ago. I never used it and I have no interest to.

Lucio’s shit was never my shit. I’m just paying him back the debt I owe. He pulled me from the clutches of death a long time ago and it’s with death that I repay him.

My apartment is opposite Petal’s but a little above hers so the view from my balcony is straight into her living room — if you can call it that.

Her blinds are open as she crouches and feeds her cat. Two, actually.

Someone is a cat lady.

A cat lady with a fake smile and little to no friends.

There’s something curious about Petal. The way she moves, how she talks to people, how she slips out at the end of her shift. It’s like she’s invisible, and the only way she makes herself visible is by thinning her lips and smiling in that fake way.

Fake smile.

Fake existence.

“What are you hiding, my little Petal?” I retrieve my binoculars and sit on the chair on my balcony with only the darkness as my companion.

She must be hiding something, or she wouldn’t have been so efficient at faking, at choosing to be invisible.

It’s a little over seven and she just returned from her shift. After she feeds her cats, she’ll prepare herself dinner, watch crime shows on Netflix, then read something or go through her laptop and then sleep.

It’s the first time I’ll get to watch the routine from this perfect position and not through her building’s fire escape, where I barely got any view to her living room.