Chapter Ten #3
Kala leaned back, eyeing Sophy and Vivi. “Hey, is one of you doing Ollie? Because the moms are super worried.”
Vivi snorted. “No. That’s ridiculous. Ollie is fun and I adore him, but we’re too smart to ever fall for him. He is the ultimate player.”
Sophy nodded. “Yep. He’s a massive ass when it comes to women.”
But Kenzie got the feeling there was something Sophy was hiding.
She was going to have to figure that out.
“How is your guy?” Vivi asked. “I didn’t get a chance to spend much time with him. He is stunning. Like my jaw dropped when he walked into the room. How is that man not a model?”
“The spy thing is a whole gig,” Kala quipped. “We’re not allowed side hustles unless they help the Agency. And even then sometimes it goes wrong. Like the time they decided we could get some serious intel by becoming ride share drivers. You would be surprised what people will say to a driver.”
Kenz sat down and started checking her makeup. “We were targeting a particular set of hackers, and not a one of them drove. The problem was to make it look good we had to actually accept real rides, and turns out my sister isn’t great at customer service.”
“Hey, it was Malibu jail. I even got a gift bag,” Kala retorted.
It hadn’t been the first time her twin had been arrested. Probably wouldn’t be the last. After all, their dad got hauled in by cops a weird amount of times. He had jail stories from around the world.
“Ben was planning on being a professional baseball player.” She’d learned pretty much everything she could about the man she was obsessed with.
Obsession, it turned out, was a lot easier than actual love.
A lot less scary than love. “He went to college on a scholarship and was being scouted. He was what we call a south paw.”
Kala’s eyes rolled. “She only knows that because she’s an obsessive bitch. Trust me. She knows nothing about sportsball.”
“I do, too. Well, now.” Cooper had given her a whole class on the finer points of baseball. He and TJ knew all the sportsballs.
“How did he become a spy?” Sophy asked. “I would think left-handed pitcher would be far more lucrative and less dangerous.”
“He is Canadian.” Sosa was listening intently. “Do they really have spies? Or do they just want to be included? I mean how dangerous can Canada be?”
Kala gave her a thumbs-up. “About as scary as France, am I right?”
Kala might have found a fucking soulmate. “You two try to survive winter there and we’ll see.”
They both looked at her.
“I am Russian,” Sosa said.
“Dude, Russian genes,” Kala added.
She was going to ignore them both. For now. She stared at herself in the mirror. Ben had kissed her nose earlier. He’d told her how cute she was when she slept. “He got in an accident and he couldn’t pitch anymore. So that’s how he ended up in CSIS.”
“Yep,” Kala agreed. “That’s how he became a pain in my ass.”
They wouldn’t talk about Huisman right now. They had no idea how much Sosa knew about Huisman. It was best to play their cards close to the vest.
“Well, I’m surprised he didn’t go into acting or something,” Vivi admitted. “That man is hot. Are the two of you playing tonight?”
“Yes, but he got a privacy room. We haven’t played together before. Not in a formal way. We signed our contract very recently,” Kenzie explained.
“Oh, the girls in other part of house, they sign contracts sometimes, too,” Sosa began.
And she was done with Sosa.
Kenzie stood.
Kala grinned. “Cool. This is one of my favorite things in the world.”
“Uhm, Ariel kind of told us we needed to be gentle around the new girls,” Sophy pointed out.
Gentle hadn’t worked on Sosa and wouldn’t.
Kenzie strode up to the younger woman, who had a look of general annoyance on her face. Like she didn’t believe for a second Kenzie could take her.
“Do you seriously think you can take me out, Bratz doll?” Sosa asked.
“I think I have at least twenty pounds of muscle and six inches on you, petite baby doll. I think you like to shoot people and blow them up and you keep your distance. You kill people from afar. I’ve done it up close.
Do you know what it feels like to slide a stiletto between the third and fourth ribs?
It requires far more pressure than you would think.
The movies make that shit look easy. But you have to go through skin and tissue and muscle to get to that heart.
Which I did. It’s funny because if you leave the knife in, there’s no blood.
I know exactly when to step back so I don’t get blood on my clothes because when that dumb motherfucker pulls it out—and he always pulls it out—it’s a fountain that washes everything red. ”
“Are we sure she’s not Kala?” Sophy whispered.
Vivi nodded. “Kala wouldn’t be talking. She would stab her and get it over with. Also, I don’t think she’d care about her clothes.”
“That’s why I got Devi making me a new set of killing clothes.
Easy to clean,” Kala agreed. “No, this is my sister when she’s been pushed way too far.
I’m betting they don’t train Sosa in anything but what she’s supposed to be good at.
If she was able to fight, she might be able to get away. So this isn’t even a contest.”
Sosa’s chin went firm and she stood, like she wasn’t intimidated at all. Like she could handle this.
Her arm pulled back slightly and Kenzie sighed. She was terrible. She projected her moves. Completely untrained. Kenzie caught the fist that was going for her face. That would have ruined her carefully done makeup. She simply caught it and didn’t let it go.
Sosa’s eyes went wide and she tried to pull back, but Kenz had a point to make. She squeezed slightly, not enough to hurt the other woman but enough to let her know she wasn’t going anywhere.
Sosa cursed under her breath. She had quite the potty mouth. She kicked out, which gave Kenz the perfect chance to sweep her legs out from under her and set Sosa on her ass.
Kenzie straddled her, wrapping a hand around her throat.
“So, this is how it’s going to go. You get to make the decision.
I can be your friend and we can start training because I think my sister is correct and they keep you weak in everything but the one thing they need you to do.
You only snipe people and blow them up.”
“I am good with poison, too,” Sosa spat back.
She probably wouldn’t be eating anything Sosa gave her.
“Again, not very physically difficult to do. You are brutal with that mouth of yours. Wouldn’t it be good to know how to defend yourself?
So you can take the fight to the fuckers who did this to you.
Or you’re here because someone sent you and you’ll do their bidding and slink back into your cage because you’re too much of a coward to turn yourself into what you need to become. ”
Sosa’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I did not want to be this thing they made me.”
“Then be something else.” Kenz stood, looming over the young woman on the floor.
“Fight. You’re not eight years old anymore.
You’re strong and you’ve survived, and now it’s time to let them know what a fucking mistake they made when they took you.
Now it’s time to burn it all to the ground and dance in the ashes. ”
“That is what he say. I hear him when he talks to the boss. He say he will rule the ashes,” Sosa replied.
“Not the same thing.” Kala was suddenly at her side. “Huisman wants to burn the world down. All you want to do is torch the place that tortured you and will torture other girls in the future. He’s an asshole, and you’re doing the world a major favor. But you do need training. That was pathetic.”
Sosa lay there for a moment and then held up a hand. Kala reached down but Sosa shook her head. “This is between me and her.”
Kenzie helped her up.
Sosa straightened her clothes. “When they take me, I only have one toy. It is still at the base. It was Bratz doll. Sometime she was my only friend, the only piece of me from before. I’ll take your training.
I think you might be good person to have on my side.
So you should know, I have seen your man before.
Not in person. He doesn’t come to the castle.
But when the bad man comes, he has a room.
They set it up for him. One of the things he keeps with him is a picture of your man.
The girls he abuses say he always sets up the picture like he wants the man to watch what he does. ”
The thought sent a chill through Kenzie.
She knew Ben had an obsession with Huisman and it was wrapped in guilt and fear and anger, but somehow she’d thought it was one sided. Like Ben was nothing more than a fly to swat in Huisman’s eyes.
But there was something sick and twisted, like a love affair with the darkest intentions, and she was either Ben’s way out or perhaps his final sacrifice to the relationship that had truly defined his life.
Or Sosa was lying.
There was only one way to find out. Spend time with her. Train her. Analyze her.
All while watching her back.
Sosa started to walk toward the door. “I think I’ll go and check on Gabby. She’s having trouble being away from home. Isn’t it weird? I feel like I can breathe for first time and she’s crying.”
Kenzie looked to Vivi, who usually loved to spend her time explaining how feelings were normal and we should accept them.
Vivi simply shrugged. “Yeah, weird.”
Oh. She’d been given a mission. So she was more comfortable here than she let on. Vivi always said she did nothing but answer the phones.
“Tomorrow morning. There’s a gym on the fourth floor. Meet me there before breakfast. And Sosa, was there really a doll?”
Sosa stopped, her hand on the door. She didn’t look back. “Maybe there was. Maybe there wasn’t. In the end, none of it matters.”
She walked out and the door closed quietly behind her.
Kala nodded, her lips curling up in a smile. “I like her.”