“It’s nothing personal, kid. It’s just that you’ve forced us to take the lowly jobs again because no one trusts us. They don’t trust anyone to do our job for them anymore.” Bobby fingers the gun inside his jacket as if he’s debating whether or not it will be profitable to shoot Troy on sight, but Nate regains control of the situation and pulls Bobby back a few steps as he passes. They’re fools to turn their backs on Troy, but they’ve forgotten how dangerous he can be when threatened.
For now, he’ll let them leave. If he does this in a public area with cameras and eyewitnesses, he might not be able to return to Colorado. The name Jack Evans will not exist anymore, and the house will be destroyed. Cassidy will be lost to him. So he’ll bide his time, but not for much longer.
* * *
Classic.
Troy lets his head hang as he pretends that he’s still unconscious and listens to the babble of three men and one woman somewhere in the dark room. It’s most likely not too dark for them, but the way the light is shining down directly on his line of sight makes it difficult for him to see beyond the luminescence.
It’s chilled, and he’s shirtless with chains wrapped around his thick arms and twining down around the chair legs. The room is uncomfortable for a reason. Troy recognizes one of the techniques a trained killer might use to torture something out of a victim. Make them uncomfortable, and then begin the process of mutilating their body. It’s not really a science, just common sense.
“Someone had to have sent him! I want to know who before you start cutting out his tongue, you idiots!” He doesn’t recognize the tone, but he does recognize the inflection with words. Unable to help himself, Troy starts to snort and laugh at the same time.
“And here I thought it would be Yukon’s associate or his wife, maybe! But you?” His past is really catching up with him now. This woman had crossed his mind more than a few times since he went into the witness protection program, but he never suspected she would keep going with her vendetta.
“Why not me, Trenton? I admit. I was foolish when I attempted to hire you without more information. I guess the joke was on me at that point. Haha Veronica Blanc is a blonde ditz! But who is foolish now, Trenton? To think that you could get away from me!” He can’t see her, but he can tell that she’s throwing her head back as she laughs. They’ve removed his weapon, so he’s seemingly defenseless.
“You just couldn’t let it go, could you, sweetheart? Tell me, was it the fact that your husband was murdered, or the fact that his deepest, darkest secrets were strewn across the television screen for millions of people to see?” As he’s speaking, there are a few clinks that sound like stilettos walking across a concrete floor. He’s guessing they’re in a storage room somewhere, and it’s two or three in the morning probably. Nate and Bobby will either gut him or shoot him with his own silencer, maybe both.
The woman in her early thirties appears before him with a sultry pout on her face. She’s a bombshell with breasts that are far too perky to be real and a narrow waist he could wrap his two hands around and still be touching them. Unfortunately, her flesh looks as if it’s lost the vibrant glow from the last time he saw her, but she’s attempting to replace it with a fake tan. She’s wearing a white pantsuit cinched around the waist with a thin, black belt. Her blonde hair, which normally cascades down her back in ringlets, is currently pulled up into a ponytail. It’s probably to keep it from swaying in his blood when it’s spilled.
“Both, Trenton. Or should I call you Troy Red?” He doesn’t allow the shock to show on his face or in his body. Its ping ponging around inside, but no one can tell from his expression that she’s guessed the correct name.
“You can call me whatever you want, just make sure it’s slow. If I recall, that’s how you liked it last time.” Her hand comes up, and she hits him across the face. An open handed slap placed just right can hurt almost as much as a punch, but he doesn’t let it ignite the fury inside. Not yet.
“Why don’t we have a little bit of fun first boys? I want to hear him scream.” Veronica’s tinkling laugh contradicts with her words, but he doesn’t flinch. Only the muscle in his jaw begins to twitch when they slice into the tattoo of his niece. Troy’s endured worse pain than this when his sister and niece were murdered. He can handle a few cuts and some bruises.
What he doesn’t see coming is the boot to the side of his head that knocks him unconscious, throwing him back into his memories.
* * *
Olivia and Lilly have left for the evening, and he’s sitting alone in his apartment. It’s a dark place with curtains keeping the light from seeping in. When his sister and niece are visiting, he keeps the curtains open so that they’re not suspicious, but he wishes his sister wouldn’t visit. It’s dangerous here because he’s present.
The note in his pocket is still there when he checks, and he stares at the neatly written name and address on it. He should burn the note, but he feels the need to hang onto it. Troy lifts it to his nose and sniffs once. The perfume the woman wore when she wrote this note smells like lilacs, and for some reason that reminds him of something. Yet it stays on the peripheral of his mind, unwilling to come forward.
There’s only one thing he can do to get this out of his mind, and that’s find Jackie. So with a head crammed full of busy thoughts, Troy swings on his only leather jacket and pockets the note again. The club is not far enough to warrant calling a cab, so he hoofs it to the basement strip club. As soon as he’s in the door, the woman with green glitter on her eyes sidles up to him with a tiny grin on her lips. She knows why he’s here, and she’s going to profit from it.
They skip the pleasantries of her dancing and Troy immediately requests the back room.
“Rough day?” Jackie inquires as she takes his hand and nods once at one of the bouncers. They’re not here to keep patrons from hurting each other, but they do keep the ladies safe.
“You could say that.” Troy says with a heated voice. As soon as the door is shut, he doesn’t waste time. Time is money in this place, and he doesn’t like to waste too much of it here.
“Want to tell me about it?” Her gasp and the way her tongue moves across her upper lip involuntarily makes him hard in an instant and Troy answers her with a rough kiss. He doesn’t bother taking her clothes off this time, and turns her around so that she’s positioned up against the wall.
Jackie doesn’t normally allow her patrons to plow into her as if there’s no tomorrow, but there’s something feral about Troy that has her enjoying the encounter. He’s one of the only ones that make her feel something while they’re fucking, and the poor girl is confusing that emotion with love. Unfortunately, it’s not the same feeling that Troy has for her.
Chapter Eleven
Cassidy lifts up the hay bail and throws it down the hole for the men below to divvy it up amongst the horses. She wipes the sweat off her forehead with her sleeve and narrows her eyes when one of the hands looks up at her, worried. It seems only fitting that she’s working on a farm again, but it doesn’t help her forget about who she is and where she came from.
“You look a little green, Cassie.” She almost got to keep her real name. Thank God Moonlight took care of that for her. But why did the bastard have to leave her in the middle of nowhere with nothing but men around? She could use a little estrogen companionship.
“I’m fine, Roy. Just keep doing your damn job!” She puts a hand over her mouth as soon as the quip is out, and takes a step back from the hole.
Where the hell did that come from? She wonders as she turns around to grab another bale of hay. She’s been snippy lately, and she can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. There’s also the fact that she keeps getting nauseous every time someone makes coffee. Cassidy used to love coffee, and now it’s become her mortal enemy. She’s chalked it up to the fact that coffee in the morning reminds her of her father.
“Maybe you ought to lie down for a spell.” The older man’s voice has her jumping and almost screamin
g. Cassidy quivers all over in her boots and feels tears coming on as she tries to hold her breath. She’s been more than jumpy ever since she found her father dead in the barn at his home. Cassidy has almost lost her nerve over the past few days more than once.
“I’m fine, Vic. I just need a minute, alright?” She tries to keep the quaver out of her voice, but it’s no use. A large hand comes down on her shoulder, but she’s ready for it. Victor’s green eyes bore into hers, and she sees the concern in them. It’s a shame she’s already tied up with someone else in her thoughts for now. Or she’d give Victor a shot.
He’s a nice man in his late thirties, not too old for her, who owns a dude ranch.
“No, I’m going to take you back to your quarters. You really do look green, Cassie.” Without waiting for her to argue, he puts a polite hand on her upper back and leads her away from the loft of the barn. Cassidy opens her mouth to argue twice, but the third time she actually doubles over in pain and groans. It’s been getting worse the past two days, and she’s afraid of what this might all mean. The worst part is she wishes Troy was here to keep her company.
“Cassie? Hey, do you need a doctor?” She falls onto her knees as the pain overtakes her and proceeds to hurl all over Victor’s boots. In her shame and embarrassment, Cassidy shuffles backwards as she tries to push her blonde hair out of her face. “Someone call a doctor!” Victor begins to yell, and the other farm hands come out to see what is happening.
She’s gasping for air as she tries not to vomit again all over someone else’s shoes, but they’re all tremendously understanding as they try to haul her to her feet and get her into the house. Someone informs them that a doctor has been called, and Cassidy is placed in front of the toilet as she wretches again. At least it’s not on Victor this time. She inwardly sobs to herself as she struggles to breathe.
By the time the doctor arrives, her eyes are bloodshot, and she has a funny feeling all throughout her body. When he asks her for a name, she makes the mistake of saying her real one. When Victor’s eyebrows raise, she clears her throat and manages to choke out the fake name. It’s too late. Her cover’s blown and Moonlight Rogers will need to be called again.
In the meantime, the doctor begins to examine her while Victor retreats from the room. Cassidy’s not sure if it’s the fact that she’s vomiting or the fact that the doctor was starting to lift up the back of her shirt to put his stethoscope to her back. He tells her to breathe deeply, and she does. Then everything starts to fuzz at her peripheral vision until it’s overtaking her sight, and the doctor manages to catch her before her forehead hits the toilet rim.
“We need an ambulance!” He calls out as she begins to seize.
* * *
It’s been longer than twenty four hours that he’s been in this room with the light shining on his face. Every now and then he passes out from dehydration because the room is growing hotter and hotter. During his dark episodes he’s left with his memories of the times that he searched for the woman who hired him to kill himself.
This is one of those moments.
“You called me twenty six hours ago.” The payphone feels slick in his hand as he leans against the glass. Phone booths are almost out of style, but he found one.
“Yes, I did. Did you fulfill your end of the bargain?” He can’t help the flicker of a smile across his face as he listens to the sweet, feminine voice on the other end of the line.
“He’s disappeared, hasn’t he?” The woman takes a moment to answer him, and he hears her hand over the phone. Someone else is in the room, and he suspects she’s attempting to get them out.
“My apologies for the interruption. He has disappeared, but how can I be absolutely sure that means he’s dead?” Troy glances at a man walking past the booth with a rather large dog on a leash. It’s one in the morning. So he’s suspicious of anyone outside at this time.
“This profession requires a lot of trust between the client and the contractor. You trust me to fulfill my end of the bargain while I trust you to fulfill yours. You can rest assured that I fulfilled my end, so are you going to fulfill yours?” There’s a long silence on the other end of the line, and Troy holds his breath. What usually happens in this case is the murder is made public. Then the hitman gets his due while the client is reassured that they’re not paying for a false murder, like this one.
“Where do I mail the rest of the money to?” Troy feels his racing heart start to slow. He’s very close to figuring out which grieving widow has hired him.
“Drop it off at the same post office with the same address today at nine a.m.” Troy hangs up the phone abruptly and leans over in the booth as he tries to contain his mirth. He’ll know who tried to hire him as a killer against himself, and then he’ll take her out when he follows her home. The problem will be solved.
Except there’s one issue with his plan, he’s never killed a woman before, and he imagines it will not be easy.
“Robert, darling, it’s time for you to wake up and tell me what I want to know. Who hired you to kill my husband, dear boy?” It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell her because he cares about his old client’s confidentiality. Troy knows that if he tells this woman what she wants to know, he’ll be dead. He just needs a few more conscious moments to get himself out of the chains.
“I told you. Tell me if Bobby was the one who killed my family, and I’ll tell you who hired me.” Veronica’s white, gloved hand comes down on his cheek gently as she narrows her eyes at him. She’s so close that he can smell the familiar lilac scent wafting off her skin. And to think he actually spared this woman her life when he had the chance to take it. He should have shot her that day he saw her outside the post office.
Yet he had felt guilty about killing a woman.
“Oh, honey, you don’t want to know who really did that, now do you.” She talks to him as if he’s an infant, and the sound of her cooing voice makes him want to vomit on her pretty, cream colored pantsuit. Troy wants to know what it is with her and these clothes. Sure they’re flattering to her figure, but she has an obsession with them.
“Let me have another round with him. I’ll get him to talk this time.” Nate twists the clean knife in his hands as he steps into the stream of light. His lips are twisted up into a wry grin.
“No, you haven’t gotten a damn thing out of him! You’re fucking useless! Get out of my sight before I have Bobby do to you what you did to Robert’s flesh.” To emphasize, she puts a finger on one of the sore wounds and pushes. Pain is something that he’s used to by now, so Troy doesn’t hiss this time. He won’t give her the satisfaction of knowing that it hurts due to the infection already beginning to build.
There’s an awkward moment where Nate looks as if he’s contemplating offing his employer, but the money must be too generous. Or he just really wants revenge on Troy for making life hard for the other men of their profession the last couple months. As soon as the door slams when Nate leaves, Veronica turns her attention back to her victim.
“You promise you won’t lie to me if I tell you who did it?” She asks in a singsong voice, straddling Troy’s lap and getting her clothes dirty with the sweat and grime on his body. Her fingers tiptoe up his chest as she chuckles sensually. If she doesn’t stop, he really is going to vomit.
“I promise.” He’s not lying, either. He feels the chains loose against his arms as he bunches his muscles one last time. In one, swift movement he’ll be out of them, and she’ll be dead. But not until he has the confirmation that Bobby killed his family and Robert Grant.
“Get comfortable. It’s going to take a lot of telling to get this all straight for you.” She makes herself supremely comfortable on his lap as she puts a finger to her lips in thought. “Where to start?” She muses, and then her eyes glitter in the light as she begins a chilling tale of revenge, and stupidity.
“I first found out that you were the one who killed my husband from an informant I hired, Nate. He told me everything about you, Robert. He e
ven gave me pictures of your little niece and your sister, and told me about how you spoke of them all the time! It was kind of adorable to learn that you had a weakness.
Nate was not fond of the idea of offing a young woman and her daughter, so I had to find someone with a little more grit, you know? Bobby seemed a perfect fit. So I hired you to kill yourself because Bobby said that always throws a hit man for a loop. While you were chasing after me that day, Bobby was murdering your sister and niece. I hired Bobby to kill them, and he followed my orders.”
Troy feels his innards starting to coil with his rage as he tries to keep a straight face.
“I wanted you to suffer, Robert. But I also needed you alive and healthy so you could tell me who my husband’s killer actually was, the man who hired you. I have my suspicions, but I don’t want to act until I have a confirmation. It would be a shame to take down an innocent.” She studies her gloved hand and looks downcast now that the fingertips are dirty.
“You want the name of the man who hired me to kill your husband?” Troy asks quietly as his hands slip free from behind the chair. Veronica doesn’t notice the slight movement of his shoulder muscles, or she mistakes it for the beginning of a breakdown.
“Yes,” she draws out the word in a hiss as she gets close to his face, and within a flash he has one chain wrapped around her neck while the other is twirled around her middle with her arms tangled up. Veronica attempts to scream, but no sound comes out when her mouth opens, and she gapes like a fish.
“I’ll tell you who had your husband killed, Veronica, right before your own life has gone from your body. I hope you two meet up in Hell.” Her eyes are starting to bulge and her lips are turning blue, and true to his word, Troy waits until her eyes flutter back in her head and he leans down to whisper into her ear. “Your husband hired me to kill him, Veronica because he couldn’t live with what he did for a living anymore. Not with his two beautiful children and his caring wife. He actually thought you’d be better off without him! I guess he was wrong.”
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