RED IN MY LEDGER.

When Two Worlds Collide

Beep— Beep— Beep—

Natasha can't help but groan as she rolls over, blinking the sleep out of her eyes as she squints at the alert on her phone. It's— Jesus Christ, 4:13am, what the fuck— whoever the hell is trying to get in touch with her now is obviously kidding themselves, really—

And of course, it's a goddamn job, Isaiah really losing his touch if he thinks he can get her out of bed this early for a hit that's probably not even worth twenty, maybe thirty grand, the idiot should know better by now. Though, Natasha's always been a firm believer that having an agent for assassination contracts is ridiculous—

Tapping on the screen a few times, Natasha pushes up to lean on her elbow, trying a touch harder to concentrate on the description as it comes up, expecting it to be another corrupt businessman or blackmailing con-artist selling big guns to all the wrong people, the usual crap, except— shit, it's not. Not even close, actually.

Rubbing the last of sleep out of her eyes, Natasha sits up a little straighter, wondering if she's still dreaming as she stares at this goddamn overview because there is no way something this easy is paying well into six figures, and well over anything she's ever picked up before.

Target: Barnes, J.B. CEO of a multibillion dollar weapons and technology developer for the military, recently inherited from his deceased father.

Well, that explains why he's such a high profile target. Recently crowned CEOs are always so easy to poke information out of, with the right persuasion, and especially when they're this young. Natasha's no stranger to that; it's not the first time she's done this. It's just a shame her last target of this stature was allowed to live.

Task: Infiltrate Barnes' life by any means necessary and gain access to sensitive information dealt with by his company; report back to source every two weeks for a span of three months. Eliminate target at the end of the three month period.

At least her new employers are a little more logical. Natasha doesn't know what it is, but there's just something about these smarmy CEO types that makes her want to put a bullet in their head before they can even come near her— but of course, if she wants her very large sum of money, she'll be careful not to do just that.

With a small, regretful sigh, Natasha pushes herself out of bed, already combing her fingers through her hair and looking over the details of the job again, making sure she doesn't miss anything. CEOs aren't always easy to get to in the first place, especially not ones like this, and she's going to need to get a head start if she wants to make this mark any time soon.

—

"You realise I will be happily retiring after this job, Isaiah."

"Very funny. Sit down will you, we've got a lot of ground to cover—"

Rolling her eyes, Natasha settles down in the seat opposite her usually hopeless agent— okay, that's not really fair, he's not that bad. Much better than the last guy who seemed to find it hard to believe that a female killer was as talented or efficient as a man. He hadn't lasted very long.

They still haven't quite found all the pieces, and Natasha can't say she remembers has any idea where they might be.

Isaiah's pretty good though, apart from a few badly timed alerts that woke her up much earlier than the amounts the jobs were paying were worth, or the occasional lecture about how she should focus more on the money and less on what the job means - which is probably because the guy's angling for a bigger cut, but she's the one out there in freezing cold Siberia waiting eight hours to take a shot. He can deal with it.

"Please, it's another playboy CEO, what more could there be that I don't already know?"

"This one's different, Natasha. He's not running around drinking and picking up a new girl every night, he's not—"