by Jasmin Quinn
Jack didn’t acknowledge Anto’s directives. “What else?”
“Isabelle hands the phone off to you. You get a look at the list. Then you hand the phone off to me.”
“And Rusya will be none the wiser, eh?”
“Not much gets past Rusya. It’s what keeps him alive and well. He doesn’t tolerate deception. I’ve seen firsthand. But we keep this between us and we both get what we want. You get the fucker who killed your brother’s woman plus a whole lot of other important names, I get to hand off the phone to Rusya without looking like one of the fucking stooges.”
He waited. He knew that Creed underestimated him. Almost everyone did, including Jackman. And he liked it that way. People let their guards down around clowns and idiots. He was neither of course, but it served his purposes. So many dead men figured out too late what it meant to misjudge him.
He tried to think like Jack. Had he said enough to him to convince him to keep Michael alive? He wouldn’t know for sure.
“How’s Black going to find me? I’m not at the Rosewood.”
“I don’t know, Creed,” Anto lied. Michael would find Creed. He had eyes all over this city. Dubious friends everywhere. Everyone seemed to owe Michael a favour. But he couldn’t tell Creed that for obvious reasons.
“Call him and tell him.”
“Tell him where?”
“Westin. Room 1406.”
Anto drummed his fingers on the dresser, then looked closely in the mirror at his teeth. A little bit of green was stuck in a front tooth. Parsley. Fuck, was he walking around all day looking like that? Why the hell didn’t someone say something. “Why would I do that? I don’t give a fuck whether he finds you or not. I just want him out of the way while your wife does her job tonight. Otherwise he’ll fuck things up for the both of us. Besides, I tell him where you’re at and he’ll know something’s up.”
He scraped at the parsley with his pinky fingernail. Then ran his tongue over the tooth, dislodging the parsley the rest of the way. He looked at his teeth again, a wide grin, sparkling white and flawless. “Why don’t you send some men to try to find him?” He told Jack the make, model, colour and plate number of the car Michael left in.
“Why don’t you try to find him yourself, you lazy sonofabitch?” Jack was clearly seething.
Anto looked down at his pinky. Fuck, the parsley was on his finger now. He rubbed it on his jeans. “Maybe I should stay here in case he comes back. If he does, I can knock him on the head for you and sit on him until I get your call.”
Jack snarled something almost unintelligible but highly profane. Then the line went dead. Anto looked down at his pants. The parsley was now on his trousers. He shrugged at it. “Okay, parsley, you can come along for the ride, but let me warn you, it’s going to be bumpy.”
He slipped on his shoulder holster, then holstered his gun and shrugged into a jacket. He picked up Michael’s briefcase and flipped it open. Careless of him to leave it behind. Not at all like Michael Black. Anto would be so happy when that fucking woman was gone. Michael would return to normal and Anto could quit babysitting him. He looked at Isabelle’s new passport, her plane ticket, Michael’s ticket. He dropped the documents back into the case on top of the cash, IDs, guns, ammo, gloves. Everything a man could want. He closed it and picked it up. As he left the hotel room, he said to the parsley, “How the fuck are we going to steal a car with a fucking briefcase in tow?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Michael checked his watch. It was almost 9:30pm. Tracking Creed had been time-consuming. He’d hoped he’d find Creed before Isabelle left for Scott’s house. He could kill the asshole, grab Isabelle and get out. He didn’t give a fuck about Savisin anymore, didn’t care about the fucking job. He would put Isabelle on a plane, willing or not. Vancouver wasn’t his only home. They would go to Paris first, then from there, a train into Germany. He owned a piece of isolated land, a safe house. A small fortress really. A place to hide until he figured out what to do about Isabelle. He’d have to call Jackson at some point, but not now. Not today.
Latest intel on Creed put him at the Westin. Michael eased off the gas pedal as he approached the hotel. He needed to sort himself out fast. Compartmentalize. Lock Isabelle away in a little corner of his brain where he could forget about her for a while. Anto was right, she was going to get him killed. He cruised past the hotel and around a corner, down a block and then a back alley. He dumped the car in the alley and walked away, slipped his gloves off and shoved them inside his suit jacket. As he approached the hotel, his heart battered at his chest. When he realized that his pulse was racing, he stopped dead in his tracks. His pulse didn’t race. He was never afraid or worried. Where the fuck was this coming from?
The question was redundant. He knew exactly what was going on. He was so fucking angry with Isabelle, so betrayed, all he wanted to do was get his hands on her. And not in a nice way. But at the same time, he wanted to hear her voice, laugh with her, hold her close. Someone bumped into him as they walked past.
“Sorry,” the pedestrian muttered. So Canadian.
Michael stepped to the side and stood under the awning of a little smoke shop. He was not doing a much of a job of forcing Isabelle out of his head. How the fuck could love be this torturous? He remembered his phone call with her. She’d told him she loved him. Twice. He ignored her. Twice. Why would she confess her feelings in one breath and admit her betrayal of him in another? To ease his pain, to fuck with his head? Did she think he loved her? Did he… love her?
He inhaled the cool air. No woman had ever fucked him up like this. But all this emotional shit was too intense and gut-wrenching. Maybe Anto was right. She needed to be gone from him. Out of his life. Maybe he should just let her go. But he knew he couldn’t. He also knew he couldn’t walk away from Jack Creed without fucking him up. Creed should be thrilled – he now topped the list of Michael’s enemies with Savisin and Scott a close second and third. If he didn’t finish Creed today, then he’d work towards his destruction – it would become his goal in life to bring down the sonofabitch. He’d crush him, but he’d let Jack live to see his downfall. Maybe it’s time Vegas had a new owner. Maybe.
His heartbeat settled as he considered this possibility. He should walk away now. Get on a plane and leave the country. Isabelle was under Savisin’s protection. She didn’t need Michael, didn’t want him. Perhaps it was time for Michael Black to step into the middle of this war. Jackman was his friend; the loyalty ran deep. Maybe he could further Jackman’s cause if he challenged Creed. He took stock of his heart, his body, his emotions. Something clicked back into place. He felt his hardness return. His coldness. As he stood there watching the people strolling past him, innocents or not, on their way to something, not only did his emotions slip back behind the shell, but a little bit of who he was before Isabelle happened seemed to have disappeared.
He dug around inside him but couldn’t find his smile, his lightness, the charm he used to pull out so easily. It was gone. For now, anyway. Like Isabelle. For now. But she was not gone forever. She would be his again, soon. But not like before. This time he would own her, he would school her, he’d make her crawl. She would wish for Jack once he was through with her. He turned then, away from the hotel, away from Isabelle. He was nothing if not patient. While everyone else was whoring themselves out to Savisin, he would be on a plane to Cyprus to connect with another brother, then Germany to open his country estate. Then to Russia, to talk with Jackman, to get the little Disappearist, Nika, to help him track down Isabelle.
He flagged down a taxi, directed the driver to go to the airport, then settled back and closed his eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Isabelle sat in the back seat of the black street car, twisting her fingers together while she stared out the window. She wasn’t nervous. She had everything she needed. Except Michael. A lump grew in her throat, a regular occurrence whenever she thought of him. Which was almost every second. It was impossible not to think of
him; her heart wouldn’t let her off the hook. She missed him desperately, wanted him back so much it was hard to breath. And her heart was dying. How could love cause so much pain?
She didn’t hear Jack’s man in the passenger seat talking to her until he raised his voice and snapped, “Mrs. Creed.”
Her eyes shot to him. “It’s not fucking Mrs. Creed.”
“According to Mr. Creed it is. Unless you have a preferred other name, like whore, Jezebel, bitch. Which would you prefer, Mrs. Creed?”
She eyed him dangerously. If only she had a gun or a high heeled shoe. She would take him out like the rodent he was. “What do you want, Grunt 1?”
He barked out his laugh. “We’re coming up on Scott’s house, Mrs. Creed. Mr. Creed said you would run the show. Where’s the drop-off and pick-up point?”
“Cruise past the house,” she said to the driver, who she dubbed Grunt 2.
Grunt 2 doused the headlights as they drove by the Scott estate. “I’m assuming you don’t just want to walk in through the front door.”
“No. Drive down the road a half-mile and pull over to a curb on the same side of the street as Scott’s house. I’ll walk back.” She shoved the black wool cap on her head so that only her long braid in the back was visible. Then she drew her hoodie up over the cap. The hoodie was big enough that it would obscure her face from any street cameras and baggy enough that she would look like a slim young man out for a late jog.
As she picked up her backpack and started to climb out of the car, the driver asked, “Where do you want the pick-up?”
Isabelle sighed and retreated back inside the car, closing the door. She needed to give Jack’s guys some details. After all, they were her ride to the airport. “I hope to be in and out in 15 minutes max. 10 minutes there, and 10 minutes back. Providing there are no surprises, I should be back 45 minutes tops.” She paused, mulling the time-line over. Longer in the house than she thought she needed, but she’d had very little time to plan this out. She needed a decent window of time. “Stay here, turn the engine off, the lights. Keep low. It will just seem like a parked car.”
Grunt 1 rolled his eyes at Isabelle. “Thank the lord you’re with us or we’d never’ve worked that out.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Isabelle said as blithely as she could. She looked to the driver through his rear-view mirror. “If I’m not back in an hour, leave. What’s a good meet point? A drive-in or something. You probably want to feed the beast anyway.”
Grunt 2 tapped at his phone, opening to a map. “How about here?” he said to Grunt 1, pointing his finger to the screen.
Grunt 1 nodded. “Yeah, that’ll work. 5 miles. Give your little ass a workout, hey Mrs. Creed?”
The words ‘fuck off’ hovered on her lips. But she needed to stop the dangerous game she was playing with Jack’s men. She was at their mercy, especially once they had what they wanted. What Jack wanted from her. They could rough her up or rape her. Jack would be none the wiser, because after tonight she would never speak to him again, ever. It was over, and it almost made her shudder in relief.
“Show me.” She moved forward towards Grunt 1 who held the phone up.
“The MacDonald’s on Berkshire. It’s open 24 hrs. Won’t look weird for us to stop in for some food and eat in the car.”
Isabelle nodded. “That’ll work.”
“How long should we wait?”
She took the phone from Grunt 1’s stubby fingers and looked at it. “1 hour.” She scrolled the screen. “Then move to the Tim Horton’s.” She stabbed a finger at the screen then handed the phone back. “Wait one more hour. If I don’t show, something’s gone wrong. Call Jack.”
She reached for the door handle again, then turned back. “Nothing will go wrong, though. It never does.” Then she stepped out and slipped into the shadows. It was 10:03pm.
The night was moonless, clouds had moved in and blotted out the last of the sun’s evening rays. This worked in Isabelle’s favour. The moonlight and the streetlamps wouldn’t be competing for the shadows or the light. Isabelle would be able to melt into the greyness. Almost all the snow was gone, but the ground was wet and sloppy and as she stepped on the grass, her black sneakers and socks were soaked through. She shivered. She hated fucking wet feet even more than she hated snow. If she’d had anything to say about it, no way would she have done this job in this weather.
She slipped across the wet grass of a park towards a small road. Not an alley. People in this area of town didn’t have alleys. They had fenced estates, backed onto a shared roadway, paved with cobblestones of all things. But she felt at home here – among the luxury, the unfettered spending of money for fine useless possessions. She would have made a good princess, except for her light fingers. But that would just make a good scandal.
She entered the alley and broke into a light jog. Anyone looking out the window would think her a jogger. It wouldn’t even register a day from now. But it didn’t matter if they did see and remember her, because the goal was to break in and leave Randall Scott’s house without him being the wiser. She checked the luminous dial on her watch. It had taken her seven minutes to reach the Scott estate. She conjured up the details of the map she looked at in Anto’s basement. A tall thick hedge of junipers blocked the entrance to his back yard. Fuck! The branches would shred her. Another reason not to do a job on a moment’s notice. She exhaled a little puff of adrenaline as she walked the line of the hedge until she found a decent opening. She slipped her hands into the sleeves of her hoodie and tightened the hood around her face and eyes. Then she slipped into the bush and disappeared.
As Isabelle fought the branches clawing at her, she picked her way to the other side of the hedge, at least three fucking feet. When she stumbled out the other side, she did a quick check to make sure she wasn’t scratched up too much. She seemed relatively intact as she brushed herself off carefully. She didn’t want to be dragging bugs or bits of shrubbery into the house with her. No telltale signs of her presence.
The yard was huge. Classy too, with perennial bushes and trees scattered in a very purposeful pattern, cobble stone walkways, a fountain. A covered outdoor swimming pool and a bathhouse. A huge cedar deck of varying levels, extending from the door of the kitchen out to the yard supporting plush outdoor lounges and tables. She stole her way through the shadows, stepping gingerly in case the gardener left a out rake or for some reason there was a child’s squeaky toy laying in wait for her. She doubted either would be the case, but this kind of caution was one of the reasons Isabelle had rarely been caught.
As she reached the steps that would take her into the kitchen, her adrenaline spiked again, honing her focus. Nothing in her mind now but getting in, getting pictures of the green book, and getting out. Lots of time later to crash, to miss Michael, to hate herself for what she did. She dropped her kit on the deck and sat down on her ass beside it. As she pulled off her wet shoes and socks, she dried her feet with a small hand towel pulled from the pack. She slipped on fresh socks and shoes, identical to her wet ones, stuffed the wet socks into the wet shoes, then placed them in a plastic bag and slipped them into her pack.
She unzipped her hoodie next, shrugged out of it and rolled it into a small ball, stuffing it into her pack. A black nylon belt with three small pockets was cinched at her waist. Inside each pocket were the tools she needed. The phone for the pictures was in the first pocket, the fingerprint kit was in the second pocket and a small flashlight and lockpick set were in her third pocket. She’d memorized the codes Michael had texted her earlier. She couldn’t risk writing them down on a piece of paper and then accidentally dropping it. It would also be faster to work from recall.
She’d left behind the burner cell that Michael gave her. Didn’t want Michael trying to call her – didn’t want that distraction while she was working. She’d erased everything on it before she left the suite, then removed the memory chip and the battery, flushing them both down the toilet. She’d slipped the phone betwee
n the mattresses of a bed in the suite and said a silent prayer that Jack didn’t discover it.
She slipped thin gloves on her hands. She was ready. Once she was in she’d try the 4-digit codes first. She figured she had 3-4 tries before the system locked her out. If the two codes didn’t work, then she’d have to do the fingerprint method. It would be easy to determine the code numbers, not as easy to figure out their order. She’d cross that bridge if she came to it.
She crouched down and studied the lock on the door. Bolted and locked. Standard though. She challenged herself as she pulled out her lock picks. 60 seconds for two doors. She was a little rusty, but her hands were steady, her resolve strong. She glanced at her watch – 10:14 – then went to work, opened the bolt first, then the lock. She frowned as she glanced at her watch. Seventy-five seconds. Not good enough. The door slid open and she stepped into the inky black. The alarm was blinking red at her. She had about 30 seconds to disarm it. She punched in the first 4-digit code. The red blinking turned into a solid green light and a little beep emitted. She let out a small breath. Thank you, Michael. This was going to be a cake-walk. The other two 6-digit codes would be for the two safes. One would be in the bedroom, the other in the study. Scott was orderly, his life was orderly, his safety measures would be orderly.
She rearmed the alarm as a precaution and then replaced the lock pick set and pulled out the flashlight, zipping up the pocket. She glanced at her watch. 10:17. Start with the bedroom first and get it over with. It was on the second level and she didn’t want to be caught upstairs by the arrival of unexpected guests. There was not a tenable escape route from the second floor. She conjured the floor plan in her memory and then let it lead her through the kitchen and dining room into a massive foyer. She stopped in her tracks as she ran her little flashlight over the beautiful chandelier that dropped from the ceiling, the rich, luxurious furnishings, exquisite art work, and marble floor. Heat flooded her as she took a moment to breathe in the smell of affluence. It was so fucking sexy.