Everyone thinks it's a good thing. Be loyal and the world will reward you; Be loyal to your friends, your boyfriend, your boss, your country, your morals. I used to believe that but by now I know that's a fucking lie if I've ever heard one. Loyalty gets you nothing but betrayal.

Maybe that makes me insane. Actually, I know it makes me insane, but isn't that the truest form of logic? Someone going against the grain to support themselves when all of the facts point to loyalty being the root of man's problems? Loyalty is what gets you beaten, tortured, killed, and left to be thrown to the wolves with no one by your side.

I used to serve my country faithfully. Now, I serve the dollar bill.

Sit. Kneel. Smile. Roll over. Look pretty. Open your mouth. Bend over. Spread your legs. Tie the noose. Poison the water. Cock the pistol. Pull the trigger. Burn the body.

Sit. Kneel. Smile. Roll over. Look pretty. Open your mouth. Bend over. Spread your legs. Tie the noose. Poison the water. Cock the pistol. Pull the trigger. Burn the body.

Money is the ultimate ruler and I was a fucking loyal follower.

1

?I could still hear the loud chatter of pompous voices echoing through the air like wind kissing your skin with a whisper. Even the stringed instruments were having trouble permeating the wall of sound produced by half-drunk business tycoons and their spouses, all focused on climbing the social hierarchy. They were down the wide twisting halls of the museum but it felt like there were three hundred people breathing down my neck. I didn't like it. Then again, my working conditions weren't always optimal.

I was used to operating in plain sight; doing what no one else dared to do while hiding behind obvious distractions facing the human mind on a daily basis. A car honking, a woman's interesting hair color, an official expression; I had none of those which meant I had to call on my abilities, the ones I'd carved for myself through years of training. There was nothing to save you if you messed up; all you had was your mind and maybe the sorry son of a bitch that followed you into the minefield.

This wasn't the movies. There were no special privileges, no get out of jail free card, no cool gadgets or endless funds. The reality of it was, your government trained you then set you off to fend for yourself.

Until the day comes when you get blacklisted; then you are on your own.

Luckily, I found my calling before I could disappear. I was a traitor, but what do you expect from someone who was fucked over by her own country, the thing she gave everything to. 'Calling' is perhaps the wrong word; that implies I'm comfortable. There is no comfort in a life like mine. Everyone is always trying to outsmart everyone else; to preserve themselves over you. That's why I preferred to work alone because partners can betray you and leave you to die.

Though, maybe there is one thing the movies get right about their fantasy spy worlds and black ops missions. It's that every team has the moral member who got into their mess to help people, the smart one that could do anything with a computer, and the ruthless one that doesn't even blink when killing someone. They're the ones you never quite like on television because they are the first to preserve themselves, they never show any emotion, and they kill whoever they want. There is no glory in it, but since they're on the team, you have to like them. Or at least, most people do. I worked alone; there was no team to make people like me.

It's probably best you do hate me.

No one should ever admire me. No one should envy me. I pay for my fancy cars and designer shoes with the blood that I spill without caring, the people I betray without my heart faltering, and the things I take without regret.

Maybe this is where I'm supposed to tell you something sad to make you like me; to gain empathy. There is nothing sad. My dad hit me, I grew up alone, and I built character. That character made me join the Seals only to be plucked from Hell Week in a black van and taken to a different team; a true black operations team. Don't think it justifies what I do. To a normal person, it shouldn't be justifiable in the slightest.

All I'm saying is it's easy to sit on your high horse and judge me. Call out everything have ever done wrong, point out every choice I could have done to end up in somewhere other than I am now. Everyone thinks they're morally superior but they aren't. Everyone can become the worse human being they can imagine and not even realize it.

Hate me. Fear me. Lust after me. Pray to a higher power that someone murders me. I don't give a fuck. But don't ever love me.

And never ever forget this; I have never made an innocent person suffer and that's about the only thing I have going for myself.

Then again 'innocent' is a pretty fluid term. In this world money talks and that's all I listen too. Money tucks me in at night and keeps my heart pumping. Besting people puts a smile on my face. Taking everything from someone makes me laugh. I'm a ruthless bitch but I'm a product of my environment.

Don't root for me; I don't deserve it.

I'll die by the bullet, just as I live by the bullet.

Tonight there would be no bullets. If everything went according to plan, I would get out of here before anyone even realized what was happening. You see, there was currently a large event for the higher-ups of a large drug company, but I didn't care about them. They were my distraction. Instead, I was here for one thing and one thing only.

To destroy something before someone else could get it.

My heels clicked on the rich brown toned marble floors underneath my black heals and my elegant blue dress that hugged my body in just the right places. It was a common misconception that you would want to disguise yourself as a server when in actuality, that was probably the worst thing you could do. As soon as someone realizes something is off, they check the staff list and that's how they find you. It's a rookie mistake. Instead, disguising as a rich party-goer was much more practical. You had excuses for getting lost, no identity on file, and it was easy to fold into the crowd without anyone having to recognize you. Servers had coworkers; a party of three hundred didn't. Besides, I could easily be a wife of a CFO. The point is, it didn't matter.

But being a party-goer had also allowed me to brush past one of the security guards, swiping his badge off of his belt without him even glancing at me. It was an acquired talent, one I picked up in the CIA before I was left out to dry like a dead fish.

I had already managed to slip past the security guards near the bathrooms, taking a wrong turn and slipping the ID card out of my bra. With the flick of my right wrist, I scanned the small piece of white plastic with the photo of a tanned and bald man in his mid-thirties. The small black box on the wall flashed it's red light to green and I slipped on my black latex gloves. They fit like a second skin, clinging to every curve of my nimble fingers. My hand gripped the cool metal handle to the door as I slowly twisted it, silently opening the door just enough to squeeze through before shutting it just as carefully.

What was I doing in a museum? Most people would assume it has something to do with theft but they would be wrong. I was as confident as anyone, but a heist like that at a museum like this would require at least one other person, at the very least on the computer off sight if not physically here. Instead, I was much more interested in destroying. Normally I would oppose this type of reckless job but I was getting paid a pretty penny to take care of a specific painting. Did I know the details and motive? No. Did I have an idea? Let's just say this was a spiteful world and destroying a priceless painting was the best 'fuck you' to the billionaire I'm ninety percent sure is having this painting stolen in t-minus thirty minutes.

Which is exactly why I needed to get this show on the road.

Call me old fashioned, but there was nothing a good bowie knife and an air torch couldn't fix.

I had to be quick or else I would trigger a smoke alarm or a temperature reader. The last thing I needed was to be chased out of here by the police, though I had faith I would make it out if the need arose. If not, breaking out of prison wasn't outside the realm of my capabilities.

But even I needed help, and that's where Tyler Pham came in. He was a twenty-five-year-old computer genius from MIT who couldn't withstand the lure of money and power. This man could crack open the pentagon like a peanut without even blinking. Every computer had a weakness and Tyler knew it. I could manage my way around a keyboard but Tyler was next level.

Worrying about cameras was for amateurs. If you had to deal with cameras, that means a.

you didn't wait for the right week to do the job or b.

your cover isn't good enough to withstand some scrutiny. I'd been in Monaco for almost four months on a bigger job, one I can't exactly share the details about at this time, and I've been waiting a quarter of a year for this museum to update its security.

There was currently only one camera out and it just so happened to give me a forty-five-degree ray of blindness to steal this painting and get out.

In other words: it was game time.

That's where Tyler came in. I'm might be able to break into a fortress but there was no guarantee I wouldn't trip unknown alarms. I had accounted for most, but even I could not predict the undertones of an advanced security system. Despite what various federal agents seemed to think; I was only human and my abilities were only so far-reaching. Hence Tyler running counterattacks on the museum's systems from his cozy apartment in London.

The air torch hissed as the burning flame appeared with the flick of my gloved thumb, the two canisters on the ground feeding the flame. The oxygen fed propane could reach temperatures of almost three thousand degrees Celsius, perfect for melting the plastic silicates used to make bulletproof glass.

The clear synthetic glass grew foggy in the center where the blue torch flame was focused before melting a hole, turning bright orange as the air filled with toxic fumes. If it killed me, it killed me. Oh well.

When I was sure there was a big enough space, I dislodged my knife from my bra and removed the torch, stabbing a risky hole in the moldable plastic right below the completely melted pinpoint. If I didn't burn my skin off, I'd count this a victory. Using all of the strength in my body, I circled the knife in such a way to make the hole the size of a fist. The hot metal handle to the Bowie knife entered my mouth as I fished out a lighter and a can of spray paint. I'd be lucky if the heat of the plastic didn't blow this up in my face.

Thankfully, that didn't happen as I let the blue alcohol-based paint hit the priceless artwork, wiggling it around to cover even the white wall behind it in a shade of dark blue. Then, as quickly as I could, I lit the match on the torch and threw it inside of the case, a swell of flames igniting the fumes and creating a ball of fire as I ducked down with my gloves over my head just in case. Not that it would do anything to protect me. As quickly as the bright flash had appeared, it disappeared in the air leaving only the charred painting with the bottom completely burned off.

There was nothing better than a spiteful human. They were the ones that would overpay for the simplest jobs. Steel the painting for fifty million? How about you just worry about destroying it for a hundred million instead? People were fools but I guess if you had the money to waste, spend it how you like.

Now, all I had to do was get the fuck out of here before the next sorry son of a bitch tried to steal this hunk of grill fuel.

Good-fucking-luck.