by Tara Brown
Desperately, I gazed past her at the white board next to the fridge. It had a list of ingredients:
Soybeans
Vanilla
Calamari
Spaghetti
Evie
Couch Cushions
I slipped my hand in between the couch cushions. I didn’t jump when the slim blade cut my fingertip. I gripped the exceptionally narrow hilt of the knife.
How had he done it? How had he known I’d sit there and she’d sit across from me? I almost smiled, feeling it in my hands. He really was psychic.
She got up and crossed the room to where I sat. “If they won't come and save you, Evie, then I don’t need you.” She grabbed my arm, shoving me toward the door, away from the guard.
A savage smirk crept across my lips. “What makes you so certain I need them to come and save me, Mary?” I swung my hand back, stabbing her in the jugular fast and elbowing her in the ribs. Her blood greased my hand as I pulled the extremely sharp blade from her throat. She almost went down, but I grabbed her. The guard fired two shots. I used her as a shield and fired on him with her gun. He dropped as I dropped her.
Footsteps came from behind me. Sooky's scream was cut short as blood dripped from between her eyes. My hand hadn’t even trembled as I pulled the trigger. The second guard, the one who had taken it in the ass, came in. I held the gun on him. “Really? You would kill me after she did what she did to you?”
He thought for a split second before lifting his gun. I fired, hitting him in the head like Sooky. I waited but no more guards came. I staggered over the dead and sat on the couch where she had sat as Servario sauntered in with a smug look.
He took a seat on the couch across from me. He was casually beautiful in his dress shirt and slacks. I glimpsed down at my torn and bloodied clothing. How had it gotten so bad?
“You look like hell, Evie.” He tilted his head. “I was so scared when I got to the brothel and you weren’t there. James went back on the plan to take you there and brought you here instead. Did they hurt you? Do you need a cry or to punch something? I know what they're like."
I shook my head. It was the truth. I didn’t. I also didn’t want to cry with him. I didn’t trust him, not one-hundred percent. “Knives in couch cushions? That was your great plan?”
He paused, still appearing haunted. “It worked and I had no time. I couldn’t let them think I cared for you, beyond the fulfillment of your contract.”
“Not if I'd sat on that side of the room.”
He chuckled and looked down.
I wrinkled my lips, processing it all. “What now?”
He winked. “Next leg of the journey. We have to go after the head of MI6.”
“We just did.”
“Mary has been the middle man for a long time. Apparently, James’ father was the previous leader of MI6. When Mary got pregnant, he made her give James up to the Americans. He used James' safety as a means to keep Mary in check. But behind her back, he manipulated it so James joined cadets, the military, and CI and met you. James has been a British agent since he was about twelve, he just didn't fully know it.”
I scowled. “When did you figure this all out?”
He sat there, stoic like Coop always did, but he had a tell Coop didn’t. A guilty tell. One of the fingers on his right hand gave a subtle twitch like he wanted to drum it against the arm of the couch. His green eyes were set on my lip.
I cocked an eyebrow. “Well?”
He bit his lip, forcing the answer to stay inside.
“From the start?” I asked but he didn’t budge. “I knew it. I knew you had all the answers from the start. You knew Steve was dispatched to my house. That was an act for my benefit. You knew about the tracking device in the heel of the shoe for the Brits. You endangered my family from the start.” His mouth opened but I put a hand up. “Don’t. Don’t lie to me.” He closed his mouth. “What's left to do?”
“We are going to a brothel—”
“Stop!" I waved my hand, holding him off, but also distracting him from the fact I was tucking the knife I just found between the couch cushions into my pocket. “You know what, I don’t need to know. Surprise me. Like always.” I got up and walked past the window where he’d also written a message in white finger smears.
Evie couch cushions
He had set it up so I’d see the message from either couch and would find a knife in both couches.
“What room should I shower in?”
He seemed like he wanted to say a thousand things and I wanted him to, but he took the coward's path. He just stared at the front of the boat. “No time. We are going to board a small boat and leave this one the way it is.”
My eyes darted around the boat. “You'll be blamed for the death of a British and American agent.”
His lips toyed with a grin.
I caught on, or up rather. “Right, of course. Of course you would want that. It makes you look good to the Burrow, American intelligence, and the bad guys. Of course British intelligence probably will reward you for this, won't they? They were aware she was a double agent all along, weren’t they? I watched her with Sooky, talking about how they’d have to turn the weapons in to the Brits. She thought that was a joke. She was going to sell them, wasn’t she? She was never going to give up the Burrow.”
He gave me a soft smile. “Evie, the world wants the Burrow, not just the bad guys. Besides, what makes you think the head of MI6 is a good man? Let's go to the boat. It’s better if you look the way you do.”
“I look like I was in a plane crash.”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Yes, but you also look like you fought me tooth and nail to get away.” He held his hands out. They were bloodied and swollen.
“What is that?”
He laughed. “That’s what I was doing when you were killing everything up here.”
“What?”
“The guards and crew below, there were several. The main sleeping area is down below.”
My gaze narrowed. “You wrote ‘couch cushions’ and my name in messy writing on the white board because you knew she’d try to kill me, but then you left me?”
“Yup.”
“You were covering your ass in case she killed me? You stayed below in case it didn’t turn out the way you hoped it would, but either way, you were safe from me blowing your cover.”
His eyes couldn’t hide the truth.
The hurt clearly showed on my face. It was apparent on his face and in my tone, “Fuck you, Servario.”
“Language, Evie. I don’t like to be spoken to that way. You know that.” His heart wasn't into the statement, like he was giving me this one.
“I don’t like being hung out to dry by someone who told me they loved me.” I stormed past him to the skiff and climbed down the ladder where I sat on the seat to pout like a child. He followed slowly, pulling on sunglasses and looking guilty as hell.
I watched his face for a split second, praying it would soften but it didn’t. He truly was the best Master Key the Burrow ever had. He would’ve let me die. I focused out at the water and knew my mother had not come either. She and my father had left me with Servario, fully aware of the type of man he was. Fully aware of the fact that he’d let me die to protect the cause. Everyone was so prepared to lose everything for the Burrow. I wasn’t though.
I was never going to be the agent they were.
15
Web of lies
His fingers gripped my skin as he dragged me through the seedy alley. I had never been to Split before. I had heard of the dangers for foreigners in Croatia, and being a parent, it had never been a big tourist destination for us, but Servario fit into the crowd quite well.
Dark eyes watched me from every corner. No one helped the obviously foreign woman being dragged down the alley. No one asked him why I was beaten or sobbing.
He muttered, “Make it a good show. I don’t think I can hit you again. Coop and Jack are here. They're waiting for us to en
ter. So make this believable. It's more than just my neck on the line.”
I ignored my heart, leaping at the thought that Coop was there and shoved him. “Let me go, you fucker.”
He grasped my arm tighter, making me cry out. I could swear there was joy or satisfaction on at least one face in the crowd. Being in the seedy part of the city, I was just another whore.
We moved in silence, except for the sound of him dialing his cell phone in his pocket. I pretended not to hear it, in case there were eyes on us.
He dragged me to a hotel at the end of an alley. It looked like the Romans had built it during the empire. A weather-beaten red door creaked open as we neared. A man with a semiautomatic gun gave me a sneer but nodded at Servario. As we entered the hotel, I immediately stopped breathing through my nose. The stench was overwhelming. There was a soft floral smell added to something else. Like if sin had a stink, that place was ripe with it.
A half-naked girl with long blonde hair and dark circles under her cloudy blue eyes gave me a deadened stare. I recognized her face from somewhere.
Her thin pale arms were filled with pick sores and needles marks. One particularly nasty pick sore resembled a dug channel going up her arm. As if she’d scratched it and it had healed over, and she’d scratched it again, repeatedly.
Servario tossed me to the floor. The knife in my pocket stabbed into my thigh slightly.
The girl twirled her hair, giving me the blank stare. There was some kind of life beyond her eyes if I searched for it past their milky coloring.
Her skin's pallor was chalky white, almost gray. She was like a ghost where she sat on the torn burgundy couch in the corner of the large entryway. It was any lobby in any seedy hotel. Too thick of curtains and too thin of rugs. The couches were threadbare and the room had plastic flowers and an old front desk.
The high ceilings had fans that moved slowly. Nothing in the room seemed to be in a hurry. It was like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, slow and blurred. A man in a cheesy suit with greasy dark hair came through the door in the back. He opened his arms, smiling wide. “Mr. Servario, to what do we owe the pleasure?” His accent was actually quite lovely. His sleazy-salesman face ruined it.
Servario didn’t bat an eyelash. “He's expecting us.”
The man jumped. Servario had an air about him I had not seen before. There was a wall around him as though he was royalty. The man moved like it might be true.
My hands didn’t leave the tile floor where I knelt, acting afraid. Really, it was mostly pain. The knife stabbing into my thigh was killing me. It at least helped me focus on the things I saw. The things around me.
The man went into the back and returned within seconds. “He's upstairs. He expected you here earlier. So he took his lunch.” His eyes darted to me. “He said to leave his supper in a room upstairs. He will talk business with you in a moment.”
Servario snapped his fingers at me. I spat at him. He backhanded me, the knife stabbing farther into my thigh when I fell back.
“She needs to be broken and trained better than that, Mr. Servario. You always bring better merchandise than this.”
My guts burned. He had seemed so against human trafficking in the shower. But in the brothel, he fit in nicely. Even the blonde appeared scared of him. I wanted to kick him in the balls. I thought about doing it, but the punishment would be severe. My mom always did say, “Was the juice worth the squeeze?” This seemed like a giant no.
He snapped at the man, “I'll not discuss product with you.” He grabbed my arm, dragging me to the elevator. “Besides, she will be more fun to break.”
The man laughed nervously. “Of course, sir. I’m sorry I spoke out of turn.”
Servario carried me into the elevator. As the doors closed, he gripped harder on my arm. “I told you to behave.” His accent was thick, almost fake.
I whimpered. “I’m sorry.” I looked down, assuming we were on film.
He leaned into my ear. “Look straight ahead at the door and make it a face of terror.”
I nodded, quivering my lips slightly.
“Your friends should be here by now. I will leave you in the room upstairs. Kill the man who comes in the room. I know you took the second knife from the other couch, use that. Make it silent. Start protesting.”
I sniffled. “Please, don’t do this. Please. I won't tell anyone.”
He spoke louder, “I won't speak of this again. I will just take you right here and right now. Do you want that? Do you want me to fuck you in a filthy elevator in front of everyone?”
I shook my head. The human trafficking brothel murdered any remnants of my severe attraction to bad-guy Servario.
Servario jostled me as the elevator doors opened, and he shoved me out into the hallway. He opened a door and pushed me inside. He closed the door slowly and leaned against it.
“Time to learn to deep throat.” My eyes went wide but he grumbled, “Hurry up.”
I crawled over to where he was, catching a glimpse of the camera behind him. The rooms were taped.
He chuckled, but I could hear the deceptive tone within the laugh. “Maybe if you're really lucky, you'll end up in one of the movies they make here. Hopefully not the darker stuff though.”
He undid his pants and leaned against the door. The camera above him didn’t look like it could catch us at the angle we were at, and he seemed to be a master of keeping his head down. I pulled his pants open all the way and fished in his underwear for his cock. I looked up at him. “Please, don’t make me do this.”
He slapped my face lightly. “Think of it as a nice going-away present.”
I started to cry and grabbed hold of his cock. It was nearly inverted. I had never seen it so small. He was not turned on. He had done it to show me the cameras and the angle at which I had to do everything. I buried my face into his groin, savoring the scent of his musk and cologne. He was like an angel amongst the hellish place we were. If I closed my eyes, we were in a hotel room somewhere nice, and I was being punished for not doing something right, but it was a joke and I was letting him boss me around.
I tried to get his cock near my mouth, but he slapped me and shoved me off him. “You stink and your swollen face makes me sick.” He did his pants up and stormed from the room. I got up and scanned around. It was a small room with a bed on the wall opposite the door. Optimum viewing area.
I held myself and started rocking back and forth on the bed. The camera remained in my peripheral the entire time. The room was beyond shabby. It was more of a cell. The bed was dirty and soft, and the ragged blue bedspread had either never been washed or overly washed until it was threadbare.
I waited for it to happen, for the man to enter the room. Would he be the leader of MI6 or just some pervert who broke in the new girls? Either way, he was dead as soon as he got the door open.
I sat, staring and rocking for so long that I became tired. My adrenaline was gone.
I made designs in the carpet and plotted my escape for when no one came. Maybe the man didn’t want to break me in. He wasn’t interested in a dirty used-up woman. He liked fresh young things.
The doorknob rattled as I was blinking and letting my eyes stay shut for five seconds at a time. The turning of the knob had me wide-awake instantly.
I braced myself for what I would do.
A slight man with a dark suit and smooth gray hair pulled back into a ponytail entered the room. He had a gray mustache but kept his gaze low. I leapt at him, begging on my knees and preparing to stab when I saw something I wasn’t prepared for.
I peered into the eyes of my mother and stammered, “P-p-p-please, sir. Don’t make me do this. Please.”
She winked and opened the door, backing out but checking both ways down the hall. I crawled out, following her steps exactly.
I wasn’t relieved to see her. I felt fear like I never had. Where were my kids?
The fear only lasted a second. A man came up the stairs, not paying much attention. Mom lifted her hand a
nd down he went. I didn’t even see the weapon. She ran from room to room, moving as if it were a dance. I assumed she was avoiding the cameras. She moved like a ninja, light and agile. In her hands she held small double swords with shiny slender blades. She kept them tucked up into her sleeves with her wrists at an odd angle, until it was time to strike. Only then did she display the lightning speed with which she could kill.
In each room she went into, men dropped to their knees and face-planted into the nasty carpet. Girls shouted, covering themselves. Other men died on their bellies with girls screaming below them, pressed into the mattress by a dead man. Mom never gave thought to the girls. She was a true assassin.
I followed her down the stairs, holding my little knife and realizing how amazing she was and how lame I was.
She killed two men on the stairs, dodged a bullet from a man below in the lobby, and threw one sword. It pierced a man's chest.
My mom was badass.
When we got into the lobby she grabbed one of the swords, pointing it at the sleazy man at the front desk. “You were warned.”
His eyes were wide as if face to face with the devil himself. “I had no choice. You know I had no choice.”
She lunged once, slicing him from throat to groin. I gagged as he spilled out onto the carpet and slumped over.
I spun to see the blonde smiling at Mom. She winked at me. “’Bout time, Evie.”
She had a British accent and a sheen to her eyes that wasn’t there before.
Mom nodded. “Get your shit, Elise.” She turned to me, pulling the mustache off her upper lip. “Are you okay?”
“Mom”—tears filled my eyes—“you came.”
She smiled. “Darling, of course I came. I've been here all along. The minute you and Jack called my cell phone, I knew what Servario was going after, and he’d risk you to get it.” There was heartbreak in her face. “He’s the best of the best, my dear girl, but, to put it bluntly, I don’t give a flying fuck about the rest of the world. I won't have you risked.”
“Where are the kids?”