MARCUS POV
The woman was either insane or brilliant.
I couldn't decide which.
I'd spent six days studying Grace Morgan. Learning her patterns, her security, her weaknesses. She was twenty-six, inexperienced, and drowning in a world that wanted her dead. Taking this contract should have been simple.
Walk in. Complete the job. Collect payment. Disappear.
That's how it always worked. That's how it had worked for forty-seven targets before her.
But Grace Morgan didn't scream when I appeared in her bedroom. Didn't run. Didn't beg.
She looked up from her book and told me to sit down.
Like I was a business associate. Like I wasn't holding a gun. Like death itself had just walked into her room and she wanted to negotiate terms.
"You can't negotiate with death," I said. The words came out flat. Emotionless. Exactly the way The Collective had trained me.
"I'm not negotiating with death." Grace stood slowly, keeping her movements visible. Non-threatening. "I'm negotiating with you. The person death is housed in. That's different."
Interesting. She'd done her research. Knew that separating the weapon from the man was the first step in finding leverage.
"Talk," I said. It wasn't a kind word. It was an order.
Grace moved closer. Still calm. Still unafraid. "My brother hired you to eliminate a problem. But I'm not a problem. I'm an opportunity."
"Everyone thinks they're an opportunity right before they die."
"Then prove me wrong. Listen for five minutes. If I'm wasting your time, you can complete your contract." Grace gestured to a chair near the window. "Please."
I didn't sit. But I also didn't leave. Something about this woman made me curious. Made me want to understand why she wasn't afraid when she should be terrified.
Grace explained everything. Her father's death. The inheritance. The board giving her two weeks to prove herself. Her brother contracting my organization because he wanted power that belonged to her.
"If you kill me," Grace said carefully, "Vinny Jr. takes control. He's impulsive. Violent. Bad for business. Within six months he'll make a mistake that gets the entire board arrested. The empire collapses. The Collective loses a valuable client."
"That's not my problem."
"It should be. The Collective profits from stable criminal organizations. Chaos is bad for everyone. If I survive, if I prove I can lead, everything stabilizes. The board stays profitable. The Collective keeps a reliable client. Everyone wins."
I studied her face. She believed what she was saying. More than that, her logic was sound. Vincent Morgan Jr. was known for being reckless. The Collective had rejected his contracts twice because he was too unstable to work with reliably.
Grace Morgan, on the other hand, had no reputation at all. Which meant she could be anything.
"Give me seventy-two hours," Grace said. "Let me survive the next board meeting. Let me show the room I'm not weak. Then make your kill look like an accident. You get paid, the contract is closed, and you disappear into a life where you don't have to answer to anyone ever again."
She was offering me an exit. A way to complete this contract while also ensuring the target succeeded first.
It was strategic. Intelligent. Exactly the kind of thinking that made targets valuable instead of just dead.
"Why would I do that?" I asked.
"Because you're not stupid enough to believe everything is black and white. Because you're intelligent enough to see that killing me creates chaos. Because some part of you, the part that's not just death, wants to know if I'm telling the truth." Grace stepped closer. Close enough that I could see the fear she was hiding behind calm. "And because I'm asking you to give morality a chance before you take my life."
Morality.
The word was a weapon I hadn't heard in years. The Collective had trained it out of me. Told me that morality was weakness. That choosing right from wrong was just choosing hesitation from action.
But Grace Morgan was standing in front of death asking for seventy-two hours of mercy.
And some broken part of me wanted to know what would happen if I said yes.
"Two months," I heard myself say. "Not seventy-two hours. Two months to prove you can lead. After that, the contract is either closed or renewed. Your choice which one gets me paid."
Grace's eyes widened. She'd expected refusal. Expected violence. Not negotiation.
"Two months," she repeated. "And if I fail?"
"Then I complete the contract. And you die knowing you tried."
Grace extended her hand. "Deal."
When our hands touched, something shifted. Not attraction. Not trust. Just a terrible understanding that we'd both just made a choice that could either save us or destroy us.
I released her hand and stepped back. "I'll be watching. Every move. Every decision. If you show weakness, the contract gets renewed immediately."
"Fair enough." Grace's voice was steady but I could see her pulse racing at her throat. "How will I contact you?"
I pulled out a phone and handed it to her. "Secure line. Emergency only. Don't waste my time with questions you can already answer yourself."
"Understood."
I turned to leave. The logical part of my brain was screaming that I'd just made the biggest mistake of my career. That extending contracts was against every protocol. That The Collective would question why Marcus Stone, who never failed, was suddenly hesitating.
"Why?" Grace's voice stopped me at the window. "Why did you agree to two months? You could have killed me tonight. Collected payment. Walked away."
I looked back at her. This woman who'd inherited an empire she didn't want. Who'd negotiated with death when she should have accepted it. Who believed morality mattered in a world built on violence.
"Because I want to know if you're lying," I said. "If morality is just another manipulation. Or if someone like you can actually survive in a world like this."
"And if I can survive?"
"Then maybe there's hope for both of us."
I left through the window. Rappelling down forty stories while my mind raced through possibilities. I'd just extended a contract for the first time in thirteen years. I'd just given a target two months to prove herself.
The Collective would want an explanation. They'd question my loyalty. They'd wonder if Marcus Stone was going soft.
But something about Grace Morgan made me want to see what happened when intelligence faced violence. When morality confronted power.
I wanted to know if she was strong enough to hold an empire together without becoming the monster everyone expected.
And I wanted to know if watching her succeed would prove that people like us could choose differently.
I called my handler, Marcus Webb. He answered on the first ring.
"Status report."
"Target acquired. High security. Preliminary reconnaissance complete. Estimate two months before optimal opportunity presents itself."
Silence on the line. Then: "Marcus, your contracts average seventy-two hours. Why is this one taking two months?"
"Because Vincent Morgan Jr. is unstable. If I eliminate Grace Morgan now, the empire becomes chaos. The Collective loses a client. I'm extending the timeline to ensure maximum profit."
It was a logical explanation. Strategic. The kind of reasoning that had made me valuable to The Collective.
Marcus Webb accepted it. "Two months. But Marcus, if this contract extends beyond that, there will be questions."
"Understood."
I hung up and stared at the phone Grace Morgan had given me. A secure line she could use to contact me. To ask for help. To prove she was worth the gamble I'd just taken.
My reflection stared back from a window across the street. Cold. Empty. Exactly what The Collective had made me.
But somewhere under the ice, something had cracked when Grace Morgan asked me to give morality a chance.
And now I had two months to discover if that crack would save me or destroy me.