Partners
Page 11
“Your flirting. I’m not letting my guard down around you, not again.” Sonny’s eyes locked onto Kelly’s and she had to catch her breath; the woman was breathtaking and Sonny could not get used to it.
“You mean to tell me that you don’t find it the least bit titillating to have a very sexy woman in her underwear helpless in your bed?” Kelly winked at her and Sonny rolled her eyes. Kelly counted that as a victory. If she could get any reaction out of the woman of steel, then she was making progress.
Sonny grinned and cocked her head to the side, almost playfully. “I’ve had better.”
Kelly dropped her jaw in mock outrage. “Since when?”
The assassin shook her head and exhaled, then stood and walked over to the bed. “We are going out tonight,” Sonny said as she cut the restraints binding Kelly’s wrists. Kelly scowled as she rubbed her wrists dramatically.
“Dinner and a movie? Because I’d need to go get my hair done if it’s someplace fancy.”
Sonny turned and walked back to where she was cleaning her pistol and bent to pick it up, and Kelly could not help a look at the woman’s backside. Sonny noticed Kelly’s eyes on her and she felt a little flushed. She could not understand what this woman was doing to her. These reactions that she was experiencing were very disconcerting. “I want to show you why I’m doing this, the reason for wanting Ivan dead.”
Kelly stood and adjusted her bra. “Well, are we going shopping?” She gestured to her half-naked body with a flourish. “Because I can’t very well go out like this.”
Sonny opened the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. She tossed the clothes on the bed next to a slack-jawed Kelly. “You had spare clothes and you still kept me lying around half naked! Why?”
“Maybe I liked the view,” Sonny said with a wink as she left the room and Kelly could not stop a grin from spreading on her face as she began to get dressed. Maybe this Sonny Moretti was not as buttoned up as she pretended to be after all.
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Standing in front of the rental counter, Kelly wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. What is happening here and why am I going along with it? The male clerk had barely looked up at them. It was obvious that he wanted to be anywhere else but work. There was no small talk between customer and employee. He was waiting to clock out and go do whatever it was that skinny blond boys in their early twenties who were trapped in a job they did not want do when they were not doing this. Probably jerk off to internet porn and then drink himself to sleep. She guessed that’s what he would do at any rate.
“For only twenty-five dollars more, we can get you insured for liability, theft, or accidents.” The memorized line came out of his mouth robotically and with complete lack of interest.
“No, thank you.” Sonny sounded just as involved in the transaction as the clerk was. Kelly was bored and decided to have a little fun. She wrapped her arm around Sonny’s waist and felt the woman stiffen in response. She probably thought Kelly was going to try and take the gun in her waistband. Kelly smirked; she was in for a surprise.
“Oh come on, sweetie!” Kelly leaned her head against Sonny’s cheek as she looked at the clerk who suddenly became intrigued in the transaction. “With all the strip clubs and raves we are hitting this weekend, we are bound to be in some pretty sketchy areas. We should get the insurance.” Kelly grinned and lifted her head to look at Sonny. If looks could kill, then she would be six feet under right then, as Sonny’s dark eyes were boring a hole through her head.
The clerk cleared his throat nervously and his eyes darted back and forth between the two women. “Uh, if you plan on heading into—” He stopped and looked embarrassed and nervous all at once. “Areas where, uh, I mean. I would recommend, ah, the insurance, if there are any incidents, I mean. You would be liable to pay for any incurred, ah, damages.” He was starting to sweat from whatever imagined scenarios that were racing through his post-pubescent brain.
“What about any messes we make? Like in the backseat.” Kelly began to run her free hand lightly over Sonny’s forearm, causing goosebumps to erupt on the other woman’s flesh. “Like liquid messes, from you know, doing…” She stopped and licked her lips slowly and winked at him, stifling a laugh as she watched his Adam’s Apple bob up and down while he tried to swallow. “You know, stuff.”
Sonny slammed her hand down on the counter, breaking the sexual fantasy the agitated kid was currently trapped in. “That’s enough. Keys please.” Her voice was gravely and tense, her dark eyes sending Kelly a warning that she had crossed a line.
The clerk slid the keys toward Sonny on the counter and she snatched them up at lightning speed, then turned swiftly and as an afterthought grabbed Kelly’s hand and yanked her toward the door. Kelly decided to push her even further; she found it amusing to needle The Ice Queen as she had come to call her in her head. “Hey, you should come out with us sometime. We could have some fun!” Kelly shouted as she was dragged to the door.
“Uh okay,” he said nervously as the door slid shut and separated Kelly from her fun. They marched to the rented cargo van and Sonny did not say a word. Kelly could feel the tension practically shooting off her body like lightning. The assassin opened the passenger side of the cargo van and shoved Kelly inside.
“Hey! Take it easy!” Kelly protested but Sonny glared at her and slammed the door before marching around the front of the van, never taking her angry eyes off the ex-FBI agent.
Sonny got in and started the engine, not saying a word as she quickly drove out of the rental lot. “Was it something I said?” Kelly batted her eyelashes and leaned over toward Sonny.
“Just shut up.” Sonny never took her eyes off the road and gripped the wheel so hard
her knuckles glowed white under her tanned skin while she navigated the streets. A few miles down the road, they pulled into a McDonald’s parking lot. Sonny killed the engine and whipped her head around to face Kelly, her eyes ablaze and her long black hair tossed messily, causing Kelly to become surprisingly aroused. Oh my God, she is so hot when she’s angry. “What the fuck was that?” Sonny’s loud voice filled the entire inside of the vehicle.
“What?” Kelly played stupid as she shrugged.
“That little play you put on in there! Shit like that cannot happen, do you understand me?” There was a vein poking out of her forehead and Kelly saw Sonny’s plump lips thin until they showed her perfect stark white teeth.
“I was just trying to have a little fun, Sonny, lighten up.” Kelly knew as soon as she said it that it was the wrong thing to say. No one in the history of the world had ever calmed down after being told to calm down.
“That kind of fun could get me killed, Miss King.” Sonny’s voice lowered, turning into a low growl.
“What are you talking about?”
“I need to be invisible out here.” She gestured to the outside world beyond the car windshield. “If this van gets spotted, that clerk is going to remember the two lesbians who were all over each other now! Before he would have only remembered that two women rented this thing, but now he’s going to remember our hair color, what we were wearing, our faces. You gave him something to think about! If people remember me, then I can be tracked, and if I can be tracked, then I can be killed. You put my life in danger, Miss King. I have lived this long doing what I do because I don’t go out here trying to ‘have a little fun’!” Sonny held her angry gaze with Kelly for a moment and then turned back and slowly settled back into her seat. Her impassive mask was now replaced on her face but Kelly could still see Sonny’s chest rise and fall rapidly as she attempted to calm herself down.
“Sorry.” Kelly’s voice was sincere and soft. She was not trying to get Sonny killed; she just wanted to needle her a little. She had been so bored that she had to do something to keep herself from falling asleep. Kelly just had not taken Sonny’s obsession
with security in consideration. “I didn’t know it was like that.”
“No, you didn’t,” Sonny accused, her hands still gripping the steering wheel tightly. Kelly decided to take a chance and slowly reached out and placed her hand on one of Sonny’s. There was an energy that passed through the two women from the contact and Sonny’s eyes flicked to their hands but she did not withdraw hers. “What are you doing?” Her voice was still low but it sounded much different to Kelly—shaky, vulnerable.
“Trying to show you that I’m sorry,” Kelly said lightly with a smile.
“Why are you touching me?” Sonny’s voice was getting even softer now and her eyes were not moving from their hands.
“I don’t know, I thought you needed it.” Kelly shrugged but kept her hand where it was, now beginning to stroke the back of her hand with her thumb.
“Well.” Sonny cleared her throat. “I-I don’t.” She pulled her hand off the wheel and placed it in her lap, both hands now nervously rubbing the other.
Kelly felt the loss of the other woman’s touch but then felt a little elated that she was making a connection with the assassin after all. If she was going to get out of this, she needed to establish a rapport with Sonny. After all, she wanted to get away, right? They sat there for a few minutes, both looking outside, neither woman looking at the other. Kelly was wondering what the other woman was thinking but the only sound that was heard inside the van was the slow and steady breaths from the two uncomfortable people. “Uh, so where to now?” She had to break the tension in the car because it was killing her.
Sonny sighed and turned the engine back on. “Shooting.”
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“We aren’t going to the house tonight?” Amina rolled her eyes at the question from her driver; the man was incredibly thick and she hated repeating herself.
“Yes.” She sighed as she rubbed her wrinkled brow, trying to massage the upcoming headache away by manipulating the lines she had earned on her face from years of tragedy and torture. “The men can handle the operation for one night. I have business with Petrov.”
“Petrov? Not Ivan?” Again with the questions from this cinder block-headed man.
“That is what I said. Now prepare the car, we will be leaving within the hour.” Amina ended the conversation and with an affirmative nod, her driver left her alone in her office. Amina swiveled in her desk chair and looked out on the view of the cityscape from her floor-to-ceiling window. She could see the river from her highrise on Upper Wacker Drive and as the sun sank below the horizon, the windows of the buildings around her began to glow like fireflies frozen in flight. Behind those lights were people heading home to live their lives of mediocrity and anonymity. Her lips curled in disdain for them and their imagined happiness.
Being in America always filled her with loathing for its people.They knew nothing of what it meant to survive, nothing of what it was like to live beyond their Wi-Fi walls and their moats of Starbuck lattes. Amina knew, however. She knew that life was both random and cruel. These Americans had won the lottery of birth and through nothing more than luck they got to live in luxury while the rest of the world suffered in misery. Life was hard, life was brutal. Americans lived in a fairytale while everyone else lived the nightmare that was existence.
Amina knew that the only real luxury to be had in life was breathing; the only extravagance that mattered was being on the right side of the dirt underfoot. All that mattered was staying alive, and she would be damned if anyone stopped her from living. If that meant she would have to sacrifice Ivan in order to survive, then so be it.
Due to Ivan’s stupidity, her life was now in jeopardy. Petrov was just like her—sentimentality had to be sacrificed for one’s own survival. Ivan’s fuck up at the club would not go unpunished by his father. A public shooting in a club owned by Ivan was attention that the elder Petrov did not want. If it came to hanging his son out to dry or risk his empire, then he would do it with no hesitation. Although blood might spare Ivan’s life, Amina would be liquidated, that much was certain. Petrov would eliminate everyone in her operation from the top down, including her, and this was something she could not allow. Therefore, she would go speak with Petrov, and try to convince him that she was worth more to him alive than she was dead.
She would survive, like she always did.
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“I thought you were an expert marksman already.” Kelly was confused as to why they were pulling into the parking lot of a shooting range. “Is this what you do for fun?” She looked over to Sonny as the other woman parked the car and batted her eyelashes coquettishly. “Is this a date, Sonny?”
For the umpteenth time in less than an hour, Kelly got under her skin. Her skin flushed and her breathing hitched. How did this woman make her angry and flustered and excited all at once? Her brain was screaming at her to just cut Kelly King loose, drop her off somewhere and just be done with her. Now that she knew who Kelly was and what she looked like, Sonny knew that she could disappear and the ex-federal agent would never find her again. Logically, separating herself from Kelly was the right thing to do, but something inside her was stopping her from doing it.
Kelly was activating something deep inside of her that had Sonny craving more of her. The woman was infuriating and not nearly as funny as she thought she was, but Sonny was finding it frustratingly hard to get rid of her. She knew this was a mistake, kept saying it to herself over and over, but it was no use: Miss King had latched onto her and Sonny was not sure if she even wanted to pry her off.
“Spare me your annoying and unwanted flirtatious comments, Miss King. This is all business,” Sonny said after she blew out a long breath.
“Unwanted, huh?” Kelly smirked. “Your rapid breathing and inability to look me in the eye tell me otherwise, Sonny Moretti. You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Kelly leaned over into Sonny’s personal space and this time the assassin had to look at her. “You’re imagining what my lips feel like.” Kelly lowered her voice an octave and she watched as Sonny’s eyes became hooded and her lips parted slightly. “You’ve been picturing it in your mind, pressing your lips against mine, feeling our tongues slowly slide over and around each other, and it is driving you insane.” Kelly watched as Sonny’s eyes dropped to Kelly’s mouth for a long time. They were so close that they could feel the heat from their breaths. Then Sonny’s lips pressed together in a line and she moved back, shattering the moment.
Sonny cleared her throat. “Dream on, Miss King.” Her voice was emotionless and her mask was firmly back in place, revealing nothing of the desire churning within her. Kelly smirked in triumph just the same, knowing that everything she had said to Sonny was true. Sonny opened her car door and stepped out. “Let’s go.”
Kelly opened her door, confident that Sonny was rapidly becoming seduced by her. She also knew that the feeling was mutual and that everything was becoming much more complicated.
Chapter Ten
Lori held the key in her hand, confident that Kelly had not changed the lock. One thing she knew about her former lover was that she was lazy. Kelly was not answering Lori’s calls or texts so Lori had decided to go to her apartment and if Kelly was not home, then she would wait there until she showed up. They needed to straighten everything out because Kelly was blowing everything out of proportion, again. They had sex and in Lori’s mind, that meant they were back together. Sure they had said some things to each other that they both wanted to take back, but that was just regular relationship stuff. Every couple fought like that from time to time.
She stopped just a few feet from Kelly’s door—it was open. She got a little closer and saw that the lock had been kicked in. Slowly, she stepped over the threshold and into Kelly’s place. The lights were on, curiosity and confusion propelling her feet forward.
“Kelly? You in here?” As she moved forward into the small hallway, she heard two people talking, two men talking. She started to take a step back when a dangerous-looking man appeared in the hallway. Lori did not have time to scream before he was on her and covering her mouth with his large hand. He lifted her up easily and dragged her into the apartment and Kelly’s living room. Her legs were kicking frantically as she tried to escape but the man was much taller and had lifted her clean off the floor.
“Is this her?” The man holding her had a strange accent as he spoke to the two men who had been speaking before. Her panicked eyes swept back and forth across the apartment. There were papers and clothes strewn everywhere, and Kelly’s furniture was overturned. Her heart was pounding inside her chest as she felt the terror overtake her senses. The other man held up his cell phone by Lori’s face and looked at his screen.
“No,” he said as he put his phone back in his pocket. “She know her.” His accent was even thicker than the man that was holding her. “You scream, we kill you. You understand?”
With tears in her eyes, she tried to nod, but the man was holding her face so tight that she could barely move her head. “Good.” He motioned to the man who was holding her and he uncovered her mouth. She took a deep and ragged involuntary breath. Her lip was trembling and she felt her entire body shaking uncontrollably.
“Please.” Her voice was almost a whisper as she pleaded. “Please let me go.” The man shook his head no, his face showing no emotion at all.
“You call her, yes? Get her come here. Then we let go, yes?”
She nodded vigorously this time. “Yes! Yes, I’ll call her, just please don’t hurt me.”
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Kelly had to admit that the woman was good; hell, she was a master. Standing behind and slightly to the left of Sonny, Kelly’s arms were crossed as she watched the other woman shoot at the target. The more time she spent with Sonny, the more she found herself liking and admiring the woman. That was a complication that she was not happy about. This was her meal ticket and she was having conflicting feelings about turning her in. On the one hand, this was her job. She had been hired to bring Sonny in and she always completed her job. On the other hand, she did not want to see anything bad happen to Sonny once she brought her to the Don. Then there were the Popovs, and there was no way in hell that Kelly wanted them to get their hands on her. It made her stomach feel as if it was being twisted in knots when she tried to imagine what they would do to her. That was not going to happen if Kelly had anything to say about it.