by Bethany-Kris
Right?
Penny’s gaze swept the quiet Brooklyn street, thankful that the rain had decided to fall despite the weather forecast giving only a fifty-fifty chance of showers. It cleared the streets of almost everyone who didn’t need to be on them for one reason or another. With the sun starting to fall beyond the view of the high buildings, darkness had finally begun to creep through the streets.
She felt safe.
Or safer.
At least, to be out and about like she was. With barely twelve hours on the ground in New York, Penny had to start moving fast. Part of her plan had been put into motion the second she opened up the safe in her hotel room. It was where she kept several sets of fake identification, a burner phone—one The League didn’t know about—and cash she stacked up. She was running on a limited timeline to get certain things done before someone came looking for her.
Someone like The League.
Or The Elite.
If they hadn’t already.
Penny was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. She was neither ignorant, nor arrogant. Certainly not enough of one or the other to think that her decision to go AWOL from her handlers would be met with sighs of resignation and little else.
And shit.
The Elite was already hunting her. Might as well make it worth it.
Stepping out from under the entrance of an apartment building, rain splattered against Penny’s face as she started her walk again. Cabs were an option if she cared to hail or call one. There was something to be said for walking, though.
Like the fact it let her think. She hadn’t been doing that enough lately. Well, not for herself, anyway.
Time to do that.
It wasn’t as though Penny was just walking to walk—she did have a purpose for being on the streets of Brooklyn in the middle of a cold rain while the sun crept lower and lower with every passing minute. That purpose became clear when she slipped into an alley two blocks away from the last place she stopped.
A car waited there.
The two-door Lexus coup flicked on its lights—once, and then twice, as was agreed upon—illuminating her wet figure in the mouth of the alley. Penny wasted no time slipping further down the alley to the passenger side of the car. Had it been less wet outside, she wouldn’t even have bothered with getting inside the vehicle.
Instead, she slipped into the passenger seat and shoved her hood back to expose the fishtail braid flipped over her shoulder that kept most of her hair out of her face. The guy sitting in the driver’s seat didn’t even turn to give her a hello, let alone a look.
“It’s in the back,” Carson told her.
“Everything?”
“Anything you asked for. I made a list.”
Penny rolled her eyes, but smiled, too. “You made a list?”
“You made it clear when you called that this was important. I didn’t want to miss anything. Not really good for business, you know?”
She did.
All too well.
Penny found the black duffle bag in the backseat like Carson promised. The independent contractor didn’t really have a specific job—he was known to do many things as long as the pay was good and came through. He’d do it without much talk, and he didn’t sell information when the chance was on the market, so to speak. She only knew of the guy through other assassins at The League who used him on occasion when in the New York area.
Or Jersey.
Vermont, too.
Carson was flexible.
He also wasn’t owned. By anyone. Penny liked that a lot more.
Dropping the duffle bag on her lap, Penny yanked open the zipper and spread the top apart to see what was inside. Carson hadn’t lied. A pile of burner phones, a small laptop, phone cards and more stared back at her. Sticking her hand into the bag, she moved things aside to find the wigs she asked for. There was also a case of FX makeup, a forty-five millimeter and nine with ammo and a silencer ... and finally, antibiotics, a few knives, and a particular obsidian blade with a soft touch handle setting on top of new cargo pants and other black clothing.
Penny closed the bag. “It’s all there, thanks.”
Carson shot her a look, his tattooed hands never leaving the steering wheel when he asked, “Did you expect anything different?”
“Some of it was unusual.”
Like the makeup. And the specific knife she had wanted.
The man only chuckled, asking, “Yeah, I thought so, too. What, are you going to war or on a stage?”
“Maybe both.”
Anything was possible now.
In the inner pocket of her windbreaker, Penny pulled out an envelope that was only a little damp from the rain. She passed it over to the man in the driver’s seat. His payment that he took without as much as a thank you, not that she expected acknowledgment for their business together.
This was how it worked. They saw nothing. Knew nothing. Said nothing.
But just in case ...
“If anyone asks,” Penny said when she reached for the door handle to exit the vehicle, “you didn’t see the white ghost in New York. It won’t end well for you if you bring up my name to anyone. Understood?”
Carson lifted one shoulder, unbothered but still recognizing that she warned him. “You know, I don’t usually work with people who make it a habit to threaten me, Penny.”
So be it.
Except ...
Penny laughed as she stepped out of the vehicle, calling back into the man, “I’m not the one you’ll have to worry about seeing the threat through, though. Keep it in mind.”
There were always worst monsters waiting in the wings. Penny was only one of them.
She closed the door. The last thing she saw from the man was red taillights as he pulled out of the alleyway. That was fine with her.
One thing done.
She was one second closer to ending it all ...
THE MOTEL ROOM PENNY rented in the Bronx wasn’t much to look at. Peeling wallpaper with a faded flower design gave the single room—and attached bathroom—some color, at least. The brown, shag carpet had been laid at least three decades before she even existed. God only knew the things these walls had heard and seen.
That was about all she could say for the motel.
Then again, the place was booked by the hour. She was probably one of the only patrons in the place who paid for several days upfront which should have said enough. Nonetheless, she avoided focusing on the stains on the carpet never mind pulling the sheets off the bed. The old furniture had seen better days but the single table, chair, twin bed, and three-drawer dresser all served their purpose.
She’d stayed in worse.
Hell, she’d been raped in worse.
At least, she was out of the rain, had a place to sleep, and there was a decent diner down the street when her hunger became enough of an annoyance that she had no choice but to deal with it. The motel hadn’t required identification to book the room when she slapped down an extra thousand dollars to cover any damages.
Shit.
They could keep the money.
Maybe spruce up the room.
Penny wouldn’t come looking for it, anyway. And if she could help it, then she wouldn’t bring any problems to the motel, either. After all, the entire point of her getting a room was to use it to stay out of sight. No paper trail. She left nothing behind for someone to use to find her.
Since she didn’t have anything else to do, Penny had at least taken the time to open the duffle bag from Carson to look through the items inside properly. Her wigs were now hanging from wire hangers on the shower’s metal bar to keep them in decent shape should she need to use one. All the makeup that she might need to change her appearance had been set out on the table alongside three pairs of folded black jeans and matching tank tops. Not that the weapons needed to be cleaned, but she took her time with the gun, silencer, and even the knife just because she could.
What was time?
She had too much
of it.
For now.
Keeping busy, even if it was only arranging her things and attempting to settle into the motel room for however long her stay would be, was something she could do. Actions she could control. A way to keep her mind from traveling elsewhere.
To keep her heart from hurting.
It always hurt, though.
Always.
Was it all a bit much? Not really. It was, however, exactly what Penny needed. The League had done more than teach Penny how to kill while giving her the chance to change history ... even if it had taken her entirely too long to figure out the past never went away. They had also given her the ability to take care of herself.
In every way.
Mentally.
Physically.
In business.
Having already discarded the burner phone she used to contact Carson, she went ahead and picked a new phone from the pile on the dresser along with one of the cards to activate it. If the man followed her directions—and she knew he did—then each card and phone had been purchased from different locations. Despite burners being incredibly hard to track, it wasn’t actually impossible given enough time and the right hacker to do it.
Penny didn’t want to take chances.
Every single time she used one of the phones, it would be destroyed after. Including this time.
From the pocket of her black jeans, she produced a folded piece of paper that had barely made it through the day’s rain. The edges tore at her rough handling, but she didn’t care because she didn’t plan to use the number written inside again after today.
The thing about politicians?
Anything could be found with little effort. Including their addresses, home phone numbers, and even the names of the schools where their children attended.
Penny only cared about one of those—the phone number to the home where her mother had apparently moved in with her soon-to-be husband, the New Jersey senator, Gilles Tracey. Though they apparently lived in Jersey with the senator’s two daughters, they also kept a home in New York and frequently traveled between the two states.
Or, so Penny learned through her searches of the internet. Anything could be found ... if someone looked hard enough.
Activating the phone and minutes on the card took little time, and before long, Penny had punched in the number. She put the phone on speaker and held it in front of her as she paced the short length of the motel room while the call rang through.
Once.
Then twice.
A third time.
She honestly didn’t know what she expected—getting the number had been a last-minute decision, and not one she really thought out entirely. So much about her mother and the last several years of her life hunting the woman and anyone connected to her had been carefully planned events. Nothing was left to chance.
The thing was ...
Penny wanted Allegra to see her coming, now. Nothing else would do.
“Tracey residence—Joesph speaking,” came a male voice through the speaker.
Penny almost hung up.
Almost.
She didn’t think her mother would actually pick up the phone. She bet the senator had a whole house full of employees to handle every aspect of his daily business. That was before Penny factored in the people her mother probably had on hand.
Nothing about this would be easy.
She already knew it.
“Is Allegra home?” Penny asked opting to just ... see.
“Ms. Hatheway is upstairs in her sitting room. Give me a moment—I’ll put you through. Who am I speaking to?”
“An old friend.”
The man didn’t even question it.
A click sounded on the phone before a ringing started again. This time, it only rang twice before the call was picked up.
The feminine voice that answered the call was unconcerned and blasé in tone, but the sound of her mother saying hello still felt like a knife raking down Penny’s spine.
“Hello,” Allegra greeted.
Penny dragged in a slow breath.
Allegra waited one second, and then another before saying again, “Is anyone there?”
“Do you think about me?”
Silence answered back.
It actually made Penny smile.
Then, her mother sucked in a hiss before saying, “Penny—”
She didn’t get more out.
Penny wouldn’t let her.
Nothing was on Allegra’s time anymore. She controlled nothing about Penny. It took years to figure that out, but here she was.
“Did you see me coming?” she asked.
A squeak echoed on the other end of the call, as if Allegra had jumped out of her chair. The woman’s next words came out sharp and stinging when she said, “You little bitch—do you know the mess you’ve caused us? You are dead. How long do you think you can last before we find you?”
Yes, she knew.
Too well.
She regretted nothing.
It had to happen.
“I only need to stay ahead of you, actually,” Penny returned. “What’s left of your organization now, Mother? Every move I’ve made has taken something else from you, hasn’t it? There isn’t very much left. Is The Elite even capable of going up against me now—or someone else, for that matter, if you step on the wrong toes trying to get to me?”
The League, she meant. Not that she would say it. That would simply give her mother information she might not otherwise have. Penny wouldn’t play that game. Just this phone call was dangerous enough.
And she only had one thing left to tell Allegra. Little else really mattered, and she refused to give the woman any more of her life or time than she needed to. Even in her death, Allegra Dunsworth would only get what she deserved and nothing more.
It was all Penny could promise.
The only thing she guaranteed.
“The white ghost is coming for you,” Penny told her mother. “Watch for me, Allegra. I’ll be seeing you.”
Penny ended the call as her gaze found the clock on the motel room’s wall. Directly over the bed, it was the only thing on the walls. The second hand kept ticking. A lot like the beats of her broken heart that smashed against her ribcage because just talking to her mother was enough to damn near unravel everything that kept Penny sane.
Tick, tick, tick.
The sound of the clock echoed in the back of her mind. It continued counting down the seconds until she could finally finish this. One after another. She watched the time go.
What choice did she have?
3.
Luca
OVER the years, Luca occasionally found himself in ... precarious situations. For a lack of a better word. Situations where he didn’t think there was any way out. Yet, he always managed to do exactly that in the end.
He wasn’t sure this was the same. Never mind if it would end the same way.
At least, Cree and his men hadn’t bothered to do more than tie Luca up while they delivered him to the compound in the middle of the Nevada desert. He didn’t have to wonder where he was when he had already been there once—The League’s home base. But that was where the good side of things ended.
Luca’s prison stared back at him from where he sat in the corner of a room with cement walls and floors. Dampness coated his lungs with every breath, and the shivers crawled over his body the more he tried to get comfortable.
Or warm.
He was going to be lucky to escape this without catching a fucking cold, let alone with his life.
It didn’t help that his arms had been tied at his back with zip ties connected to a metal bitch link protruding from the cracked cement. He couldn’t even use his hands to warm his own body, and the hard floor wasn’t doing anything for his aching muscles.
Every part of him hurt. The rusty metallic tang of old blood lingered on the back of his tongue every time he dared to lick his chapped lips.
The worst part?
Luca
couldn’t tell time—he had no idea how long he’d been there stuck in the cement room with no windows to see the rising sun to say another day had come and passed. Only a bare bulb with a long, thin chain hung from the ceiling to provide light.
It had yet to be shut off.
Even when he did fall asleep—though he seriously doubted it was for more than a few minutes at a time with the way his mind felt slow and tired—he could see that goddamn light in his dreams. It was just there ... shining bright in the background like it was fucking taunting him or something.
What was happening?
That’s all he wanted to know.
Anything.
He’d take anything now.
Luca was close to drifting back to a hellish dreamland—if one could even call it that—when an echoing beep had his eyes jerking open. Metal clinked, then, and in the next second, the double doors at the far end of the room with the squeaky hinges opened without the prompting of the man who waited on the other side of them.
Over the doors sat a camera. Pointed and trained on him, the red blinking light over the lens was yet another thing that continued to haunt his waking dreams.
“You’re looking ... well,” Cree murmured when he stepped inside the room.
Luca had every urge to tell the man to go fuck himself, but he held back. Barely. Cree could have been less kind given Luca’s current circumstance, but he wasn’t. Not intentionally, anyway.
He didn’t bother replying to Cree’s first comment, instead asking, “Have you found her?”
Penny, he meant.
He didn’t need to say her name. He bet every single person in this building—however many there were—knew exactly why he was there.
Cree came to a stop in the middle of the room still ten feet away from a bound Luca. At least, they let him keep his boots even if they did rip the laces out of them. His ankles weren’t tied, so that was something to be thankful for, too. If only he could get his wrists undone and out of the strange room, then he might be able to—
“No, we haven’t,” Cree finally replied, interrupting Luca’s thoughts. “Do you feel betrayed because of what she did?”
Luca’s brow dipped. “What did she do?”