I appreciated her words.
In all these years I knew one thing was for certain and that was our friendship.
I had her. She was the kind of person who you could talk to and not tell the full story, but she’d listen. In my case she knew that there was more to tell and I was being selective. She knew that what I’d shared was what I could share.
“This helps.” I gave her the first genuine smile of the day.
“How am I supposed to watch you marry that creep? Really Jia? The same way you want good for me, I want that for you too. Hope sparked my heart when I saw Xander. You looked happy.” She nodded with keen determination.
“I was… Anya, please don’t worry about me. It felt like the world ended when Ma was killed. I think it kind of did. It crumbled as I’d watched, but I bounced back. Somehow I found strength from somewhere and bounced back. I have to do the same now. I guess in comparison to what happened to Ma this is minor.”
She brought her hands to her cheeks and sighed. Her lips parted and she closed her eyes for a few seconds then opened them again.
“I’m here for you.”
Those were words that I’d hold on to. “I know.”
* * *
We ordered some milkshakes.
The sort that should cheer you up but I couldn’t finish mine. Two sips and I was full.
I hadn’t had much of an appetite in days.
I left her with the promise to call her when I got home later.
I was supposed to be having dinner with Armand. Just the two of us. The thought made my skin crawl.
Yesterday at work right in front of everyone, he’d slapped my ass and asked for a blow job. Right when I was checking a customer into the hotel. Then he followed me home like he did the nights before and sickened me by jerking off right in front of me when I wouldn’t sleep with him.
I didn’t know anyone who did that.
I knew then that me wishing for death wasn’t too bad an idea.
The taxi dropped me off in the parking lot of the casino and I fired off a message to Frankie to let him know I was back.
A second later the blue dots jumped and he messaged back with a thumbs up emoji.
I started heading back to the entrance but stopped when I saw Armand.
He was ahead in the distance and looked like he was sneaking off. Bastard.
I followed him and stopped to hide behind the wall when he turned the corner and a limo pulled up to him.
A man got out, a man I’d never seen before. He looked Italian and had those hard features of a mob boss. If he was one I’d know about it. So who was he?
Was this something to do with Pa?
Maybe whatever Xander was working on.
I continued to gaze ahead and sucked in a sharp breath when the man landed a punch in Armand’s face. Armand staggered backward and the man held out his hand for something.
Armand responded by reaching into his pocket and handed him a package.
The man smiled, tipped his head and got back in the limo.
I continued watching the shady as fuck scene unfold.
Somehow I didn’t think it was to do with Pa, it looked like something else entirely.
Armand walked back to the side entrance.
As he went inside, a hand clamped down on my arm and made me jump.
I whirled around freaked half to death, but my heart steadied when I saw Frankie.
“Frankie, my God, you frightened the life out of me.” I gasped.
He raised his brows and gave me a hard stare. “Jia, I’m going to give you some advice you need to take. Don’t snoop when it comes to that guy.”
“Armand? Frankie don’t you think I should know a little more about my soon to be husband’s activities?” Sarcasm was me today.
“You heard me Jia. Don’t smart mouth me. I’ve been good to you.”
I nodded feeling bad. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
“I get it. You’re upset, but trust me don’t snoop when it comes to him and be careful.”
“Why?”
He gazed ahead of me at where I’d seen Armand and his expression hardened. “There’s an ugly distrustful side to him. You need to remember who you are. You’re collateral and if the wrong people see you snooping that could be your lot. Remember the shoot out?” He looked back to me.
How could I forget?
He wasn’t asking me if I remembered the shootout at the casino the other week because it was so horrible. He was asking me a different question.
Pa ran various high stakes poker games. On the night of the shootout a man just opened fire right at the start. It was awful.
The first suspicious part of the whole event was that nobody could just get into an event like that without being thoroughly searched. Yet, the guy had a gun and he wasn’t alone. There were five of them. All were shooting. Someone allowed them to come in and get that close to Pa.
Frankie knew as well as me that only a handful of people could have let those guys in, only a handful of people Pa trusted.
With everything going on I’d kind of pushed it to the back of my mind. Not because it didn’t matter. It was just my way of dealing with one problem at a time.
That was all.
I’d never suspected a knight. They were Pa’s trusted. His capos.
Frankie was asking me if I remembered the shoot out because he suspected Armand of foul play.
It was in his eyes. Frankie suspected Armand and truthfully, of all the knights, Armand was the one who’d disgusted me the most and had been consistent in his actions.
Wonderful… it was just one more thing to add to the list of things I hated about my soon-to-be husband.
Chapter 11
Xander
No success last night. No fucking success.
I’d spent the whole of last night looking through another hundred fucking vaults and coming up blank.
Nada.
Now I was starting to wonder if I’d gotten it wrong.
Like I’d gotten everything wrong and heard wrong when The Chameleon dropped the comment about the blueprints being hidden at the casino.
It was the same time, same conversation where I learned about the Ra involvement. Had I been so shocked that I was hearing stuff?
It wasn’t like me to do that, but lately I’d been doing a lot of things that weren’t like me one bit. A lot of shit that didn’t make sense, or adding to a situation like being with Jia last night.
I’d decided that I couldn’t have another night like last night in the chamber, no way. There had to be a better way or if there wasn’t then maybe the problem was simply that I’d gone wrong somewhere.
I figured we needed to go back to the drawing board so I arranged to meet up with Wes before we got together with the others later.
We sat together around the worktable at the warehouse, brainstorming ideas. We went over the maps and everything I’d done so far, checking over things to see if I’d missed something.
I just needed to talk to Wes. Only him right now. Couldn’t have Ethan or the other agents breathing down my neck.
I needed clarity of mind to brainstorm.
“Maybe we just have to keep looking?” Wes asked with his palms up. He’d been walking around the room, pacing as we thrashed out ideas.
When I didn’t answer he pulled up a chair and swiveled it around so he could sit on it backwards.
“It feels fruitless Wes. It doesn’t feel like I’m on the right path at all. Not one bit. Hundreds of vaults searched and nothing, and we don’t know how many more in the place because there’s no listing of how many vaults, what’s in the vaults, or shit.”
Shit was the right word. That was exactly what it all was, shit.
We were dealing with shit that I felt would lead us nowhere if we continued as we were.
“So we missed something, but what?”
“What if we’re completely wrong about the location.” I’d be realistic and cut myself some slack.
When The Chameleon mentioned that the prints were at the casino I’d heard right, that wasn’t something I would have missed or misheard. The part I was talking about in terms of location was the chamber. Maybe it wasn’t there. “What if it’s somewhere else in the casino?”
Wes shook his head. “I don’t know Xander. The chamber feels perfect to hide something like that. I think it’s there. It’s just the madness of having to look through every fucking vault to find it. Think about it. Where else would he be keeping it?”
I had thought. I’d thought long and hard but come up with nothing that felt suitable. Nothing that fit everything else in terms of what had happened so far.
On one hand there was Balthazar and his guys. They knew Giovanni had the blueprints but they didn’t know where he was keeping them. That was backed up by the fact that someone who was part of Giovanni’s crew was a rat feeding them intel. The rat couldn’t have known the location of the prints because if he did then the Balthazar and his people would know.
Everywhere else we’d considered were places everyone knew about.
So I guess that went back to Wes’ assumption.
Regardless, we just needed some guidance. Something to work with.
Anything.
“Xander.” Wes raised his shoulders. “I’m at a loss here man. At a damn loss. I don’t know what the hell to say to you. Other than the fact that you’re right and going back to the chamber tonight may be a waste of time. The fear of getting to the end and seeing nothing. That last vault you think has to contain what we want and seeing it empty. That is my fear and if that happens I swear to God I’ll kill someone or something. I told you the place looked like it had a million fucking vaults. There has to be another way bro. We’re too bad ass professional rogue hackers and thieves. We gotta come up with some kind of idea. Something more efficient man.”
I would be the first to agree that people of our expertise and specialty should be able to find anything hidden.
It was just that it became more difficult when dealing with people like Giovanni. People who knew how to hide their treasures well and how to hide them so that guys like me couldn’t get their dirty hands on the said treasure, and so that guys like the Ra had to sneak around in the shadows to either kill or steal information.
There was a difference.
A beeping noise caught my attention straight away.
I didn’t know what it was.
Then I saw the flicker of the icon on the computer Wes had set up.
I jumped up straight away when I realized the beeping noise was coming as a result of the motion sensors going off. The motion sensors that triggered off the cameras Wes had set up in the chamber.
Fucking hell, someone was down there, someone was actually down there.
Wes rushed over to join me and we both glared at the screen waiting for something to happen.
The lights came on in the chamber illuminating the place. Next we both saw Giovanni and The Chameleon walking together to the very place we’d been last night.
Giovanni pressed his hand to the wall near a vault and damn it, a section of the floor opened up. It opened up and the two men went down.
Just like that they went down and the floor covered back over.
Holy hell, that had to be the hiding place. We were never going to find it, not the way we’d been looking. We wouldn’t have found it at all.
Shit.
Wes looked at me wide-eyed.
“Thanks for the tip.” Came a rough voice from behind us.
Wes and I both snapped around to see two thuggish guys standing a few paces away. I couldn’t tell where they’d come from.
Smiles lit up their faces as they looked at the widescreen computer monitor and watched Giovanni coming out of the secret vault with The Chameleon.
I glanced at Wes.
It was all the guidance he needed.
No further communication was necessary.
I didn’t need to tell him we’d move on a count of three.
On the third count that sounded in my mind he moved to the left and I went right.
He pulled two guns from his back pocket and fired two shots. The men evaded the bullets but went into my line of attack, straight into my knives. My throwing knives, which went straight into guy number one’s neck, ending him.
A third guy leapt down from the skylight showing where they’d come from.
He fired shots at us that we were both able to dodge.
It was stuff like this that pissed me right the fuck off. I didn’t have time for shit like this. I didn’t have time nor patience for this at all.
I stepped into beast mode and did the unexpected by lunging my body toward them, both guns whipped up firing.
They didn’t stand a chance.
I took them out and landed in a tuck and roll, right past their crumpled, bloodied bodies.
“Fuck.” Wes winced. “Jesus…”
I looked back to him then over at the bodies of the men.
Three of them and I could take a guess on who they were but I’d rather do it the more fun way. I moved to the one closest to me and lifted the sleeve of his jacket to expose his forearm.
There it was - a tattoo of an ankh.
The Ankh. The Egyptian hieroglyph for life.
Members of The Ra, as in the Egyptian sun god, all had the tattoo. The group had started in Egypt. All members no matter what part of the world they came from wore the symbol so they would know each other.
These were just ordinary Ra guys. The Spades also had the Ankh tat but they had a spade tattooed on their cheeks too. You’d know straightaway who they were if ever you saw one.
Wes came over and looked too.
“So, do we think this has reached next level bad yet Xander?” he asked. “They’re fully fledged members of the Ra.”
“Fully fledged and spying on us. How the fuck did they know where to find us?”
He looked at me, eyes wide. “They came out when they saw the footage. Came to kill us.”
“Yeah, they sure did. They came to fucking kill us so they could get to the hiding place and we’d be too dead to try.”
Things were all taking shape. I didn’t know what shape they were taking just yet though.
One thing I knew however was to tread with extreme caution when shit like this was happening. An idea brewed in my mind.
Could be bad, could be good. It formed in my mind from experience. All from what I’d witnessed of the past.
“Don’t say anything,” I said to Wes quickly.
His eyes snapped wider at me. “What do you mean? We keep this quiet?”
“Yes. We keep this quiet and as far as we know we’re still looking for the right vault.”
“Xander…”
I looked over the men. “They came in at the same time we heard the beeping noise. It wouldn’t have been enough time to pass the message on. Right now we’re the only people who know the location of the prints.”
“Are you seriously saying to keep this from Ethan?”
I nodded. “It’s safer that way. If they’re watching us here, they’re watching us at the site too, everywhere. We do this our way.”
Our way. Wes and me.
That meant trying to figure out a way to get everything without anyone knowing. That included Ethan. The fewer people who knew the better.
It was safer.
If we were being watched. He was being watched too. Everyone was being watched.
This was a part of what happened next after seeing Balthazar Kane and I’d learned from past experience what happened when he took people he needed information or something from.
He was watching all of us.
Watching me. It was how he knew I was involved on this mission.
Those guys came to kill us. Ethan would be on the hit list too and worse if it was found that he knew the location of the prints.
I had to keep this under wraps and take charge. This was my part, time for me to redeem myself from my
recklessness with Jia.
I could get into the chamber and get the blueprints, and only then, meet Ethan somewhere to hand them over. That would place us one step ahead of the game.
I worked on instinct.
I’d learned that sometimes it wasn’t about running back to report what you found. It was about taking charge and seeing how far you go to accomplish this goal.
That was what you did when time was of the essence and there were so many variables at play.
A plan was coming together in my mind. One that would keep Balthazar and friends in the dark about the whereabouts of the blueprints.
“When should we get them bro?” Wes asked.
“Fucking soon as, but we need to plan it properly. No one can know when I go down in the chamber.”
“I’ll create a sort of diversion. Make Ethan think we need to look somewhere else. I could handle that. But I won’t be able to watch your back.”
“That’s okay. Let’s plan for two days.” Sunday.
Two days’ time would be Sunday.
Wes nodded his agreement.
Chapter 12
Jia
“I want you to join me for dinner tonight,” Armand said. His eyes roamed over my body and stopped at my breasts.
He lingered there and licked his lips.
“No,” I answered.
The answer surprised him, stunned him even after Pa’s lecture to me this morning.
He’d gone running to Pa with his crap about me being resistant and Pa came down hard on me, laying down the law.
He said Armand was my husband-to-be and had rights and needs I had to meet.
Then Pa had the audacity to say to me that if I could give myself so freely and easily to Xander, Armand shouldn’t be a problem.
That… that was what Pa had said to me. So I was first of all some kind of easy slut because he’d caught me in bed with Xander and second I could be more of a slut /sex slave to Armand.
No.
I was going along with this fucked up plan but I had my boundaries.
I was going along because I didn’t have a choice. In the realistic essence of the big picture though if I could escape I would.
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