by Amity Cross
Right on schedule.
The engine stilled, and she emerged from the vehicle looking disheveled, her hair wild and unruly, and her movements full of haste. Something had gone down. Something big.
She rounded to the back passenger side, yanked open the door, and pulled out one of her stock standard black duffle bags. Then she slammed the door closed and strode toward the cottage.
Darting through the kitchen, across the little dining room, and into the hall, I was there to greet her when she stormed inside followed by a gust of icy air.
“Lorelei,” I said, my voice sounding far away.
She weaved around me, making a break for the living room and the warmth of the fire.
“Well?” I asked more firmly as I followed her.
“I have what I need,” she snapped, dumping the bag on the couch and pulling out the contents. “Where is the laptop?”
I narrowed my eyes at the hard drive in her hands—it wasn’t an external drive. It looked like it had been ripped from the inside of a computer, and it made my mind tick over. Where the fuck had she been?
Taking her in, I frowned as I noticed a stain on her jumper. She was worked up, her usual calm exterior in complete disarray. Reaching for the gun she’d placed on the couch, I picked it up and pulled the chamber back. Empty. Disengaging the clip, it fell into my palm. Empty.
Glancing at her, her gaze met mine. Scowling, she snatched the gun from me.
“Fuck off,” she hissed. “Keep your lecture for someone who gives a fuck.”
“Who said I was going to lecture you?” I retorted.
“The look on your face does.”
I rolled my eyes, not wanting to get into petty bullshit with her. “What happened?”
She sighed sharply. “I need the laptop.”
“Tell me what happened,” I hissed. “I can’t fucking help you if you don’t give me all the information. I won’t allow you to leave me out of it again.”
“Is this an ultimatum?” she asked, her eyes turning to liquid fire.
“Lafayette is a wily son of a bitch,” I said. “There’s a reason he’s still alive after all the people he’s stabbed in the back. There’s no getting close, not on your own. I know you’re fucking good, Lorelei, but unless you’re mounting a suicide operation, then you need help. I don’t know how many times I can keep explaining it to you. I can’t take it anymore.”
“Obviously, I need reminding on an hourly basis,” she spat, setting the gun and the hard drive onto the couch. “I am losing my mind after all.”
“Stop it, Lorelei.” I shook my head and ran my hands over my face. “Stop saying shit like that. It’s a fucking cop-out.”
She hesitated, her eyes narrowing. I could almost see the thoughts bouncing around in her mind as she regarded me, her expression flickering through countless configurations. Whatever had transpired while she was gone was probably forcing her to think twice.
It felt like an age had passed before she spoke, and this time, her voice was oddly calm. “They sent assassins after me.”
My eyes widened.
Lorelei didn’t seem fussed. “They paid off the publican and took out my informant.”
“You should’ve let me come with you,” I said. “You obviously needed a lookout.”
“I got what I needed,” she said, producing an orange envelope and sitting it with her bounty. “Where is the laptop?”
“That’s it?” I asked, confused. “Who sent them? Did you—”
“I don’t know who sent them,” she interrupted. “I got one. Three got away. I was pinned by a sniper.”
“Fuck.” I ran my hands over my face again. Fuck. I reached out for her, realizing the dark patch on her jumper was blood.
“This is the security footage from the pub,” she said, pointing to the hard drive. “Where is the laptop?”
My hand curled into the hem of her jumper, and I pulled her close.
“Vaughn.”
She was impatient to get to work identifying the assassins, and I knew there was a short window to do it, but I just needed to make sure she was in one piece. For all the ways she pissed me off, I still craved her body…and her mind, no matter how scrambled it was.
“Just a second,” I murmured, running my hands along her back.
“I’m okay,” she replied, the annoyance dropping out of her voice.
She raised her hand, running her palm over my chest before her fingers curled around my neck and buried into the hair at my nape. It was such a gentle gesture that I was taken aback for a moment. Then she pulled me close, her lips meeting mine in a soft kiss.
Lingering, she said, “Next time, I will listen. For now, I need the laptop so I can try to identify the men.”
“Did you get the intel you required from your informant before you were compromised?”
Her lips brushed against mine as she nodded. “Enough to start tracking a location.”
Tightening my grip around her waist, I said, “Two targets. We should start right away.”
“Vaughn?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve never worked with anyone,” she whispered. “I’ve never had to trust anyone other than my father. I’ve never needed to.”
I closed my eyes, understanding the push and pull we had going on a little more clearly. The only person she’d ever trusted completely had betrayed and conditioned her.
“Have I led you astray?” I asked, turning my gaze to hers.
“Not yet.”
“And I won’t,” I replied. “Love is too precious a word to throw it around.”
She bit her bottom lip, her gaze darting away.
“I’ll get the laptop,” I murmured, letting her go. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Leaving her standing in front of the fireplace, I went upstairs, hardly daring to believe that she was finally warming to me completely. If anything was going to happen to keep us together, it would or it wouldn’t. Until then, I’d give her everything she wanted, including the head of Jacques Lafayette, no matter how long it took.
Her life and happiness were now entwined with mine.
Just the way it should’ve always been.
Chapter 16
Lorelei
Simon Ballinger lived in a tiny shoebox of a flat in Brixton, South London.
It was a juxtaposition for a man who earned a great deal of money trafficking women out of the United Kingdom, among other items. Just another thing in my story that didn’t make complete sense.
After reviewing the security footage from The Maid and The Master, I couldn’t identify the assassins at all. Neither could Vaughn, but that didn’t mean anything. They could be men hired from outside the United Kingdom. Men who operated in the United States or further afield. Either way, I knew their faces now, and if they appeared again, I wouldn’t hesitate.
Vaughn and I sat in the car a ways down the street, watching the entrance to the target’s residence. There was movement inside every now and then—a swish of a curtain, a light flicking on and off—but no one had left since we’d arrived hours before. There was nothing to do but wait until Ballinger showed his face. When he did, we’d track his movements, discern his protocols, and find a way for him to lead us to our prize.
The only tool at our disposal right now was time.
“Why do you suppose he lives in that shithole?” Vaughn asked, breaking the amicable silence we’d shared.
“Maybe he gets his hands dirty,” I replied absently.
“Hmm,” he replied thoughtfully. “He’s a runner…”
I didn’t want to say what I was suspecting, that the man was a dealer and acquirer of goods. I didn’t want to believe that was the kind of man I was forced to observe in his natural habitat. I’d dealt with men and women far more twisted, but I seemed to have a personal stake in his kind of work, which triggered some deep, dark feeling inside of me I never knew existed.
If I were to talk about screwed up bullshit, then the fact tha
t I was feeling things—quite at random—was right at the top of the list.
When Ballinger himself emerged from the flat, I held up the photograph Gardener had given me. Same shit brown hair, stocky figure, and slimy expression.
“That’s the guy,” Vaughn stated. “Looks like a piece of work.”
“More than you?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I only kill pieces of shit,” he retorted. “I don’t deal with human suffering on an innocent level. Especially not when women are concerned.”
“You’ve never hung a woman?” I asked as Ballinger got into a black car parked outside of the flat.
“Never.”
I couldn’t believe it. “Even if they’re your enemy?”
“There’s something wrong about hanging a woman,” he said. “After seeing you like that, I couldn’t.”
I narrowed my eyes, his statement hitting home. I supposed he wouldn’t.
“So you just straight up kill them?” I asked, pushing his buttons for no good reason.
“You know the business, Lorelei,” he said as I brought the car to life and pulled out into traffic to follow our target. “Sometimes, death is unavoidable.”
Unfortunately, he was right.
I didn’t answer, focusing instead on tailing the black sedan a few car lengths in front of us.
All Ballinger did was drive around the neighborhood along some main roads, and then sat in the car on a side road as bus after bus pulled into a stop along a side street. Passengers came and went, the route of the red single-level buses never changing. It was one of those local services that weaved through residential areas, linking them to High Street and the tube stations.
We watched from a distance, blending into the day-to-day comings and goings of Brixton. There was nothing out of the ordinary that I could discern from Ballinger’s actions, other than they were erratic and why he would sit at that particular place for hours. From seven a.m. until four p.m. Eight hours all told.
He was possibly trying to cover his tracks by taking a winding path to his destination, but why here? We’d have to watch a while longer.
When Ballinger moved again, I tailed him at a distance. This time, he took a different route back to his residence. Pulling up further down the road, we watched as he climbed out of the car and disappeared into the flat. A minute or two later, a light turned on inside.
“Either the man is fucking crazy, or he’s waiting for something,” Vaughn said, peering through the windshield.
I glanced at the time on my phone. It was only coming up on six, but it was complete darkness outside.
“A dead drop or a signal perhaps,” I mused.
“Well, either way, we’ll be there when he finds what he’s looking for.”
I nodded. We might be following the guy for days before we find another clue.
“Sleep,” Vaughn murmured. “I’ll wake you if anything changes.”
I nodded, settling down in the seat. He was right even though I was used to going a few days with little to no sleep. I supposed this was my way of extending a little trust to him. The man who would love me.
“Give me a couple of hours, and then we will swap,” I said.
He placed his hand on my thigh and squeezed gently, his eyes flashing in the darkness. “Sure.”
Not letting the effect his gentle touch had on me show on my face, I closed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest.
I was slightly aware that I’d drifted off into a light sleep, visions flashing through my mind. Dreams. Figments of the twisted parts of my mind that had been reprogrammed by The Watchman.
The Watchman… I saw him in my mind’s eye leaning over me, a red-hot poker in his hands. The tip glowed bright orange, the afterimage of the instrument of torture burned into my retinas every time I blinked. I was cold, and then I was hot, a thick sheen of sweat coating my body.
He smiled down at me, his craggy face looking positively devilish in the lamplight.
“The main problem with taking away someone’s memory is they always want to find out who they are and where they came from,” he said like he was telling a bedtime story to a child. “It’s basic human nature to want to understand your identity. I can’t fault you for that, but the key to my work is to take that need away. Then I am able to code the ultimate soldier. The ultimate human capable of anything I want them to be.”
“You are no god,” I hissed, knowing that I wasn’t strong enough to stop his ministrations. “You’re no better than the sick men who took me from Vaughn.”
“Yes, they are sick men,” he mused. “Slaves to their perverse sexuality. Don’t worry about that, dear Lorelei. Soon you won’t remember what they did to your body. It won’t matter at all.”
He lowered the poker toward my skin, the heat and the anticipation overwhelming.
I tried to jerk away, but I was fixed in place. “No—”
Then nothing but burning…burning and searing. Nothing but pain until I forgot Lorelei and the things that were done to her.
I stirred, my mind foggy as I surfaced from my dream. Where was I? I was in the car with Vaughn. Vaughn was watching Ballinger’s flat.
“Lorelei.”
“Vaughn?” I muttered, rubbing my eyes.
“You were dreaming,” he said as his familiar features came back into focus.
I didn’t know how to explain the dream to him, so I said nothing.
Vaughn knew I’d seen something, I could see understanding in his eyes, but he didn’t try to press that matter. The Hangman was more wily than I gave him credit for…and more tactful than a man with a penchant for bloody torture should probably be. Perhaps some lingering emotion from my past had been attempting to push him away, to discount his assistance and declarations because The Watchman had made me believe he had abandoned me to the men who Sykes had sold me to.
I sighed, turning my gaze to the flat. It was only speculation. I couldn’t tell if it was a dream or a memory, and I dared not believe until I had irrefutable proof.
“There’s been no movement,” Vaughn said. “The lights went out at eleven, and it’s been darkness since.”
“I assume he will leave at the same time in the morning,” I said, still haunted by the phantom pain in my side.
“Lorelei?”
I glanced at him, my eyes narrowed in annoyance. If he made me talk about the things I’d seen while I slept…
“Are you—”
“Sleep,” I snapped. “I will wake you when it’s time to move.”
He raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. Turning back to the apartment, I focused on the task at hand.
I couldn’t deny Vaughn had stirred something unknown inside of me. Glancing at him as he slept, I knew our fates were one and the same whether I wanted them to be or not. Our bodies knew one another, I understood that now, but how deeply was still yet to be revealed. The more I thought about him, the more I wanted…something.
The hours passed in relative stillness, the sky lightening as the sun rose behind the clouds, signaling it would be another dreary day. When there was movement within the flat, I shoved Vaughn awake.
Ballinger took the same route as he did the day before, stopping by the same bus stop. The street was deserted, the day still too early for most commuters.
The bus came around the corner and kept going when the driver saw there was no one at the stop.
“This is ridiculous,” Vaughn said. “This guy has a screw loose.”
I didn’t take my gaze off the street while he complained. “Patience,” I snapped.
He fell silent with a sigh, and we waited.
In the distance, a schoolgirl rounded the corner and wandered toward the bus stop. She was wearing a winter uniform—a woolen skirt with a tartan pattern, a heavy parka bunched around her torso—and a gray school bag slung over one shoulder. A white cord threaded its way from the phone in her hand to her ears…headphones that blocked out the surrounding world and all
the dangers it held.
She was no more than fifteen, her blonde hair tied up in a tight ponytail, her features clear of imperfections, and her cheeks pink from the cold air. She sat on the bench at the bus stop, her bag beside her.
My gaze flickered from the girl to the car and then back again, a prickling sensation crawling over my skin. I’d seen her yesterday. Getting on the bus with a group of people and returning the same afternoon. Always with others, never alone…but not this morning.
“Vaughn,” I began, unclipping my seatbelt.
That’s when Ballinger got out of the car and wandered aimlessly toward the bus stop where the girl sat. With earphones stuck in her ears, she was oblivious to the man who was approaching.
I only had a second to react, and I chose to reveal myself. I chose to be selfless.
Shoving the door open, I jumped from the car just as he lunged for the girl. His slimy arms wrapped around her waist, and her scream was muffled as he brought a hand down over her mouth, pulling her up off the bench.
I ran across the street, ignoring oncoming traffic, my feet pounding on the asphalt. Ballinger glanced up at my approach and fumbled behind his back before pulling out a gun. But all I could see was the fate that the girl would suffer if I couldn’t stop him. Darkness, torture, rape.
Rushing at him, I shoved my palm against his wrist as the gun went off. Instead of the boom I was expecting, there was a rush of air as the bullet whooshed past my ear. He had a silencer screwed on the end. Smart since his business was snatch and grab with minimal noise.
Ballinger lost his grip on the girl, and she fell to her knees with a cry bordering on hysterical. He tried to bring the gun back down, but I shoved him hard with my shoulder, and we fell to the footpath in a heap.
“Bitch!” he exclaimed with a grunt as I grabbed his hand and smashed it against the ground, trying to dislodge the weapon.
I was vaguely aware that Vaughn had run up behind me. A moment later, his boot came down on the fucker’s forearm, and the gun clattered across the concrete.