Jack felt weird about sleeping in a stranger’s bed, and I agreed. Of course, we’d just had mind blowing sex in the kitchen where they ate their food, but that felt different. So, we’d both decided to grab all the extra blankets from the linen closet and sleep on the Persian rug in the living room. It was plush and soft and, with my limbs tangled up with Jack’s, incredibly warm.

Something had changed between us in the kitchen. We still bickered about how to arrange the blankets on the floor and who should get which of the throw pillows on the velvet sofa, but there was less animosity. It felt teasing, fun. Jack smiled at me, his blue eyes lit up with something I’d never seen before, and even when he was teasing me about being a diva for calling dibs on the furry pillow, I sensed a tenderness that hadn’t been there before.

What were we?

First, we’d been strangers hooking up in a hotel, then enemies going after the same target, and then we were two people running for their lives. Had we become friends? Something more? Part of me wanted an answer, but another part of me felt content to just be with him. To be the girl laying next to him on a stranger’s living room floor. To be the woman who knew he took long measured breaths just before he came, and that he wrinkled his forehead and closed his eyes while he was coming. So I did my best to push the question away as I rolled over onto my side and snuggled against his side.

Another thing I’d learned about Jack: he was a hard sleeper. I’d been tossing and turning with anxieties about what we would do the next day—we still hadn’t come up with a plan—and how we would get out of the city without being killed, but Jack had been in the same position every time I’d opened my eyes.

He was still taking deep, even breaths when I heard the banging sound come from the back of the house. I sat up in our makeshift bed and turned my ear towards the kitchen. The sound had stopped—probably just an animal, I told myself—but my heart was beating so loud I thought Jack would be able to hear it. Adrenaline made my fingers uncontrollably jittery, and I stood up, more to calm myself than for any other reason. Plus, I didn’t want to wake Jack up. It had been a long day and one of us deserved a good night’s sleep, at least.

I poked my head into the kitchen cautiously and waited for any sound. There was nothing except the hum of the refrigerator and the creak of my own footsteps on the wood floor. Feeling better, I walked into the kitchen and threw open the pantry door.

After our escapade on the kitchen floor, Jack and I had eaten a couple waffles and gone to bed, but my stomach felt hollow and my throat was dry. Running for your life left very little time to contend with maintaining your body. So, I pulled Jack’s shirt down around my thighs in a useless attempt to fight off the chilly air outside our nest of blankets and searched through the kitchen for a single thing to snack on.

The calendar pinned to the side of the fridge declared in large marker that the couple who lived in the house was away on a month-long cruise, which made sense considering their pantry and fridge was bare. No bread, no milk, no eggs, no produce. They had frozen meats, pasta, and a couple jars of peanut butter—one crunchy, one creamy. So, I did the only reasonable thing and grabbed the jar of crunchy peanut butter from the top shelf and a spoon from the drawer. Then, I hopped my butt onto the island and shoved a spoonful into my mouth.

I shoved the spoon into the jar for another heaping spoonful of peanut butter when I felt a sweaty hand snake around my neck and the cold circular kiss of a gun against my temple.

“Make a sound and I’ll kill you both right now,” the male voice hissed in my ear.

I couldn’t have screamed even if I wanted to. Peanut butter was stuck to my mouth and I swirled my tongue in a desperate attempt to clear my windpipe.

“Feet on the floor,” he commanded.

I slid from the island, the man’s hand still tight around my neck, and looked over my shoulder at him. He had bright blonde hair and a neatly trimmed strap of facial hair around his chin. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him before, but he had the look of a hitman—fit and strong, eyes dark and focused. I knew no amount of pleading would save me or Jack.

Why hadn’t I woken him up when I’d heard the noise? Even after everything that had happened that day, I’d assumed the noise was an animal or the house settling. I was certain when we went to sleep that we were safe, so I’d made a fatal mistake and now we were both going to pay for it.

I finally swallowed the last bit of the peanut butter and ran my tongue over my dry lips. “Just kill me,” I said.

“I’m not here for you,” the man said. “At least, not yet. I’ve been hired to kill Jack. You are just a bonus.”

So, he was here because of the burn notice, not a contract killer sent by Mr. Nelson. That information didn’t change the circumstances at all, but it was nice to know who had come to kill me and why.

“Walk to the dining room,” he said, tipping his head to the next room over. It was further from the living room where Jack was asleep. “If you wake him up before I’m ready, I’ll shoot you in the stomach and let you watch me kill your boyfriend. Do you understand?”

I wanted to tell the man that if he was going to kill me regardless, his threats were pointless. I didn’t much care how I died, especially if every option involved being shot. But I decided it was best not to argue with him.

I tip-toed into the dining room and the man lowered me into one of the wooden chairs. He pulled a loop of rope from the black duffel he had hanging from his shoulder and began to tie my wrists to the arms of the chair. I wanted to fight back, but as confident as I was in hand-to-hand combat, I did not feel confident taking on a bullet. As long as the man had his gun, he had the upper hand, and he kept it pointed at me while he looped the rope around my wrists. He only lowered the gun to tie the knots once both my hands were tightly wrapped.

I could still scream. That was an option. It would alert Jack to the man’s presence, but then he would shoot me. If I didn’t scream, he would shoot Jack. For a moment, I wondered why he was bothering to tie me up rather than killing me outright, but then I noticed the way his eyes trailed down my bare legs while he tied the rope. He’d referred to me as a “bonus.” Suddenly, the man’s plans became crystal clear. Once Jack was out of the way, he would do what he pleased with me before killing me, as well. A shiver ran through my body.

“Don’t worry, baby,” he said, tugging roughly on a strand of my hair, yanking my head to the side. “There’s no reason to be afraid. This will all be over in a few hours.”

A few hours? I felt sick. A knot had formed in my stomach, and I didn’t think it would ever come undone. Perhaps screaming and getting shot in the process was worth it. I’d give Jack a head start and save myself the trauma of being raped by my murderer. Still, I wanted to save that as my last resort.

“There are police all over this neighborhood,” I said, keeping my voice low. “And these houses are packed in like sardines. You’ll never make it out of here undetected.”

He smiled. “You’re assuming the police are the good guys.”

My forehead wrinkled, and his smile widened, showing all of his teeth. Even in the dark, they glinted, and I felt like a mouse looking up at a lion.

“I have friends in high places,” the man said. “In fact, an officer you talked to earlier tonight told me you would be staying at a hotel on Canal Street, but while I was on my way there, I heard from another officer that he’d seen a couple matching your description in this neighborhood. A quick scan of the houses let me know which one was vacant, and therefore, which one the two of you had likely decided to hole up in.”

My heart sank. I’d had a bad feeling about the officer we’d talked to on the street, but I’d hoped it was paranoia. Was the entire world against us?

“So,” the man continued. “If you had hopes of being saved by a SWAT team, I’d go ahead and put those delusions to rest. I’m the last person you are ever going to see.”

Just then, I saw a flutter of movement from the kitchen door. A dark shadow crept along the door frame before stepping into a shaft of light from one of the dining room windows. It was Jack. His blue eyes met mine for a moment before he disappeared to the other side of the door.

I tore my eyes away from him, not wanting to give the hitman any hint that Jack was awake. It was difficult to hide my hope, though. While the man went on with tying my hands and discussing all of the horrible things he’d do to me if I made a sound, I had to bite back a smile. Jack and I did make a good team. During all the time I’d spent as a contract killer, I navigated the world alone. I fended for myself and secretly wished for someone to depend on. And now I had Jack. Without him, I’d be dead already. But together? We stood a chance.

The man clipped the rope after finishing the bindings on my hands and was about to move down to work on my ankles when Jack stepped into the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. He had a gun, but he couldn’t shoot the man without almost certainly sending a bullet into me too. He had to move silently around the edge of the room until he could get a clean shot. But the first step he took to the right happened to fall on an ancient floorboard. The wood protested loudly against Jack’s weight and the hitman bolted up and swung his gun around, searching for a target.

For the first time, I screamed. The image of Jack being shot right in front of me, being blown back against the wall and bleeding out on the floor horrified me. I could see it all so clearly, and I just knew we were both going to die.

But then, Jack crouched down just as a shot rang out and a vase on the shelf behind him exploded. He ran forward and caught the man around his knees, knocking him on his back. I heard the puff of air leave the man’s chest, and heard his raspy inhale as he tried to expand his lungs. Jack lifted himself up, and I expected him to turn around and aim his gun at the man’s head, but instead he was patting the floor in search of his weapon. He’d lost it when he tackled the hitman. I scanned my eyes across the dark floor, but I couldn’t see anything.

“Under the table,” I suggested, catching Jack’s attention and kicking a leg in the direction of the shadowy dining room table.

Jack lunged under the table and was halfway under it when the hitman sat up and grabbed his own gun, which had been wedged between his back and the hardwood floor. His eyes were glassy and unfocused, but he turned his attention towards Jack and began to lift his gun.

Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. I could see that Jack would never find his gun and turn around in time to shoot the man before he shot Jack, but I could also see that the hitman was unsteady. The tackle had knocked more than the wind out of him. He likely had a concussion from the force with which his head had smacked against the floor, which meant I had a small window of opportunity to change the likely course of events.

Jack had thankfully appeared before the man could bind my ankles, so I was able to stand up, though I was hunched over like a turtle with a wooden shell because of my hands being tied to the armrests of the chair. I took two stumbling steps forward, and then threw all of my strength into spinning in a circle. I knew I looked ridiculous, but as soon as I felt the chair strapped to my back connect with something solid, it didn’t matter. The man tumbled back to the floor after being knocked in the head with the chair leg, and I heard his gun clatter across the wood floor.

“Jack!” I shouted, but it didn’t matter. He was already crawling across the floor to grab the man’s gun. He threw himself at it, and the moment his finger was around the handle, he spun around, sat up straight, and pulled the trigger.

The hitman’s body jolted with the force of the bullet and then sagged into the floor. Moment’s later, a puddle of blood began to spread around his head in a gory halo.