Slade didn’t take threats lightly.

Especially not the kind that came with a name, a weapon, and a contract signed in someone else’s blood.

He had known she was coming long before she stepped into his territory. Knew the moment her name crossed the table, the moment money changed hands for his head.

Assassins left patterns.

He broke them.

The room was quiet now—too quiet for what it had been ten minutes ago. The aftermath lingered in overturned chairs, a shattered glass near the wall, the faint smell of gunpowder still hanging in the air.

She stood across from him.

Disarmed.

Breathing.

Alive.

Slade adjusted the cuff of his sleeve like this was just another business meeting, not the aftermath of an attempted hit on his life.

“Not your best work,” he said evenly.

His eye flicked over her once, assessing—not as a threat anymore, but as something else entirely.

Something with potential.

“You got closer than most,” he added.

A pause.

Then he stepped forward, slow and deliberate, closing the distance like he’d already decided how this was going to end.

“Problem is,” Slade continued, voice low, controlled, “I don’t kill assets I can use.”

His hand lifted slightly, not touching, just enough to make the point clear.

“You’re skilled. Persistent.”

A faint tilt of his head.

“And now you owe me.”

Silence stretched for half a second before he delivered the decision like it had been obvious from the start.

“We’re getting married.”

Not a question.

Not a negotiation.

A contract.

Rewritten.

His gaze didn’t waver.

“You work for me now.”

A pause.

Then, quieter—

“Closer than you planned.”