Lena Harris doesn't do messy. She deals in information and observations, small gaps and mistakes that can be leveraged to make problems go away. She gets her jobs done quickly, cleanly, and efficiently, and then she moves on, never dwelling on the past or worrying about anything beyond the next operation. And that's the way she likes it. Until her boss assigns her to the messiest operation she's ever faced. Now her carefully built up professional distance is collapsing around her, and she doesn't know how to hold it up- or if she even wants to anymore. __________ Open Novella Contest (ONC2026), prompt 33: It doesn't take long before everything in your life spins out of control. One moment you're a secret assassin, and the next you've somehow been hired as a nanny and you're not entirely sure how it happened. ONC Round Two winner
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