Heart of an Assassin (Circle of Spies) Read Online Free PDF

possibly plundered jewels or stacks of money. My heart skipped a few beats. After scaling the stairs, I grabbed a porcelain vase off a side table and crept toward the room at the end of the hall.
    I stopped and listened but the desire to catch a glimpse of the intruder’s face pushed me forward, inch by inch, until I peeked around the corner.  
    Most of the room lay in darkness, but the guy’s flashlight flicked back and forth on the desk, revealing opened drawers that took on the appearance of a row of crooked teeth. Papers were scattered on the floor, the chair, the desk. My instinct went into full non-stop action.
      With the vase lifted above my head, I burst into the room and aimed for the intruder. I brought my arms down and broke the vase on what I thought was the man’s head, with only the slightest tickle of guilt in the back of my mind for the vase. The man ducked out of the way and the vase cracked against the hard corners of a desk instead of the soft skull of a man’s head.
    Ugly squawking and shrill whistles of warning blasted my ears and I stumbled back at the sudden onslaught of noise. I searched the room, seeing the flash of metal bird cages, but before I could get a look at the guy’s face, his hands landed on my chest and he shoved me to the floor.
    “You bitch,” he said, his ugly tone of voice sending creepy shivers through my body.
    And then he ran.
    “What?” I muttered. “Afraid of a teenage girl?”
    Minutes passed as I picked my way through the pottery shards. I wondered if I could brush them under a rug. While I was in the middle of scooping the pieces up with a magazine to dump them into a desk drawer, footsteps thundered in the hallway. Seconds later, Mom, Constance, and Adamos turned on the light and crashed into the room. I cringed at the scattered mess, very aware of my somewhat failed mission. I’d wanted to play the role of glorious victor and have the guy bound and gagged on the floor with my foot on top of him.
    Constance dropped to his knees and tried to puzzle some of the shards together. “Oh, my Ming vase!”
    But his attention didn’t stay on the broken vase as the birds continued their loud complaints at the bright light and commotion. His hands flew to his cheeks in horror as he rushed from cage to cage throughout the room, mumbling words of solace. I hadn’t dared look at Mom yet, but I didn’t need to. I could feel her disapproving glare drilling through me. I sensed a very long lecture in my near future.
    “My poor babies.” Constance fluttered his hands by his sides as if he were a bird himself. “Please! Please, leave, all of you. I must calm them down.” He immediately started cooing and handing out tidbits of birdseed.
    Mom grabbed my arm, yanked me to my feet and led me out into the hallway. Her rage was palpable in her tone of voice and the fact that my fingers were going numb from her grip. “What happened to just observing and recording?”
    “I was observing on the inside because an intruder had sneaked past us in the garden and entered the house. Like any good spy, I followed my instinct to save whatever treasures were stored in the house. And to protect you.” My words trailed off and I realized how amateurish I sounded in the wake of the catastrophe. “At least I chased off the intruder.”
    She pulled Adamos to the side, their muttered conversation low enough so I couldn’t hear. She faced me, her lips pressed together in grim determination and I saw my chances, my hopes, my dream of working with her fade away.
    “Return home with Adamos, and I’ll see if Constance will even let me near him again. This whole mission could be compromised.” She turned and strode back to birdman.
    “But, um, we’re still a team, right?” I asked.
    She whipped around at the doorway. “Team members follow directions, and you did not.”
    I’d failed. Completely and utterly failed.
     
    I wandered the streets, Adamos following in the shadows. My feet