Slow Burn: A Bad Boy Romance (Assassins Book 1)

by V. J. Chambers

I was in a small, white room, the lights brilliant overhead. I sat on one side of the table, my father on the other. He’d untied my hands. He was very excited.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” I said.

  “I am?”

  “Griffin said that they captured you and that they’d kill you,” I said.

  “Oh, when I was on the run, I did think they wanted me dead,” said my father. “Burt Caldwell, the man in charge down here, he’s a difficult man sometimes. He’s quite committed to his ideas. And I had upset things for him. He was angry. I assumed he would have me killed.” He leaned across the table, his eyes shining. “But I misjudged him. He allowed me to live, and he’s willing to allow you to live as well.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “If you’ve been alive all this time, then why have I had to keep running?”

  “Well, it took some time to negotiate the deal.” He studied the table. “When they informed me that they had found you in Thomas, I suppose I was a bit easier to work with.”

  I didn’t know if I liked the sound of that. “Dad, did they hurt you? When you say negotiate, do you mean torture?”

  He reached across the table to pat my hand. “Of course not, sweetheart. I’m fine. I’m taking care of you. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Look, you don’t have to work with these people anymore. We have a plan, and we’re here to dismantle this entire operation.”

  He leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Oh, I assure you, that’s not going to happen. Operation Wraith is solid. There’s no way you could hurt it. Besides, there’s no reason to do that. Not when you and I are going to be working together now.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the deal,” he said. “You’ve got the serum, so you’re uniquely qualified for a position here. We’ll be close, and we can spend more time together. I think it will be quite nice. I’ve missed you.”

  “A position...?” Then it dawned on me. “They’re going to make me an assassin.”

  “Indeed,” said my dad. “And you’re going to do such a good job, sweetheart.”

  A gnawing horror was growing in my stomach. “Dad, no. Don’t do this. You could help us. We could tear this whole place down. You’d be free.”

  “I’m telling you, that would be impossible.”

  “But Griffin—”

  “Oh, let’s not talk about him. I was watching the cameras and I saw that outburst he had on the way in, after the guard at the door made a comment about you.” He made a face. “That was totally inappropriate, of course, sweetheart. I’ll have a talk with that guard. But I have to say, I was flabbergasted that Griffin reacted that way. It was almost as if he thought the two of you—but that would be ridiculous.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’m quite familiar with Griffin Fawkes. He’s not capable of seducing you.”

  “What?” I was confused. “Like you’d care, Dad.”

  “Of course I care. You’re my daughter. I don’t want a thug like that thinking he has the right to corrupt you.”

  “Corrupt me?” I sighed. “You don’t even know me, do you? You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Well, that’s why it will be nice when we’re working together, because we’ll really get the chance to bond.” He smiled at me.

  I didn’t smile back. “Griffin saved me, Dad. Before Griffin, I was on drugs. I was promiscuous. I was getting in car accidents. And I didn’t even care about myself. Then he showed up, and everything—”

  “Promiscuous?” He raised his eyebrows.

  I looked at the table. Had I just said that to my own father? Yeah. I had. I lifted my gaze to his, defiant. “Yeah. Maybe you would have noticed if you were ever around.”

  “You’re exaggerating, Leigh.” He waved away what I’d said. “You spent your time with kids from good families, whatever was going on. That Griffin character, on the other hand, is a hoodlum. You may not know this about him, but he was in prison for armed robbery, and I hardly think he’s a good influence on you.”

  “Hoodlum?”

  “I know you’ve spent some time with him, and you’ve probably grown a bit attached,” said my dad. “Heck, I liked him too. But he’s really a liability, and you have to understand that. It’s just business. And I don’t like to think of the way he’s warped your mind.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Don’t worry about it. The sooner you get him out of your mind, the better. We’ll be starting your training soon. I suppose you’ll want to see your new room.”

  “I don’t want to be an assassin.”

  He sighed. “Listen, Leigh, please don’t be difficult. Caldwell doesn’t like difficult. I’ve done my best to protect you, but my influence only reaches so far.”

  “What did they do to you?” I said. “The last time I talked to you, you said Dewhurst-McFarland employed evil, greedy people. You said you were glad to be free of them.”

  “And free of all my money? And free of my job? Free of the respect my position accords?” He shook his head. “Sweetheart, I was putting a good face on a bad situation. And that’s what you need to do about that Griffin boy. He’s probably going to be killed, so it would be best if you put him out of your head and moved on to better opportunities.”

  I stood up, my chair clattering back behind me. “What? You can’t kill Griffin. I love him.”

  “Love him?” My father shook his head. “No, that’s not possible. He’s not the slightest bit capable of that kind of interaction. I helped him escape precisely because I thought I could trust him with you. That he’d keep his hands off of you.”

  I reached across the table and grabbed my father by the tie. “You can’t kill Griffin. If you can save me, you can save him too.”

  “Let go of me,” he sputtered. “I most certainly won’t save him. After what he did to an innocent girl like you—”

  I pulled the tie tighter. “I was hardly innocent, Dad.”

  I was choking him. His face started to turn red. “Leigh, he’s better off dead.”

  I remembered the plan, then. Griffin and I had gone over it so many times. I’d be taken away for questioning. I would use the capsule Griffin had given me to knock out my captor. I hadn’t expected my captor to be my father, but here he was. Griffin’s life was in danger. I had to save him.

  I had the capsule. I crushed it in my fingers and covered my father’s nose and mouth with it.

  His struggles began to fade. Within minutes, he was completely passed out, a puddle on the ground.

  I ran for the door to the room. It was locked. How was I supposed to get out of here? I looked back at my father’s inert form. How long would he be out?

  I wrung my hands. I didn’t know what to do. What was the next step? The plan. Griffin had grilled me and grilled me.

  I took a deep breath. Right. The plan was to get in the duct work. I looked at the wall, running my gaze over foot after foot of blank concrete.

  Then I spied a grate. I needed to get in there. But I couldn’t reach it by myself. I was tall, but not tall enough.

  I glanced around. The table!

  I pushed the table up to the wall, stood on top of it, removed the grate, and crawled inside.

  * * *

  I managed to get a floor down, like Griffin had told me. The plan was for Griffin to meet me here in the ducts, but if they were trying to kill him, then I didn’t know if he’d make it.

  And he wasn’t there.

  Of course, we’d always assumed that Griffin would be taken away to be killed, hadn’t we? Maybe I hadn’t paid attention to that part. How was he supposed to get away and meet me?

  I hadn’t thought of Griffin as vulnerable, I realized. Out there, in the regular world, Griffin was so lethal and sure of himself. No one had hurt him yet. I assumed that no one could hurt him. But that was stupid, I realized. Griffin could be hurt. He could be killed. These were the people who had made him what he wa
s, and they knew all his weaknesses.

  He must have told me to come to this level for a reason. Possibly, he knew he’d be brought here. I began to crawl through the ducts, finding grates and looking into each of the rooms.

  They were all identical—small white rooms with a single metal chair in the middle of them. The chair had arms, with metal bindings that hung open over the arms and legs. I could see that the bindings would snap closed over a person’s upper arms, forearms, legs, and feet. If someone was strapped into the thing, he wouldn’t be able to move much.

  I kept crawling and looking. Empty rooms.

  Finally, I came to one that wasn’t empty. There was someone in the chair.

  But his head was slumped over, and his neck was bloody. He was dead.

  He wasn’t Griffin, though. His hair was the wrong color.

  I kept going.

  Another empty room.

  Then I heard voices. “I’m telling you, I have a large batch of the serum hidden out there. If I don’t check in, there are people who’ve been instructed to send it to news agencies all over the world. You’ll all be exposed.”

  That was Griffin’s voice. He was making a big bluff to keep himself alive. Smart Griffin!

  I hurried down the duct until I found the room where he was being kept. He was bound in the chair, metal bonds digging into his skin. I peered through the grate at him. He seemed to be in pain. The chair was cutting into his skin. The bonds were sharp. He was bleeding. I covered my mouth with my hand, stifling the cry I wanted to let out.

  “You don’t have a batch,” said a man who stood over Griffin.

  “I was with Frank Thorn, wasn’t I?” said Griffin. “He stole the serum. You think he only stole enough for his daughter? No way, he wanted insurance, and he gave it to me.”

  “Frank Thorn would have told us if that was the case.”

  “You think so?” said Griffin. “You think he would have admitted that he entrusted the serum to someone like me? Because I think he was too busy making sure he didn’t look bad to do something like that. I think he wanted any knowledge of that batch buried. But too bad.”

  I almost believed Griffin. He seemed so convincing. But if we had something like that to work with, he would have told us, right? He was making it up, buying time. I needed to help him. What could I do?

  The door to the room Griffin was in opened, and my father came in.

  He was awake already? That capsule hadn’t worked very well, had it?

  Or maybe I hadn’t held it over his mouth for long enough. Griffin had told me how long, hadn’t he? I couldn’t remember...

  “Why isn’t he dead?” said my dad.

  “He’s claiming you gave him some batch of the serum,” said the man.

  “He’s lying,” said my dad. He strode across the room, placing himself between the man and Griffin. He leaned over Griffin, his face close. “I asked you to protect my daughter.”

  “I did,” said Griffin. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”

  “French said you were some kind of eunuch,” said my father. “She said you’d never touch her.”

  Griffin laughed. “That’s what you’re worried about? You don’t know your daughter very well.”

  “I know it makes me sick to think you’ve contaminated her.”

  Griffin shook his head. “What happened to you, Frank? I thought you wanted to do the right thing? How can you be working with them again?”

  “They’ll keep Leigh safe,” said my dad.

  “And they’ll let you keep your money?”

  “Shut up.”

  “If you cared so much about Leigh—”

  “Don’t say her name.” He turned away from Griffin, facing the other man. “Don’t listen to another word he says. I want him dead. I want him to pay for violating my daughter.”

  “Violating?” Griffin laughed.

  My father turned back around. He grabbed Griffin by the neck. “You slime.”

  Griffin was grinning. “She loved it Frank. It was all her idea.”

  My father slapped Griffin. “Kill him. Kill him now.” He stalked to the door. He paused. “And if you see my daughter anywhere, contact me immediately. She’s missing.”

  Griffin sat up straight in his chair, straining against his bonds.

  I made a small wave from the grate.

  He saw me. His eyes widened.

  The door slammed closed after my father.

  Griffin smiled at the man. “Well, I guess you’re going to kill me now.”

  “You’re a dead man.”

  “Come here and do it then.”

  What was Griffin doing? Why was he saying that? Did he want me to do something? How was I supposed to know what that was?

  The man brandished a sharp knife and advanced on Griffin.

  And jerked back, howling. Blood was trailing from his face, gushing.

  Griffin spit. There was blood trickling out of his mouth. He’d bitten the man! Gross.

  “Leigh,” he said. “Jump on him.”

  Oh. Okay. I was part of his plan. I pushed the grate aside and leapt out onto the man.

  I landed on him and the two of us rolled together on the floor. The man was struggling against me, kicking out hands and feet.

  “Knife,” said Griffin. “In front of you.”

  I spied it, gleaming and bright, just in front of my face. I reached out. I grasped it.

  The man had blood all over his face. He couldn’t see. Still, he managed to land a punch on my jaw.

  I flinched, absorbing the impact. It had hurt.

  “Back of the neck, Leigh. Back of the neck.”

  Right. If he had the serum, then the only way to stop him was to cut his spinal cord and keep it from healing.

  I slashed.

  Blood flowed.

  “Deeper,” said Griffin.

  The man elbowed me. I stumbled backwards. I was going to have to cut him again?

  I lurched forward, pushing him face down onto the floor. I put pressure on the back of his head. I held up the knife.

  I cut him.

  There was so much blood. It was everywhere, deep purply red, glistening in the fluorescent lights. I backed away, the knife falling out of my hand.

  I killed him.

  There was blood all over me.

  I killed him.

  I never killed anyone before.

  “Doll.” Griffin’s voice was soothing, like a dark, winding river. But I couldn’t look at him. “You’re okay.”

  I stared at the dead man. “I killed him.”

  “Yes, you did,” he said. “You did a very good job. And now you have to get me out of this chair.”

  I shook my head. There was so much blood.

  “You can’t think about it anymore, doll,” he said. “You have to turn it off.”

  I looked at him. “Griffin.”

  “Come here,” he said. “You have to get me out of the chair.”

  He was right. I had to do that. I had to get Griffin out of here.

  I went to him.

  The metal bonds on the chair dug into Griffin’s skin. It looked painful. My fingers fumbled over the releases. My hands were covered in blood, and they were slippery. I was getting blood all over Griffin. I wiped them on my pants. Now my pants were bloody.

  I grimaced, fighting tears.

  When I looked at Griffin, his mouth was bloody from where he’d bitten the man. He looked like a vampire.

  Finally, though, I got him free.

  He dashed across the room to a sink and shoveled water into his mouth. He spit. More water. He spit again. He did it twice more. “Doll, get over here and wash your hands.”

  I couldn’t move.

  “Trust me, it will help.”

  I willed myself to go to him. The water did help. My clothes were still bloody, but it was good to have it off of my hands. Griffin used a paper towel on my face.

  “It’s on my face?” I might be hysterical.

  “Not anymore, not
anymore,” he said. “You’re fine.” He took my hand. “Let’s go.” He was already dragging me across the room, back to the duct. He boosted me up so that I could climb back in.

  He came up after me. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “I wanted to put the grate back, but it’s way down there. They’re going to know where we went.”

  “Should we—?”

  “No, just go. They can always check the cameras anyway.”

  I crawled, Griffin right behind me, showing me where to turn.

  “Where are we going?” I asked. I hoped we were going to an exit somewhere. I wanted out of this place, away from my father who wanted to make me an assassin, away from the body of the man I’d killed.

  “Quieter,” he whispered.

  “Sorry,” I said in a softer voice.

  “We’re going to Caldwell’s office. That’s the plan.”

  We were still following the plan? “But...”

  “Nothing’s changed, doll. Things are going as well as could be expected.”

  “My dad?”

  “They’re going to hear us talking,” he said.

  I got quiet. But the plan was to kill everyone who knew about Op Wraith that also headed it up. That included my dad, and he wasn’t dead anymore. Was Griffin going to kill my father? I didn’t know if I could handle that. He was horrible, but he was my dad.

  There were voices drifting through an upcoming grate, and Griffin had me halt. Together, we eased up on the room. I looked down into it. It looked like a regular office room, carpet on the floor, a desk in one corner, overstuffed leather chairs in front of it.

  There were two people in the room. One was a man in a suit, the other was a woman with her hair pulled into a severe bun on top of her head, her makeup artfully applied. She was beautiful, but there was something hard and frightening about her.

  “Damn,” said Griffin. “That’s French. If she’s alive, it means Knox didn’t get to her.”

  The man was on the phone. He must be Caldwell. “Look, I’m not sure I want Griffin dead. He’s really first rate. Why don’t we just wipe his memory?” He put his hand over the receiver of the phone and addressed the woman. “How far back does the stage one memory injection wipe out?”

  “Up to a year, sometimes two,” she said.

  “Leaving intact his early memories, then,” said Caldwell. “The ones we can use.”