Old Wounds (Chance Assassin Book 4)

by Nicole Castle

  Frank picked it up, pulling out dozens of photographs and gaping wide-eyed at Alan. His eyes couldn't have been any wider than mine. Alan had done something useful. Many of the faces in those photographs had names written beside them in delicate handwriting, but there were plenty of others to choose from. He'd even gotten shots of people in the surrounding area outside. “Thank you, Alan,” Frank said, slipping the photographs back into the envelope and the envelope into his coat.

  “Any time, my love.”

  “Why do you even have a tie pin camera?” I asked even though it was obviously for lecher purposes.

  “If I told you I'd have to kill you,” Alan said, which made my eyes go wide again, expecting, and hoping Frank would go all thumb-destroying-defensive over the threat on my life. What would've been considered a simple joke six months ago took on new gravity as the number of Frank's near and dear diminished, making him only hold on that much tighter to the rest of the people he cared about. And that much tighter to the arm of the chair he was sitting in. Frank relaxed his grip, the expression on his face having never changed enough to bring alarm to my would-be-attempted-murderer. But I saw it, and Frank knew it.

  “Thank you,” Frank said again as he stood up. “V.”

  I shoved another cookie in my mouth before mumbling, “Thanks, Alan,” and following Frank out.

  “Was it noticeable?” he asked as we walked towards the car, letting me be the judge since he wasn't exactly present during those increasingly frequent moments of madness.

  “Nope.” I reassuringly brushed my hand across his back, resisting the ever present urge to jump his bones in public. Especially now that he was being lax about shaving so he could be disguised. “He didn't suspect for a second that you're a murdering psychopath.”

  He smirked. “Good. I would hate for him to get the right idea about me. Especially after being so useful.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We'll see how useful he actually was when we look over the photos with Joe.”

  “You just don't want to be wrong about him.”

  “I have enough humility to admit that the stuff he found out about Grace Alcott might be helpful.”

  Frank laughed. “You and humility do not belong in the same sentence.”

  I scoffed indignantly, then preened for him in case he'd forgotten that I was beautiful and had every right to be conceited, as he'd said so himself. “It is interesting though, isn't it?”

  “Interesting,” he mused. “If it was Henry she's lucky she didn't end up at the bottom of a staircase.”

  “She still can.”

  “The book's finished,” he reminded me. “No more writing in it.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “No. I didn't even know they had a daughter.”

  “Do you suppose she knows about you?”

  “Between her parents and Henry, if she does know about me I doubt she's heard anything positive.”

  I held my tongue for the two seconds it took to get in the car and close the doors. “Should probably kill her too, just in case.”

  With a shake of his head, Frank started the car. “You want to kill everybody.”

  “What can I say? I love my job.”

  “Yes, and that's all it is. Just a job.”

  “Nothing personal.”

  We gave each other the same conspiratorial grin and Frank drove us home.

  Chapter Ten

  As it turned out, Alan wasn't helpful at all.

  Joe sighed and set the last photograph face down on the kitchen table. He hadn't recognized a single one of the men in Alan's photographs, and neither did Bella.

  “It was a good idea,” Joe said. “I have to give Barker props for it. Never thought he'd come up with something like this.”

  “What a waste,” I muttered.

  “It doesn't have to be,” Casey said. “It was a good idea, so let's expand on it. You guys know what they look like, we don't need a camera if I can draw—”

  “No,” Frank said. “Absolutely not.”

  Joe glanced my way, since Casey obviously had a very valid point and could potentially solve all of our assassin baiting problems, but there was no way in hell he was going to say so. Neither was I. Even Bella hesitated, likely more from wanting Casey to keep out of it than fearing the scary Frenchman at the head of the table.

  But Casey didn't.

  “I can help,” he said.

  “No,” Frank said again. “You are not involved in this. There's no discussion.”

  “Vin?” Casey tried. I shrugged. Frank was looking very scrumptious these days, I wasn't about to go out of my way to end up on the sofa. “Bell?”

  “He's fucking right,” she said to Frank.

  “No.”

  “Well what else then?” she asked. “Let us go off to London to have a look around, see if someone pops out at us? Maybe they'll be wearing a fucking name tag.”

  I snickered, quickly covering my face with my hand to hide it.

  Frank put his head in his own hands, clearly outnumbered. Casey got up and stood beside him, rubbing the back of his neck. Frank just sighed and slunk out of the room.

  “Who wants to start?” Casey asked, strangely taking the lead in Frank's absence.

  “I will,” Bella volunteered. “I lived at the house so I'll know more of them. We'll do everyone just in case, unless we know for sure they're dead.”

  I knew Frank wouldn't be in the mood for company, at least not human company, so I stayed for the art party. Watching the faces of our potential enemies come to life, I was reminded just how new at this I still was. Even though I was an international superassassin who'd saved everyone's lives, more than once, I couldn't place any of the men Bella was describing despite half of them being at Silva's when I was. Then again, they weren't exactly worth remembering. Obviously these men who lived in the shadows had a reason for doing so: they were the most unattractive killers I'd ever seen.

  Casey remained intensely focused through all of it, which considering how scatterbrained he tended to be was quite the accomplishment. But I knew why Frank left the room. Why he'd said no. It wasn't just Casey's level of focus that was unlike him. He didn't have his usual lopsided grin while sketching, that quirk of his eyebrow and glint in his eyes.

  He was different after Maggie and Gideon's murder. Anyone would be. But it was Bella more than Frank who really knew how to handle it. Casey was always trying to be upbeat around Frank even when it was a struggle, because that's who Frank needed him to be. Bella was the one who picked up the pieces, who got Casey to the point where he could pretend that everything was okay for Frank. Just like Frank had helped him put on his happy face for Bella after she lost the first baby.

  And even though I doubted Bella wanted Casey involved in this any more than Frank did, she allowed it. But she wouldn't allow the moping. “He has a mustache.”

  Casey looked up at her for further instructions, cracking a grin when she demonstrated what it looked like by curling her fingers like Snidely Whiplash.

  “I don't remember that,” Joe started before he realized she was fucking with him. “Why don't you take a break, huh? Go check on the kids.”

  Joe also understood Casey pretty well. Or maybe that was the handler in him, anticipating people's needs. The kids were currently being supervised by our resident psychopath in training, Sophie, whose ability to find trouble and bodies was beginning to rival mine.

  The two of them left the room holding hands to temporarily relieve Sophie of her duties, and Sophie promptly took their place at the kitchen table with me and Joe. She looked at us expectantly, waiting to be briefed.

  “We're probably gonna need you to babysit a lot more while we're working,” I said in a futile attempt to dash her assassin hopes and dreams.

  Her eyes drifted from my face to the drawings, then to the upside down photographs. Joe set his hand on them before she could reach for them. “Not until you're older.”

  Sophie pouted and put her hands back
in her lap. “Bella is working with you?” She looked back to the drawings. “If Casey is involved it must be serious.”

  Joe rubbed his face. It didn't help that Sophie was actually pretty clever, and could guess most of the things we refused to tell her. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take care of those children so Bella doesn't have to worry about them and can focus on killing a lot of people.” I smiled at Joe's use of Mission: Impossible to control the crazy. Presented as an assignment from the man in charge, Sophie latched right on to it.

  “Oui, bien sûr, Joe!” She saluted him and skittered off to do as she was told.

  “That girl...” He shook his head. “I'm going to have to employ her at some point, otherwise she's just going to start killing people she doesn't like.”

  “Everyone's gonna die eventually.” I flipped through the drawings, wondering whether I'd be able to recognize them in person when the time came. Or maybe I'd just start killing people I didn't like. “And at this rate, eventually is when the hit's taking place.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Casey hesitantly peeked his head into the library, then when Frank didn't give a response, came forward and held out a cup of coffee. “It's your turn.”

  Frank ignored the cup as well, until it was clear that neither cup nor carrier were going anywhere. “If we see any of these men we will kill them on sight. Do you understand that? You will be directly contributing to their deaths.”

  Sitting on the table across from the sofa, Casey said, “You're the target. If they see you, they'll do the same thing. Yes, I understand.”

  “No,” Frank said firmly, too late by all accounts judging by the stack of loose papers and decimated sketchbook in Casey's other hand. It was too much to hope that Bella hadn't told Casey exactly what was going on with the hit.

  “Fine.” Casey took a sip of coffee and set it down, positioning himself so Frank couldn't see the sketchpad as he started drawing.

  Watching out of the corner of his eye, Frank pretended not to be interested. He picked up the coffee and lay back on the sofa with it, but Casey moved again so his work remained out of sight. Frank turned away to drink Casey's peace offering, getting back up to put the cup where he'd found it, and where he could see what Casey was up to. He moved again. “What are you drawing?” Frank asked finally, his attention piqued.

  “What I should've drawn.” He handed Frank a sketch of the man who killed Maggie and Gideon, then grabbed a red colored pencil. “How much blood would there be?”

  Frank heaved a sigh as he took the picture. If only things had been different. “Too much.”

  Casey took it back, crumpling it into a ball and tossing it towards the fireplace. It missed. “When I was younger I would pretend you were with me any time I got scared, any time I didn't feel safe. Did you know that? You have always been there for me, even when you weren't. I have the chance to protect my family. I'm doing it.” Casey flashed him a smile so he didn't seem quite so stern. “Start describing.”

  The kid had drawn Frank's mother the same way. Simple descriptions and then her image in Frank's hands. “I doubt I know anyone who they don't, kiddo. Let's see what you have,” he relented.

  Casey sat beside him and gave him the stack. Frank recognized only a few of them from the house. And then there was Simon. He was older than Joe and far more polished, and so incredibly familiar that it left a queasy feeling in Frank's stomach. Miko had claimed that Simon was at Silva's after Bella got hurt, that he'd seen Frank there. But that couldn't have been the only time they'd met. Frank knew him.

  “Can you redo these? For disguises and whatnot?”

  “Yeah. I was planning on it.”

  “Start with this one.”

  “You recognize him?”

  “I don't know.”

  Nodding, Casey began redrawing Simon's face, adding glasses, facial hair, still nothing sparked Frank's memory. Still nothing made that feeling go away.

  “That's good enough. Thank you.”

  Casey stretched and rubbed the back of his neck, looking worried and self-conscious. “Do you think it will be? Good enough?”

  “It's certainly more useful to the cause than an unloaded gun,” he said dryly.

  “Empty,” Casey said with a laugh, the smile on his face almost what it used to be. “Empty gun. I lost count of how many bullets Deaglan used, that's all.” Deaglan may have saved Casey's life by taking a bullet for him, or rather three bullets, but in using nine out of the twelve bullets in Boris's gun to kill Boris in return, he'd nearly negated his heroics when Casey took the empty gun for protection.

  “Do you even know how many bullets would go in that gun?”

  After a moment's consideration, he unsurely tried, “Six? A six-shooter?”

  Now Frank laughed. “A six-shooter is a revolver.”

  “That wasn't a revolver?”

  If it had been anyone else, Frank would've thought they were just trying to cheer him up by being innocent and uncorrupted. But this was Casey, who'd once put a butterfly sticker on one of Frank's guns. And cheer him up it did. “Semi-automatic. Didn't Bella go over this with you?”

  Casey shrugged. “She showed me where the safety was. And the trigger.”

  “That's Bella.” Frank was surprised she showed him that much. Prior to becoming a mother she probably didn't even know the meaning of the word safety. Her knowledge was still a bit questionable when it came to most things, but she'd grown a protectiveness of her family that rivaled Frank's own. At least, before his protectiveness escalated into blinding rage if someone so much as bumped into Vincent on the sidewalk. And when he saw the pain on Casey's face that had never been there before, Frank wanted to break into the prison and hang the man responsible with a sheet. “Will you stay here while they're gone?”

  “Someone has to look after you while your hubby is in England,” Casey teased, giving Frank's shoulder a playful push. But he became serious again far too quickly, which was the heartbreaking new normal for him. “You've taken care of everyone here. Let us reciprocate for once, huh?”

  The only person he hadn't killed for was Casey. He should have. Now Casey was killing for him. Frank had once considered Casey incapable of killing another human being. Once upon a time, Casey was incapable. But whether it was becoming a parent or losing his own, that had changed. “Ask Sophie to come during the week to watch the kids.”

  Casey raised his eyebrows. “Are we going somewhere?”

  “I'm going to teach you how to shoot. Properly.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Armed with a gleeful determination to kill, and very little else, I bid adieu to Frank and took the train to spend a few days across the channel. I hadn't been to England before even though it was so close by. All of the hits in Silva's book that would take us to Frank's much hated homeland were given to soon-to-be-killed-Simon because Joe knew how distasteful Frank found everything about the country. I would think that Frank would be eager to lower the population, but when it came to living amongst them while doing so, it wasn't worth the misery.

  And misery was exactly what I was expecting: dreary, depressing weather; a country full of vile rapists and murderers just waiting to lock away somewhat innocent children; horrible food. What I got was a bright, sunny day and a city that was basically just like New York but politer. “Such a pessimist,” I muttered to myself as I sat on a bench at Hyde Park and ate greasy, life affirming fish and chips out of newspaper. The overly aggressive squirrels and pigeons were the only things trying to assault me, and there was unfortunately no sign of anyone from Casey's drawings.

  This was where I would reconvene with Joe, who would later reconvene with Bella. It was near the youth hostel I would be staying at—Frank's idea—not mine, and near Alan Barker's flat in Belgravia, since he was a known associate of Frank's and it might've been an ideal spot to look for us if we were assassins lying in wait. Which we kinda were.

  I flipped through my guidebook, kicked around a bit t
o make it look worn even though the sights I wanted to see weren't listed. Well, all except the estate house. It was listed there under day trips out of the city along with some other similar houses. Mansions handed down through the generations from Dukes and Earls and whoever else had money and favor at the time but had since fallen out of one or the other. Or both. Apparently the houses were too expensive to upkeep once the rich actually started paying taxes like the poor, and most had been turned into museums or schools. It wasn't strictly part of the assassination process to visit, but it was where Frank's father had lived and died, and where Frank himself had spent some of his miserable time, and I fully intended to see it.

  The only other must see location on my itinerary was the cemetery where his mother was buried. Despite what Frank believed, I doubted one of our enemies would show up there looking for him. But I was ever hopeful. What better place for it? We'd found Miranda in a cemetery after all, and that earned us an entire police massacre. And some interesting new scars for me and for Frank.

  It took me a minute to recognize Joe with facial hair he certainly didn't have this morning and different glasses. The only thing that actually tipped me off about the disguise was his walk; my ability to see through his disguise, or lack thereof, might've made me feel inadequate as an international superassassin and put a damper on my mood. But the chips cheered me up. And Joe dumping a brown paper bag in the garbage can right by my bench cheered me up even further.

  Shoving the last of my lunch into my mouth, I stood and put my trash in the bin, pulling out Joe's trash in the process and walking away in the opposite direction. Like a skinny, less jolly version of Santa, Joe had come bearing gifts. And I was officially bearing arms.

  I went and checked into the hostel, no worse than most of the hotels we stayed at except for the fact that I had to share the room with three other people and there was no private bathroom. I tried convincing myself that this was the Frank juvenile prison experience, but then I found out that all three of my roomies were German, which annoyed me on principle, and I went and found a proper hotel room. Or at least, a more private one.