by Zara Cox
She didn’t seek me out, but she’s here because of me.
She knows who owns this building, who owns the Punishment Club. All my businesses, from the trendy cocktail bars to the hardcore BDSM clubs, come under the Axel, Inc. umbrella. It wouldn’t have been difficult for her to find this place. Although I suspect a different hand has facilitated her presence here. The timing is a little too accurate.
“Hello, Axel.” Her voice is even, the rasp barely above a murmur.
I ignore the greeting and kick the door shut behind me. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Getting your attention any way I can.” Her throat moves in a nervous swallow. I follow the movement, the thrumming in my body spiking to another level.
She shifts. My gaze drops, and I see what she’s wearing.
A dark purple silk teddy and knicker set. The kind that leaves very little to the imagination. The kind that begs to be ripped out of the way so the despoiling can begin. The whisper-thin material hugs her heavy breasts, the flimsy straps doing a piss-poor job of supporting her. The panties hug her hips, their lace trim framing the mind-altering nirvana at the top of her thighs.
She shifts again, sliding one silky thigh against the other. At the edge of the bed, she extends one leg and steps down to stand.
Bare feet. Tumbling hair. Effortlessly sexy. Infinitely deadly.
The breath punches out of me. My cock stiffens, and my balls tighten as the monstrous need to fuck roars back to life.
The memory of her wetness saturates me, and all I can do is stare as she glides to a stop before me, enveloping me with her perfume. Her eyes swirl with all the emotions I’m familiar with. But tonight most of them have been dialed back to leave a fierce determination in the eyes that rise up to meet mine.
“Do I have it, Axel? Your attention?”
Far more than I’m comfortable with. “That depends on what you intend to offer as a sweetener. The promise of pussy is always a draw. Even tainted pussy, no matter how much it turns my stomach.”
Her breath expels in a pained gasp.
I laugh, feeling zero remorse. “Did you think all it would take is risqué lingerie to have me eating out of your hands? Or eating you out? Did you forget that you’re a mere pawn in this tiresome game? An expendable commodity?”
She reddens. A trace of a quiver touches her lips before she bows her head and wrestles for control. After half a minute, she lifts her head. “This is not a ‘tiresome game’ to me. You told me not to return to the nightclub. So I found another way.”
I drag my gaze from her face and turn away as I look around the room. Not a lot of things stump me. But this one does. It takes several minutes before I can form the words to ask, “What the hell is so important that he…that you would join this club just to get my attention?”
“He wants you to come to the house tomorrow.”
“That’s not news. I know he knows I’ve made new deals with the Armenians and Albanians that cut him out. I have endless resources to ensure they never deal with him again—”
“That’s not why he wants to see you.”
“Fine. Tell me why.”
“Finnan wants to talk to you about Taranahar.”
Chapter Eight
CALL OF EXTRA DUTY
Anar Farah, Afghanistan
September 2011
I don’t remember the last time I slept.
I don’t care. Neither does my commanding officer. Turns out not needing sleep isn’t a bad thing when you’re a soldier.
Sure, a few chins were scratched when some pencil pusher discovered I was a raging insomniac who hadn’t slept more than a few hours a night for over a year. After two half-assed medical consults and a hastily scrawled agreement to stick to a rigid sleep regime, I went back to not sleeping and not caring about not sleeping.
What I care about is keeping busy. My CO is totally on board with that too because there’s plenty to keep you busy when you’re geographically situated one hundred miles west of hell’s butthole.
Except I’ve done nothing but sit on my ass for the past forty-eight hours. Or more accurately, I’ve moved from punching bag to bench press to skipping rope to punching bag in a sweltering tent. My body is drenched with grimy sweat. I smell like shit. I know this because the oldest member of my squad, the only man bold enough to state the obvious, begged me to take a shower yesterday.
I ignored him. Word quickly spread that Rutherford was in asshat mode, and no one has approached the exercise tent since, even though I know they want to burn off the restless energy that rapidly mounts when new assignments take forever to come.
When my feet grow numb from skipping rope, I throw it down and move to the speed bag. It pulses back and forth in a red and black blur, mimicking my mind. My racing heartbeat sings as I push my body to its limit.
In the land where a pocketful of cold hard cash can get me any drug of my choice, I wish for a moment that I still dabbled. Snorting a long line of coke, preferably off a stripper’s taut ass, would go a ways toward ridding me of the images playing on a relentless loop through my brain.
A year has passed since Finnan sent me the video. No. Let’s be precise. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this hell hole, it’s that extreme precision is the difference between life and death. One small miscalculation will see you sent home in much smaller pieces than you arrived in.
So…
Eleven months, twenty-two days, sixteen hours and four…no…five minutes since my life flashed before my eyes in vivid Technicolor. To think I once believed taking a life would be what kept me up at night. Turns out those were destined to haunt my waking hours. My night hours were reserved for reliving my father fucking the love of my life. Doggy style.
My piston-fast fists smash against the speed bag in an explosion of deadly rage. It flies clean off the hook and bounces across the dusty floor. It would’ve kept going were it not for the booted foot that slams on it just outside the tent flap.
One large hand reaches down for it.
Captain Crunch, a member of my squad, aptly named for his ability to crunch hazelnuts with his abs during sit-ups, pops his head into the tent.
In the squad, where the men know to give me a wide berth most days, Crunch ignores the flashing fuck-off signposts, his incessant banter and wit always in operation whether I acknowledge them or not. Within hours of my arrival in the camp, I knew everything there was to know about Conrad Whitby.
Married to his high school sweetheart. Father to two-year-old twin girls he head-over-heels adores. Born and bred in Montana. Allergic to sesame seeds and avocado. Broke his nose in a bar fight the night before he shipped out. The list is endless.
He eyes me for a couple of seconds, his hands rotating the speed bag. I don’t welcome the scrutiny or the state-of-mind probe coming so I turn away.
He sighs. “Yo, tough guy. CO wants to see you in the command center, stat.”
I grunt without turning around, my gaze fixed on the dangling hook until he leaves. I rip the bloodied bindings off my hands and stop long enough to wipe the excess sweat off my body before I jog to the command center.
Situated in the middle of the camp, the building is housed in a special hack-proof structure that continues to baffle our enemies.
Within the structure itself, the CO’s office is contained within a Faraday cage since all the laptops contain extra-sensitive material.
I approach his office, the rage eating away inside me nowhere near abated.
Colonel Jack Clarkson looks up, waves away my stiff salute and nods to the chair in front of his desk. A moment later, his head jerks back, and he grimaces. “Jesus Christ, son, are you allergic to soap or something?”
“No, sir.”
The middle-aged man who can ran faster, fight harder than any other man in the camp except me, wrinkles his nose in disgust. “Then why the fuck do you stink worse than my ex-wife’s incontinent mutt?”
“Tough workout, sir,” I reply.
/> He snorts. “The day a workout is anywhere near tough for you is the day we drag your ass out of here in a body bag.”
I clasp my fists between my knees, barely able to keep my foot from bouncing. “Yes, sir.”
He stares me down for half a minute before he drags his hand through his inch-long ginger buzz cut. “Word is you’ve been in the exercise tent for two days straight. Is there a new brand of…issues I need to be concerned about?”
My jaw ticks with nervous energy. Whatever assignment I’m about to receive can’t be retracted because of psychological concerns. I won’t allow it. “No, sir. You have my word that I’m in top shape.”
He stares at me for another minute before he slides across a single sheet of paper. “This is a two-man mission, particularly sensitive not just in circumstances but also time-wise.” I speed read, absorbing the details.
Three war lords. Private family celebration. Vicinity of a small village. Opportunity to kill three birds with one strike. Cripple the enemy.
Anticipation flows, thick and fast, pushing away the memories. “I can do it solo, sir.” Company means conversation. It also means responsibility for another life.
“I’m sure you can, but I’m sending Crunch with you anyway. You take point; he reports in every four hours.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Another thing. The reason it’s time sensitive is because there’s intel that the same job has been handed over to a private military contractor.” His jaw clenches, and a wave of fury flashes across his face. “I have no idea what the jerk buckets in DC are thinking, auctioning off sensitive operations like these to the highest bidder.” He raps his knuckles on his desk before he points a finger at me. “But this is one coup I’m not going to hand them.”
“I understand. I’ll…we’ll bag this one, sir.”
“Damn fucking straight, we will. Go get some sleep—hell, go do…whatever you need to do to be bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to head out at zero three hundred.” He pauses for a beat before he adds, “When you get back, if you’re still in that frame of mind, we’ll discuss future solo missions.”
I stand and hand back the paper. “Very good, sir.” I turn to leave.
“Oh, and Rutherford?”
“Sir?”
“Take a fucking shower before you head out. It’ll be a damn shame if you blow this op wide open because the enemy catches a whiff of whatever the hell it is that’s oozing out of your pores.”
I pass Captain Crunch on the way out. He nods to me but keeps uncharacteristically silent. This time I look him in the eye and nod back.
Exiting the command center, I pause and take a breath. For now, the hell that haunts my days and nights is locked away behind the surge of adrenaline and anticipation of mayhem.
We head out at exactly zero three hundred, the Huey’s rotors cutting almost soundlessly through the night air as we head west. Across from me in the silent cabin, the sergeant monitoring the drone sent ahead of us watches a five-inch screen with grim intensity. Next to him Crunch is checking the camera mounted on top of his helmet.
That camera is the main reason he’s here, besides watching my back. We need video evidence of what’s about to go down. Confirmation of the kills will make the suits back home incredibly happy. It will also hopefully fast-track my request to join the covert team my CO doesn’t think I know about.
“Drop-off point coming up in T-minus five mikes,” the pilot’s voice feeds through the headphones attached to my helmet.
“Everything looks good,” the sergeant says, his gaze fixed on the screen. “I’m picking up three armed sentries at the entrance to the compound. No other signs of movement.”
I have no doubt more men will be awake and guarding the inside of the compound but I nod and double-check my ammo. If everything goes according to plan, I won’t need to fire a single bullet. The three knives strapped against my thigh will be all I need. The Filipino knife play I perfected a year ago isn’t strictly army regulation, but it’s served me well in the past, and I intend to do whatever it takes to get this job done.
The Huey drops us off two miles from the compound, located just outside the small village of Taranahar. In the pitch-black night, the only way I make out Crunch is through my night vision goggles.
“Stay sharp,” he says, his voice controlled and calm.
I don’t respond. My feet are already moving over the rough sand and stone terrain toward my target. The compound is situated on a small incline set back against a much steeper hill, a clever location that provides the perfect vantage point for spotting imminent threats.
“We take out the one in the middle first, then you grab the left guy, I take the right,” Crunch murmurs into his mic.
“No, I’m taking all three.”
Before he can argue, I spring from the boulder we’re crouched behind and power at a full run for the men.
“Fuck! Wait!”
I hear him coming after me but I don’t stop.
Perhaps a part of me wishes for an end to it all. Perhaps part of me craves more of the blood that was forced on my hands at nineteen. Or perhaps this is my fucked-up way of atoning for the lives I took that dark fall night four years ago.
Whatever.
My first knife finds the throat of the closest sentry. He drops like a sack of stones to the ground, clutching at his gushing carotid. My second finds the chest of the next guard. He cries out before I get to him, alerting the third in frenzied Pashto. I silence him with a push dagger, which I yank out a second before the last sentry raises his gun. With a flick of my wrist, my last knife embeds itself between his eyes. His gun drops a second before he does.
Crunch gets to me as I’m dragging the first body out of sight.
“Jesus fucking Christ. What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“Got the job done, didn’t I?”
“That’s not what I’m asking, and you fucking well know it,” he hisses, puzzlement and rage deepening his voice.
I dump the body against the towering compound wall and head for the second. “You want to stop and have a discussion about it?”
“The CO’s going to knock your fucking block off when we get back.”
“Not your fucking problem then, is it?” I reply, my voice even despite the elation filling my chest.
In the darkness, I feel his eyes probe me as he helps me hide the third body. “You gonna go lone wolf when we get inside too?” he demands.
“I’m gonna do what I came here to do. You do what you were assigned to do—watch my six and document the whole thing.”
I retrieve my knives, turn from the bodies, and head toward the preplanned point of ingress. He’s not happy, and I’ll most definitely get chewed out for this once we get back and he makes his report, but right now his happiness matters very little to me.
For the next hour or two, the color red will wipe away visions of blond-haired, blue-eyed traitors and a million could-have-beens. I’ll have new nightmares to sustain me, at least for a while before they too are smashed beneath the one betrayal that refuses to stay buried in the past.
I breach the east wall of the compound with Crunch tight on my heels. We clear the first floor, disposing of six guards. I keep one alive long enough to force the information I need out of him. With the location of the big players secured, I move silently through the large house, my gun tucked against my side, the blades in my fists an extension of my body.
The two younger war lords, brothers of the most powerful war lord in the region, die in their sleep, their throats slit before they can so much as shift from dream to reality.
The last target is the most difficult, naturally. He’s situated behind bolted double doors at the end of a long, dark corridor, and it takes a few minutes to clear the rooms leading up to it to avoid being ambushed.
Once we reach it, I lay down my knives, crouch low, and go to work with my lock pick.
I hear the click of the final tumbling lock one second before
a deafening explosion rips through the air, followed almost instantaneously by an enormous plume of orange mushrooming into the dawn sky. Two more explosions follow in quick succession.
Crunch backs against me. “Shit! We’re fucked. We need to bail. Right fucking now!”
But it’s too late. One of the many wives we spared but left tied up has gotten free. She runs to the middle of the compound and screams at the top of her lungs. Rapid-fire Pashto rips through the compound, followed by running feet. Light floods the hallway, illuminating us in vivid relief.
Behind the doors, I hear movement then the distinct recoil of a submachine gun. “Crunch, get down!”
I dive for the floor, grabbing his leg and yanking hard.
But Captain Crunch is dead before he hits the floor, face first, blood oozing from several wounds delivered by the bullets that just ripped through the wooden doors.
I mourn my comrade’s passing for one single second before pure instinct kicks in. Both legs slam against the weakened door, smashing it inward and sending the man behind it sprawling onto the floor.
Rumored to be in his sixties, Ahmed Fahim is nevertheless lean and agile. He tries to scramble to his feet, but I’m younger. Faster. And by taking my friend’s life, he’s just added another grim purpose to my mission.
I kick out his legs before he can regain them even as my hands close over my knives. I scramble across the floor and jump on his chest, pinning his arms to his body. Once he’s immobile, I jerk my gaze around the room, make sure there are no more surprises ready to spoil my two-minute party.
We’re alone.
“You will not get out of this alive!” he spits at me.
“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. But one thing’s for certain. You will most definitely not live through the next minute.”
Piercing gray stare back at me, his fate stoically accepted.