by Ava Kendrick
“Very wise.”
He smiled at me like I was something on the bottom of his shoe and I couldn’t help but hate him even more. Who the fuck did this guy think he was? He thought a crummy bar and a finance house, both of which were thinly-veiled fronts made him a cut above? I glanced around the bar, cringing at the sight of expensive, pretentious fittings. It was an old townhouse, but the room had been remodeled to look like some kind of English tavern. He’d thrown a hell of a lot of cash at it. Maybe he really believed he was a straight, honest businessman.
I squeezed my glass so hard that for a moment I was afraid the glass was going to shatter in my fingers. I could look down on him all I wanted, but the fact was, Cleo had chosen him once. That was one reason I wanted to kill him, sure. But there were many others.
“I’m not usually in the business of killing women, Mr.…”
He snorted. “Knight. You’re a gentleman then.”
God, I hated this sonofabitch. He couldn’t open his mouth without sneering sarcasm flowing out. The worst part? I saw the truth in his words. What kind of fool was I, pretending to have some sort of honor when I did what I did for a living? Suddenly I wanted to get out of there as quickly as I could.
“Well, whatever. We all have our vices.”
He nodded. “Now you’re getting somewhere.” He glanced around the bar before reaching into his inside pocket and pulling out an envelope.
I held out my hand, immediately irritated. There was no way that envelope contained my usual fifty percent deposit.
“I think you’re a bit short,” I said without even bothering to open the envelope to count.
His smile was about as warm as a snake’s. “Don’t worry, Kane. I’m not trying to short-change you. It’s your usual retainer.”
I shook my head. “My usual retainer is fifty percent.”
“Yeah, well. This is a lot more than your normal rate.”
I leaned across the table, conscious of the need to keep my tone light and friendly. “You set the rate. I wouldn’t have taken the job if it wasn’t that high.”
He sat back against the wooden seat, unfazed.
I watched in disbelief as he reached into his pocket and pulled out another envelope, handing it to me without saying another word. I wanted to throw both the envelopes on the table right then and walk out. But I couldn’t. If anyone was doing this job it was gonna be me.
“Thanks.”
I pushed against the table and stood to leave before remembering why I was meeting the client face-to-face. I sat back down.
“You didn’t just ask me here to pass me the cash.”
He shook his head. “No. I didn’t.” He leaned across the table and fixed me with his pale blue eyes. “I want you to listen to me very carefully.”
“This needs to be done right. We’ve had one… ah… mix-up already. If there’s another, the cops will be all over it.”
That made sense. Whichever cop or cops he had managed to get on his payroll obviously weren’t of a high enough rank to make another attack disappear. But I couldn’t help but be offended by the suggestion.
“I have a one hundred percent success rate. I believe you know that; otherwise why would you have gone to all that effort to find me?”
He rolled his eyes and I got the feeling that he thought all of this was beneath him. “Whatever. I’m paying you a lot of money. I can tell you whatever I want to tell you.”
I clenched my teeth together. This guy sure grated on my nerves. “I’ll be thorough. Is that all?”
He nodded and flicked his arm, revealing a Rolex. “I’ll walk with you. I’ve got a meeting across town in a half hour.”
I followed him out the way we’d come, still wondering why the fuck he’d sent for me. It was completely unnecessary. And it wasn’t as if I’d gained anything new and insightful from the meeting either. I shook my head. I knew why. He’d wanted to size me up. I slammed the door closed behind us, and before I knew it, the question was out.
“Who is she then? A dealer? Or an ex?”
He whirled around and looked at me curiously. I knew exactly why—in my profession, it paid to be discreet. It’s not exactly dinner table conversation to ask the client’s relationship to the target.
The Soldier grinned sadistically and reached up to pat my shoulder even though I had a good six inches on him. “The help knows what the help needs to know.”
I shrugged. “Fine by me. It’s none of my business anyway.”
He turned and walked on, but I’d obviously set off a memory for him. He reached for the closed front door.
“Too smart for a bitch. Saw things she shouldn’t. Great fuck, though.”
I felt my vision lurch like I was on a boat. I opened my mouth to answer him, but my pulse was pounding hard in my ears. Pure rage rose up inside me; luckily, I managed to hold on to a shred of composure.
“Where’s your men’s room?” I muttered, looking back along the corridor of closed doors. I needed to get away from this fuckwad before I did something I’d regret.
He turned back, annoyance flickering across his moisturized face.
“You could have gone before we left,” he whined.
Usually, I would have found that funny—a violent gangster nagging like a suburban mom. But I had bigger things to think about—like not killing the asshole with my bare hands.
I turned and walked back along the corridor, not trusting myself to stay there a moment longer.
“It’s the last door on the right,” he called back.
I kicked open the door and leaned against the cool white tiles. It had been years since I’d felt my control slip. Now in the space of a couple weeks it had happened several times. Even once would be too many for my liking. I ran the tap and splashed some water on my face.
It was an impossible situation—no matter what path I chose, it all led to the same place. Ruin. Loss. Death. I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
Reluctantly I left the room. I mean, I couldn’t stay in there forever. I shuffled down the corridor, noticing the framed old photos on the walls. I opened the door and stepped out onto the busy sidewalk, hoping he’d already left for his meeting. But he hadn’t.
“Good of you to join me,” he snarled.
“What did you want me to do? Piss on your shoes?”
He glanced down at his crocodile loafers with a look of pure anxiety in his face and I felt a rare burst of satisfaction.
It didn’t last long. He finished his smoke and threw the butt on the sidewalk, grinding it with his heel until it was a torn up mess.
“Kane,” he said, blowing a long stream of smoke in my direction.
I glanced away. It was busy for that time of day, and I couldn’t help but think of Cleo, wherever she was. I wondered for the millionth time why I couldn’t have gone and gotten an honest job like hers. But it was too late now. Far too late.
I’d zoned out so much I almost didn’t hear his next words. God, I wish I hadn’t.
“You’ve got twenty-four hours.”
Twenty-Seven
Cleo
I stepped out of the cafe and held the door open for Julia’s recruiter friend, Mary.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” I said as she stepped out.
“No problem,” she smiled. “I think I’ve got a few things that might suit you. And I’m not just saying that because you’re Julia’s friend.”
I started to laugh as I glanced around the street for a vacant cab. It was bad timing—at that time on a Friday afternoon it could be a long wait. It was too far to walk. I kept my eyes on the street as I reached into my purse for my cell phone to find the nearest subway station.
Then I saw him.
“Cleo? Are you okay?”
Mary’s words were hollow; far away. All of a sudden it felt like I was under water. I hadn’t seen him since before the break in, but he hadn’t changed. I didn’t know why I was reacting like that, though. He was an asshole. He’d left me while I was in the hospital. I stru
ggled to catch my breath. And he didn’t matter to me anymore, anyway. I had a hot new boyfriend with whom I had far more chemistry than I ever had with Ben.
But there he was, standing across the street outside some bar I’d never been into. I closed my eyes and tried to regulate my breathing. He was too far away to see me, I figured; it was just by chance that I’d seen him.
I shook my head. Why didn’t I want him to see me? I’d pictured us meeting; of me marching up to him and looking him in the eye and telling him what a cowardly dick he was. I hadn’t just imagined it—I’d longed for this moment. I told myself to walk across that street and tell him what I thought of him. But my legs wouldn’t comply—they were like Jell-O: shaky and unsteady as a newborn deer’s.
“Cleo?”
Mary had her hands on my shoulders. I was still dimly aware that I needed to make a good impression on her. Luckily, the strange sensation was beginning to fade. I opened my eyes and looked at her concerned face.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” I said, searching my mind for some way to explain it. No matter what I said—reacting to seeing my ex or a side-effect of my injury—it was going to sound bad.
I opened my mouth to explain as best I could when my eyes caught a familiar figure in the doorway across the street. I gasped.
In the doorway behind Ben.
Roman.
My cell phone dropped out of my hand and smashed apart on the pavement. I stepped backward into the shelter of the cafe doorway, my heart thumping so hard I was convinced I could hear it.
What the hell?
I grinned nervously at Mary as I forced myself to peep out past the wall and see what they were doing.
Oh, they were still there alright; engaged in deep conversation by the look of it.
“Cleo, are you okay? Please. You’re acting really strange.”
Right then, I didn’t care about getting a job or making a good impression on Julia’s connection. There was only one thing I needed to do. And that was get away from there.
They couldn’t know each other. They couldn’t.
But why not? My rational brain asked. It was a big city and they were both natives. Wasn’t it possible that they could have gone to school together or played sport on the same team?
As much as I tried to calm myself, I couldn’t get rid of the unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Cleo?”
“Taxi. Now. Please?” I whispered.
My head felt like it was on fire. The pressure was unbelievable. I leaned back against the exposed brick wall as Mary walked to the curb and tried to hail a cab. I must have looked like a crazy mess—I could tell from the looks I was getting from passers-by.
I could have cried with relief when a cab pulled up. Mary opened the door for me and I jumped inside, all the time glancing back at the bar. They were gone now, but the pressure in my head was still there. If anything it had gotten worse.
“Thank you,” I hissed, grabbing the door. “I’ll explain everything. I promise.”
Which was a lie. Because at that moment I couldn’t even understand it myself.
Twenty-Eight
Roman
That was the moment the bottom fell out of my world. See, up to then, it had been this conundrum; this problem to tease out. Then the Soldier made it a ticking time bomb.
“What? You want to wait; now you want to get it done as soon as possible. Why now?”
His eyes narrowed.
In my shock, I’d forgotten who I was speaking to. I thought fast, even though my brain was cloudy with dread. Cleo wanted to go to a show that night. She’d promised to prepare a mid-winter picnic. I was supposed to be picnicking with the girl I’d just been given twenty-four hours to kill.
“I need to know if something’s come up. With the cops,” I said, as straight-faced as I could manage.
He rolled his eyes. “Dmitri said you were the best.”
“I am.” I didn’t have time for this egotistical gangster’s shit right then. But nor did I want to stare down the barrel of one of his lackey’s pistols. It was hard—all I wanted to do was throw him against the wall and demand to know why he’d changed his mind.
He’d sat on it; he’d done nothing about Cleo since the moment he found out she’d survived the first attack. Sure, he’d approached Dmitri, but then he’d held off. Now he wanted to hurry? Now?
“This isn’t going to be a problem, is it?” he asked, leaning closer to me.
He wasn’t making a particular effort to keep his voice down, and I found myself glancing around us to make sure nobody else was listening. He was lucky to have his connections—without them, I felt sure that he’d have been caught and sent to prison a long time ago. Well, at least if he was this indiscreet about his business all of the time.
“Of course not,” I grunted. “But I need to know if something’s changed. My rate was based on this one being no trouble; not marked by the cops.”
He nodded, gritting his teeth.
“That still the case?”
“Yeah.”
Let her go, I thought. Let her go. For the last ten years, I haven’t thought about anyone but myself. And she chose now to get inside my head?
“If I turn up and there’s cops sniffing around…”
To my surprise, he reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. “Relax. It’s nothing like that.”
I thought hard. What could have caused his new-found desperation to get the job done if it wasn’t the cops? Whatever it was, I knew one thing for sure. He wasn’t going to share it with me. Behind the gesture of camaraderie was a pair of eyes as cold as ice. I knew what he was thinking—if I didn’t do the job, there were ten, twenty others who’d do it for me.
Suddenly I needed to get away. “I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Same place?”
He nodded.
I took off along the street before I lost my temper and knocked him as unconscious as he’d rendered Cleo. But that wouldn’t do me any good. I had to get back to her. Fast.
Twenty-Nine
Cleo
“Where to, ma’am?”
I stared at the cab driver, momentarily wondering how I had gotten there. I sobbed. Was I going crazy? I caught his eye in the rearview mirror and shook my head miserably.
“Where to?” he asked again, more impatiently this time.
I reached in my purse and pulled out a twenty. “Eastside,” I gasped.
He didn’t move from the curb. “Address?”
I started to answer, and then time slowed down. Even my hammering heart beat a little slower. My mouth went slack as the haze finally began to clear.
I was dimly aware of the cab driver muttering under his breath as he took off into the swelling late-afternoon traffic. But I didn’t care. I remembered now.
Everything.
All of it.
I hugged my arms around my waist.
It hadn’t been like the cops said. There were no intruders. No threat.
Why didn’t I call Julia?
I shook my head, leaning against the cool window as we inched through traffic. I was tempted to send the cab driver in the direction where I thought Ben and Roman were least likely to be. But that was the crazy thing. Earlier, it had seemed strange to see Ben in that part of town.
Now it didn’t.
Everything I’d known about him had been a lie.
And I had made the stupidest move I’d ever made in my life. I should have run when I had the chance. I shook my head, trying to spur myself into action. Because I was trying to rationalize it when I should have been putting as much distance between myself and both of them as possible.
“Can I use your cell phone?” I asked, realizing I’d left mine in pieces on the sidewalk.
He looked at me like I was kidding.
“Please,” I whispered. “It’s an emergency.”
Something about my crazy girl expression must have convinced him this was true. “You pay extra.”
I shrugged. It was a sm
all price to pay if it meant I got out of there alive.
I grabbed the phone, my fingers slick with sweat even though the aircon was on full blast. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks as I tapped in Julia’s number from memory without hesitation. I may not have had a large circle of friends in the city, but sometimes one was enough.
“Julia,” I said when she answered. “It’s me.”
“Cleo.” She sounded worried. “Where are you? Are you okay? Mary called. She said you were acting really strange.”
I nodded, cursing myself for not being able to keep it together. “Yeah. Cleo, listen. I remember everything. It’s fucked; it’s totally fucked up. Where are you?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, rising panic in her voice.
“Where are you?”
“At work. What’s going on? Tell me. Please.”
I took a deep breath, weighing it up. It was way too much to explain over the phone, but what if they got to me before I could reach her? “Julia I’m coming there. Don’t leave the office.”
“What’s wrong?” she almost wailed.
“3rd and State,” I told the driver.
“Cleo?”
Don’t freak out,” I said, looking around. Traffic was moving, but slow. We were maybe ten minutes away.
“Tell me, then. God, Cleo, you’re—”
“It was Ben,” I said quietly.
“Cleo. I don’t understand.”
“There was no break in. Don’t you understand? It was him.”
“He attacked you?” she said. I could hear the skepticism in her voice.
“Yeah. Listen. I’m coming to you. Don’t leave. It’s not safe.”
“Not… safe. Ah, Cleo. Are you…”
“I’m not going crazy,” I almost cried. “Please. You have to believe me. Roman is working with him.”
“Cleo,” she said sternly.
I nodded, ignoring the driver’s narrowed eyes in the mirror. This conversation might have been one of the most important I’d ever have in my life. I didn’t care how much he charged me.