Meet Abby Banks VOLUMES: 1-3

by J. A. Cipriano

“Dear, she doesn’t want to see your Care Bear. Why don’t you sit on the couch and watch cartoons,” the woman said, throwing an annoyed glance at me.

  “Cartoons!” the girl squealed, zipping away from me like a bat out of hell and throwing herself on the plush brown couch, practically sinking into it up to her eyeballs.

  “Cute kid,” I said and the woman glared at me.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” she rumbled, and I wasn’t quite sure why she was so openly hostile toward me. It was weird, no? She didn’t know what I was here to do after all. Still, the kid was making me feel guilty. “Of all the people…”

  “Um, did I do something?” I asked, but instead of replying, she stepped into the hallway and rapped on a closed door with her knuckles.

  “Stephen. There’s an agent here to see you. She looks mean.” With that, she turned and walked away. My heart pounded so hard in my chest, it physically hurt as I stared at the closed door, barely even registering when the woman shouldered by me and stepped into the living room. Surely it couldn’t be the same Stephen. I’d seen him take a bullet to the head after all. He was dead.

  Besides, even if somehow he wasn’t, surely he would have contacted me, right? No. No. It was just a coincidence. It had to be.

  The door opened a crack, but I didn’t see anyone. “Come in,” a horribly familiar voice said. My blood went colder than ice as I stared at the door, not sure what to do. My resolve turned to jelly, and I took a step backward, nearly screaming as my shoulders touched the wall. No. No, it couldn’t be him. Not him.

  The door opened wider, and Stephen stared back at me clad a pair of tightfitting blue jeans and a thin white tank top. He had one hand behind his back, no doubt holding a weapon of some kind. His eyes met mine and his whole body tensed. Recognition flashed through his eyes, so many thoughts flitting through them it was enough to make my head spin.

  My world, on the other hand, ended. I struggled to keep standing, to orient myself to what was going on as betrayal welled up inside me like a fountain.

  “How?” we both said at the same time. I pulled my gun out because I couldn’t think of what else to do. Everything inside me went cold and sort of empty feeling as I shoved the barrel into his chest hard enough to make him gasp and pushed him back through the threshold of his own doorway.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” I squeaked, my voice choking off so much I could barely speak. Everything I’d ever felt about him came rushing back into me. I’d thought I’d loved him. Wanted him… wanted him to be my first. I’d killed to avenge him, to save him. I’d taken on the agency for him, and what had he done? Betrayed me. Tried to kill me. Tried to use my best friend against me. Made me fall in love with him…

  This would have been so much easier if he had been alone and miserable. If he’d been lamenting how the agency had forced him to leave me, to do the things he’d done… but no, here he was. Sitting in a house with his family. His family. And he was perfectly fine with that.

  “Abby,” he whispered, not even looking down at my weapon. “Abby, why are you here?”

  “Why am I here?” I screamed, my voice shrill and harsh. “Why are you here? You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “Do you want me to explain?” he asked, perfect blue eyes never leaving my own. “I can if you want. I could tell you whatever you want to hear.”

  “It will all be lies, won’t it?” I asked, wanting to shoot him with every ounce of my being. I wasn’t sure if it would make me feel better exactly, but the urge to hurt him like how he’d hurt me was so strong, I almost couldn’t see past it. “Everything is just lies.”

  He nodded once and reached out toward me very slowly. His shapely fingers came to a rest on my hand, and very gradually, he pushed on my hand. I let him. My gun fell to my side as I stood there staring at him, tears rushing to my eyes. Why couldn’t he have had the decency to stay dead? Then I could have kept lying to myself about his betrayal…

  “It would be better if you were dead and couldn’t explain. I could say it was an agency thing. They brainwashed you.” I gestured at the room as he stood there staring at me, lips slightly parted. “But here you are in perfect health with your family and Jesus Christ you have a daughter… a daughter.”

  “Abby—”

  “I wanted to have sex with you. Wanted you to be my first. And you have a fucking daughter.” I shook so violently, it nearly made me stumble. It was all I could do not to hit him. I didn’t because if I did, I wouldn’t stop. I’d keep hitting him until he was a bloody splotch on the ground. Well, I wasn’t going to be the one to make his daughter an orphan. I was at least good enough to not do that. At least, I hoped I was.

  I spun on my heel, intending to walk out, when his hands touched my shoulders, halting me. For some reason, I let him stop me.

  “Abby…” he swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m going to walk out of here. I was supposed to kidnap you. To take you with me and trade you for the director. But now? Now I think I’m just here because Flash has a sick sense of humor.” His grip tightened on me for a second before he let go.

  “Give me a second. I’ll come,” he replied.

  “I don’t want you to come,” I screamed, whirling on him with my fists clenched. “You need to leave my sight before I kill you.”

  “You seem to think you could do it. But the Abby I knew—”

  “The Abby you knew is gone.” He took a step back, hands raised in supplication as I said the words. I gritted my teeth as he stood there looking at me, face unreadable.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked, voice strangely calm. “Whatever it is, I’ll try. I owe you that much.”

  What did I want? That was a good question. I wasn’t quite sure I had an answer because just by standing there, he made me realize one thing. He was a snake. How angry could I really get at a snake for being what it was? Pretty goddamn angry.

  22

  “You got the asset,” Flash said just before I decked her across the face. She fell backward to the road clutching her mouth, her flashlight and gun skittering across the asphalt as I wrung out my hand.

  “Yeah,” I said, jerking my thumb at Stephen. He was wearing a pair of black jeans and a fitted black t-shirt that showed off his muscles. It irked me because it reminded me of when I’d seen him after he had rescued me from Gabriella. Only that Stephen was a lie. This one could be too for all I know. Hell, those people might not really be his wife and daughter. Maybe everything was a lie. “Let’s go.”

  I stepped past them and stomped toward the helicopter. Behind me, I heard Stephen helping Flash to her feet. “So why did you call me in?” he asked, voice quiet enough that I knew he didn’t want me to hear.

  “The director has been taken by the Israelis,” Flash replied.

  Stephen was quiet for a moment, and I heard them shuffling toward me. I slowed just a touch so I could hear a little better, matching my pace with theirs so our footsteps would fall at the same time.

  “Graham?” he asked, emotion clouding his voice. It was weird because he sounded sad. It made me sort of happy until I remembered he could fake virtually any emotion. Then I just felt cold and angry.

  “Yes,” Flash said. Graham? Who the hell was Graham and what did he have to do with anything? Why would he want Stephen enough to trade him for the director?

  “Damn,” Stephen replied. “This isn’t going to be good.”

  “Yeah…” Flash sighed. “I got that feeling.”

  “You mean, you didn’t know?” he asked. “About Abby and I?”

  “No…”

  “Oh we’re so screwed…” Stephen said. I wasn’t sure if they said more after that because I reached the end of the road and stepped out into the brush to head toward the olive trees hiding our helicopter. I supposed I could have waited, but I didn’t want to do that. I was pissed at myself about Stephen. I should have just shot the lying jerk in the face the moment I saw him. He’d betrayed me in every way possible,
and here he was… How dare he be alive. The bastard.

  In the end, I’d let him come with me. It pissed me off. My hands clenched back into fists as I moved. Why was I so pathetic? Why was I even doing this? For Roberto the supervillain? Maybe he was lying too. Maybe he wasn’t even my real father. If he wasn’t, I was going to shoot him. He better not die before then.

  I swallowed as another thought struck me. Flash had said there might be a second asset we could use as a trade. Who could that be? Was it someone else I knew? Someone who was supposed to be dead? No… surely not.

  If it was, would I want to see whoever it was? I wasn’t sure. Seeing Stephen had broken everything inside me, and while I wasn’t sure who it could be, I was sure I didn’t want to know. Did that make me a coward? Maybe.

  But watching Stephen kiss his wife goodbye and hug his daughter for what could have been the last time ever nearly broke me. If it happened again, I was pretty sure even all the king’s men and all the king’s horses wouldn’t be able to put me back together again. This time, I was taking the blue pill. If that made me a coward, so be it.

  I climbed into the helicopter and decided I didn’t want to fly the thing. I’d thought about doing it to take my mind off things, but I was still so angry at Stephen, I was worried I’d accidentally crash us into a mountain or something. Besides, I didn’t know where we were going. So what did I do? I made my way to the back of the cockpit and sat in the only passenger seat. It was a weird because I don’t think I’d ever ridden in the back of a helicopter before.

  Still, it was annoying because there was no way to get away from them. A fact made totally obvious when they climbed into the vehicle. Flash took the pilot’s seat naturally, leaving Stephen to sit right in front of me. As he buckled himself in, I leaned forward and pressed my pistol against the back of his head. He stiffened, stopping mid-movement.

  “If you do anything at all, I am going to shoot you,” I whispered, my breath close enough to his ear to ruffle his hair. Before he could respond, I sat back in my seat and buckled myself in. He didn’t even look back at me, but I knew he wanted to.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked as the rotors overhead spun to life and we left the ground. “We walk up to the gate and say we’ll put a bullet in pretty boy’s face if they don’t trade?”

  “Yes,” Flash said. “When they bring out director, you and Bang shoot people. Stephen and I will rescue director. Everyone wins. We have vodka.” She glanced back at me and smiled at me like we were all on the same team. It made me sort of happy until I realized Stephen was on our team too.

  “So you’re going to walk up with him?” I asked, glancing from her to Stephen and back again.

  “Yes. You cannot,” Flash replied.

  “Why not? I’m the better one to walk up with him. I can take out a platoon of soldiers with chewing gum. Can you?” I folded my arms over my chest.

  “Because if Graham sees you, all bets are off,” Stephen said, his voice calm, too calm for it to be good.

  “Why are all bets off if Graham sees me?” I asked, suddenly curious. I didn’t know anyone named Graham, but that meant little.

  “Graham thinks you killed me. It’s probably why he is directing his considerable assets to tracking you down, and why they interrupted your operation.” Stephen shrugged as if to say he didn’t know anymore, but I somehow doubted it. He probably knew a lot more than he was telling me.

  “You mean, I’m being targeted as revenge? For you?” I asked, my mouth gaping open. “That’s nuts.”

  Stephen shrugged. “I’m not going to bother explaining it to you. You’ll just get angrier.”

  “I have an incredible tolerance for rage in your general direction,” I growled, barely resisting the urge to reach up and throttle him. This Graham guy clearly cared a great deal for Stephen, but it didn’t seem like Stephen gave a flying flip for him. Is that how he felt about me too? Was I just some job? Over and done with? Was any of it real? As soon as that thought entered my brain, I wanted to cry.

  Of course none of it was real, and I was stupid for thinking even the vaguest glimmer of it could have been. Still. Still, part of me wanted Stephen to turn around and tell me lies. To sweep me off my feet with his siren’s song and tell me we’d be together forever. I should have shot him when I had the chance.

  “Anyway, I’ll make sure Graham does the trade. What happens after that? Well, who knows?” Stephen said, turning around and looking at me, his perfect sapphire eyes cold and unfeeling. “And just in case you’re wondering, Mariela will have already moved Julie by the time we’re at the location. She won’t be there if you’re thinking about dropping in for a little payback.”

  “It saddens me to think you’d think I’d hurt a little girl,” I said, scowling at him.

  “Yeah…” he muttered and turned back around.

  It got eerily quiet inside the helicopter after that. I tried to stare out the window, but I didn’t have a good view of anything from where I was. Part of me was surprised Stephen would think I’d hurt his wife and daughter, but maybe there were people who would?

  That made me shiver. Still, he was probably right. While I wasn’t going to do anything, someone, somewhere probably would. Even if Stephen was a jackass, well, his kid was innocent. It was his job to keep her safe after all, even from me.

  23

  The sniper rifle was heavy in my hands as I watched Stephen and Flash approach the compound through my scope. It was massive, looking more like some kind of medieval structure than something sleek and modern. Even the towers had a distinctly castle-like feel to them, though that didn’t make the snipers atop them seem any less deadly.

  Flash and Stephen stood in the middle of a sandy clearing, just in front of a stone barricade high enough to reach to about their chests. Just behind it, I could make out what looked like those metal spikes people used in parking garages to keep people from driving the wrong way. Even the gate itself looked like it was solid steel. I was pretty sure ramming a hummer into this gate wouldn’t work. It made me wonder what was inside, something valuable no doubt.

  Supposedly, Bang was out here in the jungle as well, but so far I hadn’t seen him. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. It would be nice to know he was there, but at the same time if I hadn’t spotted him, I was pretty sure the enemy hadn’t either. Then again, it was always possible he’d sneak up on me and try to slit my throat. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. I didn’t know why, but I’d sort of feel bad if I had to kill him over it. I wasn’t quite sure what the pair’s relationship actually was, but something told me they were exceedingly close. The last thing I wanted to do was take away someone she clearly cared about. Besides, I was sure her vengeance would be a swift and terrible thing.

  “I have asset. Come out,” Flash announced, her voice crackling to life inside my earbud. I’d been a little sad when we’d found no way for her to patch her communication system into my suit, but it was what it was. I could hear them with this thing, even if it was the most uncomfortable earpiece I’d ever stuck in my ear. Oh the sacrifices I make.

  The gate opened, splitting down the center and sliding away within the walls. It barely even made a sound. Soldiers dressed in the same black uniforms I’d seen in the prison marched out, toting various kinds of weapons. A man with short brown hair and a scar running along his face stepped out from behind one of the soldiers and froze practically in mid-step as he made eye contact with Stephen.

  He broke rank, sprinting toward Stephen so quickly, his red beret fell off his head and hit the sand, though he didn’t give it even so much as a backward glance. I debated pulling the trigger and dropping him as I targeted the center of his red t-shirt, but didn’t shoot him. If I did, I was pretty sure both Stephen and Flash would die, and I wasn’t exactly looking forward to storming another enemy base to get the director out if I could help it.

  Flash stood back, her weapon drawn but not pointed as the man clasped Stephen in a hug, tears spilling fr
om his eyes. He babbled something I couldn’t quite make out through my earpiece though it may have been another language for all I knew. Then they were kissing. Not like ‘Hi, here’s a kiss on the cheeks’ kissing but like ‘you’re my long lost lover’ kissing. Some very uncomfortable thoughts swam through my brain as I watched.

  A horrible thought struck me. I knew everything Stephen had told me about himself had been a lie, but Stephen had told me he had fallen in love with another asset he was supposed to protect. Could that asset have been Graham? If it was, that might explain why Graham was suddenly trying to kill me over Stephen’s death. He’ll, I’d stormed an agency compound when I thought Stephen had been killed. The thought made me shudder, and well, feel sort of sorry for the mysterious Graham. Whatever he was doing, if he was doing it because he loved Stephen, well, he shouldn’t have bothered. He was going to find that out the hard way. I gritted my teeth. Or maybe he wouldn’t. What did I know?

  Graham broke the kiss and smiled at Flash, waving one hand over his head in a strange circular gesture. There was movement inside the compound, which I hoped meant they were bringing the director out. It was about time. Much longer and I was going to start getting antsy.

  “I’m surprised you were able to get him,” Graham told Flash, voice tight with emotion as he turned back to Stephen again and intertwined their fingers together. “I thought you were dead, but I should have known better.”

  Stephen smirked. “It takes a lot more than a few bullets to kill me.” I resisted the urge to shoot him in the face to see if he was right.

  “Bring the director or my sniper will see if that is true,” Flash called, a strange look on her face. It sort of made me think she wanted me to shoot him. See, murdering Stephen was a feeling held by all women who had met him.

  “Ja, ja,” Graham said, moving forward to bring Stephen toward the soldiers. “He’ll be right out.”

  Something was wrong. I wasn’t sure what. I scanned the surroundings, looking for what felt off when a gunshot rang out. Flash pitched backward in a wash of crimson. She hit the dirt in a wet splat as the soldiers advanced in a single fluid mass, swarming over Stephen and Graham and hiding them beneath their bulk.