“Buddy, I doubt you could fit that many in that little tummy of yours.”
“I can too, Dad,” Michael says as he puts his hands on his hips.
I look over at the designated satellite phone that accompanies us everywhere we go. It’s been years since it’s rung.
Maybe they’ve stopped looking for us.
I’ll have to ask Ophelia the next time I see her.
But for now, I’m happy being…just Anna Brookes.
Caution: Mindfuck Inside
Ben and I stand on the sidewalk down the block and watch as the flames lick at the exterior walls. Beautiful, deep, reds and oranges burn brightly as the fire consuming my building hit a lovely crescendo.
Everything I have, every scrap of paper, every single thing that documents 15’s existence, is being cremated in that building.
Of course, the building is owned under an alias, and by the time police discover that, I’ll have re-invented myself with no one the wiser.
“Was that hard to do? He’s worked for you for so many years,” Ben asks as he tightens his fingers around mine. It’s a comforting feeling, one that tells me he’ll always be near.
“No, it wasn’t,” I answer truthfully. “He was paid to do a job. He betrayed me. I needed to end him.”
“If people got to know you, and by that I mean the real you, they would think you’re arrogant…”
“Which I am,” I interrupt him to say.
“…cocky...”
“Yep, I’m that too.”
Ben chuckles and looks down at me, “Some might even call you an anti-hero.”
“Then they’re idiots. Anti-heroes aren’t real.”
“Of course they are.”
“Okay, name me some.”
Ben darts his eyes across the road to the burning building and frowns as he thinks about it. “Oh, the Punisher.”
“Who’s fictional,” I add and smirk at him.
Fire trucks are beginning to arrive, but there’s no way they’ll put this blaze out. It was lit well and has a plenty of fuel to keep it burning.
“Well, I think if people got to know you, they’d like you, except for that tough, ass-kicking exterior,” Ben says as he lightly bumps my shoulder.
“They may like me, but I don’t care whether they do. I’m not concerned with what others think of me.”
“Seems I’ve lost this round. As long as you’re aware you’re egotistical.” His smile is cheeky.
“You didn’t mention sexy,” I tease.
Ben envelops me in a hug and swoops down to capture my mouth with his. His tongue playfully traces my top lip, and he nips my bottom lip between his teeth, pulling at the sensitive skin.
“Hmmm,” he moans against my mouth. His hips press into me, his body calling me as his hard-on presses into my lower stomach. “Let’s go,” Ben says and takes a step in the direction of the car that’s parked around the corner and down the block.
I pull back. “I want to watch it burn,” I tell Ben and sit on the curb, feet in the gutter, to watch more fire trucks arrive.
“I’ll go get the car. You go ahead and feed your perversion to watch.” Ben starts off in his casual pace toward our inconspicuous car.
A small crowd is beginning to form, people coming out of other buildings, and gathering around to make stupid speculations about what’s happening. I listen and smile at some of the things people come up with. “I heard it’s a drug lab,” one man says behind me. “Oh, I heard a motorcycle club owned it,” says another woman.
People really do shoot their mouths off without knowing all the facts, making them look like idiots. If they don’t know, they shouldn’t speak, but that never stops them.
I get up from the gutter and blend into the thirty-odd people standing around, watching my building burn furiously.
I suppose I really don’t need to see any more. The engulfing flames are high and hot enough for me to know how everything inside will be well-charred. I can feel the inferno from here, and despite the water the fire trucks are now pouring onto the building, it won’t be extinguished any time soon.
Mixing with the bystanders, I slowly start to back away until I’m a good forty feet from them.
I turn, my steps light, my mind carefree, and my body finally free to just be…
“Anna Brookes, you’re under arrest.” The voice is one I never thought would betray me, looms from out of the darkness.
My hands are twisted behind my back and Ophelia slaps handcuffs on me.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask her as I turn my head to look at her as she’s pushing me to the ground.
“Fighting it isn’t going to help. You’re under arrest for the murder of Dmitri Petrov.”
I shut my mouth and remain completely quiet, not making a peep.
I get dragged up off the ground and I’m facing my sister. She’s wearing that god-awful blue FBI windbreaker and a matching baseball cap, and there are another six agents standing around her, including Tyler.
Ben…
I look down the street and don’t see him approaching. They might have gotten him too, but if not, he needs to stay away.
I’m pushed and shoved toward a plain, black SUV and herded to a seat inside.
How did I not see this? How did Ophelia get the drop on me?
Did they know about Agent? How did this shit happen?
“Why?” I ask her as she gets in the seat beside me.
The driver pulls away and the car is filled with an icy silence.
“Why?” I ask again in a lower tone.
“Because I had to,” she replies. A tear runs down her cheek, and she turns her head away from me to look out the window.
Because she had to?
She’s just made my shit list.
“Miss Brookes,” a new, older FBI agent addresses me as I sit in the sterile interrogation room.
“Anna will do,” I say as I raise an eyebrow and look at him.
“Anna, I believe I’m in presence of royalty,” he says jovially. This guy’s around fifty-five years old. His hair is thin on top, completely silver and he’s rather pudgy. His nose is too small for his face, and his eyes are tiny, beady.
I look down at the folder on the table in front of him and then back up to meet his eyes.
“Royalty, hmmm? Am I related to the Romanovs and I just didn’t know it?” I sit back in my chair and wrap my now-freed arms across my chest.
“Do you know who I am?” he asks me.
“Should I?”
“I’m Ophelia’s boss.”
“How nice for you.” Fuck him. If he thinks he can play mind games with me, he’s got another thing coming.
He looks at me and smirks, leaning back with one elbow on the arm of the chair and brings his pointer finger up to run it over his lips.
“Oh I see. You think you’re smarter than me,” he says, and chuckles. The prick is laughing at me, and that pisses me off. But I can’t let him strip away those high walls I built around myself over the last fifteen years.
He can’t break me.
No one can destroy the façade I’ve constructed, the perfect illusion.
“We’re ready,” he says a little too loud, keeping his eyes trained on me.
Ophelia and another agent come into the room. Ophelia takes a set of handcuffs from off her belt and swings them toward me.
I clasp my hands behind me to wait for the biting metal to be clamped around my wrists.
“Not this time. In the front,” Ophelia’s boss says.
I clasp my hands together and Ophelia puts the cuffs on. They’re too tight, but I’ll live.
Although nothing much has been said, the one concern I have is Ben. Was he caught too? Is he being interrogated somewhere in a room like this one?
Time has stood still while I’ve been here, with no indication of how long I’ve been in the interview room. I can only estimate it’s been a few hours. I think they would have mentioned Ben if they had him, would have
attempted to play us off against each other.
“Up,” old man says as he stands from his chair and takes a step toward the door.
I can’t see any way to get myself out of this situation for the moment, so for now, I’ll do as they say. If they want to hook me up to a lie detector I’ll beat it and give them answers they don’t want to hear. But if that was what they had in mind, I think they’d bring the machine to me.
I’m led down a hallway, through a door, down several flights of stairs and into a parking garage.
Now this is interesting. I’m being transported somewhere without even being told where I’m going. I highly doubt they would tell me, even if I asked.
A huge black people mover is already waiting, with the side door flared wide open, expecting us.
The back of the van is flush with the dock it’s parked up against, so the rear doors can’t be opened. We approach, and Ophelia helps me into it.
I look around the van. The windows are blacked-out, preventing anyone from looking in. There are high-tech computers with six monitors in the back. They must also use this van for surveillance.
Ophelia’s boss pushes me down onto a bench seat and sits opposite me. Ophelia sits beside me and the van doors close. Within seconds, we’re on the move. There’s only the three of us and the driver in the van. I can easily take the three of them on and kill them within minutes.
The van exits the building and heads down the street, making a number of turns to get out of the city.
No one has said a word.
No one has to.
Moments tick by as time is captured in this room.
“Anna,” the old man starts, “as I was saying, do you know who I am?”
“No, and I don’t care.” I keep an observant, though sly, eye out the windshield, watching where we’re going, getting my bearings and making sure I know where I am for when I get out of this mess.
“Are you looking to map out a get-away?” he asks as he chuckles again.
Damn, a very capable opponent.
I like him. Pity I’m going to have to kill him.
My eyes swing to his and I can feel the corners of my lips tugging up into a smile.
“You know how the President has the Secret Service that protects him?” Old FBI man asks.
I remain quiet, staring at him, not saying a word, though definitely curious about where this is heading.
Ophelia taps my thigh, and I refuse to acknowledge her, because if I look into her eyes I’ll just see myself in her. And I have to put the thought of her being my sister right out of my mind so my emotions won’t make me hesitate when I kill her.
“He also has a sniper detail with him at all times.”
What the hell do I care who he has on his payroll?
“But he needs someone to head them up.”
Boring. Is this guy what passes for management material these days?
“He needs someone who can train them.”
“I hope he finds the perfect person to fill that position,” I say blandly as I give a humorless laugh, still watching the windshield.
The van is stifling with a tense silence, no sound except the van’s engine and the whine of its tires on the seamless and smooth pavement.
“The President knows who you are.” Ophelia’s boss beams at me like this is some kind of award.
Aha, he thought he was holding some crucial information.
“I see,” I say as I lean further back. The van wall is cold on my back.
“He wants you to train them.”
“Not interested,” I reply the moment the ‘M’ is said in ‘them’.
“You’ll be handsomely compensated.”
“Not interested,” I say as I roll my eyes.
“You may not like the alternative.”
“Not interested.”
“The President wants you on his team.”
“Not interested.”
“You’ll be given full control over your detail.”
“Not interested.”
“It’s either that, or…,” he says, smug in his belief he’s just made me an offer I can’t refuse.
“Not interested in either.”
“But now you’re stuck. After you killed your go-to guy, you’re pretty well fucked.”
How the hell does he know about Agent?
But I don’t show any reaction.
“Like I said,” I start, narrowing my eyes at him, “not interested.” My gaze goes to the front again, and I see two things.
A low flying, incoming helicopter, and a dump truck moving at a rapid speed toward the van.
I brace myself, and wait for impact. Given the dump truck’s speed, I know it’s going to hurt. There’s not a doubt in my mind the van’s driver will die on impact. Ophelia may die too because she’s closest to the driver.
The driver screams as he stomps hard on the brakes and tries to swerve to avoid the crash.
I forego bracing myself and lift my arms over and around Ophelia, trying to cocoon her with my body so I take the brunt of the impact.
The van is hit broadside by the dump truck and flips off the road, rolling over. The three of us are being thrown around in the back of the van as it tumbles to rest on its roof.
“Clear!” I think I hear someone shout from outside the van.
The back doors explode off, though the ringing in my ears from the explosion makes anything else impossible to hear.
Ophelia’s lying on top of me, unconscious. Her boss has a huge shard of glass impaling his torso. His breathing is labored, but I think he’ll be alright if he gets help in time.
Henchman steps into the back of the van and drags Ophelia off me.
He sees how my arms are around her and he almost smiles.
He opens his mouth and says something, but my ears are still buzzing loudly, and I can’t hear a word he’s saying. I look at him with what I imagine is a blank, puzzled look on my face.
But he yells again, and this time I can make out the word, ‘Go’.
So I drag my battered body out of the van and try to stand, but having my wrists cuffed makes finding my balance a difficult task.
Henchman lays Ophelia to the side, away from the van, and checks her pulse. He gives her a kiss on the forehead and jumps to his feet. He weaves his arm around me, helping me to walk away from the van.
My mind begins to drift.
Smokey black clouds come in and out of focus. There’s a tightness in my throat as fumes from the van wrap around my body.
I close my eyes for a mere moment, and…
The sound of the helicopter blades cutting through the air starts to drown out the ringing in my ears.
Opening my eyes I can see the cockpit of the helicopter, the pilot, and nothing else.
A gentle waft of cinnamon floats through air.
A warm hand gently trails through my hair, softly running from scalp to tip and then starting again.
He’s here.
“Baby girl, we’re free.”
This has been an amazing journey, one that started my entire writing career. Anna is by far a woman that I will never forget. She’s been through so much, all for the possibility of a future with her Ben.
Now to all the wonderful people that have believed in me and helped. Whether you started on this crazy ride, back when HiT 149 was released, or maybe you’re a new friend that has found me while I was at the peaks of the rollercoaster.
Thank you: Debi Orton – my editor. Kellie Dennis – my cover chick. Amy – my PA. Hetty -my promo chick.
My lovely street team: Melinda, Patricia, Trish, Alicia, Heather, Shona, Mandy, Hetty, Amy, Rachel, Tanya, Brittany, Jess, Shanda and Maureen.
My proofreaders: Al and the ladies at Perma Editing and Proofreading.
And to my very good friends, for always supporting me: Tina, Mel, Lindy and Sue.
Thank you to the blogs who continue to support me, but a very special mention to: Bestellers and Beststellars of Romance, Panty Droppi
ng Book Blog, So Many Books- So Little Time, Novels In Heels and Escape Reality with Books. Your support is by far incredibly humbling.
Thank you to all my friends and fans.
Like me on FaceBook at Margaret McHeyzer Author
Subscribe at: www.mackandmilo.wix.com/margaretmcheyzer
Email: [email protected]
Ugly ~ Available Now (Stand Alone)
If I were dead, I wouldn't be able to see.
If I were dead, I wouldn't be able to feel.
If I were dead, he'd never raise his hand to me again.
If I were dead, his words wouldn't cut as deep as they do.
If I were dead, I'd be beautiful and I wouldn't be so...ugly.
I'm not dead...but I wish I was.
*This is a dark YA/NA standalone, full-length novel. Contains violence and some explicit language.
Chef Pierre ~ Available Now (Stand Alone)
Holly Walker had everything she'd ever dreamed about - a happy marriage and being mum to beautiful brown-eyed Emma - until an accident nineteen months ago tore her world apart. Now she's a widow and single mother to a boisterous little 7-year-old girl, looking for a new start. Ready to take the next step, Holly has found herself a job as a maître d' at Table One, a once-acclaimed restaurant in the heart of Sydney. But one extremely arrogant Frenchman isn't going to be easy to work with...
Twenty years ago, Pierre LeRoux came to Australia, following the stunning Aussie girl he'd fallen in love with and married. He and his wife put their personal lives on hold, determined for Pierre to take Sydney's culinary society by storm. Just as his bright star was on the upswing, tragedy claimed the woman he was hopelessly in love with. He had been known as a Master Chef, but since his wife's death he has become known as a monster chef.
Can two broken people rebuild their lives and find happiness once more?
A Life Less Broken ~ Available Now (Stand Alone)
***CONTAINS DISTRESSING CONTENT. 18+***
On a day like any other, Allyn Sommers went off to work, not knowing that her life was about to be irrevocably and horrifically altered.
Three years later, Allyn is still a prisoner in her own home, held captive by harrowing fear. Broken and damaged, Allyn seeks help from someone that fate put in her path.
The HiT Series Page 61