Free The Accidental Assassin by Nichole Chase

gun with the foam on my café mocha before chasing me down the block with a knife, but the worst were the ones about Mr. Song. He was walking through the building where I used to answer phones and the lights were flickering. I chased him past airplanes that were half-built, begging him for forgiveness, but he never stopped, never looked back. Instead he stopped at the door to the engineering wing, his shoes drenched in blood, and knocked.
    “Please forgive me!” My fists clenched. There was blood on my hands, caked under my nails.
    “Ava.”
    “I didn’t mean to kill you.”
    “Ava.”
    “Please!” I reached out to touch Song.
    A hand closed on my shoulder and I woke screaming. Owen looked down at me with sad eyes.
    “Shh. You’re okay. It was just a dream.”
    I took in a lungful of cool air and choked. Bile rose in my throat and I covered my mouth. Pushing past Owen I ran to the bathroom and got rid of last night’s soup. I clung to the cool porcelain and wept as quietly as I could. I tried to choke back my sobs but there was no stopping them. My eyes burned and every muscle in my body felt as if I had just completed a marathon by the time I was finished. Pushing away from the toilet I leaned back against the bathtub and rubbed the back of my hand across my nose.
    Owen knelt down next to me and held out a wet wash cloth. “Finished?”
    “Think so.” I took the wet rag from him and pressed it to my face. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
    “No need to apologize.” He sat down on the floor and leaned against the tub next to me. “I thought it would happen yesterday.”
    “You thought I would break down and toss my guts yesterday?” I leaned my head back and looked at him from the corner of my eye.
    “Killing isn’t easy. The first time is always the worst.”
    “Did you throw up after your first… kill?” Hit? Mark? Murder? I didn’t know the lingo.
    He let his head fall back and closed his eyes. I watched as he swallowed and wondered if he was reliving it in his head.
    “Two days later.” For all the emotion he expressed he could have been an android. Which meant it was probably more important in some way than he would let on.
    “A real tough guy, huh? Two days.” I shrugged. “I guess I shouldn’t be ashamed that I lasted a whole day. That’s almost as good as you.” Which was probably only because I had been too busy running for my life to stop and really think about it all. Or maybe my moral compass was off. I’d been too worried about my life to think of the one I had accidentally taken.
    His lips curved upward just a hair.
    “Was he really a bad guy?” I turned my face to watch him carefully.
    “Yes.” His deep voice was firm. I didn’t have to say who I meant.
    “He killed women and girls?”
    “Most prostitutes don’t retire, Ava. They live a life where they trade part of themselves for money; sex and companionship are commodities. It’s a high stakes world and Song was brutal.”
    “How do you know for sure it was him?” I tried to brush some of my tear dampened hair out of my face.
    “A local madam lost some of her girls to Song. They ended up dead not long after.”
    “And what, she cared about the turncoats?” I frowned. “If it’s such a brutal world, you’d think she’d have chalked it up to what they deserved. Not spend money to avenge their deaths.”
    “Too right.” His chin jerked decisively. “From what I found, she was more angry that some of her high rollers followed the girls to Song’s business and never came back, even after their favorite girls were gone. That’s bad for profits so she decided to make a spectacle and remove him from the scene. He encroached on her territory and then spat in her face.”
    I thought it over. “Why not just lure his girls away from him?”
    “Money. If those girls come to her looking for a job she has the upper hand and can pay less. She’d have to dangle a large carrot to get them to come to her