Sorry. Can’t make it. Got held up at the office.

Rejected…and lied to on top of it. Reaper drummed his steering wheel as he watched her tuck the phone into her purse before heading at a quick clip toward the parking garage across the street from her office.

Why did she cancel?

Did she have other plans? Maybe with her boyfriend? Because the Mrs. and the ring were a misnomer. Annique Darlington didn’t have any public records showing her being married. Ms. Darlington didn’t have much of a digital footprint at all.

To those who might think it odd he’d run a background check on Mrs. D, he’d point to his scars. He’d made a mistake once by being complacent. It wouldn’t happen again.

“What are you up to, Mrs. Darlington?” She’d certainly piqued his interest. When he’d walked into her office, he’d expected many things. An elderly matron with a Rolodex for matchmaking. Perhaps someone young and bubbly who’d yet to experience anything in life.

Instead, he’d encountered a woman of mature years, not old, he might add, but sexy. The light crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes hinted at years, yet her skin was still smooth, her gaze sharp, and her body smoking.

So fucking hot. He’d experienced a boner just by touching her hand. Had she actually been married, his bodily response to her would have been rude, but Mrs. D was single. Very single. Unattached. And yet considered the most successful matchmaker in town.

How did a woman with no talent in love for her own life manage to find the perfect fit for others?

He’d be sure to ask her—when they had dinner. Reaper wasn’t about to let something like a text message brush-off get in his way.

He tapped back a note. Understandable. Your husband probably doesn’t approve. Let’s just call it quits.

Sent, he waited, and sure enough, she replied. Lunch. Tomorrow. The White Oaks, two blocks from my office.

He smiled. If you insist.

That item taken care of, he put his car into gear and headed for the Bad Boy Inc. offices. They rented an entire level for the realty front. Shell companies occupied the other spaces in the building.

Entering, he didn’t have to flash a badge. The security knew who belonged and who didn’t. Those who had no business here didn’t see much.

Despite his bum leg still twinging, he took the stairs. At his age, he grabbed the exercise where he could. It was a matter of pride that he did the many flights without huffing and puffing. But he definitely had lost some speed. Stupid shattered bone. It would never be how it was.

He tried not to let it bother him. At least he could still walk. And he could keep in shape with slow and steady exercise that would keep him from dropping of a heart attack. He still remembered Eddie. Only fifty-three and the guy refused to slow down.

Eddie had died on a mission—ticker just blew up. His luck ran out, and while his work buds remembered him, Eddie’s things were taken by the state. No one to leave them to.

Just like me. No one to truly remember me or inherit when I am gone.

Fuck.

It didn’t take a shrink to tell Reaper he’d just hit his mid-life crisis. The moment where he realized his mortality and his place in the universe.

If he wanted to leave a mark in the world, to have someone to keep alive the memory of his existence, to give his life meaning, he needed to date.

Maybe even…

No. Don’t think it. Don’t say it. Not the M word. He couldn’t do something so permanent.

Move in together.

It almost drew an unmanly sound from him. The very idea of cohabiting with someone. Sharing his space. My space, my things.

My bed.

He’d had those to himself for a long time. He didn’t want to share.

Sure, he had friends over to his place. Just not too often. A man needed space. But a woman, living with him, toothbrush beside his, tampons in the cabinet.

Fuck.

He’d rather experience an alien planet. It probably had more oxygen than his lungs right now. No one ever explained how a mid-life crisis of epic proportions could cause a man to forget to breathe.

The elevator spilled him out into the reception area for Bad Boy Inc.

Harry’s wife, Sherry, had left for the day, but the desk remained manned. Real estate, especially of the international variety, went at all hours. Properties on the other side of the world didn’t care if it was three a.m. their time. Deals had to get done—and by deals, he meant the specialty kind that involved planning and subterfuge.

“Hey, Wendy.” He knew better than to walk past the bubbly young woman, fresh out of an academy in Australia, without saying hello. A student of some kind of graduate exchange program with other places that taught people like him—killers and spies and thieves, oh fucking my!—how to survive and finish the mission.

Because it was all about the mission—and sometimes saving the world. If the price was right.

“Shouldn’t you be home resting?” Wendy’s freckled nose wrinkled. “I’m going to have to tell the boss you’re working more than fifty hours a week again.”

“Or you could lie and say you never saw me.”

“That might kind of disagree with the cameras.”

Despite what most would expect, Wendy wasn’t an easygoing, laissez-faire kind of gal. She governed herself, and the office, strictly by the book.

Ah, the young and innocent. With their ideals. They eventually learned.

“Did Mason get anything on the ballistics from that lab in France?” When their local laboratories couldn’t figure out what had shot him, they’d sent it off. They’d never come across a silver bullet filled with a unique shard of pottery, a sand-sized crumb, embedded inside. They’d only spotted it during an x-ray. The radiograph speck was thought to be an error until it appeared every single time.

“The French lab did send over their results. They couldn’t identify the contaminant either.”

Another dead end, and they’d run out of samples. Three bullets only went so far.

“Has Interpol gotten back to us?” Interpol being the international version of the FBI.

“Not yet.” Wendy shrugged. “The request has been sent to run it against their database. Now, we wait for them to do it.”

“You know, in this day and age, there is no excuse for delays,” he grumbled. Almost a year since his accident, and two months since he’d started the dating thing.

Waiting for things grated. He, the man who’d sat in one spot for the perfect shot for ten hours and thirty-three minutes, lacked patience.

He wanted the shooter. Especially every time it rained and his leg ached.

He also wanted a girlfriend now. Enough with all the failures. He had to succeed at this.

“You have some new client requests on your desk,” Wendy said, changing the subject.

“Excellent.” Ever since he’d been grounded from missions, he’d been doing more actual real estate. Selling properties in the area and elsewhere, for real now, not just as part of his cover. Although, in some cases, he provided cover for others in the office. Like sending Kacy on an inspection of some property in Florida while, in reality, he’d sent her as a secret security detail.

He was the real estate puppet master. Sounded stupid. Yet here was the thing that pissed him off most…

I like it. He, the man who dove out of planes, scuba dived to yachts, and had killed a man while at a gala with just his cuff pin, enjoyed the wheeling and dealing to close a sale.

Keep in mind, he dealt with rich properties. Million dollars and more. Some were homes, but mostly, he dealt in businesses.

And he knew how to sell them. Not too hard. Just provide the clients with the really key details. The things that would bring the buyer future profit. Give them the promise of dollar bills, and they couldn’t sign the papers fast enough.

Closing the deal provided its own kind of thrill, one that wouldn’t kill him. He celebrated with a steak dinner and the most expensive bottle of wine each time. Greatly enjoyed it, too.

It seemed a betrayal of all he was. All he’d done.

I should be out there demanding a real mission. Going back into danger and riding high on the adrenaline rush.

After the rush, though, came the crash.

I’m getting too old for it.

He’d never admit it out loud, though. He kind of pretended he’d never even thought it at all.

Stop procrastinating. Get to work.

Reaper sat in his chair and turned his mind into work mode, flipping through the files, noting which ones would work, and which ones would need further research to determine viability. He made notes about proximity to other locations. Mission locales disguised as legit. Nothing too intense was needed for the jobs—and the agency would turn a tidy profit at the same time.

When he’d cleared his work pile, he turned to another folder on his desktop computer, secured behind firewalls, accessible only to him and the techie who’d set it up. It held a single file.

Her file. The woman who’d shot him.

A woman who still had no name because Reaper kept hitting walls. Being only somewhat tech capable, he’d turned it over to his buddy, Mason.

That boy—if you could say boy about a man in his early thirties—could program your fridge to tell your fat ass to stay out of it and not touch the leftovers on the shelf.

He also handled being dangled out of a truck going sixty miles an hour.

Mason fixed his fridge to greet him every morning with a “sir” at the end.

The man who could take over anything electronic, though, couldn’t find anything on the shooter either.

Reaper might never track down the woman who’d shot him.

As if to compound the indignity of it, Reaper had run into another woman with no past.

Mrs. Not-So-Married, Annique Darlington. She had a very skinny past. As in Montgomery couldn’t find anything, and Mason struggled, too.

An inter-office chat box popped up, no camera or voice. They typed their conversations and sent them through encrypted channels—in case someone listened or watched.

Mason: Are you doing it on purpose?

Reaper: Explain.

Mason: This broad, this Darlington chick, barely exists.

So he’d noticed.

Reaper: What did you find?

Mason: Hold on, let me send it to you.

It amounted to no more than a few lines. Pathetic ones.

Bought a couch from Sears. Blue plaid. Solid.

Last movie watched was The Mummy.

Not his choice, but at least it wasn’t some sappy chick flick.

No sign of her having any pets at all. Not even a fish.

Reaper quickly fired off a message to his techie friend.

Reaper: Is that all you have? Seems pretty skinny. The woman is forty-one.

A solid age, and old enough to have left a mark in the digital ecosphere.

The reply returned rather quickly.

Mason: I’m still searching, but it’s looking like someone wiped her tracks.

Is she an operative? Reaper kept that thought to himself, especially because it seemed farfetched, yet he couldn’t discount it.

It wasn’t as if assassins and other specialists for hire went around announcing who they were and what they did. They tended to exist quietly under assumed aliases, accepting missions anonymously through the Dark Web or a place like Bad Boy.

Look at me. No one knows what I really do here.

Harry was their business manager. He found missions and presented them. Sometimes accepted a few on their behalf. Never more than they could handle, and generally with breaks in between.

Assassins and spies and more lived among normal people. Reaper couldn’t pretend he knew them all. Bad Boy was just one company. The academy he’d attended just one of many schools.

Mason: Is she an operative?

His friend asked the very thing he pondered. He typed back.

Reaper: I don’t know.

Worse, it had never even occurred to him. Which was dumb. Why did he keep fucking up? How could he let her seemingly innocuous appearance lower his guard?

Because he’d stake his life that she wasn’t an operative. Surely, he’d know. Her hands were too soft.

It took a few minutes for Mason to reply.

Mason: Look at the facts. She barely exists past six years ago when she moved to this city. Started out working for an online dating service, then branched out into a more personalized version. She’s only rented the one apartment. Her credit cards have no history past her move-in date.

Reaper: Perhaps she was married or with a guy who put everything under his name. What of her driver’s license and tax records?

The latter was much harder to fake.

Mason: Taxes filed and paid since supposedly the age of nineteen. License issued in another state. Birth certificate seems legit. But I’m telling you, she’s too clean. Too empty.

Signs of a pro. Or someone in hiding.

Either way, the mystery lady had just gone up another interesting notch.

Lunch couldn’t come fast enough.