Free Sloane by V. J. Chambers Page B

knew he
wasn’t gay. I’d seen it in the way that he looked at me. The way he
was looking at me right now. He was attracted to me.
    Me. Little Sloane, the one that no one noticed. And
this guy was noticing me.
    Of course, I shouldn’t read too much into that. Axel
certainly didn’t think there was anything special about me. He had
no concern for anyone’s feelings, and he was rude and self-centered
and arrogant and focused on appearances and… and a horrible
person.
    “Anyway,” he said, stepping closer to me, lowering
his voice. “Maybe you shouldn’t try to blend in so much.” He picked
up a lock of my hair and moved it off my shoulder, baring my
neck.
    My heart sped up. Damn it. Flustered again. He was so
freaking close.
    He ran his fingers over my hair lightly. “We should
probably do something about your hair, too.” He drew back and
scrutinized me. “Seriously, did you put any effort at all into
looking presentable this evening?”
    “Fuck you.” I shoved him.
    He stumbled a little, then righted himself. “Jesus,”
he muttered. “Overreact much?”
    * * *
    I came out of Axel’s bathroom in the dress that had
been delivered. It was made of a silver material, and it gathered
over one shoulder. It fell over my body in long, careless furrows,
leaving my other shoulder bare. The fabric didn’t cling, so I was
still able to keep my gun, which was holstered at the small of my
back. Axel had also insisted that I pull my hair up. He had an idea
of how I should wear my hair, but no real knowledge about how to
achieve the look. So, we’d spent a frustrating hour waiting for the
dress to arrive with my going in and doing something to my hair,
and then coming out for Axel to criticize it and tell me to try
something else. Eventually, I’d managed something that passed his
inspection, which was good, because he’d been five minutes away
from calling someone to come in and do my hair for me.
    I tried to tell him that it really didn’t matter what
I looked like. My end game was not to impress the people at this
benefit. I couldn’t care less if I looked good.
    But he waved that away, saying I was lying. He
claimed that everyone on earth cared deeply about how they looked,
but that some people didn’t bother with it, because they were too
lazy to make a commitment to excellence.
    I nearly killed him at least four times.
    But…
    Well, there was something about it I kind of liked. I
didn’t think anyone had ever fussed over me before. When Silas and
I were kids, it had been a miracle for us to get to school in
clothes that were clean and matched. Our parents had never taken
much interest in us. To them, we were just an inconvenience,
something annoying that got in the way of what they really cared
about. What they really cared about was heroin. They’d sacrifice
anything to get that.
    Including Silas and me, as it had turned out.
    But we’d stopped that.
    Anyway, the only person who’d ever cared what I
looked like was Jolene French. But even she had played up my
ordinariness. She’d always dressed me to be a shadow, so that I
could slip in and out unnoticed. There weren’t a lot of other
female assassins at Op Wraith, but there were a few. And some of
them occasionally got “glamorous” assignments. They’d have to look
beautiful and be charming enough to get a target alone. Then, of
course, they’d have to kill him. But French never selected me for
those kinds of assignments. It might have been because Silas and I
always worked together, and there was no need for Silas in a
mission like that. But I’d always gotten a message, an undercurrent
beneath, that told me that I wasn’t that kind of girl.
    But Axel seemed convinced that I could be. And
despite myself, I enjoyed that feeling.
    He was sitting on the couch in his living room, bent
over the table, snorting cocaine through a rolled-up dollar
bill.
    “Do you have to do that?” I said, annoyed.
    He looked up. “Yes, as a matter of fact—Oh.