“And two closets overflowing with clothes, with an emphasis on black and covert. But what we don’t have are my potions, as I call them.” She lifts her finger to show me the film she keeps there to distribute her poisons. “This is the application with no chemical compound. Until I have some lab time, I’m without my magic.”
“You have me instead, sweetheart, and you don’t know it yet, but I’m a good friend to make and a bad enemy to have. And right now, I’m the closest thing to a friend you have.”
“I don’t have friends,” she says.
So, she’ll fuck me but not friend me, I think. Smart girl. Because friends make easy enemies and an orgasm isn’t worth dying for.
*
Twenty minutes later, we’re both in black jeans and T-shirts, with black leather jackets, allowing us to be discreetly well-armed. We opt for the stairs to avoid cameras catching our departure, exit the stairwell at the rear of the lobby, and make our way to a side door to avoid the staff. Exiting the building, we step onto the now sparsely populated Manhattan sidewalk, which would be considered busy in any other city. “A cab driver means a witness,” I say, motioning down a side street. “There’s a parking lot this way. We’ll grab a car there.”
“There are cameras at that lot,” she says. “Two streets down, to the right, there’s another option. We’ll find a car in that lot without a camera capturing us.”
I glance over at her. “You know the city, too.”
Her lips hint at a smile as she says, “Well enough,” in a reply that gives me no more than I’d given her with the same question, proving she gives back as good as she gets.
“Well enough indeed,” I say, finding this woman more interesting by the moment.
I motion us forward and we have a natural chemistry, falling into even steps together as we cross the street and make our way to the location she’s indicated, to find the street light above the lot burned out. “We couldn’t have planned that better,” I murmur as I scan the cars and choose one.
Ten minutes later, we’re out of the lot and on the road in a gray Ford Focus, only twenty minutes from the warehouse.
I exit to the highway, and cut Amanda a look. “How many times have you been married?” I ask, still sizing up the woman that is now my partner, for an indefinite period of time.
“In the real world,” she says. “Never even close and I have no interest. This life we live just isn’t a life that supports marriage. In a fictional world, a half-dozen times.”
“Of those, how many of those did you fuck?”
She laughs, not even slightly offended. “Wondering how you stack up?”
“Assessing how you operate.”
“A girl doesn’t kiss and tell,” she says, “only sadly, since a girl does have needs, there’s nothing to tell. I scare everyone off, except apparently, you.”
“Considering you tried to scare me off with all your poison talk, I think you like it that way.”
“I do, actually,” she says, offering nothing more.
“Why?” I ask, wondering if there is something other than that blink when she kills that she’s hiding.
“Alone is safer,” she says without hesitation, “and for the most part, beyond my first year in the field, that’s how I work. The agency picks and chooses where my skills will come in handy, then drops me in and pulls me out.” She shifts the topic to me. “What about you? How many marriages?”
“I’m not the commitment kind of guy, either.” I glance over at her and then back at the road. “On or off the job. Most of the time, there’s a specific need, or needs, that I can satisfy, and like you, I’m dropped in and pulled out.”
“And what exactly are the needs they call you for?”
I could tell her that I’m really damn good at killing people, but that would invite questions that I’m simply not willing to answer. “I don’t blink,” I say. “I’ll do what other people won’t.”
“Translation,” she replies, “I’m not getting a real answer. I can accept that, but on a side note, it’s interesting to me that two people who work alone, and on short term jobs, are now paired together for what seems like a job that won’t be fast.”
Yes it is, I think, as she adds, “They’re sacrificing the two of us in the field, doing what we do, for this. It feels like there is something we don’t know.”
She’s right. It does, but I’m not sure if it’s about Ming or her. For now, I’m focused on Ming. “Let’s talk about the building setup.” I reach in my pocket and hand her a map of the property I printed before we left the apartment. “There’s no alarm system, which leads me to believe there’s nothing to find.”
“Sometimes people leave evidence they don’t even realize they’re leaving,” she says. “And let’s hope that’s the case.”
We spend the next ten minutes talking through the floor plan and possible challenges before we reach our exit, but I take a necessary detour before heading to the warehouse. I cut us to the side road, and turn into a burger joint. “We’re a mile from the warehouse and I don’t know about you, but I need food.”
“Oh God, yes,” she says. “I don’t even remember the last time I ate.”
I pull us to the drive-thru and roll down the window. “Any idea what you want?”
“A number one with a diet whatever they have.”
I lean out of the window. “Hello?”
“Can I take your order?”
“A number one with a diet whatever you have, a number two with a coke, two cheeseburgers, and a side of fries.” I wait for the total and roll us forward.
“Are we feeding an army or what?” Amanda asks.
“I once survived on Tic Tacs and water for five straight days. I eat when I can eat.”
“If you eat all of that, you’re not going to be able to move, and I’ll have to save you if anything goes wrong at the warehouse.”
I laugh. “Sweetheart, I haven’t needed saving since I was thirteen and Betty Jo Miller broke my heart by kissing Tommy Arnold.” I stop at the pick-up window and pull out that black AmEx I’ve just acquired, handing it to the attendant. Bags of burgers and fries quickly follow, and it’s not long before we’re parked and eating.
Amanda sighs with bliss. “God, I love fries,” she says. “They aren’t good for me, which is why I don’t eat them often, but they sure are good.”
“Nothing good is good for you,” I say, finishing off burger number two as she sets her empty bag in the back seat.
“Does that include you?” she asks.
I toss a wrapper into my bag and turn to face her. “For the record, Mrs. Jones,” I say, “good is not the description a man wants used about him after being naked with a woman. It’s only slightly better than fine, which is the ultimate punch in the balls. And I am never just good or just fine and you didn’t moan like you were feeling just good or just fine.”
Her lips curve. “Because you have a comparison to how I’ve moaned when it’s great?”
“Not yet. But every husband should know how, when, and what, makes his wife moan, so I will. And as for me being bad for you. I am. Consider this your one and only warning.”
“I didn’t need a warning. I know you’re dangerous.”
I narrow my eyes on her. “And you like that.”
“I understand it and therefore it’s comfortable.”
“Let’s see how comfortable you are when you get to know me.”
“I don’t scare off any easier than you do.”
I study her a moment, and find that some part of me hopes that’s true, but there are few who could stomach just who and what I am, including a Poison Princess. I turn away and put us in gear, before glancing over at her. “There’s nothing easy about me, Mrs. Jones,” I assure her before backing us up and driving to the main street, and the instant I turn us onto the road, the mood in the car shifts. Personal is gone, my mind shifting to the mission.
The streets are dark and empty as we enter the warehouse district, industr
ial buildings stretching left and right, the parking areas for each operation we pass, empty. I slow our speed as we close in on the Davenports’ warehouse, giving Amanda and I both time to scout for trouble. “It looks quiet,” she murmurs. “But looks can be deceiving.”
Another smartly spoken statement that lends to a slow build of confidence in her as a partner. I drive us around to the side of the building, and continue on to the rear, parking us between two of six Dumpsters lining the building. Killing the engine, I pull on a black beanie low onto my brow, disguising my short, blond hair, should we be spotted. Amanda ties her hair back and then does the same. We look at each other and nod our readiness and I resist the urge to instruct her to watch for cameras, that our recon says aren’t present. Any agent worth their keep knows what is supposed to be rarely is the case.
In unison, we reach for our doors, popping them open, and exit the car. Both of us quietly re-sealing our doors, before we make our way to a fire escape directly in front of us. In all of sixty seconds we’re inside the warehouse, in a storage room the size of a small bedroom. As planned before we left the apartment, Amanda and I share a look, and then set the timer on our watches for seven minutes, our intent to divide and conquer. Do what we do: get in and get out. If either of us is not back here on time, we know there’s trouble.
We cross to the doorway, pausing side by side just inside the warehouse, as we scan rows and rows of crates, stacked several feet above our heads and leaving plenty of places for someone to hide. I glance at Amanda and motion to the rear of the warehouse. She nods and impressively begins traveling a path next to the wall that allows her to eye the walkaways between the aisles. Taking a similar strategy, bypassing my need to search the crates, I make my way to the two offices at the back of the building. Wasting no time entering the first one, my search delivers invoices and random documents related to ceramic tile, which I suspect is somehow a money laundering operation. I shoot pictures of addresses and names, as well as financial information, then repeat the same in the next office.
Exiting the office, I do random crate checks to find tile is indeed what’s inside. Checking my watch, I’m at the six-minute mark, and I make my way back to the meet up point with Amanda. She’s ahead of me by several feet when instinct stops me in my tracks.
Amanda feels it too, no longer moving, her hand reaching for a gun, but before she can draw it, a man with a gun pointed at her steps into the doorway. Amanda goes for her gun anyway, and the next thing I know, the man is on the ground. That’s when three other men jump from the top of the crates above her and she’s surrounded. I shoot two of them, and she takes out the other, but a fourth drops behind her, and points his gun at the back of her head, yanking her around to put his back to the crates.
I’m in front of Amanda, and several feet back, in an instant. “Stay back or I’ll shoot!” the man shouts, and I stand my ground. The man, a foot taller than Amanda, with a hundred pounds on her, towers over her, a perfect target, I plant to take. “Drop your gun,” he shouts at me, and then to Amanda. “Drop the gun, bitch, or you’re dead.”
Amanda does not drop her gun. My gaze shifts to his trembling hand, and I can’t know if his finger is on the trigger from behind, but I have to assume it is, and anyone as nervous as he is might just shoot. My eyes meet Amanda’s and I drop my gun, my silent message to her urging her to do the same. I give her the slightest incline of my chin, willing her to do as I bid. Her eyes go wide with objection and my lips tighten. The man starts shouting at me in Spanish about his dead brother, who is apparently lying at my feet.
He’s going to shoot Amanda and I act then. No hesitation. The blade in my sleeve is out and in his wrist in seconds, the gun hitting the ground. The next blade lands in between his eyes and he drops. Amanda’s eyes go wide, but she doesn’t miss a beat, rotating and scanning for our next attacker that don’t exist. We are quick and efficient, making our way to the fire escape.
It’s there that she gives me an incredulous look. “What you did—”
I cup her head and pull her to me. “Now you know what kind of needs I satisfy for the agency. Trust me next time and don’t fight me.” I kiss her hard and fast before I release her, and we get the hell out of Dodge.
The plane shakes and I open my eyes, listening to the hum of the engine with the realization that I’ve been asleep, and my arm is now throbbing. Shoving aside the pain, I focus on the memory I’ve been living, remembering that night in the warehouse once again. Trust me, I’d said, and from that point forward, I’d been certain she had, at least on some level. The real trust came later. Or so I’d thought. Assuming her innocent of a crime, then she left me after hearing my name on that recording, and that doesn’t say trust. At this point, I have to accept that the trust that I’d known to be between us existed in only one layer of our relationship when there were many. And I’m sure me warning her that I was dangerous that night didn’t help.
The throb in my arm becomes a hammering sensation, and I raise my seat to find Amanda’s seat is back as well, and she’s lying on her side, the cat curled in the crook of her body.
I walk a few steps and grab my jacket, removing the medication there, and taking out a pain pill and an antibiotic. A bottle of water sits in a drink holder and I open it and suck down the meds. When I’m done, I set the bottle down and Amanda has yet to move. My mind flashes back to that long flight from Rome to New York, that first night with her. She’d fallen sound asleep and I’d watched her, amazed at not only how beautiful and tough she was, but how damn sound asleep. When she’d woken up, I’d ask her how she managed to sleep that soundly.
“How the hell did you sleep that soundly?”
“Don’t you on a plane?” she asks. “It’s the one place we know that no one can sneak up on us and attack. It’s a safe zone.”
But I was there. A stranger she seemed to instinctively trust. And now, I’m not a stranger. I’m the man she loved and still the man she considers her would-be assassin, and yet she’s sound asleep. Nothing in the facts I’ve explored or in my gut says that this woman is dirty. Nothing. Not in the past. Not now. So, if she really trusts me, and right now, watching her sleep, I believe she does, then why did she run?
Chapter Four
I spend the next fifteen minutes in my seat, the pain slowly easing from my arm, while I watch Amanda sleep and mentally weed through all I have learned since finding her again. Chasing theories that keep leading me back to her dead parents, who she doesn’t think are dead. The reality here that I haven’t discussed with her yet is that I looked for them in order to find her, and everything about them was wiped away. As if they never existed. To me, this meant they were as dead as the agency claimed, but now I know about the ghost protocol. And Amanda hid so damn well that I couldn’t find her, using skills they taught her. Maybe they are alive, and they have answers that clear Amanda’s name. Or not, in which case, Amanda loses the parents she has claimed as all she has in the world.
Except for me and that cat curled up next to her.
The engine shifts speeds, and we begin our descent into Texas, and still, Amanda has not moved. I stand up and take the few steps between my seat and hers directly in front of me, kneeling beside her. Julie lifts her head and gives me a curious, green-eyed look, and then goes back to sleep. My hand comes down on Amanda’s leg. “Amanda. We’re going to land soon.”
She makes a soft, sleepy sound that I swear I feel in my heart and my groin, and shifts slightly to blink up at me. “Seth?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” I say. “Seth.”
“Seth,” she breathes out, and damn, her eyes warm the way they use to when I’d wake her in the morning and make love to her.
“We’re about to land in Texas.”
Her eyes go wide and understanding flashes across her face. “Oh. Yes.” She hits the button to raise the seat and Julie sinks back into the cushion and snuggles next to her hip. She straightens, scooting to the edge of the seat, her gaze shifting to my han
d that I can’t seem to make myself move from her leg. She draws in a tiny breath and lets it out before looking at me. “You know I always sleep well on a plane.”
“I do,” I say, and I don’t even think about getting up. “Because there’s no one to attack you while you sleep.”
Understanding once again seeps into her face. “Except this time my would-be assassin was on the plane,” she supplies for me. “We made a truce. I felt safe.”
“No truce with an enemy would allow you to sleep that soundly and we both know it.”
Instead of withdrawing as I expect, her hand closes down on mine, her gaze steady. “I did trust you,” she says. “Too much. You don’t trust anyone that much in the world we live inside.”
“You trusted me but you stayed away for three years?” I don’t give her time to reply. “No. I reject that answer completely. I was—”
“—the man enlisted to kill me. And the man who—”
“—loved you.”
Her lashes lower and lift, and when she looks at me again there is torment in her stare that she doesn’t try to hide. “Loved me,” she repeats, emphasizing the past tense. “And yet you believed that I would betray my country and you?”
Those words are etched in the accusation and pain she fails to conceal, if she tries. And there is something in her face that reminds me of the barren apartment she’s lived in, of the three years alone that should have been with me. And I know that if I want this woman in my life, and I know now that I do, it’s time to shift the narrative. It’s time to be honest with her and myself.
“No,” I say. “I do not believe you betrayed your country. I never believed that you were guilty, but your disappearance made me doubt my trust in you.”
“You don’t do doubt.”
“Apparently, I do, and as I’ve always known, it’s a dirty, dangerous emotion.”
“So, to be clear, are we trying to kill each other or not? Because I’d hate to be on the wrong page of that topic.”
Poison Kisses Part 2 Page 4