Chapter 15
SABLE
I pulled Woody's jacket tighter around myself and stared out at the city.
"What are we going to do now?" I asked.
We tried the door only to find it locked. There was no other way out of here. I’d taken a quick shower in the opulent bathroom. Dried myself with one of the huge fluffy towels and tried not to let despair sink in.
"What we do now is get out of here," Woody said. He reclined on the bed, ankles crossed, his hands behind his head.
I turned and stared at him. "Unless we can open the windows and tie the sheets together to climb out, I don't see how."
"And there I thought you had an imagination," he scoffed.
"I do have an imagination. What does that have to do with anything?" If he was going to keep being infuriating, I might find a way to open the windows and shove him out.
"How would you get out of here?" he asked, his expression revealing nothing.
"What I'd like to do is open the door and walk out," I said. "But we already tried that, remember?"
"We tried that when people in this apartment were still awake," he said easily. "I haven't heard a sound from out there in at least half an hour, have you?"
Now he mentioned it, I hadn't. For a while after the senator left, I heard talking, but that had stopped. I couldn't hear any movements. No one watching TV.
"They could be standing quietly outside the door," I pointed out.
"I hope they are." He pushed himself off the bed and, smirking at me, he dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a long, slim piece of metal.
"You've had that the whole time?" I asked. "Didn't we go through a metal detector when we arrived?" The question was rhetorical. We had; both of us passed through without setting it off. The thugs had gone around. Of course they had. Their guns would have had the machine blaring out an alarm.
"I had it tucked inside my watch, but I slipped it into my pants when I was getting undressed," he explained. "In case that asshole got too close and nosy."
He got both of those things.
Even after a shower, I felt dirty, remembering his eyes on me.
I didn't bother to contain a shudder. If we didn't get out of here, it'd be more than his eyes he’d have on me.
My skin crawled at the thought. Switching off, even part of the way, only worked for so long.
When the darkness and anxiety crept back in, it was worse than before.
I hated that. I didn't want to climb out of my own body when I thought of Woody and I fucking.
Woody slid the lock-pick into the lock and turned his head so his ear was beside it. He frowned, listening for the click of the mechanism unlocking.
His frown deepened.
"You can't get it to…" I started.
"Shh," he hissed.
I made a zipping motion with my fingers and pretended to throw the key out the window. Fortunately, the key was imaginary, otherwise it might have bounced back and hit me in the face.
He rolled his eyes at me. That was better than the expression he would have given me a week ago. Then, he would have wanted me to follow the key out for the long drop to the ground. Not to mention the fatal landing on the sidewalk.
Now? We had an uneasy alliance going on. How long it would last was anyone's guess. With luck, it’d hold until we got the hell out of here.
Honestly, I'd like it to hold for a lot longer than that.
Long enough for him to follow through on his promise to make amends, but Woody was temperamental to say the least. No doubt he'd say the same about me.
Whatever. I wasn't the one who should do the groveling around here. That ball was firmly in his court.
He bent again, listening carefully. Moving the lock-pick around, until he gave a jerk and slid it out. He nodded to me and stood up straight, dropping the lock-pick back into his pocket.
Heart racing, I stepped over to him, my feet bare. I thought for a moment before slipping my heels back on. If we had to run, I'd rather do it in shoes. It was cold outside and the sidewalk was hard. Besides, these were my favorite pair.
"If those make a fucking sound…" he whispered harshly.
"I'll take them off again," I assured him. Heels clicking on the ground would give us both away. Shoes were replaceable. We weren't. Not even limited edition, handmade kitten heels.
"Wear sneakers next time," he said.
"At a black tie event?" I made a face at him.
"Why not?" He placed his hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it, easing the door open a fraction. It moved without a sound.
One of the senator's thugs stood just outside. He realized the door was opening and turned.
Woody leapt at him, wrapping a hand around his mouth and another around his throat. He pressed him back against the wall beside the door, holding him, squeezing.
The man's eyes bulged. He struggled against Woody, his hands flailing. He started to reach for his gun.
Before he could grab it, I got to it first, pulling it out of its holster and holding it against his forehead.
He struggled harder.
I wrapped my finger around the trigger. I had no idea if the safety was on or not. How would I even check?
If the terror in his eyes was an indication, it wasn’t.
His mistake.
I started to squeeze.
I’d half closed my eyes when his knees gave way, drawing him down toward the floor. He dragged Woody with him. They both fell to their knees.
Woody pushed him to the ground, both his hands wrapped around the man's neck now.
He gave a last struggle before his eyes rolled back in his head and he lay still.
Panting, Woody drew his hands from around the man. "I fucking hate strangling people," he said, shaking out his hands. "People think it's easy, but it's not."
It didn't look easy to me. It was, however, a lot quieter than shooting him in the head.
"Is he dead?" I nudged his calf with my toe.
He didn't move. He lay staring up at the ceiling.
The skin around his throat was already turning purple.
Should I have felt bad he died doing his job?
No, because his job was bullshit. What sort of man protects a predator like the senator?
He could have ended him instead, done the world a favor.
Either way, he would have ended up dead.
"Yeah," Woody said slowly. The rest of the apartment was dark and appeared to be empty. Open plan living had its advantages, including being able to see all the way across the space. Unless someone was behind the kitchen island, or the couch, there was nowhere to hide.
"My guess is there's a couple more outside the front door."
"That leaves one more and, the senator," I whispered.
"Yeah, I'd feel better if I knew where he was," Woody said. He rubbed his chin, then took the gun from my hand. "You even know how to use one of these?"
"No," I admitted. "But I would have figured out how if I had to."
He didn't look convinced. He checked the gun before putting it into his pocket. "Don't worry, I put the safety on," he said. "I'm not going to shoot myself in the balls."
"Shame," I said teasingly.
Even in the darkness I saw his eyes roll.
"We need to find the last asshole before he finds us," Woody said.
Footsteps followed his words. They headed out of a side room, the flush of a toilet following behind.
Ironic. This situation was giving me the shits too.
I didn't need to say it was too late to find him first; we could both hear him approaching. He moved like someone who was just starting to sense something was wrong. He didn't know what yet, but something was amiss.
He called out, "Cuthbert?"
The man Woody killed was named Cuthbert? He didn't look like a Cuthbert. He looked more like a Paul. Maybe a Robert. I didn't suppose it mattered anymore. His name might have been Engelbert Pumpernickel, and he'd still be just as dead.
The thug put the light on his phone and shone it around the apartment. Slowly he turned around, scanning the space.
As he moved, we stepped in the opposite direction, staying in the dark, always behind him. Mimicking his speed and the angle of his rotation
I walked on my toes, trying to keep my heels from making a sound. I didn't even dare to breathe.
Finally, the goon illuminated Cuthbert and the open door beside him.
Before he could say a word, Woody had the gun back out, and pressed against the back of his head.
"I suggest you don't move," he whispered. His voice was harsh in the near silence. Almost enough to give me chills.
"Sable."
While the thug stood still, I took his gun too.
"Do you want this one as well?" I pictured Woody doing cartwheels and leaping around the apartment, a gun in each hand, like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, without the long hair and big breasts.
Was it really possible to do cartwheels and flips with guns in your hands? I didn't know, but I'd pay to see that.
Less important, but as compelling was the question, was it possible to do cartwheels with breasts that large? She must have one hell of a sports bra.
"Hold on to it," Woody said with a grunt. "We need to take care of our friend here."
I didn't like the sound of that.
Woody placed a hand on his back and pushed him toward the kitchen.
On the countertop was a knife block. Five or six blades of different sizes hung downward, their blades obscured until Woody grabbed one. It looked long and sharp, reflecting the city light from the window a couple of feet away.
"Please I…" the thug started to say, before Woody sliced the knife across his throat, and let him slump to the floor.
"Stay here," Woody said gesturing in my direction with the bloodied knife.
I took a step back, hitting the side of the kitchen island.
"I'm not going to use it on you." Knife in one hand, gun in the other, he headed to the front door of the apartment.
Now he looked like a homicidal version of Lara Croft. Or was that Larry Croft? I pressed my lips together to suppress a nervous laugh.
Transferring the gun into his other hand, he worked the locks loose and opened the door.
Standing deep in the shadows, I couldn't see the scuffle, but I heard it, followed by one thud, then another.
Woody stepped back into the apartment, weapons back in both hands.
"Four down, one to go." He nodded toward a staircase to the side of the living area. "I'm guessing that leads to where the asshole sleeps."
I glanced towards it, then the open door. "We could leave," I said.
The air coming in from the corridor was cold. I wished I had more to wear than his jacket, but it could be worse. I could be wrapped in a towel and nothing else. Did Woody have to destroy my underwear?
"I'm not leaving that prick alive," Woody said. "You can go or you can help me. If we let him live, he will come after you. He thinks you belong to him. He won't give up until he has you back."
"When you put it that way…" I'd sleep better at night knowing that wasn't going to happen. He was right, though. No one paid money to buy someone else, only to let them walk out the door without looking back. Especially men as entitled as this one.
No, he'd hunt me down until he found me. The things he'd do to me would be a hundred times worse than him watching while Woody fucked me.
We needed to end him. It was the only way I'd get any peace.
"I'll help," I said finally. I pushed the gun into the jacket pocket and reached for another, smaller knife.
"You know how to use that?" Woody asked again.
"Of course I do," I said with a sniff. I strode past him and started up the stairs.
He made a sound of disbelief before hurrying after me.