The air was cool, crisp, blowing inside the room from a vent. If you listen very closely you can hear the mechanisms whirring and a muffled trumpet blowing in tune with a woman scatting.   

“Do you know why I chose you two?” 

“Because we’re the best,” they answered together and without hesitation.

Their heads turned, their eyes judged one another. 

Looking at them, Alistair Pinch smiled, and started to laugh. It’s full-throated, what they call a belly laugh. 

Alistair Pinch is not a subtle man. He enjoys his fine life. He parties. Eats lobster on Tuesday afternoons because it’s Tuesday afternoon and collects expensive Cuban cigars, not to smoke them, but to hand them out to his guest like candy corn at Halloween.

“I love you both,” Alisatar Pinch said, still chortling. “Romeo and Juliet. You’re like twins. Give them the papers, Hamilton.”

His assistant, Hamilton Brown, a tall flunky with a mop of dirty blond hair and tortoise shell glasses, whipped identical tan folders he had tucked between his skinny arms and his scrawny chest, handing it to Romeo and Juliet at the same time.

“This is very important,” Alistair Pinch said. “Very important,” he repeated. “It must be done. And it must be done right. And while you’re both very talent, that isn’t why I selected you two to do these killings for me.” 

They regarded him. Both seemed skeptical and slightly affronted. Romeo was grim and serious. Juliet was smiling and relaxed. Alistair Pinch feared her more than him. He never trusted women easily, but a woman who delighted in death as she does, is a woman he learned early in life was not to be trifled with.

Alistair Pinch stood. He reached inside his tuxedo jacket and slid a gold case from the pocket. “I chose you,” he spread his arms out wide, palms opened to the ceiling, “because you two have chemistry. True chemistry, Romeo and Juliet.”

He handed Hamilton Brown the gold case and they headed for the door. “You’re welcome to stay. Partake in the festivities. What's mine is yours,” he threw over his shoulder.

The door closed behind Alistair and Hamilton.

Romeo’s eyes wandered over to Juliet. She’s examining the contents of the folder. He pulled in a long breath and took in the sight and smell of her, longing to touch and to taste.

“He’s right, you know. About the chemistry.”

She doesn’t move, apart from the fraction of an inch that the smile tugged at one side of her lips. 

“We could do it right here,” he said. In his mind, he’s already bent her over Pinch's desk. 

She returned to her reading. At the moment, he’s a dust mote floating around in her rarified air. She’s just as good a killer as he is. In fact, she might be killing him right now. But you wouldn’t know until just before you're dead, in your last moment, in your last breath when her pretty brown face hovered over yours and smiled as the light vanished from your eyes. 

“Come on, Juliet,” he groaned, making his voice deep so the requests rumbled from the base of his throat.

The folder closes and she sighed casually, tossing her hair as she rose and took a step towards him, positioning a certain part of her body inches from his face. She smells of jasmine and a hint of citrus.

His mouth watered. 

She touched her soft hand to his face, traced a finger from the skin under his earlobe, along his clenched jaw to his smooth square chin. She lifted his eyes to hers and said, “Maybe next time, Romeo.”

She always says that. Every time he asks, she says exactly that. Maybe next time. Even the first time he asked, when he did it just to test her mettel. She just smiled in that silky way of her's and said: Maybe next time.

The door opened and closed again, and he’s alone in the office. 

“Maybe next time,” he whispered to himself, remembering the gleam on her skin. When he says it, it sounds different somehow. On her lips, it sounded like a promise.