“In two minutes, you won’t have balls, either.”
Lily didn’t want to shoot him, she really didn’t. She’d never killed anyone before, and didn’t want to start with Marc. She was saving that damnable act for someone very specific. She didn’t want to condemn her soul to hell for some piece of shit traitor. Some con man. Some liar.
“Look,” his voice was low, his teeth clenched. “I need what’s in that trunk. Whatever deal you have with Ivanov, I can make you a better one. I have to take those diamonds, or I’m dead.”
“And if I let you take them, I’m dead. Not winning me over,” she replied.
“No, you can just disappear. Drive off into the sunset, find the nearest plane to take you back to L.A., or wherever you’re from. Somewhere safe,” he suggested.
“Not from L.A., and you have one more minute before I blow your nuts off.”
“How did a sweet thing like you get caught up with Ivanov?”
“‘Sweet thing’ just threatened to shoot you in the testicles. Thirty seconds.”
“Okay! Okay, just take it easy. Maybe we can work out a deal. I’ll split them with you, half and half. Just take them out and we’ll divide them up.”
“Do you really think I’m stupid enough to fall for that?”
“Was worth a shot.”
“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six -”
Lily began counting down, hoping that would scare him into moving. It worked, only not the way she’d been hoping. He abruptly dove to the side. She pulled the trigger, but it was too late. The bullet struck the ground where he’d been standing a moment before, and Marc was now laying beside the car.
Lily jumped forward, ready to run after him, when shots were fired back. She cursed and leapt into the trunk of the car, curling herself up as small as possible. There was a pop and a hiss and she felt the car lean to the side. He’d shot out the tires. More shots went off and she heard bullets ricocheting under the chassis. She screamed and pounded on the bottom of the trunk.
“Explosives! Please stop firing at the goddamn explosives!” she shrieked at him.
Everything went silent. Lily waited for a second, then unfolded herself. Slowly climbed out of the trunk, wary of her surroundings, her gun leading the way. Marc was back on his feet and breathing hard, his arms hanging at his sides, his own gun pointing down.
“There. Happy?” he asked, gesturing to the car.
Lily walked fully around to the side, assessing the damage. He’d shot out both tires on the driver’s side and apparently shot up into the gas tank and the radiator – both water and gasoline were leaking out from underneath the vehicle. She groaned.
“That was so … stupid …,” she breathed.
All of the trunk space was dedicated to the safe. There were no spare tires, and even if there had been, there certainly wasn’t a spare radiator. They were ten miles or more from any sort of civilization.
“This car isn’t going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere. You have no choice. Open the safe,” Marc told her.
Lily felt her mind begin to unravel.
Three days. Three more days, and it would’ve been over. Three more days. And what had to happen? I had to fuck the wrong guy.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done!?” she shouted, startling him. “Any idea!? Five years! Five fucking years, down the goddamn drain! Five fucking years of my life I gave, just for this day, and now some low life piece of shit has ruined everything!”
“I couldn’t give a fuck about what you gave up, I need -”
“SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
“Stop fucking yelling, I -”
“Five years! You think I want to be here!? You think I like working for those pieces of shit? All those days, months, years! I had to …,”
“Jesus, fuck, shut up, I need you -”
“… those fucking disgusting pigs, do you know what it’s like to be a woman around them? The kind of shit I had to do to earn their respect? Do you!? No, you just fucking show up and flirt and lie and steal and back stab and …,”
“If you don’t stop, I’m gonna -”
“… and now it was all for nothing! Nothing! You made it all mean nothing! I should fucking kill you! I should fucking put a bullet in your skull! I should -”
Lily was vaguely aware that she was rambling, but she couldn’t stop herself. In that moment she felt like she had nothing left to give. He’d taken the last thing she had, and he’d ruined it. Now she was just bad memories and worse decisions.
She was so focused on her unspooling chain of thought that she wasn’t paying attention. Mid-rant, he suddenly jabbed his hand forward. One minute, Lily was standing in the African heat, and the next, everything was black.
Which was a vast improvement to how her day was going, anyway.
DAY TWO
Marc stood with his feet wide apart, his arms crossed in front of his chest, staring down at the fire he’d built when the sun had gone down.
Fuck. Fucking bitch. Fuck.
He never shit where he slept. He never mixed business with pleasure. One time. One time, and look what happened. She was amazingly good at her job, she must’ve been hired especially for him.
Catch his attention. Flirt with him. Fuck him. Get him to lower his guard and his inhibitions.
And also lead a fucking cannibalistic group of Liberians to his front door.
“… I didn’t come here with any intentions of sleeping …”
Clever fucking bitch, she’d come there with the intention of setting him up. Lily, leading them to him. Ivanov, with his “bonus” so big it looked as though Marc had sold the diamonds himself.
Jesus, what ever happened to honor amongst thieves!?
The Bratva didn’t want any trouble with the Liberians – their presence in western Africa already wasn’t appreciated. If it got out that the heist of such valuable diamonds had been orchestrated by the Bratva, a war between the two criminal organizations would break out. But if the Russians were to, say, contact the Liberians and tell them that a North American man had shown up and tried to sell them some diamonds, it would show goodwill. Of course they didn’t buy them, and that would inspire more confidence. And if they even went so far as to point the Liberian’s in the thief’s direction, even better. That’s what Marc figured.
Liberians wanted to kill me because the Russians said I stole and then sold their diamonds. I escaped. Liberians will tell the Bratva. Now both will be after me, both will want me dead – one for revenge, and the other to keep their secret safe. How did all this get so fucking complicated!? Oh yeah. A redhead with nice tits. Fuck me.
Fuck. What to do. What to do. He’d figured that his best option would be to convince the Liberians he’d never tried to sell their diamonds, that he’d been hired by the Bratva, and that same Bratva had set everyone up. Turn them against each other. And how to do all this? Get the diamonds back. And where were the diamonds?
He wasn’t sure what exactly triggered it. Marc was a smart man, usually very intuitive. It was part of why he was good at his job. He tried to think. What were the Russians planning on doing with the diamonds? Obviously, they had to get them out of Liberia, that was a given – that’s where Lily came in; unless it had all been a ruse and she’d only been a hooker hired to con him. But he didn’t think so, he’d seen the way she interacted with Ivanov, he’d seen the car she was given. He believed she really was going to drive those diamonds out of Liberia.
It wasn’t like a person could just walk across borders with a pocket full of gems. Smuggling blood diamonds was a full time business. A person couldn’t just hop on a plane and fly with them. Driving was one of the best options. Lily had a good chance because she looked like a naughty librarian, no one would suspect her of trying to smuggle anything. But still, they wouldn’t want to risk more than they had to. She would need a special route to get out of Liberia. No main roads, so definitely no driving along the coast. Would she go North? South? Which country, which way?
Think think think think.
Back at the safe house, when Ivanov had been investigating the stones, Marc had let his eyes wander around the room. There had been a lot of maps. Tons of detailed, topographical maps of Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Algeria, and Morocco. Why? Why would they need such detail? Wouldn’t they just need a road map?
Maybe they want roads that no one else will be driving on …
It was crazy to even imagine. Marc’s brain fit the maps together in his mind’s eye, like a jigsaw puzzle. North. She was heading northeast, either Morocco, or Algeria. Somewhere with a coast and easy access to boats. Easy access to the southern coast of Europe.
The Bratva were going to smuggle blood diamonds in a car and send them across the wilds of Africa, a lawless place with unforgiving terrain and harsh climates. It was insane. Before that day, Marc wouldn’t have been able to picture what kind of person would take on such a feat. Now he could picture the person clearly. A feisty redhead with a bad temper and worse language would definitely be up for the job.
He’d heard her in the gas station; he’d been crouching under the window, ready to kill her. “Globa-doc”, she’d said, referring to the aide group. It was perfect. It gave her license to move about the country, just an aide worker there to help the people.
His whole plan could have gone wrong. There were several roads out of the city of Monrovia, and Marc hadn’t exactly had a lot of time to make his decision. The road he’d stopped her on had seemed like the best choice, it led to an old unused army road that would eventually lead straight into Guinea. It was a good guess, but still a guess. She could’ve taken another direction entirely.
But she hadn’t, and the calm that had fallen over him when he saw the beat up Mercedes pull into the gas station had done wonders for his overrun nervous system. He’d pinned her to a bed the night before; he would fucking nail her to the roof of her car now. She was finished. Over. It would be like stealing candy from a baby.
Wrong.
Turned out Lily was just as feisty out of bed as she was in, and more than capable of defending anything she damn well wanted to. She was quicker on the draw than him, he could admit that, and she was a good shot, though probably not as good as him. But she certainly wasn’t as strong as him, and that’s why she was laying in the back of her car, chained up and unconscious.
I don’t want to have to hurt her, but I will. I don’t want to have to kill her, but I will. See what happens when you play with fire, Lily? I burn down your goddamn house of lies.
Being a mercenary never got any easier.
DAY TWO
Lily woke up abruptly. No slow drift into consciousness, just bam, awake and eyes open. She couldn’t figure out where she was for a moment. She was staring at an upholstered roof. Car. She was in the back of a car. Her car. She flicked her eyes towards the driver’s side window, but the gun holster that sat above it was completely empty. What was going on?
The diamonds.
She sat up quickly and realized she had a light weight chain wrapped around her waist. Not incredibly tight, but tight enough that it wouldn’t fall over her hips or wiggle over her breasts. She followed the length of chain with her eyes and realized it was hanging out the open door at her feet, so she then looked to the front of the car.
Marc was asleep in the driver’s seat, and the other end of the chain was wrapped tightly around his right wrist.
Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck. FUCK.
It came back to her. He’d been in her backseat. There’d been guns. She’d shot at him. He’d shot at her car. She’d screamed. He’d hit her.
Asshole.
She still couldn’t believe it. To go from a night of bonding and mind blowing sex, to him trying to carjack her. That’s what she got for trusting a man. Never trust men, she knew the rule. She’d practically invented it. What had she been thinking!?
She had to get loose, get the diamonds, and get away.
Lily carefully got onto her knees and leaned over the seat in front of her. His head was leaned back and to the side, his mouth open. His arms were crossed, and just below them she saw the butt of a gun peeking out of the top of his pants.
Thank god.
Lily slid across the backseat and pushed the door open even further. She got out one foot at a time, moving at an excruciatingly slow pace. Marc had given them a lot of length of chain, luckily, and had strung it through the open doors, making her tangle free as she moved to the front of the car. She let a couple feet worth of chain drop to the ground before she started moving again.
Marc was still asleep, so she knelt on the seat next to him. So slowly, she leaned further towards him. Gently put a hand against the side of his seat. Watched his eyelids for any sign that he was awake. Checked his breathing. Then leaned farther forward, almost so her head was right in front of him.
It was probably the best look she’d gotten at him since she’d left his room the other night. There was dried blood on the side of his head, running from the top of his temple to just underneath his ear – he’d gotten knocked around at some point. He needed to shave. He was dirty. His fingernails were disgusting. Everything about him was so different.
Different from what? Not like you really knew him. He was always this disgusting person that’s in front of you now, he was just really good at hiding it.
Lily tried to shake her head clear, tried to keep the anger at bay. It was all stupid, his treachery was ultimately irrelevant. It had just been sex. She had a plan to execute. If she could just get to Morocco. Even if she was late, she could still pull it off. She had to. She had to. A sexy hitman-slash-diamond-thief-slash-traitor wasn’t going to derail her.
Pinching her lips between her teeth, she oh so slowly reached her right hand forward. Hovered it above his lap. Moved another inch and was over his belt. Just one more inch and she’d have the gun.
Just as she was about to cover that last inch, though, she glanced up and was faced with a pair of blue eyes watching her. In a flash, he grabbed her by her wrist and thumb, twisting them so hard to the right that she let out a shriek, almost losing her grip on his seat.
“Do you think I’m that stupid?” Marc asked, his voice hoarse.
“Yes,” she managed to get out through teeth that were clenched in pain. He jerked her arm harder and she had no choice but to turn with the motion. It felt like he was going to break her wrist. She fell to the side, landing on his lap. He managed to hold her wrists together using only one hand and he pinned them to her chest. His other hand went around her throat, squeezing hard enough to let her know he meant business.
“I could’ve killed you yesterday. I could’ve killed you in your sleep last night. You owe me. I was hoping today you’d be more cooperative,” he told her. She squirmed under his hold.
“Probably not going to happen,” her voice was a thready whisper.
“I don’t give a shit if you’ve got some sick fetish about playing house with the Bratva, but I’m taking those diamonds, Lily. I need those diamonds,” he spoke in a tone that brokered no nonsense.
“You don’t know shit about what I’m doing, I don’t care about any of them. I need those diamonds to get on the boat in Morocco,” she countered.
“I don’t care. Open that safe back there or I’ll gut you like a fucking fish.”
This wasn’t working. It was yesterday on repeat. She needed to change the channel. She remembered their night together and the way he’d reacted to her. Even if it had all been a scam to get close to her, he hadn’t faked his hard on. He hadn’t faked fucking her like he needed to do it to breathe. He liked her body, he liked her face. How she moved. Maybe she could use that to her advantage. She stopped struggling against his hold, letting herself relax. She rubbed her shoulders back and forth against his lap.
“Look. I’m sure we could work something out. I can make it really worth your while if you just walk away,” she told him. She tried to keep her voice soft, tried not to glare.
“R
eally?” he questioned her, his eyebrows raising in surprise.
“We had fun, Marc. Why not have some more fun?”
“Mmmm, that does sound good. Would you strip for me?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Get completely naked?”
“Completely.”
“Let me fuck your mouth?”
“Whatever you want.”
“What about your ass? Ever been fucked there?”
“No, but I could let you be the first.”
Suddenly, his hand squeezed her neck even harder and he yanked her up. She gasped, and for a second she thought he was going to kiss her. But he didn’t. He forced her up so they were almost nose to nose.
“If I want your ass, I’ll take it. If I want anything else, all I have to do is take it. So I don’t know why you’re ‘offering’ yourself to me – as far as you’re concerned, you’re my goddamned property now, which means if I feel like fucking you, it’ll happen. You think this is a fucking game, Lily, and it’s not. Now shut the fuck up and open that goddamn safe,” he growled.
She held her breath for a minute as red washed over her vision. Property!? She was going to kill him, she decided. Maybe not right that moment. Maybe not that day. But by the end of this ordeal, she was going to stand over him and she was going to put a bullet in his skull.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Patience. You waited five years to get this far. You can wait for a couple more days till you can get rid of him.
“Look. Like it or not, we need each other. You want the diamonds. I want the diamonds. I’m the only one who can get them; you’re the only one who can get us out of here. You gotta give on something or I’ll never open that safe,” she laid everything out.
“I could have someone cut into it,” he pointed out.
“Explosives.”
“I don’t think there really are explosives.”
“Then go ahead and cut into it. Just please let me go first so I can get at least a mile between us.”
The explosives weren’t a bluff. The main part of the safe was surrounded by an interesting array of highly combustible materials that only became active when the safe was locked.
Best Laid Plans Page 5