by J. A. Huss
“You’re getting all worked up now, Harp. Stop. I brought you up here to tell you about my do-over. So just relax and enjoy the story.”
I take a deep breath to calm myself down. I realize this is an overreaction, but as usual, I’m helpless to stop it. “I need those pills,” I say more to myself than James.
“Harper,” he says sternly. Stern enough to make me jump a little. “I do not want to hear about those fucking pills again. I’m not fucking around, either. You are not to take them, do you understand me?”
“I don’t even have any, so it’s not like I could.”
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I reply back. I turn around enough to see his face and he’s genuinely angry. “Sorry, it was a joke. Just a stupid throwaway comment. That’s all.”
“He controls you with those pills, Harper.”
“Who?”
“Your father, who else? He’s the one who had them prescribed for you. He’s the one who encouraged them.”
“To control the panic attacks, and he’s not even around, so just drop it.”
“Promise me—”
“I promise, Jesus. Just tell me your do-over.” I cross my arms, angry at my mood swings. And his. We are all over the place today.
“Sorry,” he says with a kiss to my head. “Sorry, I just know how hard it was to wean you off them, so I don’t want you falling back on old habits.”
“When would I even have the chance?”
“OK, fine. Are you ready?”
I turn so I’m lying sideways on his chest and then I close my eyes and enjoy his scent. His strong arms around me. His gentle caress up and down my arm. “You’d come see me that day we turned Six and you’d say yes to my father’s offer.” I chuckle a little as I look up at him. And then stop. Because he’s frowning at me.
“No, Harper. I can’t say yes to that dirty offer. That was the only good thing I’ve ever done in my life. You had a good childhood, right?”
“I did,” I admit.
“So taking you away back then would ruin you. All that you are today, all the things I love about you, both good and bad, are all because of those twelve years we were apart.”
“Then how is that a do-over?” I ask, confused. Everything today is so confusing.
“It’s a do-over because I’d do it all over again.” My tears are back again. He presses his face into my neck and hugs me tight. “I love you for who you are. I love you right now, everything about you. I want you the way you are. I wouldn’t change a thing, Lionfish. Not a damn thing. I love the way I met you. I love that stupid ballerina bathing suit you were wearing. I love that you were trying to bury me with a pail and a shovel and you drew me your secret in the sand—”
“You knew?”
“No, baby. I didn’t know until you told me your name under the pier. It took me twelve years to figure that out.” He laughs. “But I want you to know, I thought about you every night. No matter where I was in the world. No matter what I was doing. And even though I had to tell your father no, my answer was always yes.” He turns my head and kisses me gently on the lips. “My answer was always yes. You are mine, Harper. And you have always been mine. And if I tell you to walk through fire?”
“I’m fireproof,” I whisper back.
“Do you believe me?”
I shake my head no. “I’m not fireproof. I’m a sad mess.”
“You’re bulletproof. You cannot be touched, baby. You can’t. Because I’m your shield. That’s all you need to know. That’s the only thing you need to know. Just—” He pushes on me until I turn around enough to look him in his eyes. “Just believe in me.”
“You’ll come back for me?” He smiles and my heart breaks. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
“No,” he says too quickly. “I’m not leaving. Not for good anyway. I’m gonna go get what I need and I’ll be right back. And then we’re gonna go watch the damn sunset. If it’s the last thing I do, I will get another sunset with you.”
And then his chest rumbles with a laugh and I feel like the saddest person on earth when he tilts me forward, slips out from behind me, and walks out to do his job.
Chapter Thirty-Three - Harper
A few minutes later a door slams two floors below me. A few minutes after that, Sasha appears on the terrace. “Harper? Are you OK?”
“Do you trust him?” I ask her as I stare out at the Pacific Ocean. The view he has, holy mother, it’s perfect.
Sasha lets off an uncomfortable laugh. “Well, he’s not very nice most of the time. And he’s killed a lot of people compared to me. So I guess not. But—”
I look over at her and then point to the chair next to my chaise longue. “But what?”
“But he’s good underneath, I think. Well…” She backtracks as she takes a seat. “Maybe not good. But I think he’s… trying really hard.” She throws her arms up in the air. “I think he wants what’s best.”
“Best for who?”
“You, I guess. Him. Maybe even me, I’m not sure about that. But he’s nicer than Merc. Not as nice as Ford, but he could be a lot worse.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure could be worse is good enough to trust him with my life.”
“Why are you in danger anyway? I don’t get it. Why does everyone want you? Why don’t they just leave you alone?”
“Because when I ran away last summer I took something very valuable.”
“Like… gold?” she asks.
I laugh, not to make fun of her innocence, but to appreciate it. It’s been a long time since I felt that innocent. Even though people think I’m this weak little girl, I’m not blind to what’s happening. I just bottle it all up inside. That’s where my panic comes from. That’s why my heart races. That’s why I need those pills. Because those pills make me forget what’s real. Those pills let me live in the fantasy everyone sees on the outside. But on the inside—“No, not gold. A drive with important things on it.”
“Oh,” she says. But her face is scrunched up in confusion. “Does it have money things on it? Because my dad says money is what makes people do bad things. Well…” She stops to think about this. “He used to say that.”
The fact that she can say that without crying almost makes me want to cry. She’s like the rest of us Company kids. She’s learned to live with the bad. She’s learned to bottle it up, or at the very least, keep it to herself until she can release it. She’s learned to deal. “No, not money. Names. Names of families in the Company and what they paid to be who they are in the organization. That determines who they are in the outside world.”
“Oh,” she says again. But this time she gets it. “I know it’s wrong. The stuff with the kids and the promises. It’s wrong to do it.”
“It’s very wrong. But that’s not all they do, Sasha. If this was just about prearranged marriages, well, there might be some sort of public outcry, but no one would care enough about a few girls who are given well-to-do husbands when they turn eighteen to make any kind of difference.”
“Oh.”
This time it’s clear that she’d rather not talk about it, but my lips are loose and I have such a need to tell someone. “They control everything. All the largest governments. All the critical infrastructure. Power companies. Water. Farmers. Armies.” I look over at her. “Hospitals, and airports, and medicine.”
She tries to swallow down her question, but it comes out anyway. “Do they do bad things with that control?”
“Sometimes. They killed your father. James says they killed our mothers. Those are bad things. But I don’t think they do the really bad things just yet.”
“Yet?” Her word echoes mine.
I look at her intently. She’s so strong for being so young. She’s like me, only much, much better at it. “There are worse things they can do with that control, Sasha. They could…” I let out a deep breath. “They could change the world with it. And not in a good way.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes and then
I stand up and turn to her. “I have to walk across the alley to get something in my apartment. Do you want to come with me?”
“Should I get my gun?”
“Yes, Sasha,” I say calmly. “You better get your gun.”
Chapter Thirty-Four - Harper
Since the day I met James under the pier, nothing has ever happened the way I thought it would. For instance, my apartment is not trashed. It looks exactly the way I left it. Of course, there’s not much to trash if people did break in. But the door jamb seems fine so I’m gonna assume that the people who came here looking for what I might’ve left behind were either very considerate… or they never showed up.
Reluctantly I admit that no one came looking.
And that stings a little. Because what the fuck? My father knew where I was all year and he couldn’t even be bothered to show up? It makes me angry. Or maybe it hurts. I’m not sure. But I am sure that it doesn’t feel good to run away for a year and not even the most valuable stolen property on earth can make him care.
I want to scream. But Sasha is looking at me weird as I stand in the middle of my puny living room. “What?” I ask her.
“Why are we here?”
“Just check the bathroom and the closets to make sure no one is hiding.”
She raises an eyebrow at me but she walks off to do that.
I grab a butter knife and a mini flathead screwdriver from my silverware drawer and then walk over to my one chair and tip it over. The floor in here is uneven, severely in places, so two of the legs have nickels glued to them to keep the chair from rocking. I pry them off with the knife and take them over to the kitchen counter and turn the light on so I can see them better.
One nickel is real.
One nickel is not.
Well, that’s not true, they are both real. But one is special.
“What’re you doing?” Sasha asks as she comes out of the bathroom.
I pick up the special nickel and then I stick the mini precision screwdriver in a groove that runs the diameter of the smooth metal on the side. There’s a barely audible click as the two halves of the nickel separate, and then I use my fingernail to split them apart.
I smile when the contents are revealed.
“What’s that?” Sasha asks.
“That important something I took when I ran away last year.” James was lying. Or he really was talking about some other files. Because these files are right here. This is the same micro-SD card Nick left hidden inside the USB flashdrive I took from the locker back in the UCLA library. I know this because he knew I wouldn’t be able to read the card, so he put a tiny red dot on one corner of the label so I could identify it.
The tiny red dot is right where it’s supposed to be.
They never found it.
I breathe out a huge sigh of relief. “This, Sasha”—I turn to look at her amazed face—“this has enough information on it to bring the whole Company down.”
“How did you get it?”
“I didn’t. Nick got it.”
“He’s smart, huh?”
“Very. But he’s also hot, you know what that means?”
She nods yes. She knows, she grew up with the hunters. I only grew up with one hunter, but he and I were inseparable. Even though we were not together on his missions, he told me about every single job. He told me every single detail. He told me every weakness he ever saw in every person he ever met on a job. Hot means he’s got a hit on him. Hot means he might already be dead.
So me and this little card might be the last chance there is to set things right.
Nick never mentioned James. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. If all the assassins are dead except James, Nick, and that Merc guy—and James was the one responsible for those deaths—and my father had me kill all his guests at my birthday party last year using James’ calling card, then James is being set up.
“I can save him,” I tell Sasha. “I can get James out of the Company, and probably you too.”
“How?” she says with an incredulous snort.
“You help me find Nick and we can give this to him. If I can find Nick, then he can make it all OK. He’s got a plan, Sasha. We need to find Nick. And you said he came to see you. Lots of times.”
Her face hardeners. “I’m not telling you what he told me. He said to tell no one.”
“I’m his sister! Besides, you already told me he was there, what’s the difference?”
She shakes her head. “Big difference. You’re just a girl. You can’t even shoot. You can’t even drive. How would we get there? We should give it to James.”
“I really like James, Sasha, but I do not trust James. I don’t think he’s on our side. Yet. He needs me to convince him to leave. I want to convince him to leave with me. And he won’t do that unless Nick and I can finish what we started. James is still a wild card, he’s not on the right side.”
Her eyes squint down and her gun comes up. It points right at my chest as she steps back a few paces. “You’re wrong. I’m on his side, so if you’re not, then it’s you who’s on the wrong side.”
Chapter Thirty-Five - James
I watch her from the roof. It surprises me that Sasha goes along. Then again. Girls. They have to do everything in pairs. That includes pissing and obtaining stolen micro-SD cards.
That’s the only drive the files could be on. I’ve ruled out all other options. I’ve known Harper’s had them since last summer when the Company briefed the assassins after she ran. She was a high-priority target. Not my target. I was busy with Merc last summer. I was busy with Tony last summer. I was not even remotely interested in hunting down the Admiral’s daughter and finding those files.
But Nick changed everything.
Nick found me in Colorado last March right after I killed my brother. The second I got out of my truck at the Burlington airport so Harrison could take me back to the OC after Tony’s hit, he was there. He called me James. He talked rational. He made his case. He made an offer. And I wouldn’t even have to kill anyone.
All I had to do was keep Harper alive until they made their move.
The Admiral was already sending me to the beach to take the edge off, so it was set. No changes had to be made until summer, and then he’d be in contact with Merc, who would be in contact with me.
We set up the secretary, we set up the fake lawyer names, we agreed to meet in July.
But this week something happened.
Sasha happened.
That’s when I lost control. Sasha.
And that kidnapping. Harper said the message she found on the phone at my desert house was from Nick, but it wasn’t Nick. The assassin Harper killed wasn’t working for Nick.
But the only thing on my mind right now are the files. I need those files to make a deal. Not a deal with Nick. Or Merc. Or the Admiral.
My deal.
A micro-SD card can be concealed in just about anything. It’s barely the size of a fingernail. The cursory checks were done early. Every time she left the apartment I searched. I looked every-fucking-where. A futile assignment because if someone wants to hide one of these micro cards, that fucker is gonna be hidden and there’s just no way around it. They are just too small.
Add in the fact that the files could’ve been transferred to paper, or flash drive, or hard drive and you can see the Company’s problem. Hell, who’s to say there aren’t hundreds of copies of these files floating around? Who’s to say Nick didn’t replicate the fuck out of them and spread them around.
I don’t think he did, mostly because he told me he didn’t when we first started working together. But also because it decreases his power if someone else gets a hold of them.
This was always my plan. I might’ve forgotten it for a while as my mind decompressed from the last mission, but this was always my plan. I was never here for Harper, I was always here for the files. Not officially. Sure, the Admiral knew he could count on me to keep an eye out for her if he put her in front of me.
And I’m sure that’s why I was sent to the beach. I have kept an eye on her because of Nick’s job, but the Admiral is not pulling my strings. Not this time. Not ever again. He set me up.
I might be a lot of things, but forgiving is not one of them.
My mission with the Admiral started back on Six Day with Harper playing on the beach. We can change the world, he said. We can make it a better place, he promised. You can have my daughter and leave this the life of a killer behind, was his deal. The deal I earned. She’s mine. No matter what happens now, Harper Tate belongs to me.
But the one thing he never counted on was me walking away. I refused his offer back then, not because I’m a good guy, but because I’m a bad one. I am a killer. I was born to do this job. And while I do fully plan on keeping my prize, Harper is not enough to filter the cold blood running through my veins.
Sure, it took the Admiral ten years to figure me out. But the year Harper turned sixteen and I was not sent a plane ticket, he had me. She was my addiction by then. Regardless of how I claimed to loathe those birthdays, he finally figured out what motivated me.
His daughter and killing.
All the assassins had to be eliminated if he wanted to restructure the Company. And who better to kill Company assassins but another Company assassin on the inside? I did not lie to Harper. Nick, he was never on the list. Merc was, but I made sure he got away.
I was never on the list either, obviously, but you can bet your ass, I’m on someone’s list now. Sasha’s maybe. And I might even deserve to be on her list. Because that’s how it works, right? You get one guy to do all your dirty work and then you have only one witness to take care of when he’s done.
Him.
Me.
I’m the last assassin; I’m the last to die.
But Merc is still alive.
And Nick is still alive.
And Sasha is still alive.
And Harper is still alive.
There’s more than us still alive too. That kidnapper yesterday morning, for one.