She opened the letter. Inside was a simple ssage written in elegant script:
"The western market. Noon. Co alone."
No signature.
Veer looked over her shoulder. "A trap."
"Obviously," Kaya said cheerfully. "But whose?"
She glanced at the unconscious hawk. "He ca for a straightforward assassination. This letter... this is sothing else."
She folded it and tucked it away. "Guess I’m going to the western market at noon."
"Kaya—"
"I’ll be fine," she said. "Besides, we still have three more to deal with. And they don’t know about each other yet."
As if to prove her point, there was a sudden commotion outside.
Shouting. The clash of weapons.
Kaya rushed to the window and looked down.
In the street below, the wolf beastman and the snake woman were facing each other—both clearly surprised, both clearly having arrived to complete the sa contract.
"What the hell are you doing here?" the wolf snarled.
The snake woman’s eyes narrowed. "I could ask you the sa thing."
"This is my contract!"
"No, it’s mine!"
They stared at each other, realization slowly dawning.
"Multiple contracts," the snake woman hissed. "That bitch placed multiple contracts."
"So we’re competing," the wolf growled.
"Or working together," the snake suggested carefully.
The wolf considered this. "Fine. Together. Split the paynt. But I get to make the kill."
"We’ll see about that."
Kaya watched this unfold with imnse satisfaction. "Perfect. They’re finally figuring it out."
She turned to Veer. "Keep an eye on the hawk. I’m going out."
"To the western market?"
"No," Kaya said, strapping on her weapons. "To greet my guests."
She walked to the door, opened it, and stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the street.
The wolf and snake both looked up sharply.
Kaya leaned on the railing, smiling down at them.
"Good morning!" she called cheerfully. "I see you’ve t each other. How nice."
The wolf’s eyes widened in recognition. "You."
"," Kaya confird. "Let guess—you just figured out that multiple people took the sa contract?"
The snake woman’s expression turned cold. "You set this up."
"I did," Kaya admitted freely. "Wanted to see how good the hitn in this city really are. So far..." she tilted her head, "not impressed."
The wolf roared and leaped up toward the balcony, claws extended.
Kaya simply stepped back, and Veer appeared in her place, eting the wolf’s attack with his own blade.
CLANG!
The wolf was thrown back, landing heavily in the street. Thud.
"You’ll have to do better than that," Kaya called down.
The snake woman didn’t attack. Instead, she studied Kaya carefully. "You want us to co at you."
"Of course I do," Kaya said. "That’s the whole point."
"Why?"
"Because soone in this city thought they could hire assassins to kill ," Kaya said, her voice dropping to sothing colder. "And I want everyone—including you—to understand that was a mistake."
She straightened, her eyes gleaming with that predatory light.
"So here’s what’s going to happen. You and your wolf friend down there can team up. You can wait for the other two—yes, there are two more—to join you. You can plan, strategize, do whatever you need."
She smiled that dangerous smile.
"And then you’re all going to co at with everything you’ve got. And I’m going to show you exactly why hiring assassins to kill was the worst decision anyone in this city has ever made."
The snake woman and wolf exchanged glances.
"Three days are up at sunset," Kaya continued. "So you have until then. Use your ti wisely."
With that, she turned and walked back inside, leaving the two hitn staring after her in disbelief.
"She’s insane," the wolf muttered.
"Agreed," the snake woman said. "But also dangerous. Very dangerous."
"So what do we do?"
The snake woman’s eyes narrowed. "We find the other two. And then we kill her together."
In the hotel, Kaya was smiling to herself.
As soon as they left, Veer looked at Kaya with a confused expression.
Kaya didn’t even turn around. "If you want to ask sothing, just speak. What are you standing there like that for?"
Veer paused, then stepped forward. "Sweetheart... they were right here. We could have killed them. Or at least captured them. Then why did you tell them to go and almost reveal everything? I couldn’t understand it."
Kaya smiled, turning to face him. She walked over to the window, looking out at the street where the two hitn had disappeared.
"Veer," she said calmly, "maybe you’ve forgotten, but even though these people are hitn and stronger at killing, they’re not the ones who know who sent them here."
Veer’s brow furrowed. "What do you an?"
"First, we need to figure out who it is that sent them here," Kaya continued. "And for that, we need to know about the broker—the mastermind, the strategist that connects these clients to the hitn. And until now, even though these hitn have co out into the open, that broker hasn’t."
Veer paused, then said with a slight smile, "But if you want that broker, you can just grab these hitn and torture it out of them. Make them spill everything, just like you did with the mongoose."
Kaya smiled and shook her head. "Do you think these hitn are only working for money?"
Veer paused. "Then... what?"
Kaya looked at him directly, her expression serious. "Veer, in this type of business where life and death could happen at any mont, at any ti, people only follow those they fear. They don’t just blindly follow money. For soone to make them work under them, they need to be powerful—really powerful."
She gestured toward the room where the mongoose was chained. "Look at the mongoose. I beat him to a pulp. He’s nearly dead. So much pain that he couldn’t even move or swallow his own saliva."
Her eyes glead. "Veer, did you see him utter a single word about who the broker really is? Not one word. Even under all that torture."
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