Early Sins (Dangerous Games Book 0)

by Jennifer Bene

  Smith.

  “Réveillez vous.” A man’s voice wormed its way into her head, along with the dull memory that she’d just been slapped. Another slap made her sit up fully, her cheek stinging, but it was nothing compared to the dull pounding of the side of her head.

  “What the fuck?” She growled, and she was hit again, this time in the stomach. It stole the air from her, but she tensed and forced herself to recover. To focus through the haze.

  “Do you speak French?” The voice shouted, and she winced at the volume.

  “Do you think I speak your pussy language, asshole?” Another hard hit to the side of her head almost made her throw up, but she swallowed it down.

  “Fine. We speak English.”

  “You!” The voice moved away from her and she raised her head slowly, ignoring the swimming sensation, to see Smith on his knees across from her. Shit. Looking down she was still in the same sleek, black dress she’d worn out, but her legs were spread wide and there was some kind of rope tethering her legs to the outsides of the chair. Her arms were bound to the back, and although there was a little give – it would be a very painful escape if she had to make it.

  “Which one of you killed Sabine Moreau?” The man shouted again, but Camille let her head loll forwards, she didn’t need to see the cold stare in Smith’s eyes to know what the name of this game was.

  Don’t talk. No matter what they do.

  “Who?” Smith asked, and then a low grunt told her he’d been hit. As much as it made her want to fight, she stayed still.

  You’re just a girl. Just a girl in a dress. Play it up.

  Camille sniffled hard, starting the panicked breathing she’d heard from too many targets, male and female alike. “What’s happening? I don’t understand, I don’t -” She yelped when a man behind her ripped her head upright, the sting at her scalp nothing compared to the pounding at her temple where the itchy presence of drying blood told her she’d hit her head in the crash.

  They hit your car. They pulled you from the wreck. Survive. Figure it out, and survive.

  “Is this your girlfriend? Want us to fucking kill her?” The man behind her spoke, putting a gun to her head, and she finally focused her eyes on Smith’s face. He didn’t even flinch. “Did you kill Sabine? Tell us! Tell us who ordered the hit!”

  Smith kept his jaw clenched, even when the man next to him slammed the butt of a gun into the back of his head.

  “Tell us!” The man echoed the demand, and yes, there was pain, and she was pretty sure there was something wrong with her left shoulder, but she could read Smith now, and he was telling her to be strong.

  “You want this piece of ass to die?” The man next to her dug the gun in harder, and she whimpered like a good victim should.

  “Please don’t kill me, please!” She begged, acting like any helpless girl would, and the asshole beside her laughed.

  “Listen, we just want to know who ordered Sabine’s death. Was it Thomas Moreau?”

  Smith stayed silent, held down on his knees, the dark burgundy of dried blood on his collar and at his eyebrow spoke of injuries that he wasn’t acknowledging.

  We don’t name names.

  Camille grit her teeth and met his eyes across the way, and for an instant she saw him – the real him – the one that was worried about her, and it was starting to peek through, but she couldn’t let the other assholes see that. “What the fuck! This isn’t worth the five-hundred euros, man! I’m out, tell them to let me go. It was just supposed to be a dinner! I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die…”

  The fucker behind her laughed, grabbed her hair, and bent her head back painfully. “Did you get a whore?”

  “Yes,” Smith growled. “She’s just a whore. A prop so I didn’t draw attention. Let her go.”

  “Yeah, let me go! Please, I don’t give a fuck what you assholes are involved in! I won’t say anything!” She tugged at the ropes, and noticed that the section around her right wrist was looser than the left.

  “Tell us who hired you, and confirm that you killed Sabine, and we’ll let your whore go – or maybe we’ll keep her for fun.” Douchebag with the gun to her head shifted it so that he could reach between her thighs, running his hand up to lift her dress.

  “Don’t!” Smith snapped, and she swallowed as the man’s hand froze against her underwear.

  “Oh, so you do care for this little whore?”

  Smith stayed silent, and the man to his left hit him. His head cracked to the right, his whole body slumping for a moment, but she bit her tongue to stay silent. “Who hired you? We want a name.”

  The man on the other side of Smith drew his gun, and spoke softly. “Or, you can just keep your trap shut and we’ll have fun with your American whore while you think it over. That will be a pretty show, won’t it?”

  When the man behind her grabbed her by the jaw with his gun hand she swallowed, prepared for what she knew was coming. His other hand slid between her legs again, pushing her underwear aside to shove two fingers harshly inside her. Camille stayed silent, but she heard Smith struggle, the sound of a fist impacting flesh, and then she was released – the douchebag above her sliding his fingers between his lips. “She tastes delicious. Definitely not like a whore.”

  Smith was swaying between the two men on either side of him, his eyes lifted to hers slowly – and they were filled with pain. She had prepared for this, she was prepared for this, and as much as it angered her, it hurt worse to see what it was doing to Smith.

  You’re just a girl. They don’t see you as a threat.

  Whimpering she struggled again, begging in a soft, broken voice that she’d heard from her own lips too many times, “Please… I don’t understand what the fuck is going on. Let me go, please? I just want to go home…”

  The man beside her shoved her head forward and laughed. “Tell us what we want to know and we’ll let her go, otherwise we’ll have everyone take a turn with her before we kill her.”

  “No!” She cried out, playing the part, but she could only hope Smith knew she was okay.

  I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.

  “C…” Smith’s voice cut through everything and she lifted her head to lock eyes with him. There was something there, something more that hadn’t been there before. But there was a gun aimed at him, and a gun in the hand of the asshole beside her. “I never meant for this to happen.”

  Shit. He’s going to do something.

  “Tell us what you know! Are there more of you?” The man beside him shouted, hitting him again, and in the moment of distraction she tried to wrench her wrist free of the ropes but it was just a hair too tight. Fuck. There was only one thing she could do. Smith’s gaze locked on hers, one eye swollen shut from the most recent punch, and she knew.

  “We will rape her, and we will kill her! I will make her scream for me and then shoot her you son of a motherless dog! Answer us!”

  Grabbing onto her thumb she prepared to yank it out of socket so she could slip her hand free. “Hey,” C’s voice was unusually calm as she ignored the not-so-empty threats from the man beside her, maintaining a forced steadiness just for Smith.

  Her voice drew his gaze back again. Pained, concerned, but she needed a killer right now, not whatever he’d become after crawling into bed with her.

  Give him something to kill for.

  “I love you.” She spoke softly, tightening her grip on her thumb. “Remember that.”

  “The little blonde whore loves you, hear that?” The man next to him laughed.

  Smith flinched and then nodded, adjusting his position on his knees. Slowly, he raised those perfect jade eyes back to hers. “I trust you. I always have.” With a sudden movement he threw himself to the side and swept the man next to him, the gun firing somewhere at the ceiling, and she jerked her thumb out of socket with a shout of pain to get her hand free.

  Somehow, Smith broke free and there was a gun flying towards her, pulling her other hand free of the slack ro
pe she caught the gun and fired first at the man aiming at Smith, then at the asshole beside her – and then she hit the ground hard, still tangled in the chair. As much as it hurt, she lifted her injured shoulder and fired at the motherfucker on top of Smith delivering hard punches.

  A clear headshot.

  With a growl she sat up as much as she could and fired headshots into the other two, conserving the last bullets even though what she wanted to do was obliterate the bastards’ faces. When there was no one else even twitching, she collapsed against the ground. One, two, three steady breaths and she forced her thumb back into place with a scream. “FUCK!”

  “C! Are you okay?” Smith winced as he crawled towards her, sloughing off the ropes that had been around his arms, and then he started on the ones holding her legs to the chair.

  “I’m fucking fine,” she growled, and then she heard the door open and sat up fast, firing the last two rounds in the gun into the asshole that had come inside. He collapsed, and she waited as Smith tugged the gun from the hand of the man who had been beside her to aim it, but after a moment there was no more movement.

  Sagging against the ground she let the emptied gun slip from her fingers, the last pull on the trigger had produced nothing so it was useless. Smith reached over to squeeze her arm. “You did well, C. So well. They didn’t even remotely see you as a threat.”

  “No, I was just a pawn to make you angry.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, that pissed me off.”

  “You killed them, does that help?” Smith breathed carefully, groaning.

  “Fucking right I killed them. Dickbags.” Camille winced, rubbing her hand where her joint was still screaming as she stretched her legs in front of her. “Where the fuck are we?”

  “I have no idea. I woke up in another room, tied to a chair like you were. I’m just lucky they did a lazy job of redoing the rope. You were, um, dressed when I was brought in.” Smith pushed himself up onto an elbow. “Did they… do anything?”

  “Other than the dickbag who fingered me for show? No. Not that I can tell.” With a grimace she sat up completely, facing the doorway that the most recent idiot had entered from. “Are any of these fuckers Gabriel Richard?”

  “No.”

  “I want to kill him too.”

  “That’s not the job,” Smith answered, holding the gun up, keeping it ready.

  “Then we need to call Jean and see if Thomas Moreau would be upset if both of them died.” She used the chair to force herself to her feet, ignoring the momentary dizziness as she stood up. “Because I want to kill him.”

  “C, you need to think. We have to get out of here first.” Smith used the chair to stand up as well, but he seemed even less steady on his feet.

  “Give me the gun.”

  “What?”

  “You look like you’re about to fall over, I’ve killed four of them. Let me have the fucking gun.”

  “You’re bleeding,” Smith responded, but she laughed.

  “So are you, give me the gun in your hand. You really want one, grab another off one of these assholes, and if any of them are still breathing – shoot them.” There was a moment where he paused, but then he shoved the gun into her hand and she weighed it in her hand. Four. Four bullets. Walking to the door she listened against it – nothing.

  “Ready to shoot our way out of here?” Smith asked as he kicked one of the bodies over and dug in his jacket for a gun. When he lifted one up he checked it, pulled the slide back to load a bullet to-go and then nodded to her. “I’m good.”

  “Did you find a phone on any of those assholes?”

  “No such luck.”

  She laughed low, trying to steady herself on her feet as she turned the doorknob slowly. “Then yeah, we’re going to kill every fucker on our way out. Sabine is dead. We did the job, everything else is just frosting on the cake.”

  They opened the door and found themselves in a hallway, moving towards what they hoped was the entrance, but then C froze as she heard a voice. “Dites Moreau je vais le tuer!”

  Smith stepped close to her, whispering, “He said to tell Moreau he’s going to kill him.”

  “Think that’s Gabriel?” she whispered back.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  She waited outside the door for a moment as he continued ranting in French, and then Smith nodded to her. Turning the doorknob slowly, she shoved it inward and then rolled to the floor to give Smith a clean shot. Bullets fired, but she sat up fast and then they were both firing into the two men standing in the room.

  There were short, stifled screams before they collapsed to the floor, and Smith took a few shuffling steps forward as the haze of gun smoke dissipated. “Well, Gabriel Richard is dead. Hopefully Thomas Moreau will be okay with that.” He lifted the gun and fired one more time into the lifeless torso of the man that had stolen Sabine Moreau away.

  With a groan Camille shoved herself to her feet and walked over to a set of suitcases against the wall, flipping open the top of one she saw women’s clothes. Bras, underwear, dresses, and underneath that the edge of boxes. Shifting to her knees with a wince, she pulled out a jewelry box and opened it to find a diamond necklace arrayed beautifully against navy colored silk. “I think when we return these jewels, he won’t give a fuck how many people we killed.”

  There was a crash as Smith slumped to his side, slamming into the desk and knocking a glass to the floor. A red stain marred the white shirt he wore, and his face looked pale. “I think you’re right, but I think we need to go.”

  “FUCK! Smith!” Rushing towards him she kept the gun beside her as she dropped to her knees next to him to put pressure on the wound in his side.

  “Get the phone, C. Call Etienne. I’ll be fine, it’s just a flesh wound, I swear, but I need medical.” He winced and hissed through his teeth as she pressed harder.

  “Okay, just hold here, dammit!” Crawling over she found the mobile Gabriel had been using and wiped it off as much as she could on her dress before she dialed Etienne’s number, waiting as the strange ring echoed in her ear. “Do not pass out on me, Smith, I swear I will -”

  “Poulet Doré, que voulez-vous?” A tired voice came across the line, and she rolled her eyes.

  “I need Etienne, Smith is down. I don’t fucking speak French!” She shouted at the phone and for a moment there was silence, and she forced a smile for Smith as pale green eyes lifted to her. Pained, weak – he needed her. He needed help. “Hello?!”

  “Yes, we have your order. Where would you like it delivered?” The voice coming across in English comforted her, but she had no idea where she was.

  “Shit. I don’t know!”

  “We need an address, miss.” There was activity on the other end of the line, and she cringed.

  “Fine, give me a minute.” Pressing the mobile to her chest she looked down at Smith. “I need to go find out where we are, swear to me you will keep pressure on that.”

  “Take me with you, you can’t pronounce anything anyway.”

  “You shouldn’t move!”

  “And how do you think you’re going to get me into a car?” Smith groaned and grabbed onto her shoulder and she hauled him to his feet, cursing obscenities as she did.

  “Fucker, thinks he can do this while he’s bleeding…”

  “Miss?”

  “Fucking, hold on! I’m finding out the god-damned fucking add-”

  Smith snatched the phone from her as she helped them out the door, speaking in rapid French as they slowly moved towards what they hoped was the exit. Finally they found a front door and she unlatched it and threw it open. Three steps down to the concrete and she realized that Smith had to outweigh her by a hundred pounds. She needed to set him down – a bus stop. There.

  She shuffled them over to it and eased him down as best she could, but her injured shoulder was screaming. “Stay here, I’ll figure out where we are.”

  “C!” He called to her as she turned to run, and she st
opped. “Keep the gun in your hand, there could be more of them.”

  “I know, put pressure on the wound, dammit.” Ignoring her own pain she jogged down the street until she found the next intersection, memorizing the random words before she ran back. “We’re near Rue de la Barrière Blanche and Rue Joseph de Maistre! Whatever the fuck that means!”

  Smith repeated her words, much more elegantly into the phone, and then spoke more French as he pulled his jacket around him to hide the blood, but there was no hiding the mess of his face. “Relax, C. The job is complete, we just need to -”

  “I don’t fucking care, Thomas or Jean’s men can clean up that mess.” Scooting closer she applied pressure again to the wound. It seemed to have skimmed the surface, but she couldn’t be sure. “Is someone coming or not?”

  “Yes. For both of us.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re bleeding, C.” Smith reached up and brushed her hair from her forehead, but she flinched back as her head throbbed.

  “I said I’m fine.” With a growl she pushed away from Smith to look down the streets, full of taxis that she didn’t want to flag down in their condition. “Where the fuck are they, Smith?”

  “It’s going to take a bit, will you just come and sit down?”

  Sighing she sat down beside him, and he leaned against her, his head on her good shoulder. “You did beautifully.”

  “You got shot.”

  “I got scratched by a bullet. I’d know if it was still in me, trust me.”

  “I thought Europe was supposed to have less guns or something.” Camille was keeping up the conversation as she skimmed the traffic, looking for anything unusual. Any sign of Etienne’s men.

  “Less, yes, but it just helps people identify the bad guys better.”

  “We have guns,” she muttered.

  “We’re some of the bad guys, C.” Smith laughed, but it broke into coughs that made her reach under his arms to haul him further upright.