He’ll be wrong.
I lay out the weapons beside me in a neat row. Knife, knife, backup knife. I don’t need more than that. I’ve never been one for overkill. One hit, one breath, one end.
Then I wait.
Because the most dangerous thing in this world isn’t a man with a gun or a woman with a grudge.
It’s an assassin with time to think.
The alley stays quiet for a long time. Long enough for the air to grow still, thick with the heat of the city pressing against the walls like a held breath. I don’t move. I don’t shift or stretch or blink more than I have to. I’ve been trained to wait longer than this. I’ve stayed perfectly still for three days once, lying in the crawlspace of a crooked farmhouse, just to put a bullet in the skull of a man who thought no one could find him.
Compared to that, t
