The End of You: A Single Lady Spy Series Novella (The Single Lady Spy Series Book 3)

by Tara Brown

  I wanted to kick his fucking teeth in, but I pretended to be coming up with a price. Servario leaned in, whispering something. The man’s eyes lit up. He nodded and wrapped an arm around Servario. “Do you wish to stay for the evening?”

  Servario glanced at me. “No, we have more business to attend to. I will meet you at the drop spot to get acquainted with the area.”

  “How will you bring them in the country?”

  Servario glanced back at me, realizing he hadn’t told me that. I answered. “Au pairs. Nannies. It works real well. We just need fake families to do the sponsoring and hiring.”

  He nodded. “Let me take care of that paperwork. I will have it sent to Gustavo.”

  He called him by his first name. Even I rarely did that.

  Chapter Four

  The driver and I sat perfectly still, waiting outside of the building where Servario would be met to exchange cash and guns with the worst people in the world. They truly were the monsters your mother warned you about when you were a child. The worst of men that laughed in the faces of victims as they took everything they wanted. The sort of men who respected no one and feared nothing.

  They made my blood boil.

  I sat there, tapping my perfectly sculpted nail against the rim of the window, waiting for him to reappear.

  The driver didn't make a sound. He sat perfectly still.

  I sighed, drawing his face up so he could see me in the rearview mirror. “Shouldn't be too much longer, ma’am.”

  I nodded, pulling out another dose of my amazingly poor Southern accent. “Y’all are awfully polite for such bad people.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “We are bad?”

  It made me smile my response. “Reminds me of home. We always like to say the nicest thing and mean the worst.”

  He chuckled as if he knew what I was talking about. He leaned into the back, I assumed to tell me some funny story about how his people in the Middle East also did this. What I got was a hand up the skirt. I tried smiling and turning him down politely. “Sir, please. Let’s not get into any trouble, huh?” I swatted at his grabby octopus hands and arms but his size won over. He slid into the backseat as if he didn't think Servario was coming back any time soon. I had stashed one thing and one thing only on my body. The only weapon I had. I remembered it from training; a woman’s best place to hide a weapon is her hair. I lifted my hand, pulling the long, thin silver pin I had used to hold my half twist in place. I let him slide his hand down the top of my dress the way Servario had done and stabbed quickly, sliding away from the stream of blood as he collapsed.

  I contemplated leaving the thin, sword-like hairpin where it was, embedded into the side of his head, but it was my only weapon at this point. I dragged it out, feeling his body twitch over mine as he died slowly and his grip lessened.

  I slumped him onto the floor of the backseat with a huge amount of effort, ripping my dress a little but not caring the slightest. I felt his warm body up for a piece, but there was nothing. He was unarmed. I jumped into the front seat, feeling around the car for a gun. Finally, I opened the trunk and sighed when I discovered a cache of weapons. He had grenades, handguns, and assault riffles. My best chance was with some handguns but I grabbed a grenade just in case and tucked it in my cleavage.

  I turned and ran toward the direction I had seen Servario walk when he left with Harry, the man who had been hugging him and calling him Gustavo.

  The streets were busy, even there in the industrial part of town. I hurried past several groups of people. Walking quickly with handguns seemed completely normal. No one even gave me a second look.

  I stopped walking and listened for any sign that they were left or right on the street of buildings. The heat had sweat plastered to my forehead and underarms, and I dearly regretted not wearing underwear.

  A red light inside of a building caught my eye. The outside was sandstone and old looking, like it was charming. But the inside had several red lights glowing through the windows. To me a red light always meant prostitutes so I decided to give it a go and see what happened.

  My heels clicked against the beautiful street as I rounded the side of the building to the back. A single steel door with dark-green paint sat there, looking awfully lonely, considering the larger doors had been at the front of the building. I tucked my guns and pulled my hairpin out and thumped on the door. It hurt my knuckles to do it.

  I rapped again, only harder. The door groaned as a large man opened it, giving me an odd look.

  “I’m here to meet Harry. I have the virgins.”

  He scowled, about to say something but I jumped, driving the hairpin into his temple, right where I’d lodged it in the driver. He staggered back but I pulled him forward and let him fall onto the street. I really hoped I was right as he died and I pulled the hairpin out of his head and crept inside of the building. I closed the door, letting my eyes adjust to the dark and creepy glow of the red lights.

  A sound near the back of the large open warehouse-style building drew my attention that way.

  I slipped my shoes off and tiptoed over the pale stone floor. When I got to the back there was a long hallway with nothing, just silence and lights, thankfully not red ones.

  At the end of the hall there was a door with a sign in a foreign language. I twisted the handle slowly, peeking past the thick door. It was a waiting room with seats made of leather and a basket of magazines, only they were not like the ones my doctor and dentist had. They were porn.

  I closed the door, slipping the hairpin into my hair, trying my best to ignore the human remains on it, and pulled a gun. Ever so softly, I slinked down the hall, searching for the answer to the question of who keeps fucking porn in the magazine basket. The answer came in the second hallway, behind the first door I opened. It was just like the office we had raided and saved the sex slaves last time. Every door I opened revealed a mess, something I didn't want to see so I chose not to. I snuck in the first one, leaving the door ajar and my heart closed. I pulled out my hairpin and stabbed as the frightened eyes of the girl being assaulted closed. She didn't see the horrors I committed just as I overlooked the ones she did.

  I lifted a finger to my lips, a bloody finger. She shook, sobbing and scared. Needle marks scarred her arms and a black bruise marred her face. “Are you American?” She nodded, heaving when she heard me speak. “Just stop crying and follow me. I’ll get you out.”

  “My sister—” Her Southern accent rotted me.

  I nodded. “We’ll find her too. Just shut up, please. We can all cry and drink some scotch on the plane ride home.”

  She stood on filthy feet and shaky legs and followed me from the room. She leaned against the wall in the hallway as I interrupted in room number two. It was much worse, a horror show, but both men were dead within seconds. I dragged the young girl, who was maybe nineteen, from the room. She collapsed into the sobbing arms of the other girl.

  “Is that your sister?”

  She shook her head as silent tears rolled down her cheeks.

  I turned and started toward door number three, scared of what we would find. Each door got worse as we went along. The sex of the slave changed a couple times but the age stayed very close to twenty. It was sick and disturbing but I thanked God for that. I didn’t need to see a small child in the arms of a grown man. There are things you cannot drink away.

  We cleared a whole hallway without any interruptions. That made me suspicious. So I put them all into a room, the sobbing and traumatized mess they were and told them to wait for me—I would come back, no matter what.

  Not a single one believed me.

  I snuck down another corridor until I reached a large area. Men were laughing and playing cards. I could see them through the slight crack in the open doorway. Servario was one of them. Guns sat on the table as they laughed and joked.

  My heart was racing, imagining the worst of him. He wasn't in trouble. He wasn't scared. He was drinking scotch and smoking a cigar. He was fine
and I was a mess.

  I turned, certain he had a reason for staying and laughing while the driver sexually assaulted me and everyone who knew about the place sexually assaulted teenagers down the hall. Whatever that reason was though, I didn't give a flying fuck.

  I stalked back to the room I had left them in, opening the door slowly. One of the boys jumped at me but I caught his weak arm in my hand. I lifted a finger to my lips. They gripped to one another and followed me back to the green door. We slipped out onto the road, each of them crying and sobbing and wanting to kiss the ground but I shook my head. “Kiss American soil when we get home. Right now, we gotta go.” I started to run, a light jog, back to the car with the dead driver. I grabbed my cell phone from my clutch in the backseat and dialed 9-1-1.

  “JESUS CHRIST, EVIE! WHERE THE FUCKING HELL ARE YOU?” Coop was calmer than I imagined he would be.

  “Running back to the Burj Al Arab in Dubai.”

  “OH THANK GOD, YOU’RE STILL HERE! YOU SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME! WHERE ARE YOU, I WILL COME AND GET YOU!”

  “Just stop freaking out. I can meet you on the beach by the hotel. Bring a boat that can take about fifteen teenagers in bad shape.” I clicked the phone off and continued running. I opened my Google Maps and put the hotel into the link. We ran through the side streets and across main intersections. They were dressed in sheets and blankets and not one person stopped for us.

  No one cared about the group of people who were clearly injured. Not that it would have done a fucking bit of good. I would have killed anyone who stopped as it was.

  When we made the beach I almost started crying too. The sand and rocks on my feet were soothing and amazing, like a sign that I might actually make it back alive with the kids. The kids I couldn't turn and look back at. The kids I didn't want to attach to, regardless of the desire I had to do it. I just couldn't. The horrors in my mind, lurking behind my eyes were too fresh. I needed a minute and a drink.

  But I didn't get that. I turned and pointed at the seawall along the beach. “Sit there and talk to no one. Unless I come, you are a shipwrecked group of sailing kids who are awaiting your parent chaperones. That's your story.”

  One of the boys nodded, giving me a look. “Who are you?”

  “Someone who can sneak you in and out of countries without telling anyone. That's all you need to know.” It wasn't even the truth. If I was honest I would have hugged them all and cried about their wounds and made them a tea. That was more who I was. The bitch who killed all those men, that bitch wasn't me. She was a trained assassin who came out when I needed her.

  It had taken us half an hour to get to the beach so I had to pray that Coop would hurry and arrive any second before the most dangerous men in Dubai figured out I had stolen their precious imports.

  I paced the beach, repositioning the guns in the back of my dress and attempting to flush images that were burned into my retinas.

  I forced myself to look at them, all of them. They were a straggly looking bunch of teenagers. It was the horror movie version of an Abercrombie and Fitch commercial. I could have cried but I didn't. I focused on the fact they were alive. Yes, the worst things people can do to you had been done to them, but they were alive.

  The girl I had rescued first was sitting on the far edge. She had a look on her face that told me I hadn’t found her sister in the group. I flinched when I thought about the plan forming in my head but when a boat came along the harbor, I knew I had to go back. I had to. Coop and Luce hit the wharf with intensity, running down the beach. The kids behind me cowered but I ran to the two people racing for us. Jack stayed with the boat, talking on the radio. Luce and Coop both wrapped themselves around me, hugging hard. Luce trembled when she spoke, “Quite the find, Evie.”

  I glanced back at them. “You have to get them out. They need to be taken back to US soil, now. You guys need to go, before they find out they’re gone.”

  Coop gripped to me, trying to get me to look at him. “Are you okay?”

  I shook my head. “No. I will be when they’re gone and there is no chance of them going back. They’re kids.”

  Coop lifted my chin, holding my face and staring deeply into my eyes. “Get in the boat. I will find Servario. Or better yet, we leave him behind and let him sort this out on his own. He has connections enough to get out.”

  I almost nod, almost taking the path of least resistance, but the idea that I left the dead driver in the car made me shake my head. “I have to go back. I sprung a trap and left him there to be blamed for it all.”

  Coop rolled his beautiful blue eyes. “He has hung you out to dry tons of times. You owe him. Let’s go.”

  I stepped back. “But that's not me. I wouldn't ever leave someone behind.” I turned and ran back into the dark toward the kids. “Go to the boat. These are American agents. They will take you back.” I fled, hearing footsteps behind me on the sidewalk when I got back up there. My feet burned and ached from running barefoot but I had endured worse pain than that before. At least I had worn a comfortable dress. I stopped at a busy streetlight, the one we had gotten lucky with on the way to the beach. Luce caught up with me. She huffed next to me, making me feel better about my fitness level as I wheezed and waited for the light.

  “So, what was that?”

  I glanced up at her, marveling at how pretty and yet totally badass she was. “Which part could you possibly be referring to?”

  “The whole ditching Coop, flying away with Servario again, and then deciding to leave Coop on a beach with a bunch of teenagers.”

  I nodded, crossing when the light went. “Right, that part.” I passed a gun toward her when we got to the other side of the street. “Servario told me we were meeting you, Jack, and Coop in Dubai. Then we got here and he said we were meeting you guys in Europe. He had a plan, we went to a club and I killed the driver, and now I’m here.”

  She glanced back at the beach. “You freed those kids from a brothel?”

  I nodded. “And left Servario in there with them, after killing our driver. I left him in a trap that's about to be sprung.”

  I followed the map on my phone backward to the car. When we got to the Mercedes I stopped and looked in the window at the dead man on the floor of the car. It was hard to see him with the bright lights of the city shining in, but when I leaned over and let my shadow cover the window I could see him perfectly.

  Luce leaned over the window with me and I had to admit having her there made me feel better. “Creepy. The car hasn't been towed or noticed. How’d you do it?”

  “Stabbed him in the temple with my hairpin.”

  She snorted, “Nice.”

  We turned and I pointed at the alley. “This way.”

  We hurried along the alley to the large building. I was scared they had discovered their dead guard but he still lay there as dead as before.

  “You are getting very badass, Evie. Very badass,” she muttered as we crept inside and down the long corridor. When we got to the porn room I handed her a handgun.

  “Is that a grenade in your tits?”

  I nodded and snuck around the corner to the long hall with the doors. Each one was still closed, concealing a dead man or woman inside. When we got to the room with the cards and guns, I lifted a finger to my lips and nodded. Men chuckled, sounding more drunk since I was here an hour or so ago.

  I glanced in the doorway, catching a glimpse of three men and Servario. The Harry guy was gone though.

  Luce lifted her gun, sneaking a peek. She took a deep breath and snuck into the room, holding her gun out. I aimed at the man to Servario’s right as she shot the man to the left and the man in the middle. Servario was up, grabbing Luce until he saw her face. He swayed slightly, stumbling a bit. He was drunk. He smiled when he saw me, holding a finger out to my face. “Did you find your way back to young Cooper?”

  I grabbed his hand, feeling a sickening rage coming over me and dragged him from the room. He tried to pull me into him and he tried to be funny. He s
lurred and joked as we stumbled down the hallway. He was too loud and too crazy. Luce cleared the room behind us and the hallway as we walked out. When we stepped out over the dead man, Servario burst out laughing. He pointed at the dead man, laughing and stumbling like a fool. I passed my boob grenade to Luce. “Make it rain.”

  She ran back inside. I hurried away from the building as an explosion ripped into the night.

  When we were past the car with the dead driver in it, we slowed down. Dragging Servario’s drunken ass was crazy. “He’s lost his fucking mind,” Luce mumbled as we staggered down the road.

  He wrapped his arms around us both, holding us and staggering. “You fucking idiots. You fucking stupid women have fucked this up and I can’t afford to lose my credibility on this. So you will stagger with me down the road until we can steal a car and get to the plane. You will shut your fucking mouths, apart from giggling like schoolgirls. Do you get me?”

  We both nodded, afraid of the tone in his voice.

  Chapter Five

  The shaking of the plane and the lack of sleep had made me twitchy. I hadn’t eaten in ages and my strength had waned. When I got inside of the hotel room in Belgium I flopped onto the bed. It wasn't the VIP suite in the Burj Al Arab in Dubai. It was a dumpy hotel that none of us would be caught dead in, in the real world. This wasn't the real world.

  This was a tired place where I had no idea if I would ever recover from. I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

  When I woke a man was sitting in the corner in the armchair. I sat up quickly when I realized I wasn't dreaming and there truly was a man there. The light coming in from the street lamps shone enough for me to see it wasn't the man it should have been.

  “You fucked it up. You were supposed to stay in the car,” Servario muttered.

  I nodded slowly. “I realize that but the driver tried to rape me.”

  “What?”

  “You didn't notice the dead driver in the car we walked past?”

  “You killed the driver?” His tone dropped off like he was cluing in. He got up, climbing onto the bed. “I assumed my reputation would buy you safety there. I didn't know. I left you in the car like a possession, to show them who you were to me.”