The Innocent Assassins

by Pema Donyo

“The boy is trusting.” Jack stubbed the cigarette. There was still the same ease to his movements, but his jaw was now set and his features tense. “He puts his faith in too many people. He has placed special faith in you.”

  I gulped, trying to keep my face as placid as possible. “I will do nothing to betray his faith.”

  “Yes, so he believes. He believes you offer him what no other woman does. You affect him, Lu. Do you understand? You weaken him.” Jack’s voice was tight. “You are his weakness.”

  “We also serve as each other’s strength.” I leaned forward, no longer afraid of the man before me with the young face and faded scar. “I don’t know why you picked Adrian to be your next CEO. I’m not sure why I was chosen to be an executive. But I do know why he and I are together, and none of the reasons include being each other’s weakness. If you can’t understand, you’ll never understand him.”

  “I do not understand him. I understand he is risking the potential for his career and the potential for this company by changing the future plans for this company because of you.”

  “I never approved of those plans. I want the old plan—I want CO to take in orphans and abandoned children. I don’t want people to be trapped in CO for their entire lives.” The fear and hesitancy left my voice, leaving determination and fearlessness. I wasn’t going to let this hot-shot CEO intimidate me or scare me off from Adrian. Not after everything he and I had been through together. There was no way he or Emma or anyone else could separate us before I said my final goodbye to him. No, if Adrian and I ever left one another it would be on our own terms, not because of any outside influence. “What I do want is for you to accept he and I are together because we want to be with one another. We’ve known each other all our lives.”

  “You are not the only one who has known the boy all his life.”

  I blinked, startled. “When did you know Adrian?”

  The icy blue eyes finally gave me a break from his intense scrutiny as his gaze flashed away from me. “I am trying to be pleasant, Lu. I am trying to be cordial. You must consider how much trust the boy puts into you. It is a dangerous amount.”

  First Adrian was too dangerous for me, now I was too dangerous for Adrian? I wondered if our relationship would always be like this, with other people trying to warn us away from one another. Goodness knows how many times the CEO tried telling my boyfriend the same words he was telling me. No wonder Adrian acted so cold toward me before Rome.

  “If Adrian decides to be with me, he makes his own decision. Not you.”

  “I have built him up. I have made his career,” Jack jutted out his chin. He pushed his shoulders back, and he suddenly seemed taller than before. “I will not stand by to see a woman destroy him or betray him in any way. The power you hold over him is lethal, and there is no way you can ever—ever—do anything which threatens Covert Operatives or his future leading this company.”

  The sentences were not requests. This was a general issuing orders to one of his soldiers.

  Too bad I’d never been one for commands.

  ****

  The Seine River was quieter than I remembered. Every other time Adrian and I visited Paris together, tourists scrambled to wave at the locals from the giant tourist ships drifting along the river, or the people on the bridges played games revolving around leaning over the edge of Lock Bridge and spitting at the people on the boats.

  But at two AM, the Seine was silent. Other couples lay curled up in blankets on the banks, and a few stray people exploring Paris by night strolled along the walkway above the banks. The air possessed a chill to it, not the kind which freezes your bones but provides a refreshing breeze.

  I leaned against the railing, looking out into the murky water. I could almost make out the waves the boat created against the river. The water appeared dark, almost black. It was cold and dirty and uninviting.

  Arms snaked around my waist and a warm body pressed up against me.

  I leaned forward a bit more and away from the person behind me. “Is that any way to greet your beloved?”

  “It’s the only way I know how.” He placed his hands on my hips and I turned halfway. His forehead pressed against mine, and heat radiated off his body.

  “I can think of a few other ways.”

  Adrian kissed me, full on the mouth and full of longing. He held me in his arms, one hand pressed in the small of my back and the other behind my head. My body felt shocked with electricity, lighting up with tension and passion as he made his desire known.

  Until I felt the shaking in my shoulders. Why was he shaking me? But he was still kissing me, and my eyes flew open in awareness. The world around me started to become hazier, like I was being lifted out of it and placed…

  “Jane? Janey?”

  My eyes fluttered open with annoyance. Who had dared to disturb the sexiest dream I’d ever had?

  Adrian stopped shaking my shoulder and smiled at me. “Sorry I’m late.”

  I groaned, sinking my head back into the pillows. Well, if I wasn’t getting any action from my real boyfriend I could at least get some from the boyfriend in my mind. Dream make-outs were better than no make-outs at all.

  “I was starting to wonder whether I even had a boyfriend.”

  He stood up from where he had crouched down. “I’m definitely still here.”

  “What a surprise.” I flipped to my side and examined the lace ends to my pillow. “Because I definitely haven’t seen you in three weeks.”

  Adrian sighed. The bed shifted with his weight as he sat next to me. I resisted the urge to curl up against him. No, I would stand by my principles. I could not go back to him so easy if he didn’t make time for me.

  “You know I tried to come back last week.”

  “And the week before, and the week before that. I waited for you at the time you told me to, here at my apartment, all those three weeks. I even mailed you another key because I thought you lost the one to my apartment!”

  Adrian remained silent. He ran his hands through my hair, playing with it in an absentminded way like he always did. Normally I thought it was adorable, but not tonight.

  “I’m serious! I barely see you anymore. You’re always traveling to some distant country and not telling me why.”

  “You know why. I have special missions as the next CEO. I have business contracts to oversee.”

  “I know; I know.” I sat back up and pulled my knees against me, my arms folded just above my kneecaps. My head rested on top of my arms. “I get it. You have work.”

  There was so much else I wanted to say—mainly, we don’t have much time left together. Five months. Five months and I was gone, he was gone, who knew what the relationship between us would end up being?

  I tried as hard as I could the past seven months to not even bother with wondering about the end of Adrian and me. I couldn’t even consider it. There’d been so many ups and downs, even after I’d returned. But when we were finally together and things seemed to be going smoothly? I almost felt ashamed, ashamed of how somebody in my life could be so essential to my happiness.

  The bed creaked as Adrian crept toward me. His hands cupped my cheeks and pulled my head back up. There was no avoiding his eyes now. The icy blue orbs sent my heart into a crazy whirlwind of beats and patters.

  “This is temporary, Janey.” Sleeplessness made itself known through the slight bags under his eyes and the creases of worry still in his forehead. “Wait until my missions are over. Wait until I’m the CEO. Then we’ll have all the time in the world. It’ll be just us. You’ll see.”

  I gulped. A timeline appeared in my head as I crossed out the months already spent as a spy for the CIA. My days were numbered.

  I wanted to admit to him I couldn’t wait. I ached to say using me as motivation for completing the CEO missions was useless because I was only here to eventually leave him. I desired to tell him no one ever thrilled me or caused me more happiness than he did, but nothing caused me more pain than knowing we would neve
r last.

  “You look tired.”

  Wow, I sounded lame.

  Adrian shrugged. He got off the bed and walked toward my kitchen. “I am. Man, I’m starving.”

  I suppressed the urge to smack my own forehead. Congratulations, Jane, you just popped the romantic bubble. Where was my steamy romance novel moment?

  I followed him to the kitchen and watched him pull out sandwich ingredients. “There’s a quesadilla still in the fridge if you want to warm it up.”

  “Nah, I want a sandwich.”

  “Suit yourself.” I plopped down into one of the swiveling chairs which overlooked the counter into my kitchen. I rested an elbow on the counter and propped my cheek against my hand. “Where’d you go this time?”

  “China. I had to kill someone who was too dangerous for the agents.” The way Adrian talked about murder was the same way many people talked about the weather—detached, matter of fact, and conversational. “Then I headed to Bosnia to close another contract after he wounded one of our agents.”

  “They were both serial killers, weren’t they?” Most of the time CO closed contracts with civilians—these were the easiest kind. Civilians who knew next to nothing about firing a weapon and even less about defending themselves. Closing their contracts was like eating chocolate cake.

  But then there were the tricky ones. The serial killers, the trained assassins like us, the sociopaths with a bounty on their heads. Only the most trained agents were sentenced to kill them, and apparently Adrian was being sent to do the dirty work.

  “Evaded the last two contracts, and the client was threatening to end the deal if they weren’t dead soon.” Adrian finished his first sandwich and started eating like a man who’d been left hungry in a desert for days. I wasn’t sure whether he neglected to eat during his missions or if no one bothered to feed him. With his workaholic nature, I guessed the former.

  “You have to start taking care of yourself.”

  “I am.”

  “Yeah, your homeless appearance and caveman appetite convince me real well.”

  Adrian finished the sandwich and shot me an inquisitive look. It was the kind which mixed “You’re crazy and I don’t believe you” with plain curiosity. “Why do you care?”

  “I’m your girlfriend.”

  “And not my babysitter.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Stop being difficult. You need to start getting sleep; you need to remember to eat. I don’t know how you’re going to manage for the rest of your life.”

  “I’ll have you, won’t I?”

  I brought my hands beneath the counter and into my lap. I stared down at them, suddenly not having the strength to look Adrian in the eye and lie to him at the same time. “Of course you will. I’ll always be your girlfriend.”

  “I don’t want you as my girlfriend.”

  Wait, what?

  My head snapped back up. I furrowed my brows and scowled. I could have sworn he was telling me minutes earlier about how it was going to be just us, and now a few minutes later he didn’t want me anymore? And they say girls are fickle.

  “Is this a joke?” I hopped off the seat and strode toward him. “You don’t want me as your girlfriend?”

  “No.” There was a mischievous glint in his eye. His expression was playful, and the stress lines in his forehead smoothed out. “I don’t.”

  My eyes nearly popped out when I saw the ring. He pulled it out of his jean pocket and held it in his outstretched hand. The box was a red velvet, a dark red velvet, my favorite color. The diamond rested on top of the silver band, twinkling in the fluorescent lighting of my kitchen, smiling up at me with an unspoken question.

  “I thought I would do this later, in some place more romantic or more elaborate like those stupid romance novels you always read…”

  I glared up at him. Ruining the moment, boy.

  Adrian shrugged when he saw my glare, like he’d been expecting it. “Or when the missions were over, and we finally had more time together. But I want us to have something now. I want to promise you there is going to be a time when this all settles down and we can settle down.”

  His eyes shone with hope. He gripped the box like if he didn’t clench it with all his strength then I would reject him. He spoke slowly with assurance, but the intensity in his eyes spoke an inner doubt.

  “You’re doing it wrong.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What?”

  “You’re proposing to me wrong.”

  Adrian stepped back. “How am I proposing to you wrong?”

  “You’re supposed to be on one knee.”

  “Oh, oh.” He knelt down, holding the box open up to me. “There. Better?”

  “Much.”

  “Is this some other stupid thing you read in those romance novels?”

  “This is how people do it!”

  “Love and proposals are subjective. Anyone can choose a different way to express love. Proposals are an extension of love.”

  “Proposals are proposals. Like a business contract, there’s one way to do it.”

  “Love is an emotion people can’t help but feel. The universe doesn’t determine how to love any more than the universe determines proposals.”

  “This has nothing to do with the universe!”

  “Everything is part of the universe. Can you imagine if something fell out of the universe? Not even an object, but a concept. Where would it go? Does it go into another universe, or does it stay within our own, eventually going to return?”

  “We are not getting in another philosophical argument while you are proposing to me.”

  He swallowed hard. “Jane Lu, will you marry me?”

  “Yes.”

  Adrian cupped a hand around his ear and leaned forward.

  “Yes.”

  An expression of mock confusion settled on his face. “Sorry, I don’t think I heard you.”

  “Yes!”

  “A little louder?”

  “I said yes like two times already, if you can’t hear me then you’re deaf!” I laughed and held out my hand for him to slip on the ring. The facets of the diamond reflected the light, making the stone shine and my stomach flip with excitement. “It’s beautiful.” Then I frowned. “How much did this cost?”

  He shrugged as he stood back up. He held both my hands, but only stared at the one with the diamond. “Doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is if you like it.”

  I pecked him on the cheek. “You don’t need to spend this much on me. I’m fine with a smaller diamond, too.”

  Adrian’s grip tightened. “No, I want you to have this one. You’re going to have the best.”

  I scoffed. “It’s a diamond. It’s not a big deal…”

  “No, this diamond is the best and the best is what I’m going to give you. I’m going to make sure you’re happy with me. You will never want to leave.”

  “Who said anything about leaving?” My eyes widened. I’d never said anything about leaving him. Unless he was worried and feared I’d leave him for some reason. “Do you think I’m going to leave?”

  “Forget it.” He propped his shoulders back. “You’re not leaving, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “Hey, look at me.” I brought my hand to his cheek and turned his face toward mine. “Listen to me: I’m happy with you. I will never, ever, want to leave you.”

  A weightlessness from finally saying something true to him settled over me. Our eyes stayed locked for a few seconds, the only sound between us that of our breathing.

  He grabbed my hand, the one which had settled onto his cheek, and pulled me forward to the door. I locked my door behind me and followed him out of my apartment and into the hallway.

  We left my apartment building and headed toward the apartments where the CEO and the board of directors lived. There were three separate apartment areas—one for agents, one for executives, and one for the top leaders in CO. Each career step involved a more lavish apartment. I’d seen Adrian’s apartment when we were b
oth agents, of course, but nothing prepared me for his new CEO apartment.

  I couldn’t even call it an apartment. It was big enough to be a house, with three floors connected by stairs and an elevator. Yet they were still three floors on the tall apartment building.

  “Adrian, this is incredible.” I walked around the first floor, my eyes trying to soak in the chandelier and maroon walls and wooden flooring. It was nothing short of Versailles. Marble columns imposed against the doorways, and a triangular pediment above the fireplace held carved replicas of Greek temples. Green and white marble combined to form the kitchen floor.

  “I wanna show you something.” He guided me upward, up the stairs and past the second floor, which I managed to catch a glimpse of—in all its gold grandeur—before Adrian whisked me to the final third floor.

  My jaw dropped.

  A four-poster bed sat in the left corner of the room. The headboard appeared to be made of gold, and carved into it were pictures of nymphs and forests and boys playing flutes. The wallpaper was a dark blue, Adrian’s favorite color, and a vanity mirror covered one of the walls from the ceiling to the floor. A large door stood next to the mirror, probably a walk-in closet. The floor was a dark wood, almost black, but matched the color of the sky, which I glimpsed past the white wispy curtains leading out onto a balcony. Everything was fit for a King.

  “This is going to be our home,” he whispered into my ear. He stood behind me, his arms wrapped around mine. There was a slight tremor in his voice, like a boy seeking approval from a teacher. “Do you like it?”

  “Like it?” I echoed. How could anyone not love it?

  Adrian guided me still further, stepping out from behind me to walk me over to the balcony. A telescope stood on the balcony, aimed at the dark night sky.

  He walked behind the device and searched for something among the stars. He beckoned me over. When I reached him, he stood back, letting me have a turn.

  “Up there is the constellation of Lyra,” he said as I gazed through the telescope. “It’s supposed to be the same as a lyre.”

  “It looks like a rhombus and a triangle.”