One Step After Another (The After Another Series #1) - Bethany-Kris Page 0,4

came from a long line of politicians. His great-grandfather, grandfather, and so on. The son of a current prominent democratic senator who was planning a run for president in the coming election. Or that was the rumor amongst the political crowd.

People who knew what they were talking about.

Apparently.

Elijah himself was being looked at to follow in his father’s footsteps seeing as how the last state election won him the mayor’s seat. A position his father, the second, first won that started his overall career in the political sphere.

On the outside, the man seemed like he had everything he wanted. Wealth. Prestige. Power.

And none of that meant anything to Penny except for the fact that he ran in the same circles as people she had been hunting for years. One member of the elusive Elite. One more for her to kill.

Or that was the plan.

Currently.

Room 801 faced a long hallway with no guards keeping watch as Penny stepped out of the elevator. The hallways to the right and left of the bank of elevators where she stepped out were also empty. One led to what looked like two more suites. The other ended at an exit stairwell.

Penny headed for suite 801.

She didn’t bother to knock but instead simply opened the door and entered the hotel room as was previously agreed upon. No locked doors—nothing and no one would see Elijah come and willingly greet and invite in a visually young girl and her older handler inside his room.

The filthy rich could get whatever they wanted; whenever they wanted it. And sometimes, on nights when everyone was distracted around them—like Elijah’s father’s fundraiser dinner downstairs—and they had time to celebrate, they were known and prone to indulging their desires.

Illegal, immoral, or otherwise.

And sloppy about it, too.

Which was why Penny showed up with a girl who wasn’t the age Elijah wanted but also wasn’t going anywhere near his hotel room despite the high price he paid to make sure she did exactly that. Maybe his people—or him—hadn’t been able to get a hold of one of his regular trafficked girls through the normal methods but either way ...

His vice was her weakness to exploit.

Penny didn’t mind at all.

“Mr. Smithenson?” Penny called when the hotel door clicked shut behind her. “Your delivery is here and ready for your attention.”

“Just a sec,” came the reply.

From a room across the large space; probably the master bedroom in the space. A quiet, dimly lit hotel room stared back at her as she pulled the nine-millimeter from the bag that the men in suits downstairs hadn’t even bothered to check.

So fucking sloppy.

It was kind of sad, really.

“A million dollars earned to smile and eat dinner. Two hundred guests at five thousand dollars a plate. I can do the math ... not a bad night for a politician raising funds for his next run,” Penny said, screwing in the silencer she had taken from the bag.

“Oh, that’s before the donations are added into the—”

Penny glanced up when Elijah’s words cut off. She took in many things at once. The suite was about as fancy, large, and expensive as she expected. Luxurious rugs. Rich tapestries. Ornate lighting overhead and furniture that was appropriately stuffy but also old. Nothing that interested her.

Except for the man who had come to stand in the doorway across the room. He was already prepped to party. Dress shirt unbuttoned; slacks undone and showcasing the band of his briefs. A glass of something amber colored in his left hand.

Maybe it was the shock of seeing only one woman—and no little girl—standing there or it could have been the gun in her hand that stunned him into silence.

“What the fuck are—”

“Nighty night,” Penny said, not wasting time.

She couldn’t. Not when she had to be in and out of the hotel in fifteen minutes or less.

Before Elijah could react—run, scream or otherwise—Penny did what she was there to do. Fifty hours of target practice with weapons meant she didn’t miss a shot. Shit, she didn’t unholster a weapon unless she intended to fire it, and she didn’t shoot unless she meant for it to hit the target in front of her.

That was her training. She couldn’t forget it.

It was a single shot. Hit Elijah between the eyes.

Penny had already tucked the weapon back away into her bag and stepped further away from the door before the dead man’s body hit the carpeted floor with a dull thud. Such a morbid, but indifferent, sound for the end of a