He spots the woman eying him from across the bar, but of course, by the time that he actually puts his drink down and goes over to where she'd been sitting, the only thing that indicated that she'd been there at all was a ring of water from some drink.

He leaves the bar alone a bit after that, a little tipsy but not drunk. He thinks that he has to urinate halfway from the bar to his apartment, and side-steps into an alley.

As he relieves himself against the already piss-stained brick wall, he feels as if he is being watched. He looks a bit nervously over his shoulder; there's a black-clad figure in the mouth of the alley. The street light nearby is out, but all of the other lights work perfectly on the rest of the street. It was why he'd picked that alley in particular, rather than any other. He wishes that he hadn't, now.

He sees as something slender catches what little light that there is as the figure approaches him; he thinks that it is a gun.

He scrambles to tuck himself back into his pants and to move out from the way. But the figure is already there, on his other side, as if they had anticipated his move towards the back of the alley.

With some horror, he realizes that it was the woman who'd been eying him at the bar.

A slender knife slides easily into his chest, which punctures his heart and kills him instantly. His last thought before he dies is that he should have gone home with the leggy blonde with the giant tits.

They sky, which had been exceptionally dark and overcast the entire day, finally let loose all of the moisture that it had been holding. Within seconds, both the woman and the man, now dead, were completely soaked. The woman took a moment to crouch down by the prone figure of the man and wiped her stiletto blade free from blood on his tie. As she stands, she looks down at the man and wants to spit on him.

A man, who had brutally raped at least five women, and had walked on all charges thanks to his golden tongue.

She wants to spit on him. But she does not, because that would be leaving evidence at the crime scene. A giant no-no in every criminal's hand book… especially those who deal out swift death.

Instead, she just carefully side-steps his body and quickly leaves the scene. Nobody notices her passing at all. She is a ghost who lives in the shadows.

By the time that the sun starts to rise, the police and crime scene units are crowding into the tiny alley, trying to figure out who the man is, why and how he died, and who did it.

But the woman is already long gone.

Chapter 1

Bella carefully slid her fingers into the tiny crack in the window and eased it open before she slipped inside the room and closed the window again. She locked it behind her because, hey, this was New York; you never knew what kind of creep would come crawling through a girl's bedroom window.

Once inside, she peeled off her black, leather gloves, which concealed latex gloves that were covered with blood. She tossed both onto plastic sheet on the other side of her bed, before she pulled off the rest of her outfit. Both gloves would be carefully burned to conceal evidence, and her outfit would be carefully inspected for any stray drops of blood.

It had been 631 days since Bella had last been sloppy enough to get blood on her clothes, and she wasn't about to break that streak now. But still, it didn't hurt to be careful. You never know when the police might find a stray hair that had fallen out of her ponytail, find a witness who remembered her face…

The last pair of boots that Bella had burned was because she'd accidentally stepped in a puddle of the victim's blood as she left the scene. The police had come very close to grabbing her because of her insistence of buying custom boots for her jobs. After that, it was back to generic boot purchases. The police would not be able to ID her if a thousand other ladies also bought those boots in New York alone.

After a quick but scalding shower, Bella stood over the kitchen sink and started to clean her knives. Her roommate, Rosalie, wandered into the room; an unlit cigarette was clenched between her teeth and she was only wearing a worn camisole and panties. "Tough night," Rose said around her cigarette as she searched for her lighter. "Are you just getting in?"

"Yeah," Bella agreed.

"Then both myself and Em should make ourselves-" A knock sounded at the door before Rosalie could finish her sentence. "Too late," she said with a giggle. She snatched her pink Barbie lighter from the counter on the other side of where Bella stood and skipped off to her bedroom. Bella stashed her knives, bloody sponge, and protective gloves (which would also be burned later) under the sink and went to answer the door. It was Victoria– not like Bella was overly surprised to see her. The red-head burst into the apartment without permission. As Bella closed and locked the door, Victoria pulled a thick wad of cash out from her Dolce and Gabbana purse and tossed it onto the coffee table.

"Good work, but I wouldn't have expected anything less from my little Odette," Victoria said. She flashed Bella a smile; it was the closest thing that Bella had ever gotten to parental praise since she was 12. Victoria sat down on the ragged sofa, fished her cigarette case out from her bag, selected one, and lit it up. Rosalie smoked, too, but the difference between their smoking habits was the difference between a $5 Barbie and a Limited Edition Mint-in-Box Collector's Barbie. "I have another client for you, if you're feeling up to the task."

"Another one?" Bella asked. She was itching to grab the wad of cash and count it out. It would probably last her for at least a month if Rosalie accepted a job, too, and if the two of them lived frugally. Bella didn't like to take job after job; she wanted for the police to forget about her last job… for the case to fall onto the back burner as more pressing cases happened. After all, if she went on a killing spree, her five-year record of assassinations might be shattered. She would get sloppy, start leaving clues behind. Get caught.

"It's an undercover mission," Victoria said.

"You're talking to the wrong person, Victoria," Bella scoffed. She reached over for the stack of money, but Victoria grabbed Bella's wrist before Bella could touch it.

"No, I am not. If I wanted to talk to Rosalie, I would have," Victoria said. The thought had occurred to Bella, too. Victoria did not make mistakes. It was why she was the current Black Lord in New York, and had been for over ten years. She didn't make stupid mistakes like putting the wrong person on a specific assignment. Every little thing that she did was not without calculation. "This job would require me to give you an allowance of one grand a week."

Bella liked the way that she lived. People didn't notice her, which was perfect for her job. If she started to buy designer clothes and buy new furniture from somewhere other than Ikea, people might start to take notice. She didn't want to take another job so soon, especially not if it meant that she'd be undercover for a long period of time.

She briefly wondered what Rose would say on the issue, and the voice inside of Bella's head that had permanently taken on the tone of her best friend instantly chimed up. Yes, it sucks to have to go undercover, but undercover operations take months, years even to set up enough trust to get close to the person. In the meantime, Bella would just sit back in some set-up apartment, live the good life, and pretend to be somebody that she's not.

The last issue was both a pro and a con in Bella's opinion. She hated falling into routines. She wouldn't be able to accept any other jobs while she was undercover, either.

But, this job was likely very high profile. Bella might get some decent exposure in the criminal world.

But if the job was that high profile, and if she was hanging around the person she was to kill, the police would likely start asking her questions. And if she just vanished without a trace, that would look even more suspicious. And Bella loved New York; she didn't want to leave because some stupid client of Victoria's wanted some politician or something dead.

In the end, the cons vastly outweighed the pros in Bella's mind. "No, I'm not interested," she said. She grabbed the money off from the table.

"I haven't even told you the guy's name," Victoria said as she blew smoke out from her nose. Bella started to walk to her bedroom, but paused when Victoria said two simple words: "Edward Cullen."

Edward Cullen, the annoyance of real celebrities everywhere. Considered among the type of celebrity status as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, Edward Cullen was famous for being famous. Nobody knew where he'd come from, but one day, the world seemed to realize that his face was splashed all over the tabloids at the grocery store (the kind that everybody looks at but nobody buys), all over celebrity gossip shows, all over the internet.

From day one, he'd struck Bella as the douche-baggy party-boy who used girls like somebody with hay fever used tissues. She tried very hard not to pay attention to things like celebrities, let alone "people who were famous for being famous", but he always somehow managed to worm his way into her lexicon.

Her hands tightened into fists and the metal clip that held the money together dug painfully into her palm. Victoria seriously knew what she was doing; Bella had complained about the faux-celebrity to her mentor and mother-figure often enough.

Bella heard Victoria stand up, drop something else onto the coffee table. A moment later, she was gone. Bella didn't want to take the stupid case. She wanted to sit in her room, count out her money, finish cleaning her knives, burn everything, and then sleep for a week straight.

"That was a long conversation," Rosalie said. "Did she give you another job?" It was a rule that assassins didn't look into the assigned jobs given to them, even if the files were left out on the coffee table.

"I'm not going to take it," Bella said as she vanished into her room.

She counted out the money from the job. She finished cleaning her knives and stored them under the loose floorboard under her bed. She put sponge and all six gloves into the tiny oven in the kitchen and stood over it to watch them all burn. She checked her clothes for blood and was pleased to find none. Rosalie made sandwiches and Bella had one.

As Bella reached for a second sandwich, Rosalie finally asked, "Why is there an Us Weekly in the folder that Victoria gave you? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry, but it was sitting on the coffee table on top of some tax return papers and there was the magazine in there."

"What?" Bella asked. With the sandwich in her mouth, she went into the little living room area and opened the file folder. No, there was probably something else about the assignment in there, too. But there wasn't anything but the magazine. It was from a few months ago, and Edward Cullen was on the cover.

"Does it have something to do with your assignment?" Rose asked as she leaned against the door frame in the kitchen.

"I haven't accepted it yet," Bella said without taking her eyes off from Edward's. His green eyes seemed to look at her, no matter which way she turned the magazine. He had several day's worth of stubble, his hair looked like he hadn't washed it in some time and that he'd literally never heard of a comb, and he was wearing a black, leather jacket over a Rolling Stones t-shirt. He still looked like a pretentious douche-bag to Bella.

Bella rolled the magazine up and went into her room. She shook the magazine out in the hopes that something would fall out— something that Victoria had slipped between the glossy pages in relation to the mission. But the only thing that came out was one of those magazine insert forms to order more magazines. Bella picked it up and was about to toss it in the trash when she noticed that the toll-free number had been scratched out and, in Victoria's neat handwriting, another number had been written in instead.

Bella took one last look at Edward's picture before she grabbed her latest phone off from the end of the bed and quickly dialed the number on the card. She had to physically turn her back on the magazine. "I'm in," was all that she said.

"Two hours, not bad," Victoria said. "I would have given up on you after 12. Time is of the essence right now, where this job is concerned. Meet me at the Starbucks five blocks from your apartment in one hour." It was just common sense to never discuss jobs over the phone— literally anybody could be listening.

Bella replaced her soft shorts and tank-top for skinny jeans and a Glass Spider Tour t-shirt. She threw her hair up, grabbed her sunglasses and purse, and was out the door with a quick, "I'm leaving!" to Rosalie.

Bella was not the kind of person who frequented Starbucks. That place was for hipsters who enjoyed the thought of paying over $5 for a cup of sub-par coffee that the baristas likely spat in before they were handed over. Bella bought some chamomile tea and said that her name was Elizabeth. She sat at a slightly sticky table against the far wall and watched the door carefully.

When Victoria came in, she nodded slightly to her young protege, and when Victoria had been given her coffee, Bella stood up to leave the cafe at the same time that Victoria did. Anybody who watched either of them leave would never have guessed that the two ladies knew one another. Bella was busy looking through old messages from Rose on her phone while Victoria pretended to have a phone conversation. "You will pick Mr. Cullen up from the airport on Friday," Victoria said after they'd walked away from the coffee shop. "His New York schedule coordinator has had a rather unfortunate accident. Of course, it's nothing that Ms. Swan can't handle, though."

"I don't have experience," Bella protested with her head down. She saw an old text that Rose had sent her; it had been funny at the time, but now, Bella was in no mood to laugh.

"You give him tickets to see Lion King on Broadway and if he wants to go to the Statue of Liberty, you call ahead to make sure that they know that he's coming," Victoria snapped. "It's honestly not that hard. We're going to do all of the grunt work for you, so it's not like you'll have to lift a finger to do much for him."

"You want me to play tour guide to some rich S.O.B?" Bella asked with a wrinkle of her nose. "How is this supposed to help?"

"Honestly, Odette. Did you not read the article in the magazine?"

"No."

"Playing tour guide is only a small portion of the assignment. The rest is for you to be your usual, charming self and to win his heart."

"I still think that you're talking to the wrong person."

"Read the article, please," Victoria insisted. Bella rolled her eyes, but made a mental note to read it as soon as she got home. "He'll have no choice but to fall for you."

"What is my first task?" Bella asked. It was too late to back out now. Victoria paused, pulled a key out from her purse and handed it to Bella; there was a small notecard with the address attached to the keyring.

"Your new apartment. And since I just paid you, you will need to buy some new clothes." Victoria gave Bella's outfit a once over; the disdain in her eyes was obvious. "Bella Swan, private event coordinator to the stars who wish to see New York, does not wear… tacky Glass Spider Tour t-shirts and flip-flops." Bella scowled at Victoria— people who insulted David Bowie had no room in her life— but remained silent on the matter. "I will leave the flight information in the apartment, as well as the plans that he'd already made with the previous coordinator. Good day to you." Victoria quickly walked away.

Bella shoved the key into her pocket and went the opposite way.

"Rose, I need to borrow your suitcase for an indefinite amount of time."

"Um…"

"It's about this job."

"You don't take undercover jobs, babe."

"This one is different. Can I borrow it or not?"

"Yeah, sure." Rose got up off the couch and went to the front closet to find her suitcase. It was, like most everything that Rose owned, Barbie-doll pink and covered with a wide array of decals from the places that Rose's jobs had taken her over her career as an assassin. "Where are you headed, anyway?"

"Somewhere in Upper East Side."

"Fancy. Want to borrow some of my things?"

"Thanks, but as soon as I take some of my things over there, I'm going to go on a quick shopping spree," Bella said.

"Lucky. I wish more of my jobs required me to go on shopping sprees so that I could fit into Upper East Side social life."

"Maybe if you started accepting more jobs in the first place…" Bella said as she vanished into her bedroom with Rose's suitcase. She tossed the suitcase onto the bed, and then picked up the magazine— she'd burnt the insert with Victoria's latest number over the stove before she left, even though she knew that within the week, Victoria would have a new number anyway. The front cover boasted "Exclusive Interview with Edward Cullen!" Bella didn't know much about Edward, but wondered why he'd demean himself to a shitty magazine like Us. The only reason she could think of was that they'd somehow offered him the most money.

Bella sat on the floor under her window and flipped to the interview in question. The interview started off by asking Edward about the home that he'd just bought in a suburb of London. Bella honestly couldn't care less about the square footage of the stupid place, how much it cost, and how close it was to things. And she didn't think that this part was what Victoria had been talking about when she'd asked Bella to read the interview.

She skimmed the article until the reporter asked: AW: And what about the women in your life?

EC: You mean my mom or my sister?

AW: Well, yes, but I'm talking about asking for all of the ladies who will read this article.

EC: Oh. Yes, that. I'm still not seeing anybody since my break-up with Tanya last year.

AW: And why's that? Are you still not over her?

EC: It's a lot more complicated than me being over somebody or not. For the sake of Tanya's privacy, I'm not going to answer that. It will remain between the two of us.

AW: I see. But let's just say that you were to meet the perfect woman, let's just say, tomorrow. What would she look like?

EC: I'm not entirely certain about that? I mean, I can't say that I've honestly thought about it. I think that she'd be a brunette, though.

AW: And while you haven't given much though on her physical appearance, surely you've thought about the type of woman that you're looking for?

EC: Yeah, probably. I know that people think of me as this who-cares party-boy, but that isn't all of what makes me… me.

Bella snorted at that. It sounded like this guy got his life philosophy from a book he bought at the dollar store.

EC: So while the fun, pretty, party girls are nice, it's not who I'm looking for. Besides, I'm not so sure that any of those girls are the long-term relationship type girls, you know? I want a girl who's interested in classical music, to sit with me through a ballet without once checking her phone, who will just curl up next to me on a rainy Saturday afternoon with a cup of tea and a good book.

EC: At the insistence of my father, I've been playing the piano since I was five years old. I want somebody who understands the background that I've had, and wants me for just more than my money. Somebody who looks at me and sees somebody more than just the rich, famous party-boy.

"If any of that is actually true, Mr. Cullen, I will gladly eat my hat," Bella muttered under her breath as she flipped to the next page. There was a full-page spread of pictures, continued from the photo shoot that they'd used for the front cover, but with the backgrounds still in tact. One of Edward sulking by a lounger by a pool, another of Edward sulking with his jacket thrown over his shoulder oh-so-casually by a post on the porch. "Honestly, doesn't this guy have any other facial expressions other than 'my mom just took away my favorite toy'?"

But still. There was probably some truth to the interview, or Victoria wouldn't have asked for Bella to read it as research for the roll that she'd be stepping in to. Or at least, so Victoria thought.

Huffing with annoyance, Bella tossed the magazine aside and started to throw her favorite clothes into the suitcase. She had a new apartment to look over and new things to buy.

Thank you very much for reading; I hope that you enjoyed it. This was looked over briefly by lady_vyxen, but if you spotted any errors, please let me know.

And a big thank you to lady_vyxen for looking this over and for helping me to bounce ideas around. I don't think that I would have gotten up enough inspiration to start up this project again, let alone to get it to the point where I wanted to put it up online, if it wasn't for you. :)