The Order

22

It was a name I never thought I'd hear again. A woman who completely turned my world upside down in every way possible. It was the only person on this planet who I could have even imagined a future with, a life with. She was my person. She was the one who made me believe in love, and also the one who made me promise myself I would never fall that hard again.

At the time, I thought she was my soulmate, my other half. Nadia was the only person I let in, the only person who I allowed the privilege to hold my heart.

And what did she do with it?

She broke it.

Nadia wasn't just beautiful and cunning, she was also manipulative, extremely lethal, and another S-Rank assassin. Anything she got her hands on was a weapon. It was a gift really. She once killed a man with only a magazine. I wasn't entirely sure how she did it, but it got the job done.

Another specialty of hers was disappearing. She was an enigma. She had the means and the skills to forge every form of identification for any country in the world. You compare one of her passports to the real thing, they'll think the legitimate one is the forgery. Monroe didn't find her, she wanted to be found, she wanted to be tracked. There would be no way of finding her otherwise.

Corporate made sure to make good use of Nadias special skillset. Her jobs were usually infiltration or espionage. She could make anyone believe anything if she tried, and she did during missions where she had to deceive and mislead her targets. Since she could kill a man with just about anything, she also was selected for jobs with the tightest security. She could get past any security detail by walking in unarmed and still be the most lethal woman in the room.

Normally, I would spend days, even weeks doing recon. I always needed to know what I was walking into. But the document Monroe sent me said that she was spotted in Nice, and I immediately knew exactly where she would be.

Liam's schedule for the next week was packed with charity events, contract negotiations, and a week-long trip to Greece for a wedding, if I didn't move quickly, there was a chance that I'd miss her. Nadia is stationary for now, but she's a fickle woman, and could change her mind in an instant. And if she wanted to go into hiding, no one would ever find her.

I didn't bother to tell Liam where I was going. Besides, the flight to Nice was only about an hour and half. It was technically my day off, and I would be back before anyone even noticed that I was gone. One of the perks of working directly with James is that I was able to take the Knight's private jet whenever I wanted. I'm not sure if he told Liam that this was part of my contract, but right now, I didn't care.

I closed the car door, listening as the waves of the beach around me crashed against the shore. The moonlight above me illuminating the street as I looked up at the villa. I walked up to the massive, black gate, and quickly furrowed my eyebrows as I tried recalling the code. It took me a few tries, but I finally remembered what she programmed it to, 620, or June twentieth, the first day we met.

The gate opened slowly, and I walked down the modern entryway towards the massive wooden door which, as I expected, was unlocked, and everything looked exactly how we left it. I took a deep breath as the nostalgia flooded my mind as I looked around the room.

The tv was smashed, the knife that she threw at me that day still lodged into the screen. Pillows were scattered all over the floor, feathers were everywhere from the cushions that split. I furrowed my eyebrows as I remembered using them to shield myself as she tried to stab me with anything she could get her hands on.

In the kitchen nearby, pots and pans were on the floor, and holes were on the wall from her throwing them at me. The drawers were still open, and one of the large windows were cracked. There were still drops of blood on the floor from where she nicked me with a knife, and I couldn't help but run my fingers over the small, faint scar she gave me on my forearm as I took in the scene in front of me.