Your Wife is an Assassin and YOU are her Target!

[Happy Wife, Happy Life]

The city hummed outside the high-rise windows. Inside, it smelled like detergent, coffee, and whatever Suzanne had started for dinner before she got interrupted.

She stood in the living room with the phone tucked against her cheek, folding laundry with neat, practiced motions. Your shirt was in her hands. There was still a stubborn coffee stain on the collar.

On the other end, “Janette from book club” did not sound like she wanted to talk about books.

“Suzanne. For the millionth time. Are you finally a go for eliminating the target?”

Suzanne rolled her eyes and scoffed under her breath, rubbing at the stain with her thumb.

“No. Not quite. I’m still setting up the pieces. I’m not ready to make a play yet.”

She lifted the shirt to her muzzle without thinking. Your scent was still in the fabric. A small, unguarded smile pulled at her mouth.

Janette groaned. “Oh, for the love of— Suzanne! It’s been three years. What more pieces do you have to set up? You got married!”

Suzanne’s gaze dropped to the wedding band on her finger. Her voice went soft. Dreamy. “Yeah… married.”

“Suze. I was your maid of honor. Do you not think the lines are getting blurred here?”

The warmth left her face. Her yellow eyes narrowed. When she spoke again, it was the voice she never used with you.

“Are you questioning my methods? Do I need to remind you that I have a one hundred percent closure record? I’m the best there is. No one escapes me. No one.”

After a long pause, Janette cleared her throat.

“Uh. Yeah. Of course. I’ll… let management know the situation is under control.”

“Do that.” Suzanne’s tone stayed cold. “And make sure they don’t send any more lackeys after the target. Next time I have to clean up a mess… I might not know when to stop.”

She let the silence sit, then hung up.

A short huff escaped her. She carried the basket into the kitchen like she needed something ordinary to hold onto. The sink was full of freshly washed blades. She picked one up, flicked the water off, and without looking behind her sent it spinning into the knife block. Then another. Then another. Each one landed dead-center with a clean thunk.

Then the front door opened.

Her ears snapped forward. Her body went still. In a fraction of a second she had already counted the distance, the angle, the number of steps it would take to put an “intruder” down before they cleared the entryway.

Then she heard the footfalls.

She knew those. She had memorized them within a week after moving in together. The killer drained out of her face so fast it looked like a different woman turning the corner. Bright, soft, and beaming.

“Welcome home, honey!” She crossed the space in a few quick steps and wrapped her arms around your neck, kissing your cheek, purring low against your ear. “How are you? Long day?”

She held on in that lingering way she always did when she hugged you, tail curling loosely behind her.

“So? What do you need? Dinner? A bath? Or…?”

Before she could finish the sentence, she noticed a pinprick of sunlight flashed off glass on the rooftop across the street. A scope from a sniper rifle.

Suzanne moved like she had been waiting for it. One smooth turn, both hands on you, and she guided you backward until the couch caught your legs and you went down with her on top of you, safely below the window line.

She smiled as if this had been the plan all along to keep you from noticing and blissfully ignorant to how close to death you were. Her voice dropped, warm and husky.

“Hmm. Have I ever told you how good you look from this view?”

A soft purr. Her ponytail slipped over one shoulder.

“How about you think about my question while you stay right here on the couch.” She pressed you down a little more firmly, still smiling. “Exactly like that. Don’t go anywhere~.”

Then she hopped off your lap like nothing was wrong and disappeared into the laundry room, shutting the door behind her.

The sweet wife act shut off the second the latch clicked.

She yanked a pair of shoes out of the hamper, tossed them into the dryer, and slammed it onto tumble. The drum started up with a loud, arrhythmic clanking, like someone beating a bat against metal. From the bottom of the washer’s detergent drawer she pulled a compact handgun, checked it once, seated a round, and put her back to the wall beside the small side window.

The scope across the street glinted again as the shooter looked for their target.

Suzanne slid the window open on the dryer’s next heavy thump and fired three times alongside the thumps of the shoes. The figure on the opposite roof folded. The glint vanished.

By the time the dryer clanked twice more, the gun was gone, the window was shut, her tank and cardigan were smoothed back into place, and the cold focus had already started melting off her face.

After turning off the dryer, she stepped back into the living room as if she had only been switching a load.

You were still on the couch. Her expression warmed the instant she saw you there, blush under dark fur, teeth catching her lower lip, yellow eyes soft again.

She crossed the room slowly and leaned in, voice sweet enough to hide everything that had just happened.

“So? What did you decide, honey? Dinner, bath, or me?”

[Love at First Sight]

The rooftop across from the café was quiet enough that the city felt far away, even though the street below was already filling with the usual late-morning traffic. Suzanne had been in position long enough for the cold to settle into her gear. She twisted the suppressor onto the barrel with the unhurried care of someone who had done this more times than she could bother counting, then paused when the radio in her ear clicked on.

“Suzanne, management wants an update.”

She exhaled through her nose. Handlers always got restless when a job was clean and simple. They could never leave well enough alone.

“The target hasn’t arrived yet,” she said, keeping her voice flat. “The dossier says they come here like clockwork. Tell management to let the professionals do their job.”

She shifted into a shooting position and rested the rifle against the ledge, cheek settling to the stock out of habit. After a moment she added, almost idly, “What did they even do to make management’s list? It must have been something special.”

On the other end she could hear typing. She shook her head. The who and the why had never mattered much to her, and today was not going to be the day that changed.

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. They’re about to be zeroed anyway.”

That was when she saw you rounding the corner.

“Target acquired. Waiting on your firing order.”

She lined up the shot the way she always did, patient and precise, already picturing the clean finish. Then your face came into focus through the glass, and for the first time in her career her body refused to cooperate. Her jaw slackened. Her heart, which had stayed steady through worse jobs than this, started pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.

'Oh my god. They’re so hot.'

“You are cleared to execute the target. Take the shot.”

A cold wash went through her from ears to tail. Her trigger finger trembled against the guard, and the rest of her seemed to lock up with it. She had never missed on purpose. She had never even come close to wanting to. Now she couldn’t make herself do the one thing she was famous for.

“Aborting,” she said at last, grimacing into the rifle. “The shot is no good.”

“Abort? Why? What happened!?”

She had to give them something. Anything.

“Something is off. I can feel it. I can’t take the shot. The glass looks bulletproof.”

“Bulletproof? It’s a coffee shop.”

Suzanne did not hesitate. Once she committed to a lie, she committed all the way.

“I think the target planned for this. They’re playing us like a fiddle. I know what I have to do. I’m going in close.”

She was on her feet before the handler could argue the point. The rifle got left behind. A rappel line dropped her into the building’s side access, and the ground floor opened into a clothing shop as if the universe had decided to be convenient for once. Tactical black disappeared in a matter of minutes. In its place she pulled on a cardigan, a skirt, and heels, then loosened her ponytail just enough to look like someone who belonged in a café.

She twirled the knife once between her fingers before hiding it in her clothes. Close range. That was all this had to be. Get nearer, finish the job, go home.

Then she stepped inside and saw you sitting there, and the plan went soft around the edges. Up close it was worse than the scope had been. The deadliest woman in the city walked toward your table like her training had been quietly replaced with nerves, her yellow eyes too bright, her tail curled tight behind her as if it could hide how obvious she felt.

When she reached you, the knife stayed where it was. What came out instead was a voice that barely sounded like hers.

“Hi. I, um… noticed you were sitting alone. Can I…?”

She huffed a little laugh and shook her head, one ear flicking back.

“Sorry. I swear I’m not always this lame. Let me try again. My name is Suzanne. Can I sit with you? I saw you through my scope— I mean my horoscope. It told me I would meet someone like you and that I should totally jump on them. Or jump on it? Wow. That still sounds awful.”

She gave a bashful laugh, already visibly wishing she could rewind the last ten seconds.

“Please say yes before I dig a deeper ditch for myself.”

[It's just Cosplay!]

You were only supposed to be grabbing takeout on the way home. That was the whole errand. Then you turned down the alley behind the restaurant and found your wife in the middle of something that did not look like grocery shopping.

Suzanne was in full black tactical gear: fitted shirt, combat pants, harness, gloves, boots, ponytail pulled tight. A man in similar dark clothes was already on the ground. Another was coming in from the far end of the alley with a blade. She moved like she had done this a thousand times, caught his wrist, turned him, and put him into the brick wall hard enough to make the dumpster rattle.

She saw you an instant later.

For one raw second there was no housewife at all. Her yellow eyes were sharp, her stance low, her tail rigid. Then she spotted you standing there with the takeout bag and the entire expression rearranged itself into bright, flustered panic.

“Honey?!” She kicked the second attacker’s legs out from under him without looking away from you. “Oh my gosh. This is— this is not what it looks like.”

A third figure dropped from the fire escape. Suzanne spun, fired a suppressed shot into the wall beside his head to force him back, then laughed as if she had just knocked over a display at a convention.

“Okay. It is a little what it looks like. But not in the way you’re thinking.” She caught the incoming knife, twisted it away, and beamed at you over her shoulder. “Cosplay! I joined a group. Very serious people. Very committed to realism.”

The man on the ground started to get up. She put a boot on his chest and kept smiling.

“Live-action roleplay,” she added quickly. “LARP. They said if I wanted to be in the next event I had to wear the full kit and stay in character. I was going to tell you after dinner. Surprise?”

Another attacker came around the corner. Suzanne shoved you behind a stack of crates with one arm, then stepped into the open like she was greeting a neighbor.

“Hi! Yes, I brought my plus-one. House rule, they stay out of the fight. They’re an NPC.” She mouthed at you, very clearly, stay there. “Sorry, honey. Safety first. The foam weapons look so real, don’t they?”

The “foam weapon” sparked off the brick near her head. She sighed through her teeth, then drove her elbow into the attacker’s throat and dropped him beside the others.

“Wow,” she said brightly. “They really go all out. Method acting. I love that for them.”

Sirens had not started yet. The alley was a mess of groaning bodies and scuffed concrete. Suzanne straightened her harness, smoothed her ponytail, and hurried back to you with that warm domestic smile that did not match the gun still in her hand.

She tucked the gun behind her hip like it was a prop sword.

“So. Funny story. I may have overcommitted to the bit.” Her ears flicked toward the rooftop, then back to you. “How about we go home, eat while it’s hot, and you can help me out of this getup?"

She flashed a playful wink, hiding the urgency as she guided you out of the alley and away from the killers who, unknown to you, were actually here to kill you.