an answer. She could do this.
“Or you could do the honourable thing and end your contract with them,” she snapped and grimaced.
Way to let her temper get the better of her.
He sipped his drink again, taking far too long about it, a blatant attempt to make her squirm, and then in a calm, measured, and unaffected tone, said, “If competition is a problem for you, perhaps you are in the wrong profession?”
He stood slowly, tugged his coat down and smoothed it.
His blue eyes lifted and locked with hers. “We can dissolve this contract now if that is what you want?”
Mackenzie blew it again, shot to her feet and lunged for his arm, grabbed it like some desperate fool. Beneath her fingers, his muscles tensed, and she went rigid too when he slowly looked down at her hand.
She was quick to release him.
She cleared her throat and straightened, shot for calm and unaffected too, but failed dismally judging by his raised eyebrow. “No, it isn’t what I want. What I want is for you to end your contract with the other guild.”
“I am afraid I cannot do that.” He smiled in a way that chilled her blood in her veins. “A little competition is a healthy thing. The other guild does not appear to have a problem with it.”
She clammed up on hearing that. Damn that elf. She wouldn’t be the one to back out of this or make him appear better than her.
Even when he was.
She shut down that thought, screwed it up and tossed it in a mental trash can and set fire to it, burning it to cinders. He wasn’t. She had worked her ass off building the reputation of her guild since she had inherited it and she was determined to lift it up to the place where it belonged.
At the top of all the assassin guilds in Hell.
“I don’t have a problem with competition.” She tipped her chin up. “I do have a problem with the pay. What are you paying them if they get this contract done? Double? Triple what you offered me?”
The smirk that curved his lips said it was more than that, that she had amused him by failing to negotiate, and had revealed how desperate she was. A dangerous thing. Desperate people could be manipulated, easily bent to the will of whoever offered them relief from whatever had them in its grip.
In her case, he had offered an extremely dangerous, but prestigious mark, and she had snapped his arm off without even caring about the remuneration. It was little wonder she amused him. Sensible assassins like the bloody elf had probably demanded he pay his weight in gold, if not more, for asking them to risk their lives by taking on such a powerful vampire.
Well, she was negotiating now.
Even when she knew it wasn’t the right time to do so.
The contract was in place and he was probably going to tell her to take a walk, and sure, she would deserve it for trying to change the terms of their deal.
“Very well,” he said, catching her off guard. She almost gaped at him. He reached down and lifted his coffee, taking one final leisurely sip of it. He saluted her with the white cup. “If your guild fulfils this contract, they will receive exactly what I agreed with the other guild.”
He set the cup back down and walked past her.
Mackenzie couldn’t hold back the words. “And how much is that?”
The man paused and she moved to face him. He turned his head to one side, revealing his profile to her, but didn’t look at her.
“Ten thousand gold coins.”
With that, he dipped his head and walked away, and she could only stare at his retreating back as he blended with the people coming and going along the busy shopping street.
Ten thousand gold coins.
A shiver rolled through her.
She had been way too low with her estimate. It was ten times as much as he had offered her guild. The things she could do with ten thousand gold coins. Excitement surged through her, a heady rush that made her a little giddy as she began writing lists in her head.
Mackenzie pulled back on the reins before she got too carried away.
There were two obstacles between her and all that coin.
Both of them were dangerous. Both of them were liable to kill her. One of them had to die. The other she could allow to live, but her gut said that wasn’t going to be an