by Sara Schoen
They went back to talking, and I once again couldn’t stop staring at her while she talked. I hoped the doctor they were discussing never came in. It would keep me up all night thinking about someone else looking after her.
Chapter 19
A few weeks later, Camden had me escort Danielle to the hospital again because he had discovered someone skimming profits. His father had said that he found the culprit who had ruined the shipment by setting it ablaze and the ones previously. The suspect had been seen destroying files and records. All in an effort to get rid of the evidence so we wouldn’t find out. Too bad someone else noticed.
There was no way to know for sure they had caught the actual rat, at least for Camden anyway. I knew Camo was the true culprit. I would be a better suspect if they were trying to connect their current suspect to the previous shipments. I just knew it wasn’t going to be whomever Camden had found. Now whomever they found had to take the blame for the ones I ruined and, from the few names left on the list last I saw it, I didn’t feel bad for whoever it was. A few of them I had met and knew well from working with them on trades and meetings, which wasn’t a good thing. It meant they were people I had to call to put others in line, which typically meant torturing information out of someone. They made me sick, and losing one of them wouldn’t harm my conscience in any way.
I had a feeling that was why Camden didn’t want to deal with it. Those men meant little to him, but they were the ones who kept everyone else in order, leading with fear. He would much rather be taking Danielle to the hospital. That way he could leave with her whenever he chose. He had become suspicious of Sara over the last few visits, especially as she became closer to Danielle. I wasn’t sure what tipped off his suspicion, but suddenly he wasn’t thankful anymore that she’d saved Danielle. Camden didn’t like that Danielle spent more time visiting Sara than with him at the loft. She had come every day for the last few weeks just to talk to her, bring her food, and homework for their class. It seemed innocent, especially when no one knew Sara’s plan to take down the cartel, but something about her had Camden worried.
I once heard that when you save someone’s life they have a special attachment to you, and for Danielle, it happened to be Sara. I wondered if that’s why Camden seemed so skeptical about her.
Soon he wouldn’t have to worry about Danielle visiting her in the hospital anymore. Sara had said she could be released soon, and if it was possible, Danielle’s excitement for Sara’s release rivaled Sara’s own. Danielle kept saying that she wanted to thank Sara properly, but I wasn’t sure what that entailed for a girl who had recently broken a few ribs. Danielle would think of something. Once she got an idea in her head, it was damn near impossible to make her forget about it.
They were busy discussing what they would do when she got out of the hospital. I zoned out and tried to figure out how Camden would prove to the other members that the person they’d caught was the true culprit. It wouldn’t be hard for them to fake evidence, and most members would accept it even if Camden clearly lied to them. They didn’t want to end up like whomever Camden determined to be guilty.
As I sat there, I noticed that it had become eerily quiet until Sara and Danielle both cleared their throats. I cast them a questioning gaze until I heard the distinct ring of my cell phone. I hadn’t noticed my phone had gone off. I had been too lost in my own thoughts. As I caught a glimpse of the girls’ angry expressions, and the nurse’s annoyed grimace, I apologized and excused myself from the room. They immediately began chatting again, and I picked up the phone once I moved out of earshot.
“Camden,” I answered after taking a quick glance at the caller ID. “You know you’re not supposed to call when others are at a hospital, right? It’s rude to other patients, and your girlfriend.”
“I found him,” he said, completely ignoring everything else.
I felt my heart drop. I knew what came next. “You need me?”
“Yes. I need you to come take care of him, Marco, but before you do, try to get some more information out of him. I have a feeling he’s not telling me everything he knows. There’s something about him I don’t trust, and I want this to end now. I don’t care how long it takes, get him to say if there is anyone else he’s working with. Then I want him gone for good.” Camden’s voice lowered as he spoke, becoming dark and violent in nature. I could tell he meant business. I would have to follow the orders given to me or I’d be on the other end of his anger.
“I shouldn’t leave Danielle here alone,” I said, turning back to glance at them both. Sara beamed, and for a moment I didn’t dread the mission as much as I usually did when I had to play my role as Marco. It would be one less person for us to deal with if the mission went badly. “What should I do about her?”
“This won’t take too long,” Camden said hopefully. “If it does, she’ll be fine with her new friend for a little while. I may not like it, but it has to be done.” He paused for a moment, seeming to consider the choice he’d just made. It didn’t take long to get back on topic. “I have a few men holding him for you when you get back. Make it fast, though, I want this over and done with.” He hung up without another word.
I ended the call and let out a breath, looking back at the girls. I’d much rather stay with them, but I had a job to do. A far less pleasant one.
***
Camden handed me a gun the moment I arrived on the compound. It was a Glock 17—easy to use, and deadly in the right hands. He made it clear there was no time to waste. It had to end now. By now everyone on the compound would have heard what was about to happen. They knew who had a gun aimed at their head, and by now there would be rumors about how he had been found guilty. If it wasn’t handled soon, and the culprit had time to speak out to say why he wasn’t the one responsible, there would be a divide between the members.
As I looked around, a few people moved into the shadows and back into the building to avoid my gaze. The word must have spread fast. They knew that when I had to be called in, the final decision had been made, and it would be permanent.
“Find out anything you can, Marco,” Camden ordered before one of the other guards led me to where the accused resided, waiting for me. “I want to make sure it ends with him.”
I nodded as a response before turning to follow the other guard. I suddenly felt a pang of grief go through me. I had ended a lot of lives already, and this would just be another one. No matter how many times I did it, I wondered why I had to be the one. Anyone here could easily point and shoot a gun to kill someone, and most of them had done it to innocent people. What guilt would they feel? I knew Camden called me in because he trusted me, and he had become convinced more information could be discovered, and then it would be a death sentence no matter what. A few men would let the accused go after getting the information. They believed they scared the accused enough and figured the member wouldn’t do anything to end up in the seat again. When they did, the person came to me. I didn’t let any of them get away, and I wouldn’t let any of them escape after I was done with them.
Gage, another bodyguard for Miguel, lead me through the compound, updating me on the man they had found skimming profits and burning records. It turned out that he had taken responsibility for the profits and records, but he refused to accept the charge that he had been the one to destroy the shipments.
“We are hoping you can figure out why he would admit to one and not the other.” Gage stopped outside a metal door and yanked it open. “You have full privacy to do as you wish. There are two other men next to him to keep him under control, but they are willing to look the other way.” The wicked smile on his face told me that my reputation preceded me.
I nodded and walked in. He immediately shut the door behind me, leaving the room dark, with the only light right above the accused. The two men watching him were on the outskirts of the light, their faces hidden in the shadows, their smirks visible in the low light. They knew I had been called in, and took a sick pleasure in it. The darkness
covered me, but the accused could probably make out a faint outline of my body, my face concealed. The darkness was a powerful weapon. We never knew what hid within it, and in his case it concealed his angel of death—me.
“Are there others?” I asked, walking closer, my footsteps echoing around the room. “Is anyone else working with you?”
The sound of my footsteps gradually approached him, becoming louder with each step from the weight of my boots. With each step I took toward him, he started to become more frantic.
“Please, I already told them what I’ve done. I haven’t done anything to the shipments. It had to be someone else. Please.” He started quivering as he begged for his life. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before, and I knew what he would say. He would say anything to save his pathetic life, which typically included blaming others, pointing fingers, saying anything to appease me.
“Do you have partners?” I questioned.
“No, I don’t!”
“Then it had to be you who messed with our shipments. Burning the shipment seems a little over the top, while just letting them spill made it seem like an accident,” I said, mostly complimenting my own handiwork. I hoped the comment would make it back to Camo somehow. “You went too far with the last one.”
“It wasn’t me!” he cried. “There are rumors that someone is copying documents, ruining shipments on purpose, and ratting them out to the police. Everyone is talking about it, but it’s not me.” His begging fell on deaf ears.
The men next to him scoffed, and looked away from him in disgust. They were probably thinking he should at least take the blame for what he had done, be a man about it. Little did they know that someone else had committed the crime. I knew the culprit was talking about me, and I knew that he had seen me doing it. He’d been the one to walk into the office while I saved Camo, and then he’d seen me with the files she had left behind. I couldn’t blame him for trying to find a way out. It must have looked suspicious, which is why he told Camden about it early on. Camden brushed it off as unimportant, and that would come back to bite him once this mission ended.
Unless he told them and they had believed him, waiting for me to slip up again. I paused for a moment. They had heard what he had to say and then they had sent me to kill him, possibly to test me. They wanted to see if I would kill an innocent man, let him take the blame for what I had done. I pushed the thoughts away, trying not to dwell on it. It couldn’t be true, or I would be the one in the chair right now, but with a few more guns pointed at me to ensure I wouldn’t escape.
The accused continued to discuss what others had said about the person who supposedly had been calling the police on deals. He never said my name, maybe to keep it as a bargaining chip when I lost my patience. Maybe he’d been playing to the other two men. He could be working with them, and if they knew what I had done, they might be waiting for me to react. I wouldn’t play into their game, if one existed.
I stepped into the light, raising the gun to his head as I asked again, “Are there others?”
I watched as his eyes grew wide, not at the sight of the gun pointed at him, but at me. He had told Camden what he thought, and then Camden had sent me to kill him. It must have been difficult for him to see that his leader didn’t believe him, but he should have seen it coming. I didn’t play nice with Camden for fun. I did it because his friendship helped me.
“I’ve seen you before.” He took in a sharp breath. “I saw you taking documents with you, and you ran a check on the shipments that were destroyed. You’re the rat!”
I let out a chuckle as the two men next to him turned their attention back on me. His words had piqued their interest.
“Were you watching me so you could frame me?” I asked. “You already told Camden and Miguel your thoughts, but didn’t you know I was with him when you set that shipment on fire?” A surge of happiness swept over me. Camo had created such a big scene. I could work this in my favor. “Looks like you failed to make me your patsy.”
“No,” he yelled. “You did it. I’m being blamed for something you did!”
“Did I take money, and burn documents? No. Were you seen leaving the shipment before it went up in smoke? Yes, and by quite a few people. It’s not my fault you couldn’t make a better excuse.” I let a smirk curl at the edges of my lips. It felt good to get away from something like this, and no one would ever know except for this guy. I might have even grown to feel bad about it, until he opened his mouth again.
“You’re the rat,” he screamed. “You’re probably working with a team.” He waited for a reaction, but I didn’t give him one. He continued to rant, throwing out completely true accusations, but I didn’t give in and neither did the men around me. Eventually one of the other men gestured to me. He tapped his watch to say that I had to be somewhere soon. I nodded my head and turned toward the man who was determined to talk his way out of a death penalty.
“Are there others?” I asked again, confusing him.
“No, there’s no one else working with me! It’s all you and—”
I pulled the trigger, terminating the threat for good and sending everyone home for the night.
Chapter 20
Once the job was done, Gage told me Camden wanted me back at the hospital. He just wanted the whole thing with the rat over with, and I had done that for him. Camden had some things to wrap up and then he would be done for the day. I told Gage I would be taking a quick detour before returning to the hospital. I had to go back to the loft to change clothes. Blood spatter was always difficult to get out, and I didn’t want to waste time trying to clean it. I knew Camden would want me back at the hospital as soon as I could get there. Just without the blood. No need to horrify the nurses.
Every time Camden called on me I always wound up with blood on my clothes. Mostly I gave up, trashing the clothing. No one would look into the men I killed, anyway.
They would have to find the bodies first.
The cartel had a miraculous ability to get rid of bodies, and if the authorities found a corpse, it would happen a few decades later. The cartel had gotten pretty good at avoiding unneeded attention, and they were only getting better at it. The guy I had just killed would be off the compound and buried before the night ended, and I wouldn’t have to worry about him telling everyone what he had witnessed. Safe for now, everything seemed to be going my way.
When I got back to the hospital, I followed the path Danielle and I had made previously. There were a few landmarks that helped me along the way, such as the nurses’ station, the large crack in part of the tiling, and the cat the hospital staff seemed to have adopted, or just didn’t bother to shoo out. I saw a few familiar nurses, patients, and other people visiting their friends and family. A few acknowledged me, others looked away, upset and tearful. I glanced down at the ground to avoid their sorrowful gazes, and continued walking until I made it to Sara’s room.
I had almost missed it because I didn’t hear the usual chatter, or Danielle’s high-pitched laugh from down the hall. I glanced inside to see Danielle’s chair empty and Sara reading a book. I stepped in, and while I knew she had probably heard me, she didn’t react. If I didn’t know better, I would have said she had become lost in the words on the page, exploring a universe all her own, but she wasn’t a normal girl. She’s a trained spy, a thief no less, and had surely heard my loud footsteps when I turned the corner of the hallway. Maybe even before then if she’d been focusing on it.
She didn’t move at all, just continued to skim the words on the page, waiting for me to say something. She played her cover very well. She had to be watching me from her peripherals. She had to feel my presence. Her body tensed, her eyes focused on the page, which she hadn’t turned over since I had come into the room. She was watching me, waiting for me to move.
“Where is Danielle?” I asked, bringing her attention to me.
Sara looked up, seeming surprised to see me. She moved back slightly in the bed. Her blue eyes scanned me, as if taking me i
n and sizing me up. I must have come around too often, because she had come to realize that I was a constant in Camden’s life. That in turn made me a threat to her when it came to the mission. It eased my mind to know she had her focus on the mission.
“She went home. She got tired of waiting for you to come back, and she was hungry so Camden came to take her out to lunch,” she said, closing the book to turn her attention to me.
“Then why did they send me here?” Camden could have taken care of things. He would have told me he had taken Danielle out, which meant it had been her idea to send me here. “This is a waste of time,” I groaned, realizing Danielle wanted me to come so I could talk to Sara. I knew she wasn’t going to let go of Camden’s remark that easily.
“I’m sorry. I thought they would have told you,” Sara whispered. She offered me a sad smile, clearly feeling bad that I had admitted out loud that I had wasted my time. She must have thought I’d been wasting my time just by being with her.
I wanted to say something to make her feel better, but I couldn’t come out and say that my sister was trying to set us up. Not only would that confuse her, and cause more questions than necessary, but it would also end with Sharp Shooter berating me for ruining the mission. She couldn’t know my true identity.
“Why are you sorry?” I asked, buying myself a little more time to think. “It’s not your fault. It’s theirs for not telling me. I’m just upset because I could be at home right now watching a movie and eating popcorn.”
She let out a small laugh. “I’ve only known you for a little while, but you seem more like the type who would be at home cleaning a gun than watching a movie and eating popcorn.”
I looked at her in shock, because she’d figured out what I enjoyed doing in my free time while my parents were alive. I used to sit in the basement and clean the family’s guns, not for fun, but I preferred to know they were in working order. I preferred to be prepared, just in case something happened. It also relaxed me a bit while I sat and watched television.