“How about this? Why don’t we chat for a few minutes? I have a few things I’d like to get off my chest before I live out the rest of my life in a cage. You feel me?”
Nodding warily, they stepped closer. Wenbo still wielded her tranq gun and Jarred now had a knife in each hand.
“Have a seat. I had to look for a half hour to find something that would hold your weight without caving in,” I told Wenbo in a polite tone.
“What did you just say?” she demanded, her cheeks coloring in fury.
Ahhhh, my buddy was a narcissist on top of being certifiable. Awesome.
“Nothing,” I said. “Please sit.”
They did.
“So what would you say if I told you I’d hacked into your precious data and have a copy of it?” I asked. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
The silence was golden and their slightly open mouths a true delight.
“Impossible,” Jarred mumbled. “Impossible.”
“Right,” I agreed, nodding. “Definitely impossible. But just for shits and giggles, let’s pretend that my hacking skills are so damned good that I was able to weasel my way in there and retrieve all twenty-two years and seven months of your research?”
“Liar,” Wenbo growled, lifting her gun and aiming it at my face.
“It will take exactly thirty seconds after the tranq hits me for me to go down. In that time, I can press the remote in my pocket, sending your precious, murderous, fucked-up research to the director of the CIA. It will also be sent to a really good buddy of mine who would just love to send it to every single news organization in the civilized world… hypothetically speaking, of course.”
“What do you want?” Wenbo shrieked, standing up and backing slightly away from me. “Money? Name your price.”
“Such a silly thing,” I said, shaking my head sadly. I wasn’t about to share that I’d already sent the info to the CIA—didn’t think that would go over too well. “What would you say, again hypothetically speaking… Or, since you two are so brilliant, I’ll change up the terminology to keep it interesting—theoretically or speculatively speaking, if all of your accounts, even the offshore accounts, the six that you illegally funneled CIA funds into and the three in the Caymans, were suddenly drained and donated to children’s charities?”
“She’s bluffing,” Jarred insisted, looking incredibly unsure of his statement.
“How does she know about the Caymans and the money we stole from the CIA?” she hissed, pointing the gun at Jarred. “You must have told her.”
“I told her nothing, you bitch! You had to have slipped up,” he shouted.
God, would they take care of each other while I got to sit back and watch? Nothing would make me happier.
“Prove it,” Wenbo grunted, re-aiming the gun at me.
“Prove what?” I asked with mocking innocence. “It’s all conjecture.”
She began to pace, waving the gun erratically. Easing up to a standing position, I made sure to stay out of the line of fire. More than likely she’d never even shot it before.
“Never should have gone with someone so smart,” she said, talking to herself and pulling on her bleached hair with her free hand. “This is all your fault,” she screamed at a seething Jarred.
“She’s the only one who survived. How is this my fault? It’s your fault,” he growled. “And I still say she’s bluffing.”
“Definitely,” I said. “Definitely bluffing. Nine-four-seven, A-G-V, three-three-two, F-J-O.”
“You gave her the code?” she screamed at Jarred, aiming the gun at his head in irate fury. “You stupid fuck!”
She fired with shaking hands but missed her soulless partner in crime by a long shot. Wenbo’s skills with weapons sucked. Clearly, her forte was murder in more controlled settings.
However, Jarred’s expertise definitely went beyond the operating room.
Without a sound, Jarred jerked his body to the left to miss her next wild shot and threw both knives at Wenbo. His aim was as impeccable as his surgical skill. Both knives flew and embedded themselves into Wenbo’s eye sockets. The sound was horrifying and her scream of shocked agony was one I would never forget.
She dropped to the ground with a thud and began to writhe on the filthy dirt floor as she bled out. For ten minutes, Jarred stared at her dispassionately while the blood gushed from her head. Yanking the knives out was fruitless as he’d implanted them with the skill of one who knew how to kill. As Wenbo’s body stopped jerking and the life drained out of her, he calmly turned his attention back to me.
“Neither one of us is going to leave this place alive—and that’s not conjecture,” he said flatly. “Wasn’t that your plan?”
“What’s my name?” I asked him.
“What?” He squinted at me in confusion.
“My name. Do you know my name?”
He paused and tilted his head. “Why would I know your name?” he asked, completely perplexed. “You’re not a person—you’re number two hundred and ninety-nine. You were a means to an end, and now you’ve destroyed that. Are you happy?” he shouted, showing his crazy.
I really hoped he was out of knives.
“You win, number two hundred and ninety-nine. Nothing you’ve said was even remotely hypothetical. Never should have used one so smart. I was hoping two hundred and sixty would live, but he was worthless and just up and died one day. I had my hopes pinned on him.”
“He was a person, a human being,” I said, pulling a pistol from the back holster I was wearing. “He had a name. All of us had names.”
“Irrelevant,” he said, shaking his head and chuckling. “All of you were nothing. I could have made you into something special, but you ruined it.”
“No, you’ve got it wrong. You ruined me. You killed… God, I don’t even know how many others.”
“Three hundred and thirteen,” he said with a smile that was so disconnected, I felt physically ill. “Two died this morning after we put them into the pit with a lion. Such a shame. Such a mess. So much wasted energy, money and time on them. Just terrible.”
“And I always thought I was the monster,” I whispered, trying to discern if there was even a speck of humanity in this man.
If there was I couldn’t find it.
“If you’re the monster—and trust me, you are—I’m Dr. Frankenstein and she was Igor,” Jarred said, pointing at the dead body of the woman who had been his partner in crimes so heinous, they were almost unspeakable.
He began to laugh at his horrendous analogy. His pasty face turned a mottled red and his bellowing grunts of joy overcame him. Don Jarred rocked back and forth in hysterics and then staggered over to the body of Sabrina Wenbo. He removed his knives from the eye sockets of her slain body, cleaned them off with her dress and slid them back into their sheaths.
My hatred for him was so intense, I was shaking. Nothing was funny about any of this. I knew what I had to do, but as much as I wanted the man dead for what he had done to me and so many others, I didn’t know if I could do it. I was trained to kill and I despised it. He was a murderer. I wasn’t.
Or was I?
I had the poison, but that’s what I was going to use for myself. I felt like I was a million years old. I was going to hell if it existed. What was one more death on my tally sheet? I’d offed three men yesterday and two when I’d escaped my prison.
As I raised the gun and aimed, Don Jarred held his hand up and grinned at me vacantly.
“No, no,” he said. “Let me. Much more fitting.”
In a flash of movement so quick I almost could follow it, he pulled a pistol from his holster, put it in his mouth and fired. The back of his head blew right off and splattered all over the dead Wenbo. He fell with a thud on top of her.
I turned away and vomited.
This was not what I had planned. I dry heaved until my stomach was empty.
I’d had no intention of recording myself drinking the poison. I never wanted Carter to have a chance t
o see that. But I’d sent the proof to the CIA to ruin Wenbo and Jarred and, in doing so, I’d made myself one of the biggest targets in the world. My death needed to be recorded as well.
I knew I would have a few seconds to hit the remote before the poison incapacitated me. It was all I needed.
Sitting down on the ground, I let my head fall to my hands. How had my life turned out this way? Visions of my lonely childhood raced through my brain. Thoughts of my uncle Tim and how he laughed at my terrible jokes clouded my sad walk down memory lane, and I smiled. If there was an afterlife, maybe I would see him again. My mother’s cold smile and my father’s constant absence had made me indifferent to trusting others, but my uncle had cracked a hole in the walls I’d put up. And then Carter Wylde had knocked my shield wide open.
My only regret in leaving this world was that I would never see the man again who made me feel beautiful—inside and out. He was my Beauty and I was his Beast. Only fairy tales had happy endings—not real life. The von Trapps had made it over the mountain, but my mountain was too high to scale.
Inhaling deeply and slowly letting the breath hiss out through my teeth, I knew it was now or never. The longer I waited, the more I might be able to convince myself to take a stab at my mountain.
Uncapping the poison and staring at the deadly amber liquid in the vial, I knew there was one more thing left to say. Dead people didn’t talk. I wasn’t dead yet. “I meant to make you a cake,” I said to the camera. “I’m a really good baker—but I told you that already. I love you and I’m sorry. So sorry.”
“I want chocolate. I want a fucking chocolate cake with chocolate icing. If you even take a sip of that shit, I will take you over my knee and spank the living hell out of you. Not really into that crap, but I’m going there.”
Carter’s voice boomed through the empty warehouse, and I dropped the vial in utter shock at his arrival.
“How did you…?” I started, only to be cut off by a pissed-off kiss so passionate it made me dizzy.
“Sean chipped you, thank fucking God. I am so mad at you,” he snarled, taking in the carnage in the vast room and pausing in surprise for a moment. “Did you do this?”
“Umm… no. They kind of offed each other. Made it really easy on me,” I told him, unable to meet his furious gaze.
“Holy shit,” Caleb yelled, entering the warehouse at a clip. “This is a fucking mess. Great work.”
“I didn’t do it,” I told him as I saw Nancy enter behind him.
“I call bullshit,” Caleb said.
“No. Seriously, I didn’t do it. They did it.”
Nancy checked the pulses of both of them. It was slightly unnecessary since Jarred was missing most of his head, but Nancy was thorough. “Are those my clothes?” she asked with a smirk and a raised brow.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I borrowed them.”
“You mean stole?” Carter asked, not letting me off the hook for a second.
“Borrowed,” I corrected him with a tiny giggle even though we were standing in a warehouse with two dead bodies. “And I left cash in her closet. And umm… while we’re—or rather, I’m coming clean… Caleb, I also borrowed some of your cameras. All of this was recorded.”
“Where’d you send it?” he asked, wildly impressed.
“Nowhere yet,” I admitted. “It’s set to remotely go to Sean and the head of the CIA. Should I send it?”
“No, not yet,” Carter said. “Caleb, pull down the cameras and let’s take them with us.”
“Roger that,” he said—and then froze.
We all froze.
Just when we’d thought we were home free, the shit show increased to epic proportions.
Thirty men in black stormed the warehouse. They were armed and surrounded us with military precision.
“Drop your weapons. Hands in the air,” one of them yelled.
Following orders, we did what they said.
“Motherfucker,” Carter muttered. “Could this day get any worse?”
“Yep,” Nancy whispered. “Here comes the big guy.”
“Is that the head of CIA special ops?” I whispered as my eyes went wide.
“Fuck,” Caleb said.
Well, at least I knew Carter loved me, and I was sure he knew I loved him. I was glad for that, because I was pretty sure none of us were leaving the warehouse alive.
“What’s your middle name?” I whispered to Carter.
Biting down on his lip, he tried not to laugh. “Are you serious?” he whispered back, keeping his eyes on the enemy.
“Yes,” I told him. “I really want to know.”
He shook his head and shrugged. “Norbert.”
I was silent. It was worse than Norman. It took all I had not to giggle in the face of the sure death we were facing.
“You happy?” he hissed between his teeth.
“I am. I love you, Carter Norbert Wylde.”
“I love you more, Georgia from Georgia. I still want my cake.”
“Umm… okay,” I said. “Not sure I can make that happen.”
“Oh, I am,” Carter said with a grin and a wink.
He was nuts. I was nuts. Nancy was nuts and Caleb was definitely nuts, but we were outgunned and outmanned. Sadly, Carter was dead wrong.
But if a miracle occurred and we got out of this mess, Carter could have a cake every day for the rest of his life.
13
Georgia
I only knew him as The Reaper. I’d never lain eyes on the man, but if it was who Nancy thought it was, we were in a shit ton of trouble. He was huge, even larger than Carter and Caleb, who were by no means small men. He was too harsh to be considered good-looking, but there was something scarily arresting about The Reaper. The shit load of trouble we were in increased with his very presence. Not to mention we were completely surrounded by armed lackeys ready to fire on command.
“Beauty,” The Reaper said, acknowledging Carter.
“Asshole,” Carter said in return greeting.
Confusion didn’t begin to define what was going through my head. Carter knew The Reaper? Was that why he thought I was going to be able to make him a cake? I was pretty sure that being acquainted with The Reaper wasn’t going to get us out of this deadly mess.
“Seems to me we have a little problem here,” the man said, eyeing the four of us. “Which one of you sent the information on the research to the CIA?”
“I did,” I said, stepping forward. “No one else had anything to do with it. I’m the one you want.”
“Bullshit,” Carter hissed, pulling me back against his body. “State your case, Reaper. But know if any of us die tonight, your ass will be dragged.”
“Interesting,” The Reaper said, turning his attention to Nancy. “And how are you, Nancy?”
His voice was smooth, and Nancy’s color heightened. She raised a brow and lifted her middle finger. What in the ever-loving hell was happening here?
“It’s nice to see you haven’t changed,” he said.
“And it’s pathetic to see you haven’t changed, either,” she replied rudely.
There must be a hell of a backstory that was missing right now, but I had a plan. It was a little flimsy, but…
“The information wasn’t just sent to you,” I said.
“I assumed that,” The Reaper replied, tearing his gaze from Nancy. “I’d very much like to know who else you sent it to.”
“And I’d very much like to shove your head up your ass,” Carter said.
The Reaper’s muttered curse didn’t really bode well for us getting out of here alive. Carter needed to be quiet.
“That’s information you’ll have to kill me to get,” I told the huge, imposing man. “However, the information is set to go to every major news outlet in the world if anything happens to any of the four of us. It’s damning, and will bring the CIA to its knees. You’re also implicated in the recordings I made this evening.”
Holding the remote out in my hand, I pressed the button
and smiled.
The Reaper’s eyes narrowed to slits. Caleb chuckled softly. Nancy smiled. However, Carter laughed—loud.
“That will be on the CIA main board shortly, along with several other locations,” I informed him.
The Reaper inhaled sharply and then smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile at all.
“What do you want?” he asked, staring daggers at me.
The idea had a few holes, but it wasn’t half bad. “I want to die in an explosion tonight,” I said flatly. “Carter Wylde and I will die in the explosion. After tonight, we will be erased from every fucking dossier you have—forever.”
“No money?” he inquired tightly.
“No money.”
“And what explosion are you referring to?” The Reaper asked.
I glanced over at Caleb, who nodded and grinned.
“The one that will be set after you and your men leave. The two bodies that will be found are the bodies of Carter Wylde and myself,” I explained, nodding at the dead bodies of Wenbo and Jarred.
“And how am I supposed to explain the disappearance of Wenbo and Jarred to the public?”
“Not my problem. That’s for you to figure out. I mean you are The Reaper, aren’t you?”
“You’re certainly a piece of work,” he said dryly,
“She’s mine,” Carter said with such pride, I laughed. “She’s my piece of work.”
I’d been through unspeakable things, but this day took the cake for surreal.
Nodding and giving a silent command to his men, The Reaper continued to stare at me. His men filed out of the warehouse just as quickly as they’d stormed it.
“Are you really an animal?” he asked.
“I don’t exist,” I shot back. “What I may or may not be is of no interest to you.”
His laugh almost made him attractive, but he was too terrifying to really be handsome.
“You will be living on thin ice for the rest of your lives,” The Reaper pointed out once we were alone with him.
“Been doing that for a decade,” Carter said. “Not a problem. Now on the other hand, if that ice gets too thin, you’re going to be the one with the problem. You feel me?” he inquired, using my phrase.
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