HER LAST KILL

by S. M. Butler

  “So, something else recently made Reilly reconsider.” Nathan frowned at the screen. “But what?”

  “You need to ask Axel Martinez that,” she said. “He would be the only one who would know.”

  Nathan’s angular face scrunched up into a concentrated frown as his ebony eyes traveled over the documents on the screen. “There has to be something else.”

  “There is something else, Nathan,” Bridget said hesitantly.

  “What?” Nathan glanced back at her.

  “I found a recent copy of manifests from York Imports. He hasn’t stopped bringing in these containers. There is one scheduled for two days from now.” She touched the controls and brought up the list. “These only go back a few years, so I think that anything from that time period nine years ago is going to be either lost or analog.”

  “The docks there where York Imports ships are coming in are pretty secure.” She looked away from Nathan and down at her fingertips. She didn’t want to say it, but there was one person she knew was smart enough to get into the place undetected. “Um… We could reroute the container to another dock, maybe one that we control, without Reilly finding out right away.”

  Nathan’s eyes narrowed on her, and her entire body burned, her nerves flaring through her so hard it made her feel like she was on fire. “You think your brother can do it?”

  She nodded. “I know he can. I know you don’t want to give him internet access, but I can watch him. There’s no one better for the job.”

  “I could do it,” Nathan offered.

  “You certainly have the knowhow. But could you do it without being traced? You have a lot to lose if you’re discovered.”

  “And Scott Muldoon doesn’t?”

  “The world already thinks he’s dead. Anything traced to him will be a dead end. Besides, he’s spent his life breaking into systems like this. You’ve always been the one that creates them.” She nodded toward the screen. “Like Sierra.”

  He turned away from her, folding his arms over his chest like he was protecting himself. “I doubt he would be… amenable to me asking.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t want you hurt,” he grumbled. It was so low she almost didn’t hear him. “There’s been enough of that.”

  She wasn’t sure how to take this new version of Nathan Hawk she was seeing. Before, he’d never seemed to care whether the work they did cost her anything. She’d woken up as a dead woman and he had explained her new life like he was teaching a class. Afterwards, he’d never said a word of it, and she’d been expected to be perfectly adjusted into this new life.

  “Nathan—”

  “I told you I’m a selfish bastard, Bridget. But I protect what’s mine.”

  His. He was still thinking of her like he owned her. Part of her wanted to submit to it, to know that he had her best interests at heart and that he would take care of her. But the reality of the situation was that no one would ever take care of her like she could take care of herself. Not her brother. Not Nathan. And it was time for her to grow a backbone and show them all that she could.

  “I don’t need your protection, Nathan,” she said, putting her hand on his bicep. A quiver of want rolled through from her fingertips down to her toes as the hard flesh beneath the flannel tightened under her touch. “I need your support.”

  He turned his head toward her without moving the rest of his body. His ebony eyes had a hint of gold within them, tinted with the bright orange of a flame. “That, my dear, you have always had.”

  19

  Axel was the recipient of a mallet pounding against his skull.

  No, six mallets.

  In time with his heart beat.

  In surround sound.

  He opened his eyes to bright fluorescent lighting that made his eyes water. He squeezed his eyes shut and covered them with his hand, then tried to open them again.

  Still hurt, but better.

  The last thing he remembered… What was he doing? Right, he was trying to leave. Then Bea showed up. Had he really put a gun to her face? Shit.

  He tried to sit up, but that made the world go wheeeee so he nixed that idea with a groan and stayed prone.

  “Sit up slowly. It takes a minute to shake off the tranquilizer. But you’ll be fine once your blood starts flowing better.”

  Hearing Bea’s voice was a fucking beacon to awareness. He pushed himself up, slowly this time, blinking to get his eyes used to the light. His muscles groaned with every movement, his shoulder complaining just as loudly as the roar of blood in his ears.

  His entire body felt like it had fallen from a two-story building, and what do you know, that had recently happened. He’d been operating on adrenaline for days, since that first attack, and it somehow had caught up to him all too fast.

  Finally, he managed to hold himself in a sitting position and now he focused on where he’d heard the voice from. Bea had straddled a chair, her forearms resting on the wooden back in front of her, her body at ease. Or at least it appeared that way.

  Gone was the flowered dress, replaced by black jeans and a snug black tank top. She wore knee high boots with some kind of intricate lacing up the sides. Her hair was pulled back, away from her face in a braid that rested over her shoulder.

  Her face was cautious, watching him as he struggled to wake himself up. Somehow, if he had tried to do something, he had a feeling she would strike him down in a heartbeat.

  This was the real Bea.

  The sad part was the only thing he could think of was… that was a lucky fucking chair.

  “Hey.” He managed to push the word out of his pie-hole, but his voice was almost foreign to himself. Low and husky, grainy even.

  “Welcome back to the land of the living,” she replied, a small smirk transforming her face. He wondered briefly what a real, solid, bona fide smile would do to her. He’d only ever seen it once, at the festival.

  Then suddenly, his memory slammed back into his head. He glared at her. “You drugged me.”

  “Actually, Jack did.” Still she didn’t move, didn’t show any remorse or regret. It was a matter-of-fact statement and the flatness of her voice confirmed that. “Shot you with a tranq gun.”

  “Why?”

  “So we could tell you the truth of things.” She paused. “The entire truth.”

  “Why would you do that now?”

  “Because you deserve that much. Because we have to keep you safe. Someone is trying to kill you. Someone really dangerous.”

  Well wasn’t that the No Shit statement of the year? He knew the why too, though he couldn’t quite voice it. So, he let her keep talking. “Tell me.”

  “How are you feeling?” She asked. “Good enough to walk a little?”

  He frowned, not understanding why she’d asked. “A little groggy. But I’m fine.”

  She stood up, her graceful body dismounting that chair and walking to the nightstand by his bed. Oh, he was in a bed. He hadn’t even looked at the rest of the room. He’d woken up, and she was the only thing he could focus on.

  Now that he took a gander, he realized this was some sort of hospital room. The bed, the nightstand… not much else in the room except that. An observation mirror on one wall. He wondered who else was behind that glass.

  “Drink,” she demanded quietly. A glass was thrust in front of him, complete with straw. He reached for it, but his hands were shaking too much to grip the glass. So, he ended up sucking on the straw while she held the glass. The liquid inside was pure heaven, cooling off his heated body. He sighed and closed his eyes, feeling it flow down through his throat and into his stomach. His stomach gurgled in happiness. “Hungry?”

  He shook his head, staring up at her. The last time he’d looked up at her like this, he’d been licking her sex, watching her come apart in his arms. Her eyebrow arched, as if she could read his mind. Then she set the glass down on the nightstand again and held her hands out. “Let’s try some baby steps. Gotta get t
hat blood pumping.”

  He let her lead him, for no other reason so he could keep staring at her like a complete moron. He swung his feet over, realizing they were bare. And his legs too. Where the fuck were his clothes?

  “They’re folded over there. You were running a little hot while you were out. Don’t worry. You have boxers on still,” she replied. Oh, shit. He’d said that out loud.

  “Thanks,” he muttered and then let her help him to his feet. At first, his world tried to spin again, but he ground his teeth and clenched his jaw and refused to allow it to consume him. He stood still, his hands in hers, while the maelstrom almost took him under. For a brief moment, he was back in physical therapy, his hands gripping metal bars while he was learning how to walk all over again. But that was a long time ago. He shook his head, putting the memory away and clearing his mind. Then he managed slow, easy steps with her help over to where his clothes were.

  But then he had a problem, didn’t he? Either he had to sit his ass down to put those jeans on, or he had to balance on one foot.

  “I’ll help you, if you want.”

  He glanced at her, seeing the uncertainty in her eyes. She’d lied to him, yes. But now she also had promised him answers, so he had to suck this up and get it done. Slowly, he nodded, and she went to it without a word. She opened up his folded jeans and knelt in front of him. “You’re going to have to step into them.” She situated them on the floor so he could do just that, and five seconds later, she slid them up his legs. He took over once they were over his hips, with a quick button and a zip.

  “Thank you,” he choked out.

  “Don’t thank me yet. You’re likely to hate me soon.” She held out her hand to him. “Ready for a field trip?”

  “Where?” He asked.

  “It’s easier to show you the truth than to tell you,” she replied. “Not sure I’d believe me at this point.”

  He nodded and took her hand, weakly shuffling toward the door. Every bone in his body ached, every muscle sore as fuck. Shit, that one in his thigh, connecting to his groin? He didn’t even know that bastard existed before.

  But as he walked down the long expanse of the hallway, he realized two things. Things were starting to feel better the longer he walked, and two… he’d forgotten his damn shoes.

  ~*~*~

  They walked in silence for the most part, every once in a while, Bea would glance at him to see how he was faring. It was kind of sweet, and almost out of character for what he knew of her.

  But then what did he really know of her? The way she held herself now, the way she walked and talked… They were a whole other level from the woman in the floral dresses he’d been hitting on for a year.

  “Here,” she said, pointing toward a door. “We’re going in there.”

  He paused. Typically, you didn’t enter closed rooms when you didn’t know exactly what was on the other side. And it wasn’t that he didn’t trust Bea except… yeah.

  “I promise you, no one will hurt you here. It’s just Chris, Jordan, and Jack on the other side. The same people you’ve worked around for the last couple years.”

  Were they really the same people? Sure, he’d always known that there was something not right about the four of them, and even Scott, who seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth last year. Nathan had said he was transferred elsewhere.

  “Trust me, Axel,” she whispered. “Please.”

  God, when she used that voice… Ugh, he couldn’t say no. So that was how he put one foot in front of the other, watched her put her palm on a panel beside the door, watched the door slide open like some Star Trek bullshit, and walked into…

  What the fuck did he walk into anyway?

  True to her word, the three guys were in the room, but they were also surrounded by electronic shit. Three huge screens took up almost an entire wall, along with a U-shaped table in front of them. A small panel sat at one end of the table. Controls for those screens, maybe, he mused.

  Chris smiled as he came forward, the other two simply crossed their arms and hung back. He took his right hand and clasped it in both of his, then released one to clap him on the back, which sent tingles of pain through his back. Chris winced. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” he choked out. “So… This place…”

  “Yeah,” Chris said on an exhale. “Have a seat, Axel.”

  He’d have stayed standing if his knees weren’t about to give out. As much as he wanted to be one hundred percent, he probably should have eaten something before making the trek down to wherever he was.

  Chris walked over to the panel and punched some buttons. The three screens lit up and surveillance cameras covered all the screens, four views per screen. He recognized outside his apartment, inside the garage, the waiting room, his office.

  He took a breath. “What am I looking at?”

  “The four of us are dead, at least to the world we serve, we are,” Chris said. He said it in such a matter-of-fact way, like something he was resigned to. “Affectionately, we’re called the Reapers. We are a covert intelligence strike force.”

  “Like some James Bond shit?”

  “James Bond is a nancy compared to what we do,” Jack said. “We also don’t work for the government. We’re freelance, of sorts.”

  “Okay,” Axel drew out the word carefully. “Tell me more.”

  “As you know, we work for Nathan Hawk, who is the founder of the Company. There are three arms to this company. The Reapers—that’s us—then there’s the Ghosts, and the people that work for Nathan. We’ll call them Admin.”

  He glanced at Bea. Any emotion she might have been feeling had been carefully sealed away, buried under that cold mask he’d seen when she’d shot that assassin. But when he noticed her looking, she afforded him a light smile, and it changed her completely. As crazy as everything was in that moment, he still wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her tight.

  “You might say that in this grand scheme of things,” Chris paused and crossed his arms. “You’re part of Admin. Though you don’t know about any of this, what we do here… you’re still part of the Company.”

  “So, what is it you do that is so secretive?”

  “We save the world,” Jordan spoke up for the first time. “Regardless of country allegiance, of loyalty to a crown or a presidency… None of that matters. Not to us. We take care of a world that will never remember us.”

  “Oh.” That was all he could think to say. His entire military career was built on loyalty. To the American people, to the Commander-in-Chief, to his military brothers and sisters… What did he have if that was taken away from him?

  “I told you I was a contract assassin before I came here,” Bea spoke. He turned his head to her. The words coming from her were difficult, he could see the way she forced them out. “You’re presented with a choice when you become a Reaper. To die and be reborn, or be ruined for the rest of your life, if you have a rest of your life. I had nothing left to lose, Axel. I chose this life, I chose to be a Reaper. All of us, all four of us, we all went through the process. The dying. The rebirth. None of us are what we were before.”

  “Why tell me this?”

  “You deserve to know the truth,” Chris said. “To be able to trust us. We’re here to protect you.”

  “There’s a woman coming for you,” Bea said. “She’s… well, she’s dangerous. A killer. Through and through. She won’t be stopped. She can’t be coerced or convinced to change course. She will keep coming until her target is dead.”

  “Me.”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because…” she closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, flecks of gold were in her chocolate eyes. “She is the same woman who trained me.”

  ~*~*~

  Axel stared at the woman before him, her dainty fingers drumming nervously on the table. She was waiting for him to lose it. He could see it in her eyes. But really, he didn’t have the energy for
all that.

  In all honesty, learning all this out of this world bullshit about secret teams and covert agencies… he’d always known there was something off about his employees and this really did explain it perfectly.

  “The thing is… we don’t know who hired Genevieve,” Bea said. “She’s contract, so she will come until the contract is fulfilled and even if we found the source, she’d never stop.”

  “The Russians…” he whispered. Of course, that had to be it. The guy Bea had shot had a tattoo he hadn’t registered until he’d seen the video again.

  “What?” Bea frowned.

  “Um… The Russians. It makes more sense now.”

  “It actually doesn’t make sense, Axel,” Jordan said, shaking his head. He turned toward Jack. “How much of that shit did you pump into him?”

  “Enough to knock your idiot ass out,” Jack growled.

  “You scrambled his brains!” Jordan snickered.

  “There’s a camera in my apartment. I mean, it’s in my bag now.” He took a breath. Why was he telling them this? He needed to get out, to move far, far away until he could get that video out to the right people. He wasn’t even sure who the right people were yet.

  “I’m on it,” Jordan said, jumping up. He all but ran from the room.

  “What’s on the camera?” Bea asked.

  “That tattoo that guy you shot had?” Axel started. Bea’s face turned dark and angry. So dark he almost stopped talking. “I’d seen it before. It didn’t click until I watched what’s on that camera again yesterday.”

  Jordan slipped back into the room and plugged the camera into the panel.

  Oh, God, he didn’t want to watch that again. “Wait, don’t play that now.” But as the “Don’t, mother fucker!” burst onto the screen, he had no choice. His chest constricted.

  Bea inhaled sharply. “What is this?”

  “The day I died,” he replied. He dug his palms into his eyes, but he couldn’t stop the sounds of the tape from reaching his ears. As the others watched that nightmare, he concentrated on breathing in and out, keeping the anxiety at bay.

  When things quieted down and that final gun shot signaled the end of his nightmare, no one said anything for a long minute. Axel didn’t even want to think about what they thought of it, to see the pity on their faces. And if they showed no emotion, he was going to walk the fuck right out, because anyone who could watch that and not be affected was not human.