BABY FOR A PRICE

by Kathryn Thomas

  But he was like me - he had killed before, and he knew this was a danger that came with the job. He knew that if he fucked up, he was in for the chop. Just as I had done, just as we all did. I wondered what his motive was for working with Leo on the inside - undercover cop, maybe, or a private detective for some grieving family trying to figure out why their beloved member had been dealt with? I guessed I would never know. I could ask Leo, but that would probably just arouse his suspicions even further, and that was the last thing I wanted. I needed to slide firmly under the radar for the foreseeable future and hope that he didn’t pay too much attention to me. The beach house would help with that, of course, but I needed to be the best hitman he ever worked with to prove that I truly was on his side. And that meant killing again, no matter how much the thought of it struck fear into my soul.

  I felt as though I had spent the last few years recuperating from the horror of everything that I’d done in my line of work. I had put time and effort into rebuilding what little was left of my compassion and decency. Hell, Sabrina alone proved that. There was no way I would have intervened with what was happening and then gone on to check on her afterward back in the day - and here I was, potentially about to throw it all away in order to keep my cover. It was for a worthy cause, but did that matter? Would I find myself slipping back into the person I used to be, the person I had tried my hardest to distance myself from in the last few years? I thought about the barrage of weapons in the back of the car and wondered which one I’d use. Whichever one gave me the most distance - whichever one meant that I didn’t have to look at the body, to see what I’d done to this man who was really no different from me.

  I pulled the car to a stop, and before long spotted another vehicle parked up just across from me. I peered over to see if anyone was inside. It seemed odd and out of place here, considering how remote and out-of-the-way this alley was. I could see someone else inside - not only that, but he was looking back at me. I tensed immediately, wishing I had one of my guns in the glove box, and feeling in my pocket for the flick knife I kept in there at all times. I wrapped my fingers around it as a tall man I didn’t recognize got out of the car and swept over to mine in a few long strides. He knocked on the window, and I rolled it down carefully.

  “You with Leo?” the man asked bluntly, and I managed a nod, relief flooding my system.

  “I’m with Leo,” I agreed, releasing the knife and holding out my hand. We shook through the window.

  “I’m Anthony.”

  “Taylor,” he shot back distractedly. “Can I get in?”

  “Sure.” I unlocked the door for the passenger side, and he slid in next to me. He glanced over in my direction, and it was as if something had clicked in his brain. I immediately felt myself tense up again, my body tightening with panic as I tried to figure out what in the name of Christ was actually going on.

  “When did you get assigned to this?” I demanded. “Leo told me he wouldn’t need anyone babysitting me today.”

  “Earlier this afternoon,” he shot back, on the defensive. “We’re heading to a new location, and I know it better than you do.”

  “I’ve taken three years off, I’ve had plenty of time to get to know this city,” I grumbled.

  “It’s the three years off he’s worried about,” Taylor replied coolly, and I shut up.

  “Okay, so where are we going, then?”

  “A Chinese restaurant, over on Fifth.”

  “I think I know the one,” I replied, feeling a little disrespected. No, a lot disrespected. Why would Leo bother sending someone out when he knew I could take care of this by myself? It didn’t make any sense.

  As we drove, a small shadow of doubt began to creep over my brain. Leo had said he wanted to take down a hitman who was only working with them to exploit them. Sure, he’d given me a picture and everything, but who was I to say who that picture was actually of? Maybe Leo had been laying things out for me right from the start, and I had just been too pig-headed to notice it. I peered at Taylor from the corner of my eye - I didn’t recognize him. It would make sense, if Leo did intend to take me out, to send someone who didn’t know me, who had no attachment to me. That way, emotions weren’t going to get in the way at the last minute. I didn’t want to come out and say that things were beginning to add up because at the moment I was just jamming a couple of puzzle pieces together and wondering if they fit, but something was going on. There was never any harm being on my guard, and I intended to stay that way until this hit was done and I was back in bed with Sabrina. I focused in on that thought, trying to keep the image in my mind as I made my way across town. If I could just tell myself that I was going to get back to her, nothing else mattered.

  “We’re here.” Taylor cut across my thoughts and pointed to a restaurant across the street. It was bright with lights and busy with people as it would be on a weekend evening. I caught a whiff of the food smell floating over the place, and my mouth started watering. I wondered how quickly I’d be kicked off the case if I wandered in to pick up some potstickers and dumplings.

  I carefully maneuvered the car into an alley across from the restaurant, allowing us visual access to the door. I pulled out the folder and placed it down on the dashboard, taking another look at the man we were meant to kill. I squinted my eyes as I scanned his face, trying to make sure I wasn’t being duped by some picture of a celebrity or something, but there wasn’t an ounce of recognition.

  “So, we just sit and watch the door till he comes out?” Taylor asked, and I could have sworn there was the hint of a waver in his voice. I looked over at him - really looked at him - for the first time, and noted how young he was. He looked about as old as I’d been when I’d first come into my training, barely big enough to grow a decent round of stubble yet. I wondered how many hits he’d been on so far. Maybe this was his first. He seemed nervous, fidgety.

  “Yeah, we just wait until he comes out. Then we tail him till he’s in a decent enough spot, then we do our jobs.” I nodded, trying to keep my voice calm and steady. “You know much about this guy?”

  Taylor looked away, running a hand through his hair with an unreadable expression on his face.

  “I know that he came to Leo’s to make a name for himself, and then his motives changed,” he offered. “But Leo didn’t tell me much. He said it was better if I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s probably not wrong.” His jumpiness was rubbing off on me, and I was feeling that cold dread moving up my scalp again. Why would they send such a newbie out to work with me? Why wouldn’t they put him with someone like Saffron or something? He was just going to slow me down on this job, it was obvious. Maybe this was Leo’s way of making a point about what he thought about me as a hitman? That I was so unreliable, I had to deal with this baby-faced boy looking after me?

  “Have you done this before?” I asked gently. It was a fair question - I needed to know if he could handle a gun, or if I’d been the one taking this guy out when it came down to it.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “A couple of times. Not as much as you, though.”

  “You the oldest son?” I asked, and he blinked at me in surprise before nodding again.

  “So you’re in this without a choice?” I pushed. Another nod.

  “You know, I got out, eventually,” I remarked. “If you’re good at this, you can make decent enough dough to just duck out when you want. You can live off that for a few years, hide out, get your face off any most-wanted lists and then start your life over again.”

  He didn’t reply to that, and instead focused all his attention on the restaurant door. I noticed that he hadn’t even looked at the folder I’d put out for us. That was strange. I had an almost photographic memory, and I would always check and triple-check the pictures of my targets. You would hear these horror stories about people picking off the wrong guys, and that kind of nightmare was one I firmly wanted to avoid. But Taylor had his eyes fixed on the restaurant. His gaze had begun to glaze over when
I suddenly spotted the dude. He was dressed in a crisp blue suit and had a woman on his arm. Shit, well, that should make things more difficult. I turned to Taylor and went to motion at the man, but before I could, he lunged towards me. And it all became clear in an instant.

  He had a knife in his hand - similar to the one I had in my pocket, in fact. I went to grasp for mine, but he knocked my hand away from my pocket before I could get to it and thrust the knife towards me again. His inexperience was working to my advantage - he couldn’t seem to land a decent blow, and I was able to hold him long enough for my brain to process what in the hell was going on.

  It wasn’t like in the movies when everything slowed down for a moment while our hero figured out what he was going to do next. No, it was more like a desperate, panicked flurry of thought, out of which emerged a single idea that would have to do for the time being. I thrust my arm up to defend from any impending blows, pulled my seatbelt down and clicked it into place. And then I flicked the car into reverse and put my foot down on the pedal.

  I think Taylor - if that even was his real name - figured out what was coming seconds before we hit the wall, but by then, of course, it was far too late. I did my best to brace for impact as I sped backward, and I wondered why Leo had been dumb enough to schedule this hit in the middle of a busy metropolitan area - someone was bound to have seen the scuffle. I guessed that Taylor was meant to wait until we were somewhere more secluded, but then why hadn’t he done it in the alleyway when we’d first met? All these questions flooded my brain in the instant before we slammed against the brick, and I feared that I wouldn’t live to find answers to any of them.

  The impact sent a shudder of shockwaves through the vehicle, and I cringed as I saw the back end of the car crumpling. Despite everything that had gone down over the course of my time as a hitman, I had never been involved in a car accident, and it was more terrifying than I could have imagined. I jerked in my seat, the belt digging painfully into my chest and shoulders but locking tight so I didn’t get thrown any further. As soon as I had regained some sense of normalcy, I turned to check on Taylor, to see if my futile attempt had slowed his attack.

  “Fuck,” I muttered to myself. It was hard to hold back a yell of horror at what I saw. Taylor had been kneeling up in his seat and facing me when we struck the wall and had been thrown into the window at full force before ricocheting back against his seat. There was a spider web of broken glass spreading across the windshield, and the right side of his face was embedded with glass splinters and bleeding profusely. He was unmoving, and I leaned over to take his pulse - still alive. Part of me was tempted to leave him there, to let the kid recover from his injuries and then get scared off this whole hitman deal, but I knew I couldn’t risk it.

  “Sorry, buddy.” I reached over to him, took his head in my hands, and snapped his neck with one small motion, then quickly used my jacket to wipe down the steering wheel of any perfect fingerprints. I knew I didn’t have any time to spare - the sound of the car smashing into the wall must have woken half the city, and I’d be surprised if I had even a few more seconds to gather myself before people arrived.

  Right on cue, I heard voices approaching - shit, I needed to get out of there fast. The car was totaled, there was no way I could take it with me. I scrambled over Taylor, trying my hardest not to look at him as I kicked open the now-warped door and climbed out his side. I ducked onto the street, and to my relief spotted an alley adjoining the one we were in. I hurried down in as I heard the footsteps getting closer, and did my best not to pay any attention to the shouts and screams of horror as they presumably discovered Taylor’s brutalized corpse.

  I closed my eyes - it was the last thing I had wanted to do tonight, and it was done. I had killed a man. Well, not really a man - a boy, at best. Jesus Christ, how had this happened? How had I been dumb enough to not pick up on the signs and nip this in the bud before it got out of hand? I should have just left when I saw him getting out of the car. I should have known something was up then and got out. Leo was right - I had lost my killer instincts.

  I stumbled down the side street, trying to put as much space between me and the car as I could. I assumed my DNA and fingerprints would be all over it, but I didn’t have time to clean everything up meticulously as I would have liked. I just had to deal with it as best I could and run, not looking back.

  As soon as I was a good half-mile away, I put my hands on my thighs and leaned over. I pressed myself up against the building next to me and tried to catch my breath. I wasn’t sure whether it was the shock of what had just happened or the speed at which I’d been running, but I felt like I was going to throw up. My breath was rattling and scratching in my throat, the cold air tearing at me. I took a few big gulps in and managed to get myself upright again. Okay, so where did I go from here? I had no car, no way to get back to Sabrina…

  Sabrina. Her name echoed through my head and sent another shock of fear through my already exhausted body. If they had come after me, then they had probably already come after her too. I needed to get back to the house, and quickly. I looked around - I was in a bad part of town, but at least that meant it was pretty quiet this time of night. I spotted a car that looked as if it hadn’t been driven in a year sitting at the end of the street and hurried towards it.

  It had been a long time since I had hotwired a vehicle - it was something more suited to my early days in this job - but it was like riding a bike, and I soon found the engine spluttering into life. I couldn’t get a cab, not when a few people might have seen me running away from the scene. Christ, the cops might be out looking for me already. I hadn’t even considered that. And Leo, Leo probably had more guys on me too - he couldn’t be solely relying on Taylor’s wide-eyed newbie skills to take me out. I still wasn’t sure why he had sent Taylor out to get me. Someone like Saffron would have made more sense, but I guessed it was because he didn’t want someone who was going to flinch at a key moment and let me get away. Well, looked like the joke was on him, as I was getting out of this city and never looking back. I had cash and cards on me, enough to last a while, enough to get set up with a whole new life, if I wanted it.

  I checked the gas gauge - it was low but had just enough to take me to the beach house if I drove with care. And the last thing I needed now was to be caught speeding, at any rate. I made my way at an infuriatingly reasonable pace out of town and across the bridge towards the beach house. My heart was thumping in my chest as I tried to work out what was going on - if Leo had intended to take me out, did that mean he knew about my relationship with Sabrina? It had to. And in that case, it wasn’t that much of a leap to assume that he knew where I was hiding her too.

  Then another thought flashed through my mind - Saffron. She knew where the house was, however much I’d tried to convince myself that she didn’t. Of course, she was the one on Sabrina’s case. She was probably there right now. Blood pulsed in my forehead so hard I could almost hear it, and I gasped as I tried to pull in air. I knew I was freaking out about something I didn’t even know had happened yet, but still - the very thought that Saffron might be there was terrifying. Saffron wasn’t the type to showboat, as some hitmen I knew did - she would be straight to the point and quick about it. If she had got into the house, they were both already dead.

  I peered into my rearview mirror- well, no one was following me, at least. That was a start. Whether it was the cops or Leo’s men, I had assumed that I would find someone on my tail when I got out of the city, but I was pursuer-free. I tried to calm myself down. I’d be no good to anyone if I were in too much of a panic to deal with Saffron - fuck, if I even could deal with her. I’d only gotten back into this game a few days ago, and she was probably at the top of hers. I would just have to hope that she assumed I was already dead and wasn’t expecting me back at all.

  I finally arrived outside the house and parked. I hurried up the steps and found myself at the front door. And I could immediately tell something was wrong. All the lights we
re off, and I couldn’t hear anything inside. I took a long, deep breath, readying myself for whatever I was about to do, and closed my eyes. I needed to come up with a plan, and I needed to come up with it fast.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “You want another bottle?”

  Lily flashed me a grin across the couch, shifting her now-empty glass in front of my face temptingly.

  “I don’t see why not.” I cocked an eyebrow. “You want to get it, or shall I?”

  “I’ll pick us out something nice,” she promised, getting to her feet and wobbling ever-so-slightly.