“I can be there in twenty if you need me to be.”
“Twenty works even better.”
The general hangs up, and I race to shower and get dressed. Normally, I wear workout attire everywhere because I need free range of movement. There are times, like yesterday, when I need to run because my life depends on it. If I’m in a skirt or dress or heels—forget about it.
To meet with a general, I might need slightly better clothes, so I opt for dress slacks that aren't tight or stiff, so they still offer a bit of freedom. I also wear a buttoned-down shirt. As always, I wear a sports bra underneath. I might be short, but I have a larger chest. It's not a blessing, though, but a sports bra keeps the girls in check. No black eyes when I run.
At exactly twenty minutes later, I show up at the tent the general directed me too. The military has plenty of bases of operation all over the entire planet, but sometimes, they prefer to have mobile bases where there isn’t a major hub around.
The general glances over at me. She murmurs to the officer she’s talking to. Then, the officer salutes her and marches out without even looking at me.
“Sophia,” the general says. “I appreciate your coming here.”
“What can I do for you?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I have a job for you.”
“What do you need?”
“How does ten grand sound?”
“That sounds lovely, but I never accept a job without knowing the particulars first.”
The general grins and shakes a finger at me. “You’re a smart one. I appreciate that. Very well, I’ll get right to it. The son of a former country’s leader is trying to make some noise and opposition to the Global Countries of Earth.”
I frown. “Can you be a little more specific?”
“There is one country that is starting to make some noise and wants to break away.”
I blink a few times. “That would cause a huge mess.”
“That’s an understatement. We can’t allow this to happen. We need this to be controlled and now. If one country secedes, others will as well, and we won’t have Global Countries of Earth anymore. We’ll go back to the thousands of countries and all of the fighting over land and issues and wars that we had before the Grots came.”
“They don’t accept Madelaine Downing as their leader, huh?”
“No.”
“What exactly do you want from me?” I ask.
“The issue would be much easier if we could make the former leader’s son happy.”
“Why can’t we just have him sit down with—”
"Because that would be too easy." The general scowls. "Nothing is ever easy or simple. In fact, the former leader's son is anything but happy. His own son has been kidnapped. Now, they recovered the son, thankfully, but the kidnapper is at larger, and he was last seen here. Not right here, but within the state."
“That’s where I come in.”
“Yes. The son has a handsome reward for the one who captures the kidnapper, dead or alive.” The general eyes me. “I was hoping that in place of the reward money, you would ask him to have a meeting with Madelaine Downing.”
I lift my eyebrows.
“You get the meeting set up, and we will reward you with that ten grand.”
“Fifteen.” I lift my chin.
“Sophia—”
“You’re talking about Saudi Arabia. I know the son. I know the circumstances of this case. You can be as vague as you want, but it’s my business to know these things. He’s offering twelve thousand.”
“Fine. We’ll match the twelve thousand.”
“No. I have to negotiate to get the meeting. That means it’s a double job. Be happy I’m not asking for twenty or even twenty-four to double the original price.”
The general closes her eyes and then nods. “Deal.”
We shake hands, and I leave the tent a minute later with a tablet that contains every scrap of information the military has on one Ali Khan.
A man with dubious ties to a few dark organizations, Ali Khan makes the wannabe mobster Garcia Sagen look like a saint. Ali has been involved with a great number of crimes throughout a decade-long span, and he's not someone you want to cross. He's made a lot of enemies, like I have, but he doesn't seem to have many allies. His kidnapping the son of Saad Ahmad was clearly a desperate move. He needs funds, but for what exactly, I don't know. I'm not sure I need to know, but it never hurts to know as much about a target as possible. After all, I want to be able to anticipate their next moves so that I'm not taken by surprise. When people are cornered, they tend to lash back. It's good to know if they keep daggers on them, guns, that kind of thing, but even more so than that, you want to know what they want.
Motivation. I know what I want, and I know what I’m willing to do. I need to know the same for them.
The more reading I do, the more the story comes into place. Ali Khan is actually a bit like Saad Ahmad. They both want out from under the thumb of the Global Countries of Earth, but it seems to me that Ali Khan just wants everyone to be free so that there can be complete anarchy, whereas Saad Ahmad wants to bring Saudi Arabia back. He wants his country, his power, his authority.
What I don’t understand is that he already does have power and authority. Madelaine Downing is the leader, yes, but she’s not the only one to have any say in the entire world. She has designated many to be her officers, and they’re employed throughout the world. Saad Ahmad is one of those officers.
But, as is often the case, those in power want more and more power. A little bit is never enough.
Let’s see. Ali Khan is known for using bombs. Awesome. He doesn’t tend to use guns. No, he prefers rifles, although generally speaking, he tends to go everywhere with guards who do the shooting for him.
The coward. Talk a big talk but don’t walk the walk. Well, maybe after I’m done with him, he won’t be walking at all.
I grit my teeth. To study the file, I returned to my place, and I have to say that the small house seems even smaller than normal. I have a bit of claustrophobia, and I step out onto my front porch. The tightness in my chest doesn’t go away, and I know it’s because of earlier, with Bull and Hook.
I don’t like to kill. I’ll do it if it’s to save my own skin. I’ve had to before, and those times didn’t bother me like this time. Maybe it’s because I want to think that Bull could’ve been better than all of that shit. I can do some digging, find out every little thing he’s ever done, but that still doesn’t make it right. He deserved a second chance, and I robbed him of that just so I could get the upper hand on Hook and for me to be the one to walk away.
But a kidnapper? A terrorist? I have no qualms going after him.
It doesn’t take me long to learn where exactly Ali Khan has been. There’s a bar the town over that he likes to frequent. I do a bit of clothes shopping, dress in much more conservative attire, and wrap a shawl around my head, covering a good bit of my face too.
The entire drive over, I go over what I’m going to do, and everything starts out smoothly. I enter the place, pull the fire alarm, and everyone exits.
Ali Khan, though, lingers a bit, talking to a man with silver hair and dark eyes. He looks at me as I rush over to them.
“Please, please,” I say, keeping my head down, a hand to my chest to keep my shawl in place. “Leave. There is a fire!”
“I don’t smell any smoke,” Ali Khan says.
I lift my head but do not look directly at him, keeping my nose down mostly. “I do, sirs. Don’t you?”
Now, there is the smell of smoke, and Ali Khan glances toward the kitchen.
Yes, so maybe I didn’t just pull the fire alarm.
I grab the arm of the silver-haired man and urge him up. “I can’t bear to see you, my kind, die here. Please!”
Ali Khan grips my arm, and I gasp. The smoke is crowding into the room, and I blink madly, pretending the smoke is bothering me.
The silver-haired man says som
ething to Ali Khan, the voice impossibly deep, and Silver Hair leaves.
And then there were two.
“Let us go too!” I cry, holding onto Ali Khan’s hand on my arm, trying to move toward the door.
“I don’t like to be told what to do,” Ali Khan says in a low, guttural tone.
“No?” I dare to look him in the eye. “I don’t like to be touched without permission.”
Ali Khan suddenly holds a switchblade in his other hand, but I just smile, grab his wrist, and bash it against the table. To his credit, he doesn’t drop the blade until I hit his wrist against the table four times. As soon as the switchblade clatters to the ground, I knee him. He doubles over, his hand reaching for my neck falling short. In one smooth motion, I bend down, retrieve the blade, grip his hair, and hold the blade against his carotid artery.
“One flick,” I say lazily, digging the tip against the skin, not enough to prick him and make him bleed but enough for him to feel the pressure. “One flick, and you’ll bleed out. How do you feel about that?”
“You won’t,” he spits out. “Women are weak. Women are—”
“Women aren’t weak. We are powerful. We can create life within us, and when you go after our children, we fight back, and we don’t fight fair. We fight for our daughters, and we fight for our… sons.” I press even harder now, just to get a tiny drop of blood.
Ali Khan struggles then, but I back him up, the entire length of my arm against his throat, the blade still against his skin until he slams against the back wall of the place. There’s even more smoke now, but that’s all it is. I didn’t set a fire. I set off a smoke bomb, a long-lasting one. It’s non-toxic, and it doesn’t make me cough at all, but Ali Khan’s been struggling not to this entire time. Mind over matter. He thinks the smoke is attacking his lungs, but it’s not. Yes, we’re breathing it in, but it’s not an irritant like normal smoke.
“You’re here because of…” His eyes widen. He mumbles something in another language, and he grips my wrist, forcing me to cut his artery.
Firefighters come storming in as Ali Khan slumps to the ground. I’m sure I’m a sight with his blood on me, but it’s a simple phone call to the general to have matters settled.
After all of this, the phone call with Saad Ahmad better be a piece of cake.
5
Tox
It’s been five days since I’ve seen Sophia. Five days too long, if you ask me, but I shouldn’t feel that way. She has her life, and I have mine.
“Are you listening?” the real estate agent asks me.
I cough into my hand. “I am. I’m sorry. You were saying?”
"This property is right on the water. Beautiful. Step out of your front door, and you'll be right on the beach. Now, insurance is a bit high as a result—"
“Are there storms?” I ask.
She hesitates. “Some, yes—”
“What kind?”
“Hurricanes. Not many tornadoes around this part—”
“What do hurricanes do?”
“They’re storms of wind that originate over the ocean, drawing strength there. Once they hit the land, they slow down and eventually die out.”
“Rain? Wind? Anything else?”
“There can be flooding,” she admits.
“Property damage.”
“Yes, on occasion, but that’s exactly what the insurance is for.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Okay.” She flips through her binder and points to another house. “How about this one? It has four bedrooms, three bathrooms. If you get married and have two kids or even more, it would be great. With that many bathrooms, you won’t fight over them, and—”
“May I?” I reach for the binder.
She nods. I feel bad because I don’t remember her name, but I don’t bother to ask her to repeat it. It’s stupid of me, maybe even terrible, but I can’t see any other woman without comparing her to Sophia. Like this woman. Her hair is yellow, but I much prefer Sophia’s black locks. Sophia’s hair falls in gentle waves, but this woman’s hair is straight to the point that it looks severe.
Basically, Sophia is a fucking gorgeous specimen, and I don’t care about this woman at all. But, she’s supposed to be a hell of a real estate agent, so I’m willing to see what she has to offer.
I flip through the pages and stop when I get to a massive house. It's made of stone, white stone unlike the harsh red of Kuria, and there are so many windows. Three stories. Columns by the front door. The lawn is beautiful, with bushes and flowers along the front of the house.
"Ah," she says. "My favorite house. It has a lot of land too—fifteen acres, to be exact. Six bedrooms, five bathrooms. Cathedral ceilings, vaulted windows, a finished basement… You won't find another house like this for sale very often."
“Price?”
“It’s rather pricy.”
“Price?” I repeat, staring at the windows, picturing tiny faces in them. Kids climbing over the bushes, traipsing over the flowers. Yes, it would be a hassle to keep the lawn maintained with children, but the more I visual this, the more I want it.
And when I picture the front door opening, and Sophia standing there, I’m fucking sold.
I’m also a fucking moron for thinking that, but let’s ignore that bit.
“I lost you again, didn’t I?” she asks.
“I’m sorry.” I shake my head. “It’s perfect.”
“I didn’t realize you had that much money at your disposal.”
“How much?”
“Five-hundred thousand dollars.” She shakes her head, smiling wanly. “Before the Grots, when my mom was a real estate agent, she would sell a house like this for three times that if not more, so it’s an amazing price.”
“I don’t have that much.” I grimace.
"Well, we can maybe set you up with a loan, but I'll be honest. Your, ah, profession might make it a bit hard to secure a bank that will supply you with that loan."
“They don’t like mercenaries?” I ask.
“No, not really.” She rubs the back of her neck. “I can make some phone calls, ask around, see if anyone is willing.”
“This house won’t be available for long.”
“At that price? Not likely.”
I nod slowly. “Don’t sell it,” I instruct her.
“I can’t promise that it won’t sell,” she protests.
“Please. I will get the money.”
“The banks—”
“I’ll get the money,” I say firmly. “I’m sure that the sellers would prefer cash, right?”
“I… I would imagine, but…”
“Then tell them that and ask them to consider that heavily before they even entertain any other offers.”
“You’ll match their asking price?” she asks dubiously.
“I will.”
“How soon?”
“As soon as I can.”
I stand and hand her the binder. She gestures to the door of her office, and I leave the entire building behind.
Now, how many jobs am I going to have to pull off to make this thing happen?
Far too many. That's how many ovian jobs I'm going to have to pull off to get the funds I need for that house. Maybe I should try for a smaller one, one without columns. I mean, do I really want a stone house after leaving Kuria, that huge rock of stone?
But that house is fucking gorgeous, and it deserves a gorgeous wife, and I want to fill that wife with my seed again and again until she pumps out baby after baby.
Back on Kuria, if you asked me if I wanted kids, I’m not sure what I would’ve said, but right now, that’s exactly what I want. It’s all I want, and I want it right the fuck now.
Patience. My mom says it’s a virtue, and I also told her that I’m not very virtuous then.
My thoughts about Sophia are not virtuous in the slightest, and I’ve had to flamindulis every morning thinking about her. I also can’t go to sleep at night without flamindulis then too.
She’s gotten to me, and I bet she has no fucking idea that she has. Maybe she hasn’t even thought about me since that meal that we shared. Some of my friends have mentioned that it’s the chance meetings that cause them to find their women. Was I always supposed to come here just so I could meet Sophia? I don’t know, but I have to say she’s already changed me.
Which is fucking crazy, but it is what it is.
I’m nuts over her.
I’m also nuts over that house, and it has me accepting every job sent my way, even the one from the old lady who needs me to get her cat down from her tree. Abigail offers to pay me fifty, and I feel bad accepting it as her cat rubs against her legs after I brought the furball down.
“You did your part. Let me pay you,” she insists, and she hands me the money and then doesn’t let go of the bill. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Can I touch your abs? My dear Harold died a few years back, and I haven’t been with a man since, and as much as I loved Harold, he liked to eat too much. He never had a six-pack, and…”
“Go ahead.” I chuckle as she runs her gnarled fingers over my abs.
“You’re built like a bull. I bet you have the stamina of one too.” She wags a finger at me. “Fluffy and I thank you!”
I laugh again, wave, and make my way onto the next job. This time, it’s a guy who thinks his wife is cheating on him, and I spend the rest of the night following her. She’s spending a lot of time at work, and then she gets into her car and drives to a mall. I have no choice but to pay someone to help me tail her. Sucks to have to spend money to make money, but I’m desperate.
The wife goes inside the mall, and I follow as she makes a very expensive watch purchase. Then, she drives to her house, and I linger outside, having sent my driver away. I’ll walk back to my place from here.
From my hiding spot, I can hear the husband accusing her of never spending any time with him, and she blurts out that she’s been working overtime to get a promotion that she didn’t get, but she worked enough overtime to get him that watch he had been eyeing for the past decade. The fucker starts to bawl. I mean, snot running down his face bawl. It's gross, but when I wake the next morning, there's a fat envelope resting on my chest. He paid me a tiny bonus. He should've trusted his wife more than he did. She's a gem, and he's a waste. She deserves someone who loves and believes in her no matter what.
Mesmerized by the Alien Mercenary Page 3