My name is not Ava Steel. Ava Steel is just a borrowed name; sorry not sorry to whoever's name is Ava Steele. Anyway, I didn't care though. This name provided a very safe life for me, completely keeping me off the radar from…them.
I took a deep breath and stripped the leather from my gloves. The real me, whoever that is, died a long time ago. Or maybe she's just in a deep, money-induced coma. I work for a very exclusive, very secretive organization that pays me to be like other people. Assassinations? No, that's too messy. But it doesn't take much from my victims to call me that anyway. It didn't matter. I'm what you might call a "corporate acquisition specialist." Which is a fancy, made-up title that means I steal things. Sometimes data, sometimes prototypes, sometimes a CEO's private emails that will make him sell his company for a dollar. My job is to be the wind and shadow…no, shadow will leave a trace. I stick to the wind though.
My current target was a man named Viktor Volkov. He was a Russian oligarch with more money than sense, and he was in Milan to sell a little black book containing enough nuclear codes to turn Europe into a parking lot. My boss, a man I've only ever spoken to through a voice modulator who calls himself "The Librarian," wanted that book. The price on it? Enough for me to disappear for another two years.
The job was simple. The Hotel Principe di Savoia, Milan's most opulent, was a place where everything was just so damn expensive for no reason. Volkov was in the presidential suite, celebrating the sale. My method was room service. A trolley filled with enough caviar that could feed a whale and a bottle of very expensive vodka.
Fuck, rich people disgust the living hell out of me. Anyways, the real waiter was currently tied up…literally, in the hotel's industrial laundry room.
I adjusted the white jacket of my uniform, checked my sleek, pulled-back hair in the mirrored wall of the service elevator, and practiced my vacant, professional smile.
The door to the presidential suite swung open. And there I saw a very huge man. It looked like he could be 7-foot or big-foot at this point. Bodyguard number one.
"Room service," I said, changing my voice.
He grunted, patting me down with very huge hands that could be used as a place, Jesus. He was so tough and rough, but I forced myself to keep my expression blank. The tiny, gun-shaped gadget tucked into the heel of my service shoe? I completely missed it. Amateurs.
I found my way inside and Volkov's room, as expected, was the best in here, but god, I smelled the money. I pushed the trolley inside, lowering my eyes to the floor and walking carefully, like I was a dull girl. I got in and saw three men inside, sitting around a table smoking cigarettes heavily and playing cards like they were not in the middle of doing the most darndest thing at the end of Western Europe as we know it.
My eyes shifted to one particular man, whom I guessed was Volkov, but he himself was not exactly what I expected from a man whose name I've heard countless times. He was short and very fat, wearing a robe that…god, looked more expensive as fuck than my entire fake life. His eyes were so sharp and even while playing the game, I could see that he had that look of a man who is never going to accept defeat. He looked at me when I came in the same way all these rich men looked at women like me…like I was just a rag.
"Put it there," he said, waving a hand toward the far end of the suite without looking up from his cards. I obeyed quietly, carrying the trolley to that place even though I didn't want to, because…money, remember?
I started to arrange the glasses on the trolley carefully, but my eyes were scanning my environment, and…got it!
The black book was on the desk and they must have put it under a leather envelope as if they wanted to hide it. I suppressed the urge to laugh, because the idea was foolish. My eyes still scanned and there were two guards near the door, one by the balcony, and Volkov's personal bodyguard, big foot from earlier, had resumed his post just inside the entrance.
Four men. One exit. One book. One me.
I set down the last glass, straightened my gown, and smiled a very weak, innocent smile. The next thing, I knocked the entire bottle of vodka directly onto Volkov's lap.
The chaos that followed was beautiful, honestly. He leapt up screaming in Russian, his men rushed toward him, and in the three glorious seconds that everyone in that room was looking at Volkov's robe and not at me, I crossed to the desk, slipped the black book beneath my gown, and walked calmly to the door.
"So sorry," I said, still in character, still carrying my pitiful face, as if I wanted to cry. "I'm so sorry sir. I'll…I'll send another bottle immediately."
Big Foot glared at me. I lowered my gaze, faking a shake to actually show I was scared and harmless.
"Get out!" Volkov roared and I practically flew outside. By the time they realised that the bill was gone, I had already gone down the stairs, taken off the uniform, and was walking through the marble lobby in a brown coloured blazer and black jeans, the book pressed against my ribs inside my jacket.
The air was cold when I stepped outside and I exhaled deeply. So…just like that, I was done with this job. Finally, my phone pinged in my hand and I looked at it.
It was the debrief location that was sent to me. Throughout my years of working for them, and I mean YEARS, the debrief location has never been in the same location or venue. It was always changing. Tonight, it was a private room above a wine bar in Navigli. It looked like nothing of that sort would ever happen in this location.