by Tara Brown
The End of Tomorrow
The Single Lady Spy Series
Book Three
A novel by Tara Brown
Copyright 2015 Tara Brown
http://TaraBrown22.blogspot.com
Amazon Edition
This ebook is a work of fiction and is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. No alteration or copying of content is permitted. This book is a work of the author’s crazy mind—any similarities are coincidental. Any similarities are by chance and not intentional.
Cover Art by Once Upon a Time Covers
Edited by Andrea Burns
Other Books by Tara Brown writing as
TL Brown, AE Watson, Erin Leigh, and Sophie Starr
The Devil’s Roses
Cursed
Bane
Hyde
Witch
Death
Blackwater
Midnight Coven
Redeemers
The Crimson Cove Mysteries
If At First
The Born Trilogy
Born
Born to Fight
Reborn
The Light Series
The Light of the World
The Four Horsemen
Imaginations
Imaginations
Duplicities
The Blood Trail Chronicles
Vengeance
Vanquished
The Single Lady Spy Series
The End of Me
The End of Games
The End of Tomorrow
Blood and Bone
Blood and Bone
Sin and Swoon
Soul and Blade
My Side
The Long Way Home
The Lonely
LOST BOY
First Kiss
Sunder
In the Fading Light
For Love or Money
White Girl Problems
The Seventh Day
The Club
Sinderella
Beauty’s Beast
Prologue
A couple of days ago
I woke, confused to see a strange room in a hotel.
“Hey!” Luce smiled at me from the chair in the corner.
“Where are we?” I blinked and rubbed my eyes. “What happened? Where are we?” I asked again, realizing my throat felt funny, and I couldn't seem to shake the fog in my head.
“Europe.” She answered like I should know where we were. “You don't remember coming here? We came two days ago.”
“No. I don't remember anything.” It was true; I didn't recall the trip. I remembered we had talked about Europe. I had fought with Coop about coming. But everything was fuzzy.
“What do you remember?”
“I was in—” I paused and thought back to the last thing I recalled—the jet with Servario and something about a red dress—or was it? Was I wearing a red dress? Everything was a haze. “Oh shit, my head hurts. How did I get here? Did we do a job?” I lifted my head, swallowing hard. “Did Servario abandon me again?”
“Sort of.” She nodded, sighing. “And he said he took your memories with some drug. He said it was better for you. I didn't think it would work. He asked me to sit here until you woke.” She was awfully cavalier about the whole thing while I was freaking out.
“He said what? Where are we? Why did he take my memories? Or better yet, how? What’s better about this? I feel sick. Jesus, what did I do?” My heart raced as I tried hard to reach the memories that were gone and wondering what in the hell he had talked me into that I needed to forget. “Oh God, did he—”I squeezed my butt to make sure he hadn’t conned me into some of that. Thankfully, it felt normal.
“Did he what?”
“Nothing.” I gave Luce a look, wondering how I could possibly explain my avoidance of ass sex. “Where’s Coop?” If I was safe with anyone, it was him. He never would have erased my memories, and he had never asked to play the back nine.
“We’re in Belgium.” She paled a little, looking down. “Coop’s dealing with the brothel you raided in Dubai. Same human traffickers we’ve been dealing with all along.” She said it weirdly, like she was embarrassed to tell me that.
“What brothel?” It hit me then that I had clearly seen something Servario knew I needed to be rid of. “Was it bad? Did he whore me out? Oh fuck!”
“Much worse than that, Evie.” Her eyes were haunted.
“He took my memories on purpose? Because he made me do things?” Rage started to build inside me, replacing the pity I had felt a second ago. “Oh my God. I had always sort of assumed he would keep me relatively safe. Oh my God.” I had fooled myself when it came to him on a lot of things. This one left me blood lusting.
“No, wait.” She shook her head. “No. He didn't make you do anything. You killed and went savage and then saved some teenagers. I think he wanted you to forget the way you kill—it’s just better. Trust me.”
“Oh.” I frowned at Luce, and sighed in relief. “You sure?” I squeezed my thighs, noting the sex I definitely had.
“Yeah. He said you shouldn't remember how you kill, it’s not cool.”
“Huh.” I leaned back again, confused but oddly grateful I didn't know what she was talking about. I had killed in a way he knew I wouldn’t want to remember? That was a bad sign. “How bad?”
“Bad.” Her wide and pale face made me wince.
“Like on a scale of one to ten: one being Betty White murdering people and ten being a woman who just gave birth while killing with a machete—how bad?”
She paused, pursing her lips. “What’s Betty White killing with?”
“A gun, just a regular death.”
“You were full machete, covered in the blood of childbirth.” She lifted her hands, like we were putting this to bed. “Bad.”
“Yikes.” There were things I didn't need to remember; I could admit that. But I had a bad feeling some of the things I did need were gone with the rubble. “Can you give me the Cliff Notes version of what you know, maybe clean up the savage killing a little?”
“Yeah.” She nodded and began the story with the jet ride I had a slight recollection of.
The story took turns I didn't expect, but in the end I decided the headache and confusion were worth not knowing what in the hell had happened. I hated human trafficking more than any single thing in the world. And when my job involved children and human trafficking, I wasn't sane. I was something else. We all knew it.
There was no way I wanted to sit and think about it all. I was tired in a way I didn't understand, but all I could do was hope Servario had protected me and chosen to wipe my memory because of horrors I had seen and not horrors I had experienced.
“What do we do now?” I couldn't find anything in my head. I didn't even entirely remember why we had come to Europe.
“We go home to Canada and let Coop and Jack clean this mess up.”
“Okay.” I sighed, wishing I could have had just the slightest of hints. It felt too much like a Servario game to me.
Chapter One
Yesterday
The waiting room felt like it was closing in on me, but I remained perfectly still. Canadian medical was by far superior to ours, but their wait times were insane. I hadn’t been able to get in to see our family doctor when we got back from Europe so the health unit had become my only option.
Luce gave me a sideways look from her magazine. “Stop fidg
eting. You look like a junkie.”
“Suck it, Luce. You didn't possibly entertain all the gentlemen at the finger-in-the-ass club.” I motioned both hands like I was double fisting cocks. She wrinkled her nose, making me realize I was talking with my hands again. I lowered them, awkwardly, having never actually done the double fisting gesture before. The horror on her face matched the feelings inside me. “I don't like not knowing what happened to my vagina.”
“I’m sure it didn't involve making porn.”
“You don't know.”
“We both know you are fine. Would you stop.” She rolled her eyes.
“No!” I turned sharply. “Servario isn’t all about safety. He’s all about instant gratification. I could kill him for this. I might have done things, Luce, things I don’t normally do. He has a way of convincing—” I paused and shuddered. “Anyway, I know I woke up feeling like maybe I’d had a bit of sex.” A dozen showers and the reassuring look my mom gave me hadn’t helped. I couldn’t feel clean. It was like there were fingerprints or bugs all over me. I was going to kill him, slowly.
“Oh my God.” Luce lifted her hand in a show of defeat. “Fine, be insane. When the nurse tells you you’re fine I’m going to tell you I told you so. FYI!”
Having Luce join me for my STD testing hadn’t turned out to be as comforting as I had imagined it would be. In my head it had been her holding my hand and us laughing nervously and her reassuring me. Not rolling her eyes and flipping the magazine pages like she was annoyed. Granted I was being a little bitch but there was something she didn't understand; I hadn’t ever been nervous getting these done before. I had always known who my partners were. They consisted of one person—James—a man I believed to be monogamous. Now I had to worry about him and Servario and Coop—and all the people they had slept with. It was vexing to say the least.
“Didn't you have to get this done when you had kids?”
“Yeah.” I cringed. “But I was faithful to one person. I never imagined I would actually get anything.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Your one person was James. You’re lucky you don't have HIV. He is hep-seedy.”
“Was.”
“Is.” Luce scoffed. “I am not counting that man as dead yet. Hell no. I have seen the horror movies, and that mutha always lives and comes back, just when you think it’s safe. Hell no. I’m ready for his ass.”
“Good call.” I bit my lip and thought about it all for a moment. She had scars in places from his attempt to kill her in Rome. I didn't blame her one bit. “Ya know, I never worried about sex with him because he always wore a condom with me. He had lasting problems.”
“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose. “That's why he always wore condoms?”
“Yeah.”
“Gross and lame.” She looked back at the magazine. “He was shit in bed with or without the condom anyway.”
“Yeah.” Tapping my finger against the chair, I nodded, trying to avoid the awkwardness of the fact that we’d both slept with my ex-husband. “He was indeed.”
“It's really no wonder you have humped Servario from one side of the world to the other. You had a decade of bad sex to make up for.”
“Yup.” I nodded again, not wanting to touch on it.
“Coop and Jack get back tonight.” Luce gave me a look.
Her words made me realize that I felt a tremendous amount of guilt for Dubai, regardless of remembering nothing. There was no denying the fact that I’d had sex. I could tell.
“You need to end things with Coop. He’s way too into you and you’re way too hung up on Servario. It’s kinda sick to watch.”
I didn't answer her. The idea of breaking things off permanently actually hurt. Coop wouldn't be able to transfer away from me so we would be stuck together, back to our awkward attraction. And he made me feel safe. It was selfish and I knew it and I hated myself for it, but I didn't want it to end.
A woman in a short red dress walked into the waiting room and sat across from me. Something about her reminded me of something I couldn't recall. There was urgency to the information, like I needed to recall it, and yet I had nothing to go on.
Obviously, she was a hooker, I portrayed a hooker a lot, and we both had brown hair. Beyond that I didn't know why seeing her was picking at me.
She was very pretty, but her teeth were obviously decayed from drugs and she had a pick wound similar to the one the female Burrow agent Elise had.
It dawned on me after a moment that the hooker’s red dress reminded me of the dress on the plane with Servario. I had worn a red dress. I gulped, wondering if something had happened that would cast him in a bad light so Servario made me forget it. A red dress like a hooker and no memories was a bad thing.
“Angela Marshall?” The nurse came into the room and spoke softly. Luce nudged me. “That's you, Angela.”
I jumped up, nervous and hating the distracted feeling I had. “I’m Angela.” I followed the smiling nurse to the back hallway.
She didn't speak until we were in the room, and even then it was detached and devoid of emotion. “Hello, Angela. I am Sarah, a health nurse. I understand you need a physical and an STI test.”
“No.” I cocked an eyebrow. “STD.”
She offered the most patronizing smile I had ever received. “STI is what they are labeled now.”
I wanted to stab her in the eye but I sighed and shrugged. “Whatever they’re called, I need a test.”
She sat back, folding her arms. “Have you changed partners?”
“No, my husband cheated on me with a bunch of other women, and I need to be sure he didn't give me something.”
“Oh.” Her jaw dropped and suddenly she was a very different woman. “Oh my God, I am so sorry. Of course, we will make certain you are healthy.” She shook her head. “I get this a lot I’m afraid.”
“I can imagine.”
“Let’s just do the blood work first. It’s the easy part.” She got up and brought back the kit to take my blood. “Are you from here?”
“No, Washington. My husband and I came here for his job.”
“Wow.” She lifted her gaze as she washed my arm and gently stuck the needle in. “So he moved you here, away from your friends and family, and then had a series of affairs?”
I nodded.
“That's disgusting.”
“It is.” I sighed as she clamped on the vile and began filling.
“Will you go back?”
“No. My kids like it here.” I shrugged. “I don't mind it either. I’ve got some friends and Canadians are such nice people.”
“I suppose.” She filled the last vile she needed, pulled the needle from my arm, and placed a small round Band-Aid over the spot. She nodded at the bed. “Slip the gown on and lie back on the bed, covering yourself with the sheet, and I will be right back.” She got up and left the room.
Never had I had a more gentle blood-taking experience. I knew the Pap would be the same. I had won her over with my sob story. She was going to warm that dirty duckbill before she lodged it in me. That really was the part of the story that mattered where Pap smears were concerned.
When she came back in, she offered a pleasant nod. “Ready?” I winced but gave her a look of accepting my fate. “Yup.” It was a lie.
No one liked having a Pap, but I had been seeing the same doctor for fifteen years. We had a rapport and a friendship that involved him telling me about the White Sox and me pretending to really care about the games and stats.
For me she was akin to a new lover but minus the scotch and the sexual tension.
She positioned herself and began the awkward part of placing my feet in the stirrups. “Can you just slide a little more forward?” I shifted down the sheet, dragging it with me and unintentionally lifting my dress.”
“Always a bit awkward, eh? Like doing it in high school where you’re both a bit nervous and neither of you has a real clue how it’s meant to feel.”
And apparently she was going to talk abou
t sex while touching my vagina. Awkward and not something my other doctor would have ever done.
We both laughed but my heart wasn’t in it. It was a pity laugh.
“I am going to touch you now.” She leaned in, making me grateful I had washed three times before we came but instantly feeling dirty the moment she went in for the kill. Being spread open under a bright light while someone wore mining gear was one thing, but having them lean in and really pry as they dug about was another. “And everything looks good. I am adding the speculum now.” She was clearly as excited about this part as I was.
The slightly warmed metal touched me, making me tighten. “Just relax,” she murmured.
Sighing, I tried to calm myself as she went in, wrestling with it like she was going after the last pickle in the jar. I inhaled sharply as she clicked the piece of equipment and moved until she looked up at me from between my thighs. “You have a crooked vagina. You must have had a terrible time giving birth.”
I nodded tensely.
“There! Got it! Next time you get one of these, tell the doctor your cervix is to the right and back a bit.” She sighed and started the very last of it. As she withdrew the speculum I breathed a hearty sigh of relief. “Not worth it for women to sleep around or have multiple partners. We suffer too much for that shit, eh?”
“Not worth it at all.” I shook my head. Her sentence and the discomfort in my womb and pride sealed something for me. It was the large and brutal dose of reality I needed.
I was a mom, a daughter, a widow, and an agent. I didn't need to worry about my heart getting broken; I needed to worry about my vagina getting sick. And what I could possibly bring home from one of Servario’s weekends. There was a possibility that he didn't let me remember what had happened in Dubai because of something we did. And likely it was something I maybe didn't want to do.
I needed to worry less about dating and sex and more about my kids and saving the world.