Prologue

Once you're trapped, you're trapped for good. There isn't a way to escape. The minute he makes the request is the minute that you're finished. You'll do as he says. He gave me the order to kill the man or to suffer the consequence. The consequence being death at my own hands. I wasn't prepared for either action. And I wasn't ready to try and run. If I failed at that attempt, he'd kill me for sure.

So I asked for three days to prepare. Three days that I was thankfully granted. Very few ideas came to me. Those that did were useless. Utterly useless.

"How would you like me to do it, Elliot?" I asked at the end of the third day.

"Cleanly." He replied, "He isn't worthy of a slow death."

"Understood." Now I had no other choice. It was do or die. Elliot handed me a picture of the man, Collan. "I don't want to see it." I said slipping it quickly into my wallet without as much as a glance. "I want to wait." I added.

"Just make sure you get the right man." Elliot said grimly, "I don't want any screw-ups. You know what happens to people who fail?"

"Right." Her first time had to be perfect. She couldn't allow them to dispose of her, not yet.

"Here's a key to the first level cabinet. I'll say it again, Ashley, don't screw up."

"Yes, Elliot." They can't get rid of me, I thought, not until he acknowledges me as his partner. I loved Elliot then; loved him too much to give up. Like any determined, if not obsessed woman, the one thing I actually was prepared to do was sacrifice anything just to make him understand. He'd simply laughed the first time I'd confessed my feelings, 'So innocent…' He'd claimed.

But I refused to give up. My training drove me nearly insane, but I did it for him. The one who had saved me so long ago. I would do as he said. A killer could not be innocent. It was simply impossible not to mention inconceivable. This would prove to him how serious I was. Looking back, these thoughts were the ones that would cause me to fall.