Janie swallowed hard. She'd liked her old partner. Trusted her like she hadn't trusted anyone in years. It just showed how people change when having to own up to their failures. Not to mention having their heads chopped off.

She didn't trust anybody anymore.

Since that unfortunate incident, she'd been an exemplary employee. Doing everything she was told.

Whenever she was told. Wherever she was told. Gritting her teeth over any unpleasant assignment—and since most of the assignments she had were unpleasant, her teeth were likely to be ground down to nothing but stubs very soon. But the image of her last partner's untimely death haunted her. The Boss was nobody to mess with. Nobody to let down.

And she'd done just that.

She'd very recently let a job slip through her fingers. A regular retrieval of a magical piece of jewelry up in Toronto . A necklace. She didn't know what it was or what it did, only that the Boss wanted her to pick it up and bring it back to him.

She'd failed. Accidentally, on purpose. She knew there was only one way out of this job, and that was the route she was taking.

But now that the moment had arrived, she was shaking in her brand-new Prada pumps.

Sure, she could run. Or try to, anyhow. But it would be no use. The Boss had seers on his payroll who could psychically pinpoint any employee's location no matter where they tried to hide. Running would only delay the inevitable.

She wanted it over with.

"Get in here," the Boss growled from behind the slightly ajar door.

Janie entered the room. Two helper drones stood on either side of the door. They were the Boss's personal assistants—they looked like regular guys but weren't. They were under some sort of spell to make them his slaves, unable to resist his authority. However, they did get a really great Christmas bonus, so she supposed it all worked out in the end.