Best Laid Plans

by Stylo Fantome

  And why does she want to get to Moscow so badly?

  Whatever her reason, it must have been a doozy. He’d beaten her. He’d captured her. He’d threatened her. And still, she’d swallowed a bunch of diamonds like they were M&Ms and then done her best to kick his ass.

  He was impressed.

  They passed through Guinea without incident, skirting any cities, and crossed over the border into Mali. It was dark out, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to let her drive. She’d probably lock the gas pedal in place, then drive his ass right into a lake.

  They were on the outskirts of Bamako, the largest city in Mali. Marc didn’t want to particularly go through the city – both the Bratva and the Liberian gang would have called allies, asking them to be on the look out for him. Even possibly them, at that point. There had been a phone in the safe in her car, no doubt Lily had been meant to check in. On top of that, the car probably had a tracking device in it. He could picture Ivanov losing his mind, wondering why the car was sitting in one place for so long.

  Before they could enter Bamako proper, Marc took a detour, driving the car down a dark, muddy road. He was looking for something very specific, and it took about an hour of searching before he found it.

  A boarding house.

  Sketchy, off the beaten path “hotels”, boarding houses tended to be very relaxed. Basically just normal homes, where the owners rented out their spare bedrooms for a little extra cash. The owners often looked the other way from their guests. Marc could probably walk in carrying a dead body, and as long as he paid, they wouldn’t ask any questions.

  It wasn’t ideal. A “sketchy” boarding house was likely to draw other criminal elements, as well. Just what he was looking to avoid. But a proper hotel in a nice part of town wasn’t a good idea, either. Lily could, and probably would, create a scene, and not to mention the fact that both of them were banged up and bleeding.

  So boarding house it was.

  Marc kept Lily close to his side as he talked to the proprietor. There was only one room left, and he took it. All he wanted was a proper shower, which he double and triple checked that they had; running water was a luxury in a lot of places in western Africa.

  “I’m not sleeping with you.”

  They were the first words Lily had spoken to him since they’d gotten off the ground, back in Liberia.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” he chuckled, leading the way inside their room.

  “There’s only one bed,” she pointed out.

  “I hope you like the floor.”

  “I honestly actually hate you.”

  “I can live with that,” he even laughed as he took in their furniture. The bed had an old fashioned brass frame and he walked over, shoving the flimsy mattress off of it. He uncoiled her leash from his arm, then looped it around the rails of the foot board, several times over, before padlocking it into place.

  “Really? Are you that scared of me?” she snapped. He nodded as he took off his pack and tossed it into the bathroom.

  “Terrified,” he answered. She glared at him. It was a look she wore often and he wondered if she had any idea that it wasn’t scary at all. In fact, it was kind of adorable. The way she scrunched up her nose, she looked like an angry kitten.

  “What if I have to pee? Or take a shower?” she demanded.

  “I’m about to take a shower, feel free to join me,” he replied, peeling off his t-shirt. When he pulled it clear from his head, she was looking away from him, a blush staining her cheeks. As memories from their night together rushed back to him, he knew exactly what she was thinking. He may have hated her, but showering together suddenly didn’t sound so bad.

  “I’d rather stink.”

  “Fine with me.”

  He walked into the adjoining bathroom but didn’t shut the door. He wanted to be able to hear anything she might get up to; hear if she got free and decided to kill him. When he’d stripped naked, he glanced over his shoulder. She was laying on the bed with her back to him, curled into a ball.

  Good, she’s tired. I won’t have to fight with her all night.

  He let the water cascade down his body. It wasn’t heated, but it felt good. He braced his forearms against the wall and the water spilled down his back. He rubbed at aching muscles and sore bones. Cleaned the blood out of his face and hair. A lot of rusty red water swirled down the drain.

  All the jobs I’ve had over all the years, and Big Red comes the closest to taking me out of anyone I’ve ever known.

  He spent a solid half an hour in the shower, basking in the feeling of being clean. Then he grabbed the t-shirt he’d been wearing all day, washing it as best he could using a bar of soap and rubbing it against the tiles on the wall. He only had one other t-shirt in his bag, his clothing options were limited, and he wanted to take care of them. A million different diseases and bacteria were floating around Africa, cleanliness was a necessity.

  He was actually feeling pretty good when he got out of the shower, so it was an even bigger let down when he walked into the main room and saw what she’d been up to. He wasn’t sure how she’d done it without him hearing, but she’d managed to get the end frame detached from the main part of the bed. The mattress was resting at a downward angle.

  Lily wasn’t near the bed. She was sitting in a chair by the windows, the length of chain piled in her lap. Marc was very grateful that he’d had the forethought to put his pack in the bathroom with him – it had the gun and the diamonds in it.

  “I stayed,” she stated in a strong voice.

  “I noticed.”

  “I did this to prove a point. I could’ve left. It was a pretty stupid place to chain me. I knew the moment you did it that I could get away. But I didn’t. I stayed. I want this thing off me, now,” Lily demanded, yanking at the chains around her waist.

  “No,” he shook his head.

  “I also could’ve snuck up behind you in the shower and stabbed you with one of these brass fittings. Brained you with one of those lamps. Or easiest of all, just tossed the radio into the water with you. But I didn’t. I chose to sit here and wait, all to prove that I can be trusted. Take off the chain,” she urged. Marc walked over to her, one eyebrow cocked up.

  “Last time we made a deal you screwed me over,” he reminded her.

  “So I owe you one. Take off the chain.”

  “I don’t want to be killed in my sleep.”

  “Me, neither. And I don’t want to kill you. I only want to kill one man,” her voice fell into a whisper.

  Something had changed. Marc couldn’t put his finger on it, but in the time it took him to shower, something about her had changed.

  “What man?” Marc asked.

  “Stankovski.”

  “Why!?”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything. Just know that it’s not about you. And it’s not about me. For five years I have been planning that man’s death. Five years of my life, just to get this close to him. And where am I now? A fucking boarding house in the middle of nowhere, Mali. Please. Just let me do this and I will give you the diamonds,” she urged.

  Marc stared at her for a while. She had bruises all around her neck from where he’d strangled her with the chain. Bruising down the side of her jaw from where he’d hit her. A light bruise sat above her eyebrow from where she’d headbutted him. He knew there must be more, under her clothes. All bruises he’d put on her, all marks he’d left.

  How strange, to go from one night of gentle caressing, to the next full of punches and jabs.

  “Tell me why you need to get to Moscow,” he replied. She sighed.

  “If I tell you, will you remove the chains?”

  “Probably not, but it’ll get you a step closer to it.”

  “Fine. But first, get me something to eat.”

  *

  It would shock most people to learn, but Marc could actually be a charmer when he put his mind to it. It was the middle of the night, but he convinced the
owner’s wife to let him troll around in their kitchen. He grabbed anything edible and carted it back up to the room. Lily had put the bed frame back together and she sat in the middle of the mattress, waiting for him. He’d chained her to a radiator before he’d left. She couldn’t pull that apart.

  “I found you food. Spill,” he offered, dropping a plate of fruit in front of her.

  She dove into the plate, moaning as she lifted the food to her lips. Marc had eaten in the kitchen, but seeing her eat the food like it was the best she’d ever had, watching her lick the juices from her fingertips, had him thinking of something other than her past. He cleared his throat, glaring harder at her.

  “I need to get to Moscow,” she started to talk around the food in her mouth, “because I need to kill Anatoly Stankovski.”

  “You know who that is, right?” he checked.

  “Yup,” she nodded.

  “Then you know it’s impossible. Stankovski is a very powerful man, and not just in his Bratva – a lot of other brotherhood’s look up to him, a lot of crime rings all over the world. Not just anybody can walk up to his house and knock on his door,” Marc warned her. It had taken him a lot of jobs before Marc had gotten to meet the big man.

  “You think I don’t know that? Why do you think I’m here? Because I thought Monrovia would be a great place to catch a tan?” she asked in a snide voice.

  “Don’t be cute.”

  “Five years, Marcelle. I worked at a bank in Cleveland, so I transferred to a branch in New York. Spread it around that I could launder money. When the right fish took the bait, I was in, filtering money for a gang out of Brighton Beach. I got to know people, started to insinuate myself into certain situations and events. Meanwhile, I took every kind of weapons and defense classes I could find. Eventually, I worked my way all the way to Moscow, though I was never allowed within a mile of Stankovski. This job was going to be my in, my way to prove my loyalty and my worth. Five years, one last job. Get the diamonds to him. Then shoot him in the head. Done.”

  “Alright, so you’ve ‘trained’. Why Stankovski?” Marc probed deeper. If he was going to trust her to hold up her end of the bargain, then he had to know everything.

  “My sister Kaylee,” she answered plainly. “She was kidnapped during a trip to Romania. The FBI and the local authorities were able to track her disappearance to a human slave trade operation being run by Stankovski’s Bratva. We tracked her to Moscow, but by the time we got there … well … an autopsy showed that it had been massive trauma to the head. Someone had beaten her with a blunt object of some sort. On top of that, she had massive amounts of heroin in her system. They told us that she probably would’ve died within a matter of days, anyway,” Lily finished her story.

  Marc would’ve liked to have said his heart hurt for her. But he didn’t have much of a heart. He’d done a lot of dastardly things in his life. He’d never sold anyone, or beaten a woman to death, but he’d killed people, he’d kidnapped people for ransom, and he’d stolen from people, and he’d never once felt bad about it.

  “So your sister got killed. You got it into your head to get revenge. Why Stankovski? A lot of people operate underneath him,” he pointed out. She shook her head.

  “Pictures. Witnesses. He kept Kaylee for himself. The only reason he beat her was because she tried to escape. She slept in his room, and only his room. He bought her, he force fed her drugs, he raped her, and he beat her to death. I want to end him,” Lily’s voice grew hard. “That special case in the car? That gun you took, my Glock? I bought that gun five years ago, and I made a decision that I wouldn’t stop until I’d used it to end him. That Glock has been on every job with me, gone to every country with me, just in case I wound up in that asshole’s presence. That Glock represents everything I’ve worked for over the years. So I’d like it back, and I’d like to finish what I started.”

  Marc stared at her for a second. She was dead serious. She had dedicated five years of her life to killing a man, and Marc had almost ruined that plan. He could understand her frustration a little better now. She was quick with a gun, and deadly with her body, but still. There was something off. Little Lily had no clue what she was getting herself into, not really.

  “That’s it, huh. Done. You really think it works like that?” he asked, snatching a piece of fruit off her plate and eating it.

  “Yeah, I do. Unless some asshole pops up in my backseat and carjacks me and makes me walk a million … oh yeah, that did happen,” she snapped.

  “Killing someone isn’t ever easy. You think you can shoot him in the face and just walk away?” he double checked. There was no hesitation in her answer.

  “Yes.”

  “And even then, you just walk away … to what? Go back to Cleveland, work at that bank?”

  The question seemed to throw her. She sat back as her eyebrows shot up. Clearly, she’d never thought about “after”, she’d only focused on her anger.

  “I … I don’t know. Go home, do something,” she stuttered.

  “You can go from living a life of crime and danger for the last five years, from kicking a mercenary’s ass and killing a mob boss, back to a ranch style house and a white picket fence, two cats in the yard?” he kept pushing.

  “Mercenary, huh,” she replied. “Is that your polite way of saying ‘low down dirty fucking thief’?” He smirked at her, not taking the bait.

  “More like my way of saying jack-of-all-trades. For the right price, I can do just about anything that needs to be done.”

  “So in theory, I could hire you to kill this guy,” she seemed to be thinking out loud.

  “No, I wouldn’t take this job, not even for twice my usual price. But I could find you someone who would.”

  “No, thanks. I want my face to be the last one he sees.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” he sighed, pulling the now empty plate away from her. “I’m being honest with you – don’t do this. It will ruin you. You’ve never killed anyone, have you?”

  “No. But trust me, I want to do this.”

  “I’m sure you do, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, or that it’ll end on his door step. That’s gonna stick with you forever. You don’t want that, Lily. Don’t do this. Give me the diamonds, and walk away. Killing him won’t bring her back. Someone else will just take his place. Don’t do this,” Marc urged, as he got off the bed and put the plate outside their door. When he looked back, Lily was refusing to meet his eyes.

  “You don’t know me, you don’t know what I want.”

  “I know you. We were almost friends,” he reminded her. She finally looked at him again.

  “You only saw the parts of me I let you see. You don’t know anything. Now unchain me,” she demanded, yanking hard on her restraints. He shook his head.

  “No way.”

  “Marc! I told you my story, I didn’t kill you in the shower, what else do I have to do!?” she asked, almost yelling.

  “Let me put you on a plane back to the states,” he answered.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Fine with me.”

  “You disgust me,” she snarled.

  “That’s not what you said last night.”

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” she started, moving to stand on her knees. “That will never happen again, okay? Not only did you turn out to be the biggest asshole I’ve ever met, but sex just fucks everything up, clearly. No sex. Not between us. Not ever again.”

  “Agreed. Definitely a bad idea. You’d probably stab me right in the middle of an orgasm,” he suggested.

  “I wouldn’t even let it get that far.”

  “No sex.”

  “None,” she repeated herself as she got off the bed. “Now, at least unchain me long enough for me to use the bathroom.”

  “No. The door stays open, I hold the chain,” he informed her. She glared and folded her arms over her chest.

  “Fine. But I seriously doubt you’re going to want to witness this.”
>
  It took a second for the wheels to line up in his head. She had to use the bathroom. It was the middle of the night. She’d swallowed the diamonds early that morning. Hmmm. He tried not to laugh while she continued glaring and he unchained her. As she stomped into the bathroom, he fished some plastic bags out of his backpack.

  “Here. They may come in handy,” he offered, not able to hold back his smile as he offered the bags. She took them, then slammed the door in his face.

  There was no window in the bathroom, so she couldn’t escape. He sat on the floor by the front door, in case she tried to make a dash for it. He finished off the rest of the food he’d brought up from the kitchen and waited for her to get done.

  She was gone for a long time, almost half an hour. The water was running in the sink for the whole time. When she finally came out, he could feel dampness in the air just from the amount of water she’d let run. She’d washed her face and her arms, and her hair had been tamed back into a normal looking ponytail. She dropped one of the plastic bags on the floor by his feet.

  “Don’t. Say. A word,” she cautioned him before she climbed onto the bed. He leaned forward and picked up the bag, feeling at the bottom of it. There were four substantial sized diamonds sitting inside it. He cackled as he stood up.

  “Does swallowing them seem like such a good idea, now?” he laughed at her. She was laying with her back to him and didn’t roll over, just held up her arm, giving him the middle finger.

  He thought she would put up a fight when he approached her, but she didn’t say anything, so he managed to work the chain back around her waist. He then wound the other end around his wrist before laying down next to her.

  He wasn’t sure how long they rested there. He’d turned out the lights in the room. A flood light from the backyard cast an orange glow into the space, but that was it. He stared up at the ceiling, trying not to think about everything that had happened. Trying not to think about the woman laying next to him.

  No sex. No sex. She’s a harpy from hell who tried to shoot you and kicked you in the nuts. Why would you want to have sex with that!? Well, she does have nice tits, and the way she went down on - NO SEX.