Kiss Me and Die | ONC 2024

1: Isn't he too old for you?

The young man cleared his throat. Loudly.

Amelie suppressed a grimace. Just how long did he intend to hover over her desk? Most people would have gotten the hint by now.

But not Robert le Casanova, with his dark hair curling around his ears and that irritatingly smug lift to his lips. He was disgustingly handsome and he knew it. Everyone in the vicinity knew it. They all stared when he sauntered past, and they all stared long after he left.

Amelia, on the other hand, had much better things to do with her time. Like go through her mail. Since she lived in a rather sketchy part of town, she had all her mail forwarded to her friend's bakery shop. It made for a great excuse to come over everyday and get free pastries, but on the downside, she had to deal with the shop's most annoying employee: Robert.

She pretended she didn't hear the sound he made, and set to going through the stack of mail. Most of it was just advertisements and other spam, but one immediately caught her attention. It was a plain brown envelope with printed address labels. In an instant, she knew what it was.

Her jobs always came in brown envelopes exactly like this one.

She hesitated, considering her audience, then decided it didn't really matter. The contents wouldn't mean much to people like Robert. She opened the envelope and tipped it over. Out came a handful of photos along with a typed note.

"Don't try to ignore me, Ames," Robert said.

Really. It must have been a slow day if he was lounging around in the shop's back office like this.

She picked up the note and read the two lines:

Alexander deBlanco
the fall of dusk

Her brows lifted a little. The name was that of her target. The second line was a simple code, containing the words "fall" and "dusk" which each alluded to the target's death. Including both meant she had to kill him and provide concrete proof of his death.

Simple enough.

Amelie tucked the note back into the envelope and picked up the first picture. She froze, the breath catching in her throat.

Her father's face frowned disapprovingly at her from the photo. It had been nearly eight years since she'd seen him in person, yet he hadn't changed one bit. His cold gaze could still cut her like a knife.

"Get out," he had said, and just like that, nineteen years of love and affection had been swept under the rug, replaced by a thin veneer of disgust and disappointment. She remembered weeping silently as Elias, her father's aide, escorted her off the property. The accusations were false, yet there was nothing she could do.

Her father's words were final.

The gates were slammed shut in her face, and that was it. She was no longer a daughter of the affluent van Rovensil family. The whole event had come out of the blue, with no warning or explanation. It had ruined her life and even now, she still didn't know why or how it had happened.

Amelie reached out to another picture, her fingertips gently brushing over the gaunt face of the woman standing beside her father. It was the only picture in the bunch that had her mother in it.

A wistful smile came and went. There'd always been a distance between them, and all of Amelie's memories growing up involved her father doting on her while her mother remained in the background. She'd grown up thinking her mother hated her. Though now, she thought maybe that was a bit extreme. Mother just simply hadn't cared.

Her marriage was arranged, her two children had been arranged, her entire life as the van Rovensil wife had been arranged. Her uninterested attitude made a lot of sense when put into that light. Rather than make Amelia feel hurt or angry, it just made her sad.