Catch

by S. Poirier

  “Okay, man. Yeah, I got it. We’ll meet with the middleman tomorrow,” he says and then ends the call. He turns to see me staring at him. Bringing his finger up he curls it and smiles. But it wasn’t the type of smile that I was used to. This one’s heavy with hesitation and worry.

  I get out of the bed and pull his T-shirt over my head before going to sit in his lap. I wrap my arms around his neck and press a gentle kiss to his lips. “The middleman?” I ask.

  “Timer is going to accept my offer. I can pay him the cut he would have taken from James Kelly. But, now that he knows the truth about Kelly he wants him taken out, and he wants us to do it,” he says after letting out a heavy sigh. “I tried to see if there was any way that I could do this alone, but Timer insists that you will need to be involved. We’ll find out the details tomorrow.” He runs his hand through his hair.

  “And the middleman will give us those details?” He nods and then tightens his arms around me.

  ****

  Catch

  “Oh wow, it really stinks in here,” Max whispers. We are in an old fishing warehouse next to the Mississippi River and she’s right, it does stink. The middleman always seems to pick the best places to do these things. “So, where is this guy? I would love to get this over with so I can breathe fresh air again. I’d also like to find out what the hell they…”

  “Does she always talk this much, Catch? Because if my broad had a trap like hers…” The middleman had come out from around an old decaying fishing boat.

  “If you want to keep the teeth in your head you will shut you fucking trap,” I warn. The middle man flashes me a menacing smile and chuckles. “Just give us the assignment.” I’m not in the mood to be around this guy any longer than necessary.

  “What? You’re not going to introduce me to the only human I’ve ever seen ruffle Timer’s feathers?” He looks over at Max, so I step in front of her blocking his view.

  “Nope. I’m not going to introduce you. Again, just give us the damn assignment.” I don’t want to play games with this man, but I’m finished with him after this. And if I have to beat the assignment out of him I will.

  “James Kelly is in hiding. One of his recent rallies caused a small riot and the feds are after him for questioning. The guilty man always runs. Max is needed to lure him out. Timer is staging a kidnapping. She’ll be brought to a location only known by you. That’s where the hit will take place.” He hands me an envelope. “The details, numbers, dates, and locations are all in here.”

  I grip the yellow envelope a little too hard, crumpling the edges. I grind my molars doing my best to tamp down my temper. “After this we’re done? Max is safe?” He nods. “Tell Timer I’m done and that if anything happens to Max I’ll personally hunt him down and kill him. And I won’t make it easy for him.”

  The middleman takes a step back clearly intimidated by the growl in my chest. “Trust me he already knows. And if anything does happen to her I would get the hell out of the states, because Timer is going to have every single man he knows hunting you.”

  I nod as he turns and jogs to the other end of the warehouse.

  “Well, this has been great and all, but I would love to get the hell out of here,” Max says. I can hear the unease in her voice, and can feel her tugging on my T-shirt.

  We are back in the car and on our way out of New Orleans when Max pulls the assignment papers from the envelope. She skims the pages and flips through them quickly.

  “Do you really think that Kelly is going to buy into this mess?” she asks.

  “For both of our sakes I hope the hell so,” I reply. “Listen Max, I don’t like this whole kidnapping idea. What if they brining you somewhere different? What if this is a setup to finish the hit taken out on you?” It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Timer was setting us up.

  “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life running, Sage. They would eventually find me, and I don’t want to live whatever time I have left looking over my shoulder. Let’s just do what he wants and hope for the best. Okay?” She reaches over and tangles her fingers with mine.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see an exasperated look on her face. “Max, what’s up?”

  “James Kelly is such an idiot. Seriously, he’s hiding out in the DC area. You would think he’s smart enough to at least leave the state,” she says with an eye roll.

  “Well, Timer has been in touch with him, so he is probably hiding out in DC because he is waiting for that call. Judging by the last time one of Timer’s assassins kidnapped you,” I flash her a quick grin, “Kelly really wanted to inflict a copious amount of pain on you. I think even if you did speak he still would have beat you. Maybe even to death.” A shudder of rage works through me at the idea of James Kelly touching Max in any way.

  17

  Max

  Sage informed me that we would be driving straight through to DC without stopping to sleep. It would be a long drive and we wouldn’t arrive there until the wee morning hours of three or four o’clock.

  When I finally get sick of reading the same shit over and over again—when it came to the assignment—and we’re almost ten hours into the drive, I lie across the seats and put my head in Sage’s lap. He’s been very quiet almost the entire drive. I know he’s having a hard time dealing with me being involved in this mess, so I keep my trap shut. He starts running his fingers through my hair and within minutes I fall asleep.

  A few hours later I wake up with a stiff neck and a headache. Sitting up I flex my neck from side to side as I look out the windshield.

  Sage looks over at me and reaches out to run his fingers along my cheek. “I’m glad you’re up. I need some company to keep me awake.”

  “I can drive,” I offer but he shakes his head. Instead of arguing with him I blurt out the one question I haven’t asked. It’s the one question that’s been at the forefront of my mind since he revealed to me that he is an assassin. “How did you become an assassin?”

  “Max…” he says in a sigh.

  “No. I want to know. I doubt there’s a place where you just go and fill out an application, or hand in your resume. So, I want to know, and I want to know why too.” Yeah, I may be opening up a can of worms here, but I want to know everything I can about him.

  He grips the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turn white. And I think I know what’s going on inside his head, so I reach over and touch his hands one at a time. “I won’t think any differently of you, Sage. You should know that by now.”

  “I know. Alright,” he says as he takes a deep breath, and runs a hand through his hair. I watch as the longer part on top settles in a messy heap. “When I was fourteen my dad noticed that I had a knack for shooting. So, he got me into competitions. I won almost every one I was entered in for the next four year. I was eighteen and I had just graduated high school. My parents were having trouble with money. They were talking about selling the property and possibly the house. I wanted to go to college, but I felt guilty for suggesting it since they were having so many problems. Instead I told them that I was going to join the military.

  “Mom wasn’t pleased with my decision, for obvious reasons, and we got into this huge fight. So, I left and went out to the shooting range to blow off some steam. While I was out there alone I was approached by a guy named Scout. He said that he had been watching me over the years and talked about what great talent I had. Then he started talking about a job, money, and everything sounded great. I knew that I could get my parents out of debt, and in the future if I wanted to go back to school I could have the money to do so.”

  Sage glances over at me. “I have to admit. I didn’t buy into it right away, but then I met Snitch and he painted the lifestyle in a whole new light. He explained that I would be killing people officials didn’t have enough evidence to convict for their crimes. Our hits are ordered by government officials. Drug dealers, members of certain mafia groups, members of certain gang groups, people who they believed were trying
to assassinate the president. Hell, even repeat sex offenders that kept falling through the system. These were the people that they paid the big bucks for Timer and his group of assassins to take care of.”

  “And was Snitch telling the truth? Are those the types of assignments you had to carry out?” I was holding my breath. Hoping, praying, that these were the types of hits he carried out. Because if he was going around killing husbands so women could collect life insurance policies that would definitely change things. Change things so much I might be inclined to jump out of the moving car.

  “He was telling the truth.” I release a mental sigh of relief because I don’t want to let on that I was worried. “I went on a few assignments with him. And I agreed to work with them on one condition, that I knew the reason that person needed to die. I was hired as a sniper. It was a lot of money, and I knew if I did this I would be able to pay off my parents’ debt.”

  “Did you know the reason why the hit was taken out on me?” I whisper.

  “No,” he replies quickly. “I just took the job without question because the money was good. You were supposed to be my last assignment. The only question I asked was about the kidnapping, because that was something Timer never asked any of us to do. It was always about doing it from afar, or as stealthily as possible. Your assignment was the polar opposite of stealth.”

  Bile rises in my throat and a knot forms in my stomach. Tears prick the corners of my eyes, and for the first time I’m fully aware of how dangerous Sage really is. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before, but I’m seeing it now, and I feel stuck. Stuck between the enormous feelings I have for him, and the idea that he knowingly took a job where he would be killing people. Yeah, maybe they deserved it, and maybe their absence in this world made it a tiny bit safer, but for twelve years Sage has been taking lives for money.

  “Max, babe, say something you’re…” his voice breaks and he swallows hard. “Just please say something.”

  But I can’t grant his request. What am I supposed to say? That I got caught up in the whirlwind that was this whole situation? That I was so caught up in his beauty that all my good sense went out the window because I was horny? That I’ve just now realized that I’m falling in love with him, and I don’t know if this will ever work between us, and I’m scared to death of losing him?

  I feel a couple of warm tears roll down my cheeks. Quickly I thumb them away.

  “Max, please…” he whispers and I swear I can hear the pain in his words. Something in my chest shatters, my heart. And, oh God, it hurts like a motherfucker. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before, and I don’t know what to say. So, like the huge coward that I’m not very familiar with, I just sit here in silence.

  18

  Catch

  She’s sitting there staring out the passenger door window not saying anything. She won’t even look at me. A couple of times she sniffled, but I can’t be sure if she’s crying or not because I’ve never heard her cry before.

  I thought we were past this when I told her that I was an assassin. This is more of what I expected from her that night at my family home, not now. I tried pushing her away in the beginning. This is exactly what I wanted during those first couple of weeks. But now, now all I want is for her to talk to me. Say something to help make this hard tightening in my chest ease a bit.

  The details of the job must have done it. Or maybe it was shock from hearing me say that she was an assignment, and that I didn’t bother asking why a hit was called on her. It may have been a mistake to tell her, but I wasn’t going to lie. She deserves so much more than someone like me, so I refuse to be anything but completely honest with her.

  Now I’m wondering if I should have just told her everything from the get-go. The thought that maybe we could’ve been spared from this happening seems like something I could have controlled from the beginning. If I just would have told her the whole truth.

  But no matter how much I try to convince myself that I could have prevented this insane thing from happening between Max and me, I know it would have happened regardless. She’s a force to be reckoned with. Everything about her draws me to her like a dehydrated man to an oasis in the desert.

  And whatever the reason for her silence it’s deafening and as sharp as a knife in my chest. I don’t know what to say to make her talk, and I don’t want to push her. I feel that dreadful feeling that I have fucked up. It weighs on my shoulders like a Mack truck and I can’t help but sit slumped forward towards the steering wheel.

  Thankfully this road trip is coming to an end.

  I’m not bringing her to her apartment. Instead I’m bringing her back to my warehouse. It’s destroyed, but I can get it back together enough for us to sleep there tonight. I’m sure she won’t like coming home with me, but I’m not letting her out of my sight. For the first time in twelve years I don’t trust Timer.

  And no matter what is going through that pretty little head of hers I’m still not going to let anything happen to her. I care for her too much—no scratch that—I can’t breathe without her. If I lose her I will lose my fucking mind.

  ****

  Max

  Sage brings me to his warehouse. I still have no idea what to say, so I bring my bags inside and straight to the bathroom. I just want a shower. The emotions I’m experiencing are burning inside my chest like an out of control wildfire, and I don’t know how to extinguish the flames.

  I’m feeling so many things at one time, and it’s all because he destroyed my fucking wall. I need that wall back, but I know that’s impossible. The wall just doesn’t exist when he’s around. And besides, it took me most of my adolescent life to build that wall. No way was I going to throw it back up in a matter of minutes, hours, or even weeks.

  Especially with him around.

  Sage has the power to be the absolute death of me.

  I step into the steamy shower and let the water beat against my body. His broken voice rings through my head again. He didn’t say anything after that, didn’t even try to get me to talk to him. I didn’t know what to do, or what to say. And all I could think about was why he didn’t ask why a hit was taken out on me. Of all the disgusting people he has killed he wanted to know why. But with me he didn’t ask, and he didn’t seem to have any problem letting me know that fact.

  The emotions are too much to hold in. They are consuming me from the inside out and if I don’t get ahold of myself I’m scared of how I might react. It hurts. My chest hurts so bad that I slap the shower wall, and then I start screaming as I bring my left fist around and punch it.

  I watch as my blood runs down the wall and mixes with the water at my feet. The pain in my wrists flares, but I don’t care. Actually I welcome it, hoping that maybe it will distract me from the pain tearing through the inside of my chest.

  I know it’s wishful thinking that I might be able to mask such an intense pain the moment my knees give out on me and I sit down under the stream of the shower. I let it all go. The sobbing hits me hard, racks my chest sending fresh waves of pain through it. Tears are falling, my nose is snotty, and at some point I release a string of curses.

  I don’t know how long I sit there, but eventually I pick myself up out of the shower and wrap a towel around me. I look in the mirror at the mess that is my face. My eyes are swollen, nose is red, and face is puffy. I’ve never looked like this in my entire life. I’ve also never allowed myself to sob uncontrollably in my entire life.

  He made me do that. Sage made me feel so many emotions that I had never allowed myself to feel that it broke me down. He broke me down. I’m not sure when or how, but it happened. And right now I’m kind of pissed off about it.

  Without bothering to get dressed I storm out of the bathroom in my towel and find him in the kitchen putting things in the cabinet.

  “Why didn’t you ask about me? You kill all those other people—which okay wow—and you find out why they need to die, but you don’t ask about me. Why
didn’t you find out why a hit was taken out on me?” I yell. My fists are in tight balls down at my sides, and I’m about three seconds away from clocking him in the teeth.

  He shuts the cabinet door and takes in the sight of me. The me who has lost her mind and turned into a blubbering, almost violent ball of emotions. “Max, are you okay?” he ask as he reaches for me. The pained look in his eyes and the soft tone of his concerned voice is too much.

  I swing and punch him in the hand before he can touch me. “No. Obviously I’m not okay. Now answer my question, Catch.” He flinches as if I slapped him when I use his assassin name instead of his given name.

  “Max, I was confused. They wanted me to come in contact with you, and I didn’t know how to handle that. I took the tape off your mouth that day so I could hear you tell me what you did. I didn’t ask because I didn’t want anything to conflict with what you told me. From the very beginning I knew that something wasn’t right.” He bends at the waist and puts his hands down to rest on the tops of his knees. “Jesus, Max, is that why you’ve been so quiet?”

  “That’s part of it. Everything hit me at once. I realized how dangerous you are, and then when you didn’t ask why someone wanted me dead. Oh, and then you go and talk in that hurt, broken voice, and I just…God I don’t know.” I run my hand through my hair and wince at the movement of my knuckles.

  Sage grabs my hand. “What the hell, Max?” He looks at my busted knuckles, while he pulls me over to the sink. I hadn’t noticed that they started bleeding again.

  “I punched the shower wall. Actually I’m surprised you didn’t hear all the commotion I was making in there,” I say as he runs my hand under the water.