Kennedy walked between the mats, keeping an eye on the trainees. Some of them were sparring, while others were working out. They’d been doing this long enough that Kennedy barely had any work to do. They knew what they were doing, and soon, they’d be done with the program.
The first fully trained council assassins.
Not that the previous council assassins hadn’t been trained. They had been, but it had been different in their case. All of them had been changed, turned into something that wasn’t quite human or even quite shifter. They’d been hurt in the labs, and they’d wanted to get revenge. They’d gotten it through becoming assassins for the council, but most of the original team had settled down with their mates. Some had retired, while others had decided to take a step back from active duty.
Which was where the new council assassins would step in. They were normal shifters or other paranormal beings, but they’d gone through training that the older council assassins hadn’t, which went to their advantage. They might not have the same powers, but they didn’t need those powers.
Kennedy knew that not all of the trainees would decide to work for the council. Becoming a council assassin was one thing on paper, but it was an entirely different thing in reality. Most people didn’t have the stomach for it, which was a good thing. Those who did would be great at it.
He stopped next to Rhonda, who was also watching the trainees. She barely gave Kennedy a glance, but he knew he had her attention as he leaned against the wall. “Who do you think is going to drop out?” he asked.
“Wallace,” she said right away.
Kennedy snorted. “I meant other than him. We always knew he wouldn’t go through with it.”
“Well, he did. He’s finishing the program, isn’t he?”
Kennedy was still surprised that he was, although maybe he shouldn’t be. Wallace had never had it in him to become a council assassin. He shouldn’t have been in the program to begin with, but his father had pulled some strings and forced Wallace to attend. Luckily for Wallace, he’d met his mate here.
Kennedy would never stop teasing Hawthorne about ending up with one of the trainees. They were mates, and Wallace was an adult, so no one had said anything about it, but Kennedy found it funny. Initially, Hawthorne had always held the trainees at arm’s length, including Wallace. Once he’d fallen for his mate, though, he’d been all in.
“What about you? Who do you think is going to drop out?” Rhonda asked.
Kennedy hummed as he looked around the room. All of the people they’d trained were good at what they did. They wouldn’t have been chosen to attend the program if they hadn’t been, and they would have dropped out a while ago if they didn’t have the mental fortitude to continue. That didn’t mean all of them were made to become assassins. “Barry isn’t going to make it,” Kennedy said.
Rhonda wrinkled her nose. “That one’s obvious, too.”
The two of them glanced at Barry, who was sitting on his ass, glaring up at Vivian. The guy had never accepted the fact that some of the other trainees were stronger and better than him, and it had been a problem several times. There was no way any of the trainees would want to work with him when they were council assassins, which would complicate things. Barry wouldn’t drop out, but Kennedy would recommend against him becoming a council assassin when he wrote his report.
“I don’t think Orlando will go on,” Kennedy offered.
“He’s good,” Rhonda told him.
“Yeah, but after most of his friends found their mates, I think he wants the same. He’s more focused on his personal life.” Which was fine if one wasn’t a council assassin.
Meeting their mates was the main reason the original council assassins were slowly retiring. The assassins needed to be able to travel all over the world with little to no warning. They had to be on their own for weeks at a time without the possibility of telling their mates what was happening. Being bonded or having a significant other didn’t go against the job, but it didn’t make things easy.
“Well, he hasn’t found his mate as far as I know,” Rhonda offered. “And he might never.”
“He did have a girlfriend, and he was distracted.”
“That was a while ago. I wouldn’t worry too much about him. Cynthia, on the other hand, will definitely take the job.”
Kennedy snorted. “She’d kill her grandmother to get a spot as a council assassin. She won’t be a problem.” She was ruthless, and Kennedy approved. It was what they needed from their assassins.
“What are the two of you gossiping about?” Jamison asked as he and Hawthorne joined Rhonda and Kennedy.
All four trainers were there, which didn’t happen often. Usually, they took turns teaching the trainees different things. The program was reaching its end, though, which meant they’d have to sit down and have a conversation about what would happen next.
“We were talking about who isn’t going to want to become an assassin,” Rhonda offered.
“Well, Wallace,” Hawthorne said, causing all of them to roll their eyes. He shrugged, looking more relaxed than he’d ever been before meeting Wallace.
“I don’t think Seymour will want to be an assassin,” Jamison offered. “Not with everything that happened with Wallace and Jimmy’s father. I doubt it would be a good idea to give him that kind of job, considering that the man is still influential.”
“I hate losing a good element to something like that,” Rhonda grumbled.
Kennedy did, too, but even if Wallace and Jimmy’s father hadn’t been such a dick, Kennedy thought that Seymour would have wanted to spend time with Jimmy.
That was fine. They’d always known they would lose most of their trainees, which was to be expected considering the kind of job they were training for. The trainees would find other jobs that wouldn’t take them away from their families for so long and wouldn’t make them kill to earn a living. Some would take more time and more training, and that was fine, too.
“Wallace Senior is still poking around,” Hawthorne said, sounding like he wished he could find the guy and get rid of him permanently.
“Well, soon you’ll have an entire team of council assassins to send after him,” Kennedy teased. “Maybe we could use that as their end-of-program mission.”
“You think you’re funny, but I’m tempted. The man doesn’t take no for an answer, and even though Wallace distanced himself from him, Jimmy can’t do the same. That man is going to be a problem.”
“He already has been.”
Kennedy was Hawthorne’s best friend, so he knew everything that had happened. He was sure that Wallace Senior would be a problem, too. He felt it wasn’t quite his business unless Wallace Senior disturbed their trainees, but he wanted to help anyway. Hawthorne deserved to be happy, and that would be next to impossible until Wallace Senior got the hell out of his and Wallace’s lives.
“Have you warned Bennett?” he asked.
“Yeah. I talked to him a few times. The first time, he found it hilarious that I had a beef with my father-in-law. With everything that happened since then, though, he understands better. He’s keeping an eye out, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough. Wallace Senior has a long reach.”
“And we have a bunch of trained assassins,” Jamison offered again.
They all knew they couldn’t use the assassins like that. Some of them, like Cynthia, wouldn’t care and might even offer, but that wasn’t what the council assassins were about.
Being a professional assassin was something that most people couldn’t wrap their minds around. It wasn’t a gray area, no matter what some people thought.
They killed for a living. The council assassins killed people the council wanted gone, and while everyone hoped that the council would do the right thing and only get rid of people who threatened the safety of the paranormal community, there could always be someone sneaking around and trying to use the assassins for their personal gain. It had happened before, and Kennedy was sure it would happen again.
Luckily, the assassins had their own minds. They could refuse jobs, and there was a system of checks and balances that would ensure that the council members didn’t take advantage of them. It could still fail, and it probably would eventually, but for now, that wasn’t something Kennedy had to think about. Hell, he might never have to think about it. He wasn’t a council member. He wasn’t even a council assassin. He was just a trainer, and he was perfectly fine with that.