Eyes wide, mouth agape, Moulin immediately raised his arms in a gesture of surrender.

His pale, freckled cheeks grew even paler as he demanded in shocked stutter, "Wh-who are you? How the hell did you get in here?"

Rosa dragged the barrel of her Beretta across the side of his face, giving his cheek a not-so-friendly little pat.

In steely tones, she murmured, "Non, non, this is not how our game will be played. You do not get to ask the questions. I am in charge now, and you are my bitch."

Moulin's brown eyes grew round with alarm.

He immediately apologized and started begging, "I will play along, mademoiselle. Please. Do not hurt me. I-I have a family."

She realigned her gun to his temple, scoffing, "If you cared about your family, then you never would have entered this line of... work."

He rasped, "I beg you, please, do not kill me."

She chose not to acknowledge his plea.

Rosa's earlier wash of sympathy for Claude Moulin as a family man had dissipated the moment he walked into the room with Mesrine. Judging from the snippets of dialogue Rosa had overheard, the two men were clearly on very friendly terms, and, as far as she was concerned, any friend of Mesrine's was no friend of hers.

Mesrine's main source of income came from human trafficking.

Specifically, sex trafficking.

Moulin was a criminal defense lawyer.

His bread and butter came from protecting men like Mesrine and keeping them out of prison.

As Rosa studied Moulin's frightened, guilty face, she wondered how many frightened, innocent girls Moulin had helped Mesrine steal from their homes and hold captive in the shadows of society.

Girls like her.

Quietly, she began her interrogation, "Tell me about your ties to Monsieur Lavigne."

Rosa was testing him with this first question, to see if Moulin would be truthful with her, since she already knew all there was to know about his relationship with the late "Mr. Lavigne."

Moulin sang like a canary, "The poor man is dead now, but I-I helped him assume a new identity not so long ago..."

The rest of Moulin's response, surprisingly, checked out.

Pleased, Rosa proceeded with her next question, "What do you know about the Favreau's ties to the De León's?"

Moulin grimaced.

This time, he hesitated before responding, "I..."

She shoved the barrel of her Beretta at him. "Go on."

With a gun digging into his head, Moulin gained some motivation to talk, "The De León's were once power players in arms trade..."

"But?" prompted Rosa.

"But, after Aberto and his sons... passed away... the De León name has since become worthless."

"Très tragique," Rosa quipped with an unimpressed grunt, "now, tell me about the Favreau's."

Moulin's face winced as though every word that slipped from his tongue pained him, "The Favreau's mainly deal in another kind of... trafficking."

Ah, yes.

Human... trafficking.

Like Mesrine.

He continued, "They are very interested in expanding into the void the De León's have left behind."

The Favreau's wished to take on arms trafficking as well?

How very interesting.

The gears in Rosa's brain began to turn.

Mr. Massera had commissioned her to kill Gaspare De León, the supposed heir to the fallen De León clan.

Mr. Massera had also commissioned her to kill Jean-Luc Favreau. He must be seeking to weaken the Favreau family's stake in arms trade by removing their heir as well.

She once suspected that Mr. Massera had been working under a bigger boss.

Now, she felt as though he hadn't lied to her.

I am working for no one but myself.

Mr. Massera seemed to have an agenda that was entirely his own.

Perhaps, the bastard intended to monopolize the business of selling guns and bombs and missiles?

Was he trying to take out a few of his rivals to clear the way for an all out power grab?

Rosa directed another question at Moulin, "What do you know about a man named Cristiano Massera?"

"Cristiano... Massera?" he repeated.

"Oui."

Confusion flickered in Moulin's eyes. "Pardon, mademoiselle, but I am not familiar with this man."

She pointed her gun at his crotch. "Are you sure?"

He began to whimper, "I-I do not know him, I swear, please, do not shoot!"

Sighing, Rosa attempted to milk Moulin for information from several more differing angles. As her questions grew more sensitive in nature, the man put forth every effort to evade them and protect his ass, talking in circles, spouting lawyerly nonsense, and even threatening her with the rule of law.

At one point, Moulin even lunged at her and tried to escape. After a short tussle around the room, Rosa promptly pepper sprayed the man and zip tied him to a desk chair, binding his wrists to the armrests and securing his ankles to the legs.

From there, she pressed on with her questioning for another hour and came away with two bits of possibly relevant information.

One—Jean-Luc Favreau had recently reached out to Mesrine. He wished to expand their influence together. As allies, they were gathering in Madrid to hash out new negotiations and agreements. Moulin had come along to serve as a legal consultant at their meetings.

Two—Favreau and Mesrine had a rival who was seeking to beat them to the punch in arms trade. A man by the name of Leonardo Vosa. He was a capo in the 'Ndrangheta. Presently, the 'Ndrangheta had risen to become one of the largest and most powerful mafias in Italy. They originated from Calabria, much like a certain "school teacher" who happened to be doling out her paycheck.

Her mind flip-flopped again.

Granted, her theory was a bit of a leap: Just because both men came from Calabria didn't mean they should automatically know each other, let alone choose to work together.

Still, Rosa couldn't help wondering if Mr. Massera might be operating under Vosa's orders, after all?

Didn't he mention something earlier about visiting an old friend in Madrid?

Could that old friend of his possibly be... Vosa?

Rosa made a mental note to ask Harry about Leonardo Vosa.

On her own, she planned to determine whether or not Vosa—or any of his associates—might also be in Madrid during this time. None of them resided in Spain. If they were here this week alongside Mr. Massera, Favreau, Mesrine, and Moulin, then the timing of it all was too much of a coincidence to be unrelated incidents.

By the end of the interrogation, Rosa untied Moulin's dominant hand and offered him a pen and piece of paper.

He glanced at her anxiously. "What are these for?"

"If you wish, you may bid adieu to your wife and two children," she explained, "and I will make sure your final sentiments get delivered to them."

His eyes bugged out as though he couldn't quite comprehend her meaning. "What?"

"You cannot, of course, mention anything about me. For obvious reasons. If I see anything suspicious—hidden messages, secret codes—then I will destroy your letter, and your family will never get to read your last words."

A bleak look fell across Moulin's face as a slow, resistant realization sparked in his eyes.

In grim tones, he stated, seemingly more for his own benefit than hers, "You did not come here solely to question me. You came here to kill me."

"Non, mon ami," she corrected him, "I will not be doing the killing. You will."

Rosa placed a bottle of pills in front of him along with a glass of water.

"What if I refuse?" he eyed her warily.

"Then," she waved her gun at him, "we do things the messy way."

"If you kill me," Moulin whispered, making one last attempt to save himself, "they will come for you. They will all come for you."

She lifted an eyebrow. "Who?"

"Anyone and everyone I have ever assisted in the French mob and the Italian mafia, and, trust me, these are not the kind of men you want to fuck around with..."

With a shrug, Rosa sighed, "If they want to come, let them come. The more, the merrier. It is not like I have anything better to do."

Moulin stared at her in disbelief. "You are not afraid of being tortured... or killed?"

"I have already survived hell," Rosa chuckled humorlessly, "if anything, I am the monster to be feared now."

Moulin gazed at her, then, with a mix of horror and dread. At this moment, the man seemed to recognize his fate as a dead man walking. She could almost read his mind. She sensed that he knew it would be pointless to threaten her, to beg her, or to convince her to spare his life even with his silver lawyer's tongue—

Because she didn't give a fuck about living or dying.

With Moulin still tied down to the chair, Rosa hurried over to lock the deadbolt on the door. To prevent any unwanted visitors from barging into the room. Mesrine was unlikely to come back today, but a bitch couldn't never be sure. She walked back to remove Moulin's cell phone from his person, keeping a close eye on his messages and the day's schedule of calendar events, to make sure that his contacts wouldn't get suspicious if he went MIA all of a sudden.

Then, over the next few hours, Rosa sat by Moulin's side and watched as he wrote his letter to his family.

All he that scribbled on the paper were three short, sorrowful sentences: Je vous aimerai tous pour toujours. Je suis désolé. Je suis vraiment désolé.

I will love you all forever. I am sorry. I am so sorry.

Rosa watched as Moulin swallowed the pills with a gulp of water.

She watched as he overdosed several hours later.

She watched as air shuddered out of his lungs one last time, as the light dimmed from his eyes to an eerie, soulless void.

She removed his zip ties from his corpse and left her suicide note on his desk.

She took his letter to his family and tucked it into her pocket.

She then swiped Moulin's cell phone and laptop on her way out of the hotel room. If her part in Moulin's "suicide" was ever revealed, then the dirt on these two items could probably offer her some protection against the criminals who would want her dead.

As Rosa headed back to the motel, she couldn't erase the daunting image of Moulin's dead eyes from her mind. His death was hitting her much harder than her other victims.

In the past, her kills had been quick, efficient: A bullet to the chest. A hole in the head.

Over in seconds.

Done within minutes.

Or, her kills had been made from a barrier of time and space.

With poison.

Those kills felt less personal. It was easier to wash the blood from her hands with those kills.

Like watching a murder from a detached distance on the television.

Rosa had never experienced a killing in such an up close and prolonged manner before—it made her feel sick, repulsive.

It made her feel like a real monster.

But what could be done?

She had been a sick and repulsive fuck for years.

Her soul was drenched in darkness.

There was no light left inside her. She couldn't be saved. She didn't deserve salvation.

This was known.

This had been known to her ever since the first time she accepted an assignment after her baby's death.

At any rate, her mission was completed. Moulin was dead. Favreau would probably be dead in a few days as well. Soon, she would be €100,000 richer.

Rosa didn't get back to the motel until well after 7:00 pm. It was close to dinnertime, but she didn't possess much of an appetite. She jumped in the shower and tried to scrub away the lingering feel of filth and evil and anguish from her body until her skin felt totally raw and distressed.

After Rosa came out of the bathroom, she didn't bother to put on any clothes. Her energy was shot. She crawled under the covers and curled up in a fetal position like a child. Today had been too much for her to bear. Rosa's heart shattered all over again as memories of her baby came flooding back like a mournful, wretched tide. Her mind fell to pieces as Mesrine's voice grew louder and louder inside her head, suffocating her own thoughts and emotions until she felt far too much like her old, battered self again.

The tears didn't come, though.

Because, Rosa knew, if she started crying, she might never stop.

It was then that the doorknob began to rattle.

Her amber eyes darted over to the noise.

She sat up on the bed and watched as the door creaked open.

Mr. Massera stepped inside.

The moment their gazes touched, time seemed to stand still. He stared at her intently, almost desperately, as though she meant something to him.

He whispered, "You are... back. Thank God."