John handed over the last plate but Anna waved her fork, "If I eat another bite I'll explode."

"Then I'll help you." He dug his fork into the decadent chocolate dessert and turned the fork toward her, "Just one."

"My mother always said to beware of men like you." Anna warned with feigned seriousness before leaning just enough over the table to take the cake into her mouth, sliding it with a sensuous slowness off the tines of the fork. John's hand shook slightly and she licked at her lips before chewing, "Obviously I didn't listen."

"I'm glad you didn't."

"So am I." Anna took a sip of water, "That's far richer than I expected given the cost here."

"I'm a man of many talents." John opened his hands at the restaurant, "I know enough people, made the right relationships, and I do the best business so I can offer people what they love for a small price."

"Let everyone wallow in their guilty pleasures then?" Anna took another spear of the cake, sucking this one with the same efficiency.

"I don't believe pleasure should ever be guilty."

"You're obviously a fan of tom Hiddleston."

John shrugged, "Who can't respect an actor of his caliber?"

"That's not why most women like him but I agree, he's a fine actor." Anna sat back, "Still doesn't really explain why a man who works with the people you do goes to all the trouble to build and run a place like this."

"You mean why live two separate lives?"

"You were in the guide to London's best restaurants in the last year and that takes some doing." Anna narrowed her eyes at him but John noted the way her mouth turned up at the corners, "Is this your cover?"

"Trying to find out who's the real me?"

"Isn't that what you're trying to find out about me?"

"Of course it is." John crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair so his rolled up sleeves pulled up his arms. He hid his grin at the catch in Anna's breath at the sight. "We all want to find out more about those people who fascinate us."

"The question then becomes, what fascinates us more? The secret existing or knowing what that secret is."

"I always enjoyed discovering the answer to a pressing question."

"And I always tore the last page out of books I read to keep the ending from arriving." Anna shrugged, "We're all odd in our own ways I think."

"Maybe some of us a little less odd."

"Ah, yes, the elusive normal being that we're all trying to become."

"Aren't you?"

Anna shook her head, "I gave up on that dream a very long time ago and don't like looking back on it."

"We all look back eventually."

"Yes we do."

They sat in silence a moment until Anna smiled, "You're curious about something."

"Am I?"

"It's on the tip of your tongue and you're dying to ask me." Anna sipped away the last of her wine, placing the glass back in its position above her plate before opening her hands toward him. "Go on, we're in a tale-telling mood here."

John shifted forward, resting on his arms with his fingers interlaced. "What brings a woman, like yourself, to do what you do?"

"You mean why am I not a teacher or a librarian or even something as edgy as a night club owner or a barmaid? Occupations all less dangerous and better befitting a woman of my petite, feminine frame?"

"If you want to put it like that."

"Wouldn't you?"

"I assume size isn't the most important factor and looks are, all too often, deceiving so my question is not one of appearance but one of motivation."

"Then you're wondering what motivates a girl, like myself, to do what I do?"

John nodded, "Given your accent I'd guess you grew up in Yorkshire. More than likely northern Yorkshire or eastern. That's not a place one usually breeds trained snipers and killers."

"It's not." Anna tapped her fingers on the table a moment, "And I'll answer you if you'll then answer a question about yourself."

"You want to know more about why I'd own a place like this and yet still work in an industry that rubs shoulders with the people who need to hire you?"

Anna grinned, "Exactly what I mean."

"I'm a gentleman, of sorts, so ladies first."

"I'm not a lady and I don't pretend to be."

John met her eyes, holding them to ensure she looked nowhere else when he spoke next. "You're a lady to me and I've never met a finer one."

Anna flushed, swallowing quickly to regain her composure, "Well then, John, if we're in agreement-"

"We are."

"Then I'll begin." Anna clasped her hands on the table in front of him, "I do what I do so I can kill people."

"That's it?"

"There's no passion in what I do. In fact, it's the dispassionate side of it that makes the arrangement all the more appealing to me."

John frowned, "You don't like passion?"

"I believe passion, in business, all too often ruins everything. People make bad decisions when their pressure's up and then where does that lead?"

"We work in a passionate business, Ms. Smith."

"It's that kind of passion that killed my father, Mr. Bates." Anna stopped, "In truth, I came here tonight because I need your help."

"My help?"

"Yes, your help. Or, more accurately, the help of the organization that you work for and represent."

"What's the guarantee you won't kill any of us when we're being Good Samaritans and helping you?" John kept his face straight but Anna did not take offense.

"As I said the first time we met, Mr. Bates, we're not good people so whatever you do for me won't be good either unless you believe in a general good."

"And what you want us to do for you helps a general good?"

"It does." Anna clipped the end of her statement, "If you help me with what I need then I promise I'll take no contracts on your life, or the lives of any who help me, until after our business concludes plus one year."

"Is that a going rate?"

Anna shrugged, "It's more than I've ever offered anyone before."

"I didn't think you offered it at all."

"I don't."

John let out a heavy breath, "Then this is very serious."

"As I said, I don't believe in passion in our business and I don't believe humor has a place in motions like these."

"Then," John held himself up, "I'm all ears."

"I do warn you, Mr. Bates, this is a long story."

"I don't have plans until the morning and I don't sleep much anyway."

"We share that in common." Anna took a breath, "Have you ever killed a man before, John?"

"First names now?"

"The situation warrants a degree of honesty that convention won't allow." Anna continued, "I repeat the question, have you ever killed someone?"

"Many times."

"So have I."

John scoffed then held up a hand, "I'm sorry, I don't disbelieve you but I'm assuming when you asked me that question you weren't trying to compare numbers."

"I never compare numbers."

"Then allow me the freedom to say that the kind of killing I've done if very different from yours."

"A life is a life, John."

"But you're up high, watching everything like the Angel of Death from a perch in the heavens. You're not down in the thick of it beating a man's face to a bloody pulp of having to crack his neck with your bare hands." John shook his head, "That's a very different kind of killing."

"The kind that leaves a different stain on your soul."

"Have you ever watched the life bleed out of someone as you stood over them, Anna?" John lowered his voice. Not for fear that anyone was listening as the restaurant was now deserted but to bring the weight of the conversation to an audible point. "Have you ever come down from your high perch and killed with your bare hands when it was you or them? When right and wrong or morality meant nothing above the base, animal instinct to survive?"

Anna's face was stone. "Yes. Three times actually."

"I thought you didn't compare numbers."

"I remember those faces more clearly than any profile I ever photographed through my scope."

"Keep a log do you?"

"I'm the last ones to see their faces. I glimpse them right before death…" Anna looked at her hands, "I never had the chance to apologize to those three."

John softened his tone, "How'd they die?"

"One by strangulation, another with a crushed windpipe, and one man I stabbed because he came up behind me in my nest and surprised me."

"How'd you handle that?"

"I gained the moment to stab him in the throat and still made the shot." Anna closed her eyes, "Made me so angry."

"Why?"

"Because if he hadn't interrupted me then I would've killed my mark where his family would only find him dead. The delay meant that the man's blood sprayed all over his son. I never wanted that to happen."

"Did you kill the boy?"

Anna scowled, "I don't kill children, Mr. Bates."

"I was just asking. I thought that was why you remembered the death so vividly."

"It was after that I remember." Anna stared into the corner, her eyes unfocused as if the scene played out before her like a recorded family memory replayed at reunions. "His son watched his father's head literally explode."

"He would've seen the aftermath. What difference is a few seconds in that case since, either way, the boy's father was no less dead?"

"Because, Mr. Bates, it's better that a child grows up with the sorrow of losing a parent to a vicious killer than the anger that covers the sorrow when they watch it happen." Anna sighed, "That's how revenge starts."

John tapped the table before pointing at her, "That's where your story starts doesn't it? You saw something you shouldn't have seen and it's driven you ever since."

Anna nodded, "I told you passion killed my father."

"Yes."

"That's only part of the truth."

"And what you'll tell me now'll be another part but we're only ever telling parts of the truth, aren't we?"

"I guess we are." Anna snorted, "If I'd known this would be a philosophical discussion we should've had it in a lecture hall."

"If I'd known we'd be confessing our sins to one another we should've had it in a church." John motioned to her, "I interrupted, I'm sorry."

"It makes the telling easier to have these lighter moments I think." Anna returned to her story, "When I said revenge drives from anger I spoke from experience. It drove me and I know it drives that boy."

"How?"

"My father was killed in front of my eyes."

"Right in front of you?"

"The men who did it didn't know I was watching because my father hid me in the closer before they broke into our home but yes, I saw it all." Anna kept silent until her voice evened again. "I swore to myself, that day, that I would kill every man involved in what happened."

"I doubt very many of them are still breathing then."

"Most are dead, yes."

"Your strangulated man and the crushed windpipe among them?"

"Along with a few long-range kills."

"Not very personal."

Anna snorted, "I told you, passion ruins our business."

"But you're passionate to kill someone you can't get to on your own of you wouldn't have arranged this little tête-à-tête would you?"

"You're right."

"Then who was behind it? With the kind of violence you're talking about it this wasn't a random mugging or armed robbery."

"That's what they tried to make it look like for the police." Anna gripped her napkin in her white-knuckled fingers and John noticed the tremor there. "They had all the right people paid and no one believed me."

"Did they try to get rid of you?"

Anna barked out a laugh, "What's a nine-year-old going to tell them that they'd believe?"

"I hoped more people."

"Not when you're dealing with people just as scared or just as corrupt as the force was then." Anna snorted, "As they are now. They haven't changed."

"What happened? Murder's not the first response for a group. They want people quiet and docile, usually not bleeding onto their sitting room carpets."

"My father stood up to a man named Nigel Green, do you know him?"

John coughed, "Nigel Green? The boss in Yorkshire?"

"That's him."

"We steer clear of him. He's bad business, dirty money, and even worse manners. I'd applaud your father his bravery if I didn't immediately think him a bloody idiot."

"My mother said the same thing."

"What'd he do to piss off Nigel?"

"He wouldn't bow to Nigel's demands that the union my father represented pay them protection money." Anna stiffened, "So they came to our house and used a crowbar to shatter his kneecap."

"And you saw this?"

"I was in the room."

"Anna-"

"Next thing I did was run to my room and break my piggybank to give my father two handfuls of pocket change to pay the bad men so they'd never come again." Anna wiped quickly at her eyes, "I was sobbing and he soothed me, said it'd be alright and he'd take care of it."

"What'd he do?"

"He reported the incident and said he'd keep reporting it until someone listened."

"The wrong people listened."

"The man who wanted my father's job leading the union sold him out to Green. So then Green sent his son, few years older than me, to take some enforcers to my house and threaten my father again." Anna smiled slightly, "He stood up to them, literally, on his broken leg and told them where they could bugger off to."

"And then they killed him?"

"Stabbed him repeatedly."

"Anger turns to revenge."

"That's right." Anna sucked the insides of her cheeks, "My mother remarried, to the man who betrayed my father, and I left that house as soon as I could."

"Why?"

"That man was under Green's thumb. He had no courage, no spine, and he once tried to lay his hands on me." John went to move but Anna chuckled, "I stabbed him so deep in the thigh he never walked right again. Carries the memory of me everyday when he limps everywhere like the coward he is."

"What then?"

"I joined the Army and qualified to be a sniper. Got really good and then decided I was done following orders and needed to do something else with my life."

"Like hunt down the men who killed your father?"

"I'm physically able now, Mr. Bates."

"Just not financially or man-power able?" John nodded, running a hand over his face to organize his thoughts. "Would I also be correct in assuming the man you're still after is Nigel Green?"

"And his son and the other two men I haven't ended yet."

"You intend to kill them all?"

"Why, worried you'll miss them at the next social function?"

"No," John shook his head in a hurry, "I won't have any moral compunction to stop you and, in fact, I'll help you."

"Because you've got beef with Alex Green?"

John grinned, "You did more research on me than I realized."

"It's why I knew I could count on you."

"You're right about the scores I've got to settle with young Alex," John ground his jaw, "Among other things."

"What other things?"

"Do you remember how I said my ex-wife wouldn't hire you to kill me but do it herself?"

"Yes."

"She works for Nigel Green and tried to do just that once." John stood, "If I've learned anything it's never stand in the way of a woman with a gun."

"Wise choice." Anna held out her hand to him, "Are we agreed then, John?"

John took her hand, "It'd be my pleasure to help you kill the Greens."