Chapter Thirteen
“Are you still mad at me?” Atlanta asked in my ear.
I turned off the faucet. My shower would have to wait. I made my friend wait until I sat on the ridiculous tufted bench that looked and felt like silk—but I hoped it wasn’t, since I still had on my sweaty workout gear—in the ridiculously lavish bathroom.
“Yes.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how mad?” she pushed.
A few days ago, I was at a ten. Now that I’d spent time with Mason and my worst fears had come to fruition, I was at a six hundred and ninety-one.
Though in the rare times he was sweet, that number ratcheted up significantly.
When he was being his normal jerk, it lowered.
So I figured it was best to average it out.
I didn’t share this with Atlanta.
“Is there a reason for your call?”
“You mean other than to ascertain where my friend’s head’s at and if she’ll ever forgive me for having her back and doing the right thing, even if it meant going behind her back because she was being stubborn?”
I clenched my jaw. Another indication I needed to quit.
I was losing patience, and with that my ability to suppress my emotions.
I couldn’t hide my anger from Mason. I couldn’t hide my irritation.
I couldn’t hide my reaction to him in whatever form that came.
It was dangerous and reckless and very careless.
“Yes, other than that.” I was proud my tone came out bored.
“I’ll tell you if you promise you’ll only be at a level three and you’ll work on forgiving me.”
“I make no such promise.”
I heard her laugh, and I wondered where she was. What she was doing with her life other than gathering information for the CIA—unofficially, of course. Like me, she was a ghost. We received orders, we executed those orders, we collected our pay, and we waited for the next order.
Did she have a man in her life, did she have actual real-life friends, did she go to the grocery store like a normal person, did she own a house or car?
I knew next to nothing about Atlanta, because that’s how people who did the work we did stayed safe.
We didn’t form connections. We didn’t divulge secrets that could be used against us.
“Jason Anderson landed in Dubai thirty minutes ago.”
My heart rate ticked up.
This was it.
He was here.
“Tell me,” I prompted, uncaring I sounded like an eager five-year-old on Christmas morning.
“He has a reservation at the Bvlgari. Two suites. Arlo, Bodhi, and Archie are with him.”
His three favorite guards.
Arlo Brown and Bodhi Lee were both ex-Australian Special Air Service Regiment. Archie Evans was ex-British Special Boat Service. All of them were deadly in their own right. Together, they were formidable in a way that meant no one in their right mind would go near Jason.
Luckily for me, I was not in my right mind.
I hadn’t been since he’d driven away with my sister and handed her over to his father.
Was I supposed to be delivered too? Were Lili and I supposed to be a package deal? A two-for-one special to impress Big Boss Anderson?
“Predictable. What else?”
“Sources in Berlin say there’s murmurings of a takeover. This being hostile from inside.”
“He’s got a traitor?”
I leaned forward, rested my elbow on my knee, and stared at the marble.
On the surface, a traitor could be exactly what I needed.
It’d be risky as hell, but if I could make contact, I could offer my services.
I’d take care of their problem in exchange for access to Jason.
However, that would do nothing to save the girls in his brothels.
“I hear your excitement, but no word on who the traitor is or confirmation. Sit tight on that and stick with the plan.”
The plan. Right.
“You do realize with the shit you pulled, the plan’s got a few kinks now. There is no way Mason, Fallon, or Pete will let me out of their sight. Mason will be glued to my side anytime I step foot out of this penthouse. And they’ve called in the rest of their team.”
Hell, he’d checked on me three times while I was working out in the apartment’s gym, even though if the front door was opened they’d all get alerts on their phones.
I was good at sneaking around, but I wasn’t Spider-Man and couldn’t rappel down forty-two stories.
Or I could, but not without my gear. I wasn’t Tom Cruise and this wasn’t Mission: Impossible.
“I already thought of that. New plan is, you read them in and they can help you—”
“Absolutely not. This is mine. Mine, Atlanta, and if you breathe a word to any of them about it, you’ll find my red dot on your forehead—and that’s a promise.”
“You’d have to find me first, Calli. And just because they help doesn’t make it any less yours. You can still pull the trigger, but you’d be safe doing it. There’s no reason for you to go down with him.”
Yes, there was. If it meant Jason was dead, I’d gladly go down with him.
“We’ve always known that was a possibility,” I reminded her.
“Your endgame doesn’t have to be the end of you,” she argued.
Life was not a promise of longevity and happiness. There were no guaranteed days on this earth. There were no guarantees in life, period. I’d learned that when my sister lost her life. I’d learned it again when I lost my mother to grief. I’d learned that when I started working with Tom.
“Keep me updated on Jason’s movements, and if you would, contact Tanner and confirm he has my kit ready.
Also, in the Meena Bazaar, on the corner of Seventy-Fourth and Al Fahidi, there’s a building called the Atheryat.
It’s run by Deepak Bashu, street name Sparkle.
Work your magic, and get someone there to clean house and make it messy. ”
I heard Atlanta clacking away on her keyboard. “Does this have anything to do with the girl Drexel wanted?”
I had no idea how she knew what Shepherd wanted.
And I didn’t ask, first because she wouldn’t outright tell me, which led to my second reason: I didn’t want another lesson on how the underground web of information worked.
Atlanta could get long winded when she blathered about dark-web chat rooms and encrypted this or that, and once she got started, it took forever for her to burn out.
Likely that was her intention—bore me to death so I stopped asking questions.
“Yes. We delivered two girls yesterday, but the others need to be taken care of.”
“Consider it done.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime, Calli, yeah?”
She sounded like she meant that. No, I knew she meant it. Putting aside the bullshit with the text messages, she’d always had my back, always came through in a pinch, and always offered her honesty. She didn’t sugarcoat the truth.
“Before I let you go, can I ask you something?”
Shit. What was I doing?
“Of course.”
I couldn’t do it. I was too chickenshit to open up and ask what I needed to ask.
“Actually, I need to get back to my shower. I just got done with the gym when you called. We’ll talk when I have more time,” I lied.
Not about the shower. I needed one of those. But I’d never talk through my personal dilemma with her. I didn’t know how, and I didn’t want to learn. Transparency wasn’t something I’d ever be ready for.
“No, we won’t,” she returned. “You’ll hang up, add another layer on your already thick walls, and pretend you didn’t ask to talk.
And since you asked to talk instead of just talking, I know it’s personal in nature.
So I’ll take a stab at it. Yes, you should have wild sex with the hot Mason Hughes.
I have seen pictures of the man, and if you don’t climb him like a tree and do nasty things to him, you are plum nutty.
“Also, yes, you should back away from fieldwork. We all, and I mean every single one of us who sees and does the things we do, need to know when it’s time to quit.
And that time for you is nigh. There comes a time when you can’t come back from it.
Before that happens, you need to step aside and allow someone else to take your place.
“Again, another yes, you need to tell Tom to take a hike and stop being his personal trigger puller. You’re good, you’re clean, you leave no mess.
So far every hit has been righteous, but trust me on this, Calli, there will be a time he sends you out, and it will not align with your morals.
He’ll ask you to take out someone who’s not a monster, but a pawn—and that, my girl, will mark you in a way that will keep you up at night.
“One more yes—you should stay pissed at me, because I betrayed the trust you gave me, and I know you don’t give that freely.
But I can live with anger. What I can’t live with is you dead because your trust was more important than your life.
I know you don’t believe this, I get why, in our world, we are islands .
. . but you’re my friend. I respect you, I admire you, and you are the only friend I have, so selfishly, I’d like you to stay breathing. ”
That was a lot of yeses to a whole lot of questions I hadn’t asked.
But somehow she’d nailed all but one question.
Not that I was going to ask about Mason, because there was no Mason. There could be no Mason. No matter how badly I wanted to climb him like a tree, I didn’t know how to do nasty things to a man.
Though I had no doubt he’d know how to do all the nasty things and make them out-of-this-world pleasurable while he did them.
He already drove me to distraction. I didn’t need to offer up my virginity and add to the insanity.
Not that he’d want to take a virgin to his bed when he could have experienced women to give him whatever it was he needed.
Gah. The thought of Mason and another woman made my stomach clench. Another reason to get this job done and get the hell gone.
“Is that why you stopped doing fieldwork? Did Tom give you an assignment that opposed your code?”
“Yes. So I found a way I could continue to help, but in a controlled way that didn’t put me at odds with who I wanted to be.”
Fucking Tom.
“You could too,” she continued. “You don’t have to be on the front lines.
You could go back to being a journalist. I’ve read your articles and op-eds.
You’re a talented writer. In the field, you quietly take out a bad guy, and he’s replaced within a day.
But your words reach thousands. What if you inspire the next generation of warriors?
And here’s another what-if—what if you hang up your cape and give it all up?
You’re allowed to be happy, Calli. You’re allowed to stop.
You’re allowed to put yourself first, and it doesn’t erase the good you’ve done. ”
Give it all up. “It’s annoying when you make sense,” I complained. “But what’s more annoying is I need to jump off the merry-go-round, and I don’t know how. I keep going round and round with all these thoughts. It’s tiring, and I don’t know how to make them stop.”
“Just jump off, Calli. It’s that easy.”
Just jump off.
Easier said than done.
“I’ll figure it out after I’m done with Jason.”
“What if you—”
“No, Atlanta. You were right with most of what you said. Dead-on right. But not with this. Jason Anderson is mine. He’s the key to my freedom.”
My peace.
“With most of what I said.” I could hear her smile over the phone. “Does that mean you’ve already climbed Mount Mason?”
“Goodbye, Atlanta. Thank you for your help.”
“Wait. Was it good? Did he—”
I pulled my phone away from my ear and disconnected. I didn’t need any help provoking images of Mason or what he could do, which meant I didn’t need my . . . friend asking questions I didn’t have the answers to, though I could guess.
He’d be good.
No, he’d be outstanding.
But Mason wasn’t for me.
And it sucked, because I wanted him to be.
Even if it was just once, I wanted to feel everything Mason had to offer.