Chapter 14

The Four Seasons in Amman really played up the whole desert aspect. Desert-tan marble floors, walls, ceiling, chairs, and even the uniforms on some of the staff were tan. It made Justice, dressed in all black, stick out like a sore thumb.

Good thing only her eyes showed.

She wore the traditional niqab and abaya. A burka, with its mesh screen for the eyes, would’ve made her stand out more here. Most of the Jordanian women wore only the hijab head scarf, nothing over their faces, and had some style going on with jeans or fashionable clothes. She’d opted for an abaya, an all-black, bland, loose-fitting dress.

Nice thing about the regional customs was a woman assassin didn’t have to work too hard to go undercover. Just pop in a couple of blue contacts and ghost around.

She sat in a lounge area off to the side of the check-in desk with an open book of Sufi poetry. She didn’t feel even close to poetic. She felt fidgety.

The Brothers Grim were staying here in a two-bedroom suite for two weeks. Only two weeks. They usually met every two years for at least a month, but had changed plans. They were being awfully cautious. Which made Momma’s paranoid delusions seem that much less paranoid.

Distress winged up and brushed frantic feathers against Justice’s breastbone. Her meeting with Momma before she’d come here had been damning.

Not one of her own. Please not that.

She couldn’t imagine facing a day without one of her four closest siblings.

But right now, that wasn’t something she could think about. She had other things to worry about. The patched-together plan wasn’t foolproof.

Sure, Momma had placed a reliable connection at the hotel. A former rescue, who’d get Justice a key to the suite and ID, but not a weapon.

And Justice couldn’t get a gun past hotel screening, and surely not past whatever security Walid and Aamir would have at the room.

So she’d be going with plan B. Poison.

Not too difficult to get a good poison when one of your twenty-eight siblings was a leading chemist at one of the top chemical manufacturers in the world, a.k.a. Parish Group Holdings.

But it also meant Justice would be vulnerable. She’d have to go in when the Brothers were scheduled to go out. She’d need to get a uniform. She’d have to sneak in for turndown service with nothing but some mints in her pocket. She’d appear harmless. She wouldn’t even have cleaning solution on her.

Just a little pouch containing a substance that would first make the Brothers sick, like a bad case of food poisoning, and then kill them.

The poison had been developed from a cyanide derivative. She’d have to put it somewhere the Brothers alone were guaranteed to use. Toothbrush seemed the best option. Momma had said, “It works remarkably fast.”

It better.

She just hoped the Brothers’ security thugs wouldn’t find the pouch on her. It wasn’t huge, but large enough to create a bump that could be felt by the guards. And suspicious-looking enough that if she’d had to carry it onto a public plane, she would’ve been sweating bullets. Every assassin should have their own plane.

Having the pouch and knowing all that could go wrong with poison made her the most nervous. She wished she could’ve had something a little more direct. More deadly. Beggars can’t be choosers. Hotel security was strict. Another reason she’d checked into this hotel under a false identity. That gave her a reason to sit here, scanning the hotel.

Her eyes perked up as she spotted her prey.

One of the Brothers. Not Aamir, the slick one who dressed like a GQ model, but the younger one, Walid. Early forties, lanky with the start of a belly; dark-black hair; sharp, brown eyes; and a scar that looked like a rope burn along his neck.

She watched him sweep across the lobby and near an elevator surrounded by a two-man security detail. His guards seemed casual. Almost too casual. That could work in her favor.

Walid changed course abruptly. His guards stayed at the elevator, holding it open. What the hell?

Walid marched directly past Justice’s alcove to get to the concierge. He smelled like expensive cologne.

Fuckedy fuck. He was so close. She nearly dropped her book and attacked.

She held steady as Walid, with his raspy voice and oh-so-coy British accent, asked the concierge to change his dinner reservation for tomorrow night, moving it up one hour.

The concierge didn’t miss a beat interpreting the language. He looked at his watch, as if seeing into the future. “I will do so right away.”

Walid thanked him, turned on his shiny, black loafer, and went back to the elevator.

Luck of the Irish or luck of the draw; if there were a deity dedicated to saving women’s lives, that deity had clocked in for Justice.

Yeah, it meant moving the timeline up on her assassination plan. Ignoring Momma’s reconnaissance-first rule, but this was too good of an opportunity—both Brothers wouldn’t be in their room. If all went according to plan, the Brothers would be dead within forty-eight hours.