Killing Ferran Garcia wasn’t going to be a hardship. I was looking forward to it.
I wondered at what point I had changed. Had I changed, or had this ruthless killer always been in me? Was she always there beneath the shiny socialite, just waiting to be released? Jake had seen her. Right at the start of my induction, he had noticed something in me and nurtured it. I didn’t feel different. I just felt...completed. I could look at this man’s face while he mouthed platitudes about saving his people from poverty and stared at my tits, and picture tightening the garrote wire about his throat. I knew I could do it.
I guess that was the first step. Acknowledging the underlying difference in my personality. The thing that allowed me to contemplate murder for a living and not shrink from it. Did that make me a sociopath? If it did, I had come to terms with it. Knew how to use it to make me better at the job I’d chosen.
The next part had been to make sure my mind and body were prepared for the task ahead. Jake had helped with the physical part. The mental part was the hardest. Both Jake and the Signora had explained to me that the act of killing another person would be traumatizing.
“No matter how prepared you think you are, it will get you every time,” the Signora had told me.
Jake and I had watched videos. Hateful, gory snuff movies that depicted real killings. When he thought I was ready, he took me out on an assignment. The other squad members would not reach this point in their induction for many months. This was what fast-track meant. I was a special case because I would soon be on board The Dark Side.
I had watched while Jake slit the throat of a drug dealer. The Signora had been paid by a rival gang to dispose of this man. Sometimes there were jobs like this. Petty criminals who weren’t worth the time of one of her precious squad members. Jake could take on these quick, professional hits. We caught up with the guy as he was leaving his apartment in the early hours of the morning.
His warm blood had splattered my face and clothing. I smelled the coppery tang of blood mingled with shit and urine as his bowels and bladder let go.
It had been too much for my mind to take. It was like I had been flung into one of those movies. I sank to my knees in shock, shivering as my stomach contents emptied onto the asphalt. I felt nothing for a week afterward. Nothing. Everything inside me shut down.
The next time was easier. I knew what to expect, and I went into professional mode. I was able to become a different person as I observed the fine details. Able to later intentionally avoid reflecting on what I saw, to completely shut out the experience.
The third time, I asked Jake if I could pull the knife out of the guy’s throat. After that, we cleaned ourselves up, found a bar, and got drunk. Laughing hysterically, slapping each other on the back, falling down drunk. For me, the sounds and scents of a successful hit would forever be drunken snickering and the smell of beer.
Ferran’s attention was claimed by Elsa Ramsey, who had been introduced to me by Theo as an entrepreneur. I didn’t know what her business was, but if I’d been told she made a living out of boiling and eating young children I wouldn’t have been surprised. Her look was designer chic with a hint of serial killer. She wasn’t the only guest who was scary as all hell.
Was that what Theo had been trying to tell me? He’d already warned me about Cora. Was he also protecting me from his other guests? I’d sensed more in his comments. A not-so-subtle barb. A feeling that he was stalking me, waiting to pounce if I made a wrong move. Or maybe my looming mission was making me slightly crazy.
Speaking of crazy... I made a move toward the main group of guests, but a hand on my wrist halted me.
“Your father’s death must have come as a shock.”
I looked into Cora’s cold eyes. “It did.”
Even without Theo’s warning, I didn’t want to spend any time in this woman’s company. It felt like exchanging pleasantries with the devil. Come to think of it, this whole cruise was starting to feel a bit like a fairground horror ride. The atmosphere was pulled even tauter than at the society wedding I’d attended when it was rumored the groom was banging the maid of honor...and her mother.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Theo and Paolo coming up the stairs from the lower deck. I hadn’t even noticed they had gone.
Theo’s eyes instantly sought mine. The action was reassuring and frightening at the same time. How had I reached this point? I had come here with the intention of purging him from my consciousness. Now he was all I wanted. I needed him like I needed my next breath.
The hard look of earlier had faded and I felt my expression soften in time with his. Not a smile. Just a relaxation of the muscles that might lead to a smile. Our own unique expression.
A sidelong glance at Cora shocked me out of my feeling of comfort. She had seen our exchange of glances. Her own appearance had shifted, becoming one of pure venom in response.
Chapter Twenty
Theo
She waited until the early hours of the morning before she slid noiselessly from the bed. As she moved through to the bathroom, I kept up the pretense that I was asleep.
I knew, of course, that she had stowed sweatpants, T-shirt, and sneakers in the clothing hamper in the bathroom earlier in the day. She had also hidden her fishing wire, smartphone gun and pendant in there. Christie had prepared well for this nocturnal hit.
When she emerged from the bathroom, she was dressed all in black. Her hair was covered by a black hat and she wore gloves. Moving across the cabin like a shadow, she cast one brief glance back at me, before opening the door and sliding through the gap.
I bounded up from the bed, and dressed lightning fast. The boat was silent as I made my way up to the observation deck. The moon illuminated black seas as The Dark Side plowed onward.
It was always a strange, godlike feeling to be on top of the large boat, looking down on the scene below me. I had done this at night on other occasions, but never with such purpose.
There was no sign of Christie. Fuck, she was fast.
During the course of the night, I’d tried to figure out who her target was. I thought I’d succeeded. If I was wrong? Two of my worst enemies died tonight. Fuck it. My guests were used to people dying at their parties. Cleaning up a bloodbath with the champagne glasses...we’d all been there. The timing wasn’t great, but they were all dead anyway.
A slight noise behind me drew my attention.
“Hello, Cora. Couldn’t you sleep?”
If she had been hoping to catch me unawares, she hid her disappointment well.
“You know what they say about the wicked.”
“I know what they say about you. It’s the same thing.”
She laughed, taking the compliment. “What about you? Why are you here at this time? Don’t tell me you’ve tired of your little playmate already?”
I crossed the space between us so fast the excuse she used for a smile vanished. “You might want to reconsider talking about her. Ever.”
As I looked into her eyes I didn’t bother to hide my revulsion. I was tired of pretending we had any kind of a relationship, personal or professional. I had been eighteen when my father died, and Cora suddenly decided to take an interest in my life. Not because of me. It was Archie’s businesses that had interested her. Even though he’d married into respectability, his deputy had kept the organization running. No one knew decent, presentable Archie Ward was still behind the scenes. Except Cora. And she had known I would inherit it all.
Cora had believed she could manipulate an eighteen-year-old into doing what she wanted. It didn’t matter that the eighteen-year-old in question was her son. Didn’t matter that I loved Archie and that the day she came to me with her business proposition was the day of his funeral. Cora didn’t do feelings.
Even though she was a coldhearted bitch, Cora’s business proposition had made
sense. We had worked together for eighteen years. I was the legitimate face of the business. That didn’t mean I never got my hands dirty. Like my father before me, I did what was necessary. Most of my money wasn’t made legitimately. Between them, Archie and Cora had built up twin organizations that had every dirty criminal activity covered. At eighteen, I had inherited one of the nastiest underground empires in the country and found out I was heir to another. Did I mention I’m not a nice guy? The life I lived meant I made enemies. Nasty ones. Sometimes, I had to deal with them myself. If I left it to others, if I kept it clean, it sent the wrong message. So, yes, sometimes I took my cue from my mother. Sometimes I got creative and blood-soaked just to send out a warning message. You know what? Sometimes I enjoyed it.
Even so, I could never match Cora. She had been at the top of her game in this business for so long because she loved murdering people. She was creative about killing because she relished it so much. If she hadn’t been in a business that enabled her to do this, I swear she’d have been a serial killer picking people off the street at random. That cat and mouse thing? Toying with a victim before she dealt the death blow? All part of the fun. No one fucked with Cora. No one.
But, over the years, the balance of power had shifted. I had one major advantage over Cora. I wasn’t mad.
It helped when it came to running the business. Being able to think rationally was a real asset. Even Cora eventually recognized it. Handing over the administration of the business to me made sense. She did it, but she didn’t like it. And there were times when the power-crazed bully inside her resurfaced and tried to do something about it. At those times, I could feel a point between my shoulder blades burning with the intensity of her gaze. It was the exact spot where she longed to embed her prized antique Italian dagger.
We hated each other. I spent endless hours plotting Cora’s death. It had become my hobby. I knew she felt the same way. But we had reached an unspoken agreement over the years. We each let the other live because the business worked best that way. She could be a fucking nightmare when she overstepped the mark and people died unnecessarily. But no one knew our territory like Cora did.
And having a female business partner who was also a murderer with a reputation that brought the most ruthless criminals to their knees was an undeniable benefit. The thought triggered a novel idea. If only I could exchange Cora’s savagery for someone more elegant. Someone sane. A beautiful, stylish assassin with the added advantage of the element of surprise... Now wasn’t that something to think about?
From her perspective, I knew Cora didn’t use that dagger because I had been so successful at bringing the business up to date. Technology had bypassed Cora. She had sneered when I talked about its advantages. But she couldn’t ignore the way I had multiplied our profits by using data to predict trends.
Things had changed recently. The simmering animosity had come into the open. It had started with those warning letters.
It was ending now.
Chapter Twenty-One
Christie
It was only once I left the master suite that I allowed myself to breathe again. I had been so sure Theo would wake up and ask me what the fuck I was doing.
Explaining away my outfit would have been a tricky one. A middle-of-the-night jog around the deck? A different kind of sleepwalking?
It was a perfect night and the boat cut smoothly through the waters as I hurried along the deck. That had been one of my biggest fears. If the water was rough and the boat had been swaying, it would have made my task more difficult.
Ferran Garcia’s cabin was in the center of the port side of the boat. I had already decided that the best way to access it would be to climb down onto his private balcony. There was no time to lose. The longer I spent thinking about it and hanging around on the deck above his cabin, the more chance there was of someone seeing me. Gripping the deck rail with both hands, I hoisted myself up and over.
Hanging over the other side for a moment, I let myself fall, landing in a crouch on the wooden boards of Ferran’s balcony. I congratulated myself both on the neat descent and on the fact that I made no sound.
Of course, it was lucky that Ferran was not an insomniac. If he had been sitting on his balcony watching the ocean glide by, I’d have had to do some quick thinking.
I moved toward the sliding door of his cabin. The drapes were closed, but I couldn’t see any sign of a light from inside. When I tried the door, it was locked. I supposed it was too much to hope that Ferran might not have been security conscious.
The lock was the type that would be easy to break. The only problem would be making sure I didn’t alert the occupant of the cabin to my presence. I withdrew my teardrop pendant from my pocket, and unscrewed the two halves. Flicking open the blade, I applied it to the lock, taking care to avoid making any noise. It seemed to take forever, but, eventually, the lock gave way and I was able to silently slide the door open.
The drapes were heavy and I carefully pulled them back a fraction. The moonlight should give me just enough illumination for what I wanted. Sure enough, I could make out the features of the luxury cabin.
The bed occupied most of the wall opposite the window. It made sense. On a luxury cruise, when you sat up in bed in the morning, you wanted to see the view from the window. To my right, a faint glow from a doorway indicated that there was a night-light of some sort in the bathroom.
I took a moment to let my eyes become accustomed to the light and the layout of the room. Although I strained to hear, I couldn’t catch the sound of breathing.
Cautiously, I took a single step into the cabin. And that was when it struck me.
This cabin had the same smell as that first hit I’d been on with Jake. I would never forget it. The sweet, metallic, cloying smell of freshly spilled blood mingled with bodily fluids. It filled my nostrils and punched me in the stomach.
Someone had died in this room. Very recently.
I fumbled in my pocket for my cell phone and managed to get it into flashlight mode. My hand shook as I held it in front of me and walked toward the bed. When I reached it, the sight that met my eyes wasn’t pretty.
Ferran Garcia was lying spread-eagle in the middle of the bed. His eyes bulged and his mouth was open. His throat had been slit from ear to ear. Someone had gotten to him before me.
I took a step back, my breathing coming hard and fast.
What the fuck was going on?
My eyes were drawn to the shadowy corners of the room. Was the person who had done this still here? Was I being watched? Was I next?
The thought spurred me into action and I moved swiftly toward the cabin door. I wasn’t going back the way I had come. Climbing back up onto the deck above with limbs that felt like jello? That seemed like a certain way to land myself a headlong dive into the dark waters of the Caribbean.
Once I’d checked the area outside Ferran’s cabin was clear, I hurried along the corridor and climbed the stairs to the upper deck. When I reached the master suite I was still breathing hard. I took a moment to steady my nerves before I stepped inside. The cabin was silent and I exhaled a sigh of relief.
Inside the bathroom, I shrugged off my dark clothing and dumped it in the hamper, hiding my assassination kit inside one of my sneakers. Assassination kit? What kind of fucking assassin got there only to find someone else had already done the job?
Naked, I sank onto the tiled floor, unable to control the trembling in my limbs any longer. I couldn’t catch my breath, and my heartbeat was fast and irregular, hammering out a rhythm of failure and terror.
I wasn’t sure how to deal with this. I could use the squad password and message the Signora, but how would I explain this in a text? That there was another assassin on board The Dark Side and he, or she, had gotten to Ferran Garcia first.
Was it coincidence, or was my cover blown? The icy fin
ger of fear that tracked its way insistently down my spine told me there was no way this was a fluke. Whoever killed him knew I was headed to that cabin, knew what I intended.
So what happened next? When Garcia’s body was found the questions would start, and where did that leave me? Right now, I was so panic-stricken I couldn’t see past a “deny everything” defense. One thing was for sure...hiding in the bathroom wasn’t going to help me come up with anything better.
Naked, I made my way back into the bedroom. With relief, I curled up next to Theo. He murmured something unintelligible and drew me close against the hard warmth of his body. His touch soothed me and some of the fear and horror began to recede.
At least I had this. I had him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Christie
I couldn’t believe I slept. When I opened my eyes, bright sunlight was streaming in through the open drapes. I turned my head to find Theo was fully dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching me. I got the feeling he had been there for some time.
“Take a shower and meet me on the observation deck. I need to talk to you.”
The words came out in a strange, clipped way. I realized it was because his jaw was rigid. He walked out of the cabin before I could reply.
Standing under the jets of water, I decided Ferran’s body must already have been found. That’s what this was about. Had I been seen going into or coming out of his cabin? Oh, the irony! I had come here to kill him, was about to be accused of his murder, and I hadn’t even gotten close enough to poke him in the eye.
How was I going to play this? I had no idea. My instinct was to tell Theo the truth. The whole sordid story. I didn’t want to see the warm light in his eyes fade and die, but there was a killer on his boat...another killer on his boat. I owed him that piece of information.
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