The face in the mirror is a good face.

Good, like handsome. Good, like trustworthy.

I paid for everything else. The body, the training, the wire, the beta that got me the job tonight and kept my client happy. Dowager sixty, with enough money that she knew the tux was mine and my diamond cufflinks were real.

She had six dogs on a leash. Not including me.

"You make me feel so good," she said sometime before I let her fuck me with a wine bottle. "So safe."

I got a Protection 10 rating, and just tested up 9.8 and .9 for Small Arms and Close Combat. Fucking overqualified, so "of course I make you feel safe," not that she knows the details. Or cares.

She paid me half over bonus again, probably not for the wine bottle but how I once took her hand.

Funny how you can know three hundred and twenty one facts about a client walking in the door and right now leaning on the cracked porcelain of the sink I realize I already forget her name.

I paid for living like this, I paid for my reputation.



But the face in the mirror is mine.

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