Pink Slip

by Katrina Jackson

  And then Kierra remembered everything that had happened in the span of no more than thirty minutes and she belatedly put two and three together.

  She glared at Lane, because when Monica’s face was bunched up in that way, Kierra knew she wasn’t inclined to answer any questions. “What the hell is going on here?”

  That same easy smile that made every atom in Kierra’s body sing with electricity spread even wider across his face.

  “We missed you too.”

  Monica

  Monica was pacing. She didn’t normally pace; it was a tell and she hated tells. They were a liability in her line of work and in her personal life. She didn’t like for anyone to know how she was feeling or what she was thinking until she was ready to tell them. After nearly twenty years, she had become accustomed to Lane’s almost preternatural ability to either discern her moods or to tease her into revealing herself. But Kierra had a knack for getting under her skin and had right from the moment they met. It was just as jarring today as it had been three years ago.

  There had been a moment in Serbia where Monica had allowed herself to be deluded into believing that letting Kierra inside would be okay as long as it was temporary. That she could let her walls down and then, when the time came, put them back up. She’d thought she could close Kierra away in a box and move on. But that fantasy had quickly evaporated the moment she’d finally had a taste, literally and figuratively. And once the fantasy was gone, the supreme danger of what they were doing had consumed her.

  Kierra wanted to be a poet. She was smart and funny and wore her heart and her lust on her sleeve. And Monica loved all of that, but she loved it all with the knowledge that she couldn’t have it. She and Lane couldn’t have Kierra, because no matter how brief it was, they would ruin it. They would ruin her. Their life was dangerous. And Kierra was a liability. Her leaving was the right decision, but Monica’s heart was still aching.

  She never should have let her in.

  They were all crowded into a barely modern kitchen in a near dilapidated old house in the Irish countryside, a Serbian operative tied to a kitchen chair, gagged and unconscious in front of them. But all Monica could think about was the soft floral scent of Kierra’s perfume wafting toward her in the cramped room.

  Monica heard Kenny’s voice in the foyer. “Thank you so much for your participation these last few days. We appreciate your work. I think you’ll find a nice bonus in your pay envelope as a token of our appreciation.”

  Kierra rolled her eyes and then clucked her tongue. “I want my money back for the retreat I was supposed to be at,” she said to Lane. “And you’re getting me admitted again next year.”

  Monica’s spine straightened, but she bit back her own reply.

  Lane’s voice was easy, nonchalant. “Anything you want, sweet girl.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Kierra yelled. She turned to Monica then and said, “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”

  Monica opened her mouth, unsure of what she was about to say, but feeling an intense urge to say something, anything. But words came so hard for her. And then Kenny strolled into the kitchen.

  “Alright,” he said with a clap of his hands, “Did I miss the interrogation?”

  None of them responded. Monica was staring at Kierra who was staring back in a way she never normally did; with a challenge in her eyes.

  And then Asif walked into the kitchen from the basement and Monica saw in Kierra’s eyes what she’d missed before: fear.

  “Did he hurt you?” Monica asked, nodding her head at the unconscious man tied up between them.

  “No,” Kierra ground out.

  Monica noted, but did not acknowledge, the fact that Kenny and Asif had gone particularly still. Lane shifted into a ready stance.

  “Who?” Monica asked.

  Kierra’s eyes darted to Asif and then back.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  Kierra bit her bottom lip and her right hand unconsciously grabbed her left wrist.

  “Okay wait. I can explain,” Kenny yelled, his hands flying up, just as Lane pulled a glock from a holster underneath his jacket and aimed it directly at Kenny’s temple.

  Monica kept her eyes on Kierra, who was keeping a wary eye on Asif who stood, certainly not by accident, behind Monica.

  “Do you trust them?” Kierra asked.

  “We don’t trust anyone,” Monica said. And then after a second of hesitation. “Except you.”

  Kierra’s eyes began to thaw and Monica tried not to glory at the conflict on her face, indicating that there was still some hope, but for what she didn’t know.

  “You sent them here to watch me?”

  “To watch out for you,” Lane clarified.

  “Did you tell them to tie me up?”

  That was when Monica saw the hurt that the fear was hiding. “Absolutely not,” she said. “Who tied you up?” The question was a demand and a threat.

  Kierra never got to answer.

  “I only helped because he fucking forgot his accent and grabbed her,” Kenny said, his voice pleading.

  Monica turned slowly to Asif.

  “She was freaking out,” Asif said in his thick Boston accent with his charming grin, which might have worked if Monica had been willing to be charmed.

  “So you tied her up?” Lane asked, keeping his eyes on Kenny.

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Asif replied, far too casually for Monica’s liking.

  If he had any more excuses for his behavior, they would have to wait until he woke up to hear them. Monica punched him in his jaw and his head whipped to the right. He was unconscious before his body hit the dingy laminate floor.

  She turned back to Kierra. Monica’s hand hurt, her heart was racing and she was taking deep breaths into her nose and releasing them out of her mouth, trying desperately to calm herself down.

  Monica was dangerous, but she didn’t relish violence. She did her job because she believed in it. But as her eyes locked on Kierra’s face, she catalogued her former PA’s response to watching her punch out the man who’d ordered her tied up, a man she worked with. Without hesitation. Kierra’s eyes were dilated, her nostrils flared and her mouth parted in surprise and lust. Monica wondered, if she moved her eyes would she be able to see Kierra’s hard nipples through her thin t-shirt. And then her mind wandered and she couldn’t help but wonder if she took those few steps separating them and touched her, the way she wanted to, would her skin be warm. Would her pussy be wet? And she realized that she would fight the world if it made Kierra feel safe.

  “Him too?” Monica asked. Kenny whimpered. The question was layered. Had Kenny tied her up? Did Kierra want Monica to punch Kenny as well? Did she want Lane to shoot him? Would that be enough to apologize for putting her in danger? For letting her leave Serbia without them?

  Monica was just about to ask all of those questions and more. And she could see that Kierra’s body was turning on the point of expectation, just waiting for Monica to make the first move. She knew where that would lead; exactly where it shouldn’t. And she was making her peace with that when Lane’s voice cut through the moment.

  “Serbian’s waking up,” he announced. He holstered his gun and said in a dark voice to Kenny, “We’ll finish this later.”

  Lane walked to stand next to Monica, putting his hand on the small of her back, anchoring her in reality and what they had to do. Monica resisted for a second but then dropped her eyes.

  “You shouldn’t be here for this, sw-,” he hesitated and then finished, “Why don’t you go to the library, Kierra. Just don’t leave the house.”

  “No,” Kierra said in a defiant voice. “This is all about me, right? So I’m staying.”

  Lane opened his mouth to argue with her, but Monica cut him off.

  “Okay,” she said and then turned to her husband. “She’s right. She should stay.”

  “Are you sure?” He asked yet another layered question.

  And the answer wa
s that no, she wasn’t. She’d been arguing for over three years that it was best to keep Kierra at bay; as far away from the mess of their lives as possible. That this was the right thing to do. And her stance on that hadn’t changed.

  But the flash of anger she felt at their mission and at Asif for tying Kierra up and Kenny for allowing it and herself for not being there when the Serbian operative had made his move felt all consuming. Because Serbia had destabilized her resolve.

  Kierra’s laugh and the way she rolled her eyes and gasped Lane’s name when he was inside her and her mouth trailing soft kisses up Monica’s back. All of that had slithered under Monica’s skin. Kierra had sunk almost as deep into her bones as Lane and she realized that the last three months without her had been torture.

  Because she had been right all along. Kierra was a liability.

  And Monica was completely compromised.

  thirteen

  Kierra was great at multi-tasking. She always had been. But right now her skills were being tested.

  She was currently moving around the tiny kitchen trying to dodge the spray of blood and sweat flinging from Monica’s hands as she beat the Serbian operative to a pulp in front of her. She was also trying to stay as far away from Kenny, who was splitting his time between looking at her with sad, apologetic eyes, that she ignored, and trying to rouse Asif awake. Although Kierra appreciated that Kenny seemed to be hitting Asif far harder than was necessary.

  She was also avoiding Lane, who had taken up a position behind Monica and was using a very large knife to pretend to clean his fingernails. Kierra knew it was an act because she’d personally booked Lane’s manicures for three years. But a large knife was a large knife when you were trying to scare an assassin.

  She was also trying to process the lengths through which her former bosses had gone to protect her, even if she didn’t yet know from what. And she was trying to do all of that while pointedly not remembering the wild lust in Monica’s eyes after she’d punched Asif. Kierra’s body had shivered at the danger of Monica’s whispered, “Him too?” If Lane hadn’t interrupted them, she wasn’t sure what she’d have said, but she knew exactly what she wanted to do.

  The Serbian groaned and began to yell in English, “Stop. Stop. I tell you.”

  Kierra shook herself back to reality and made a mental note that she needed to talk to her therapist when she got home.

  “Wonderful,” Lane announced replacing Monica in front of their hostage, that big easy smile on his face. Monica moved to the kitchen sink to rinse her bloody hands.

  “Hand me that chair, sweet girl. I mean… Kierra,” Lane said.

  It was pure habit that she’d already reached for it before he’d fully formed the request on his lips. And it was because the room was so small that Kierra had to brush along Monica’s body to hand the chair to him. Or at least that’s what she told herself. She also accepted that the slightest brush of Monica’s hand on her hip must have been a figment of her imagination.

  “Do you three want to be alone?” Kenny asked the question and shrunk back when Monica turned to glare at him. “Never mind.”

  “Now,” Lane said, lowering his lanky body into the chair, “Let’s get down to business.” And then he proceeded to interrogate the Serbian in Serbian.

  “Hold up,” Kierra yelled and everyone in the room, including the Serbian, excluding a still unconscious Asif, turned to her. “How am I supposed to understand if you’re talking in Serbian?”

  She heard Kenny scoff and pretend it was a cough as Monica shifted toward him. But Lane kept his eyes on her and an amused grin on his face.

  “He doesn’t speak enough English. Maybe Monica can translate for you,” he said simply and then turned back to the operative.

  Monica’s body shifted closer to Kierra’s side and she shivered. It was yet another absurd moment. Kierra was standing in the middle of this ugly kitchen at not the writing retreat she’d paid thousands of dollars to attend with five people who could certainly kill her with one hand, and she was so horny she could feel sweat dripping down her back.

  She turned to Monica. The question was in her eyes. She could see it because that had been her job: to decipher and anticipate all of Monica’s needs and questions and then act accordingly. And three months ago she would have nodded and let Monica lean into her body and whisper the translation against her ear and cheek and neck. And after Serbia there was a chance that Monica would have let her tongue trail along Kierra’s skin in the wake of the translated words. Kierra would have squirmed, rubbing her thighs together, full to bursting with all that she needed and wanted.

  But that was before they’d stood in a stairwell, Kierra practically begging them to ask her to stay and they’d let her go. Her eyes locked with Monica’s and she didn’t nod, she only stared in challenge.

  If Monica wanted to translate for her, if she wanted to get that close to her ever again, she’d have to ask.

  Asif moaned.

  “He’s awake,” Kenny announced. “Almost.”

  “Of course he’s awake. If she’d wanted to kill him, she would have,” Lane said, affronted on Monica’s behalf.

  “Get him out of here,” Monica demanded, her eyes on Kierra but the command for Kenny.

  “I’ll help,” Kierra said, moving around Monica to help Kenny pull Asif to his feet.

  “I thought you said you wanted to be here for this?” Lane asked the question, his body turned around in his chair to see her. Monica turned around slowly, her eyes trained on Asif’s face, even though Kierra knew that she was waiting for her answer.

  Kierra sighed and shook her head. “You can tell me everything, and I mean everything, after.”

  She and Kenny struggled out of the kitchen, hauling Asif down the hall, up three small stairs and into the library. Once inside, they both dumped him unceremoniously, facedown onto a couch.

  “Huh, I guess he’s still passed out,” Kenny said.

  “Good,” Kierra breathed, moving toward the window and pulling back the curtains to peer out into the afternoon sun, such as it was behind all of the gray clouds.

  Kenny ran to her, “Actually, let’s keep those closed,” he said and pulled the curtains shut.

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  “It’s not my place to tell you that. You should wait for Monica and Lane.”

  Kierra’s eyes brightened and she changed her line of questioning. “Are those really their names or just a cover? Is Kenny really your name? Asif?”

  “Don’t tell her that,” Mrs. Wilde said, walking into the room. She stopped and looked at Asif’s prone body dispassionately, before refocusing on Kenny. “Don’t tell her anything.”

  Kierra rolled her eyes, “You can drop the Irish accent. I know you’re all spies.”

  Mrs. Wilde looked at her with a bland frown and she said, in a seemingly thicker Irish accent than before, “I’m not a spy and I’m not a cook. But I am Irish.” And then she turned to Kenny. “But you are a spy. Have a bit more of a backbone, will you.”

  Kenny’s back straightened. “I wasn’t going to tell her anything,” he said defensively.

  Mrs. Wilde eyed both of them skeptically and then turned to walk out of the library as quickly as she’d entered.

  “I don’t like her,” Kierra announced.

  “I agree,” Kenny said and then turned to her. “So what’s up with you and them?”

  Kierra shook her head. “That’s none of your business.” She walked past him and collapsed into a chair.

  Kenny stayed at the window.

  The house was silent now. Whatever intel the Serbian was giving up down the hall, they couldn’t hear it. All Kierra could hear was the endless settling of the house. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her cellphone. She chewed her bottom lip, considered her wording and then started typing out a text message to Maya.

  “What are you doing?” Kenny almost screeched.
r />   “Texting my roommate,” Kierra replied glibly.

  “Don’t do that,” he said, his hand coming over her shoulder, reaching for her phone.

  Kierra jumped out of her seat and moved across the sitting area, her phone clutched in her hand. “Hands off. You’ve done enough damage today.”

  Kenny at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “Okay, I shouldn’t have let Asif tie you up.”

  “You also tied me up,” she countered.

  He put his hands up in surrender. “We made a mistake. But you were freaking out and we needed to keep you in the house. We don’t know if the guy in the kitchen is alone or not.”

  There was something about the way Kenny spoke that made the lightbulb go off in her head. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

  He seemed to bristle at the question. “What makes you say that?”

  Kierra shrugged. It was difficult to explain. Through Monica and Lane she’d met a number of other spies, or at least people she reasonably assumed were spies, and they’d all seemed confident and sure in their actions in a way that Kenny definitely did not. She thought about saying that, but considering the way that he’d stiffened at her questions, she wasn’t sure that that would get her the answer she wanted. So she just shrugged instead. “Just a thought.”

  He considered her for a second and, she thought, was about to answer, when Asif started moaning again. Kenny’s eyes darted to him and when he looked back, his eyes were shuttered.

  Kierra exhaled loudly and turned to Asif. “Dick,” she said to his back.

  They both stood there watching Asif return to consciousness. He sat up on the couch, rubbed his eyes and then gingerly touched his jaw. When his eyes landed on Kierra, she gave him a smug smile.

  He smiled, winced and then shrugged.

  There was a flurry of activity down the hall and they all turned toward it. Kierra walked to the door and peered around the wall, trying to see. And then Kenny and Asif’s large bodies tried to crowd in the doorway to see as well. And then they were jostling for positions like children on timeout. It was very embarrassing.