9 - Ripley
RIPLEY
“What do you mean by you want her ‘liquidated?’” I snarled into the phone. “She’s not exactly a fucking asset.”
The grunt at the other end of the phone told me he was beyond angry, and that was fine by me.
I didn’t speak to Donovan Prescott the way Colson did, or most people for that matter.
And that’s because we had an arrangement, he and I.
A mutual hatred for one another, that precluded the usual boss-employee relationship.
“She was an asset,” Donovan replied smoothly. “My asset.”
“Well, she’s not yours now,” I quipped. “I can promise you that.”
We pushed boundaries, the two of us. Actually, I pushed boundaries, more than him. One day I’d push too far, and that would be it. He knew it. I knew it, too.
But for now…
“Do I need to spell this out for you, Jameson?” he finally shot back, using my last name.
It was a clear signal I was getting close to the boundary line.
“Because I don’t think I do.” He paused for a moment, and his voice twisted into a smug caricature of itself. “Besides, I’ve never had to before…”
Before. Before seemed like a lifetime ago. It was, actually.
Another life.
A different life.
“Eliminating her seems a little extreme, no?” I walked further into the back room of the house, where the others couldn’t hear. Colson wasn’t happy when I’d pried the phone from his hand. I was doing something I’d never done before: I was going over his head.
But I had to make the call.
“All due respect, sir,” I seethed, “but all this woman did was refuse to marry you.”
“No, she agreed to marry me,” Donovan growled back. “And today, she broke that agreement. And she did it, of all places, ON THE WAY TO THE FUCKING ALTAR!”
He screamed so loudly I had to hold the phone away. But I was smiling the whole time. She really had gotten the best of him, hadn’t she? Good for her.
Then again, my aching balls weren’t exactly a big fan.
“She embarrassed me, Jameson,” he went on, when he calmed down. “She humiliated me, in front of my clients, my family, my friends.”
I wanted to rub it in his face that he had no friends; no true ones, anyway. It also didn’t surprise me that he’d listed his clients first, even before family.
“You remember what it was like to break our agreement, don’t you?” Donovan pried. “All those years ago?”
I did, unfortunately. It was something I thought about every single fucking day. Breaking our agreement is why I was indentured to this monster in the first place.
But I wasn’t giving him that satisfaction.
“Do what needs to be done,” he said again. “And no more calls. No more talking about this. It’s over.”
This was the indication that I’d reached the end. There was no wiggle room, no more rope. If I asked for more, he’d only use it to hang me.
“When you get back here, we’ll figure out how to spin this,” finished Donovan, more to himself than to me. “We’ll twist it into whatever shape we need to, to set things right.”
And what’s right? I asked myself, silently. I wasn’t even sure anymore.
“But first, get it done.”
CLICK.
I stared at the satellite phone for a long time, even after I’d switched it off. It felt like it weighed fifty pounds.
Back in the room, I found everything pretty much the same. The runaway bride was bent forward, still rubbing her head. Theo was trying to tend to her. Colson was pacing back and forth, a lot like I did. The displaced Marine never paced back and forth. Maybe I was rubbing off on him.
“A word, please?”
He stomped over. Pulling him aside, I lowered my voice.
“There are a lot of things I’ll do, man,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “A lot of things I have done.”
I shifted my eyes to the woman sitting on the couch, and grunted.
“But I didn’t sign up for this.”
I expected immediate resistance. Colson was by the book, and never went against orders. It was in his blood. It was ingrained into his very being, to complete every mission no matter what the circumstances.
Right now though, he looked thoroughly lost.
“I don’t know,” he grumbled. “I— I need to think.”
He began pacing again. For the first time since we’d started working together, he looked at a loss of what to do.
“He wants her neutralized,” I murmured. “He wants her—”
“Dead.”
We both whirled at the sound of her voice. Did she have super hearing? She was staring back at us, nonplussed.
“Just say dead,” she shrugged, matter-of-factly. “You don’t have to use euphemisms here. We’re all friends.”
A flash of residual pain rolled up from my bruised testicles. I wanted to hate her for it, but I couldn’t. It’s exactly what I would’ve done.
“He doesn’t want me back,” she explained, “not after this. What I did was too egregious. Too unforgivable. Especially since I did it in front of everyone.”
“Peyton—”
“And he’s not going to just let me sail off into the sunset, either,” she continued smoothly. “I dated him for a year. I know too much.”
I scowled at her. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know enough,” she countered. “Enough to realize I’m a liability, and Donovan Prescott doesn’t suffer liabilities. The three of you know that, too.”
Fuck. Why was this so hard? I’d done so many things for this man. My debt was almost paid off.
But this… this was too much for even him to ask.
“Why didn’t you just marry him?” Colson snapped. His voice was tense with frustration.
The blonde on the couch threw back her head and laughed. It was a good laugh, an honest laugh. The kind of laugh that made a girl like this instantly more attractive.
And shit, she was already gorgeous to begin with.
“You work for that asshole and you hate him,” she went on. “Can you imagine going to bed with him every night for the rest of my life? Waking up next to him? Having to suffer through his bullshit, every moment of every day?”
“But you could’ve run afterwards,” sighed Colson. “A week or two from now. A few months, maybe. But now…”
He looked down at her sadly. I knew the look. It churned something ugly, deep in my gut.
“Yeah, well, I’m out.”
Theo had suddenly stood up. There was a defiance in his eyes I’d never seen before.
“You’re what?”
“I’m not doing this,” he explained curtly. “We’re not doing this.”
He stepped in front of her. That part didn’t surprise me. I’d known he’d fallen for her, quite stupidly, a long time ago. Everyone knew, really. Everyone but her fiancé, of course.
Because if Donovan Prescott had known, Theo would already be just another scar on my calloused past.
Colson advanced forward, his hulking frame flexing in ways it just couldn’t help. He didn’t stop until he was toe to toe with Theo. Almost eye to eye.
“So it’s like that, is it?” he growled.
His fists opened and closed, menacingly. But Theo wasn’t backing down.
“It is.”
Colson’s expression tightened. His eyes flashed dangerously, as they shifted to me.
“The both of you?”
Everything in me told me not to do it. But I nodded anyway.
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “I’m afraid so.”
The big Marine’s jaw clenched, as he took in a long, deep breath. By the time he let it out, I knew what was coming.
“Fine.”
It all happened impressively fast. One second Theo was standing protectively over his crush, the next he was sailing across the room. Colson shoved him so hard, there wasn’t time for a reaction.
“Only one thing to do then,” he sighed.
Surging toward Peyton, he slipped one arm briefly behind his back. When that hand came forward again, it was clutching a nine-inch Bowie knife.
There was nothing I could do. Nothing I might’ve done anyway, even if I were close enough.
The knife flashed, in the room’s dim light. Our captive gasped…
… then she was staring down at her wrists, where her zip-ties had been neatly severed.