15. Clara
Chapter 15
Clara
“ I have a work call. Get out,” I demand, already irritated. Deniz is sitting on the couch while I prepare for my meeting with Irina, one of the assets we have placed in Konstatin’s orbit. She’s a waitress at a restaurant he and his team frequent in Vladivostok, and she passes along as many whispers as she can. I usually don’t work directly with assets, but right now I don’t trust any of our higher-level operatives in northern and eastern Europe. Especially not those working for Gia.
Every other member of the council is meticulous in their selection of team members, taking a hands-on approach to managing them. Charlie maintains a direct crew of five who know intimate details of The Syndicates operations—including his right-hand man Zane and a crime scene clean-up expert who looks like a cartoon character. I only have Lee.
The network of Syndicate operatives is wide, but most assume that the Costa Family Foundation is paying their salary, expanding our anti-trafficking enterprise by gathering information to better serve victims. A select few know the true nature of our operations, or the lengths we’re willing to go to.
But Gia runs her operations differently. She has a larger crew, almost thirty people, all of whom bear a tattoo of The Syndicate’s insignia. It’s impossible to keep the necessary close eye on so many people. Originally, my mother let her growing team slide, as Gia was using her operatives to save a lot of young women from trafficking rings in the Balkans. Slowly, things started to slip through the cracks, and when Alessia discovered one of Gia’s crew whispering Syndicate secrets at a party in Majorca, all hell broke loose.
I was barely twenty-two at the time, but the Costa cousins were all old enough to vote on whether Gia should be excommunicated from The Syndicate. Even Bea. It had been a weeks-long debate, with Gia fuming at the end of the table, swearing that it was an oversight that would not happen again. My mother had been furious, angrier than I’d ever seen her.
In the end, we all voted for Gia to stay. But her rights as a council member had been severely limited, and she was no longer allowed to expand her team without the express consent of the rest of the council.
That was eight years ago, and the impact of her punishment has waned. Gia is shrewd, but believes we should be more vocal about our presence in global operations. Which means she talks more than she should.
I love her, despite her attitude and the way she treats Bea. But that doesn’t mean I trust her.
Which is why I’m operating in her territory. Irina thinks she’s meeting with the CEO of the Costa Family Foundation because of rumors we heard about girls being trafficked in her city. But my questions will be vague enough to lead her to talk about any nefarious character she’s come across.
Which is why I need Deniz out of here. I didn’t expect him to be home so early, and it’s not exactly professional to take a call like this from bed.
“I’m reading,” he mutters, flipping the page of a book he is certainly not reading. I grit my teeth, breathing through my nose.
“Read in your room.” I check the clock and realize I have a few minutes until this meeting starts. I can’t bail on Irina, and I can’t have him overhearing anything related to Konstantin.
“What, you can’t take a simple meeting in front of your fiancé ?” he asks, drawing the word out like a taunt. “It’s not like I won’t watch from the other room.”
He’s got a fair point. But this is what he wants, to watch me and gather information, and I need to know why. The best way to figure that out is to let it happen, and see what he does with it. Perhaps in any other circumstance, I would allow myself to be impressed by his dedication, intrigued by his obvious skill at hunting down his prey.
“Fine,” I grumble, keeping up the facade of my irritation. My frayed nerves are kicked into high gear today. It gives me whiplash, the way I shift from irate to fearful to…
No. Not that. I shove the feeling I won’t name far, far down.
I would not, under any conditions, permit myself to be turned on by his obsession with me. Or the way I can feel his eyes, even when he’s miles away. Every so often over the past two weeks, I’ll be at a coffee shop, or making an appearance for a Foundation meeting, or sitting in this very room, and the hairs on my neck will raise. I know it’s him, watching me. And I will not let myself think about the way he looked at me at Skyline, or imagine what kind of heat fills his eyes while he watches from behind a screen.
The sound of Irina joining the call mercifully cuts off my train of thought, and I focus on the task in front of me, deliberately ignoring the feeling of Deniz’s eyes on my skin for the entire meeting.
Well, this is a change of pace.
I sit across the street in the back seat of a rental car, Lee at the wheel. Together, we stare at the building Deniz just entered.
I know I’m not a technical savant. There’s no way for me to find the digital breadcrumbs leading to Deniz’s motivation for stalking me. But I’m a damn good spy, and I can use what skills I do have to figure this out.
“We look like a bad cop drama,” Lee says, still staring into their binoculars, their lips barely moving. I huff and roll my eyes, keeping my gaze trained on the door.
“We do not,” I clip, even though we kind of do. I’m used to letting someone else do most of the reconnaissance work, stepping in when decisions need to be made or lessons need to be taught. Even the larger targets, like those directly involved in my mother’s attack, I leave to Charlie. It’s easier to make life or death decisions about someone when you haven’t watched them tuck in their children and take their mother to lunch. Unfortunately, evil is human, and it’s my job to see past that humanity.
“Have you considered that there’s an easier way to go about this?” they ask, putting down their binoculars and rubbing the bridge of their nose. I refuse to react, clenching and relaxing my muscles to keep my blood flowing.
“What exactly do you recommend?” They’re wrong, of course. Following Deniz is the most likely path to finding who he’s working for. Maybe I’ll be extraordinarily lucky, and he and Konstantin will walk out of this coffee shop together, and I can kill them both.
“Did you happen to ask him why he needs you?”
I had to tell Lee the whole truth, so they could help me reveal Deniz’s true motives. Technically, they’re loyal to both me and my mother, but they’re the only person in our world I know who would choose me over The Syndicate. Perhaps Charlie feels the same way about Zane, the one person we’re not blood related to who has seen us stoop to the level of evil we hunt.
“Of course I did,” I say, knowing that’s not exactly true. I asked him why he did this, and his response was that he needed me to fulfill a personal mission. I was so absorbed with the impact of his revelation on my own future, I didn’t even think to dig further.
“That look means you didn’t,” Lee chides, watching Deniz through the large windows once again. He’s standing at the back of the shop, staring down at his phone, seemingly waiting on an order.
“He stalked me for over a year, Lee. Do you think he’s going to tell me who hired him? Or what his so-called personal mission is?”
People like us don’t give up that easily. If he feels so passionately about this cause that he would dedicate this much time to tracking my every step, there has to be something incredibly significant at play.
No matter how often I go over what Emily sent me, or look into his past, I can’t make sense of it. He doesn't have connections with other weapons distributors, and he’s never been to Russia, much less the areas where Konstantin operates. Even looking into his parents, aunts and uncles, friends, professors he was close to, nothing has raised a single red flag. The most significant moment of Deniz’s life seems to have been his brother’s death, and that happened no more than three miles from here, at the hands of a drunk driver who also died in the crash.
Unless you are born into this life, there has to be a reason you choose it. For many, it’s a single inciting event. A trauma that affects you so deeply it fundamentally changes your morality. And I haven’t found a single incident in the life of Deniz or someone he loves that would lead to this. It doesn’t make sense.
“He’s on the move,” Lee says, and I pick my binoculars up. Deniz has a cardboard tray with three cups in it as he pushes the door open with his shoulder. He looks both ways before jogging across the street…
Right to us.
“See. Told you,” Lee says as they roll down the window. “Bad cop movie.”
“Hi Lee, how's your morning going?” Deniz asks, lifting a steaming cup from the tray and handing it to them. “Americano, extra hot, right?”
Lee grins from ear to ear as they take the cup, and I briefly consider firing them. It would be unfortunate to lose my most trusted confidant, but clearly their loyalties have shifted.
“And for you?” Deniz shakes a larger cup outside my window. I refuse to roll it down, but Lee does it for me, and I glare at them through the rearview.
“How did you know?” I ask, swallowing down the fear creeping over my voice. Maybe I can’t best him. Maybe I really am trapped.
“I always know where you are, ????,” he murmurs as he hands me my coffee through the back window. Qamari. My moon . The endearment swoops low in my belly, tangling with the ever-present panic. I take a sip of my latte, sweetened exactly how I like it, unable to respond.
“I’m late for work, but perhaps we can play this game again,” he smiles, and it’s filled with a heat I haven’t seen since our first night together. He smiles at Lee and pats the window ledge, like he’s restraining himself from reaching toward me, before turning and walking toward his car.
A game. He sees this as a game . My life, my family, my duty. All an opportunity to toy with me, to prove he can find me wherever I am.
And he might be right. I can’t best him at his own game, I can admit that much. But if I have one skill, it’s turning people’s strengths against them.
At first, I stop in random places, just to fuck with him. I had Lee drop me off near Rodeo, and I spent the morning browsing through stores, giggling with attendants, striking up conversations. If he’s going to watch me, I want him confused, overwhelmed with the number of new contacts he needs to research.
I keep sipping the coffee he bought me, letting my lipstick stain the lid. As I meander up and down the streets, I brainstorm the things that will frustrate him the most. I consider finding a restaurant or shop with no security cameras, but this is fucking Rodeo Drive, so not a lot of options there.
A shop catches my eye as I turn the corner of the main drag, its mauve and black facade standing out in a sea of neutrals. I feel his gaze on my back—probably from the streetlight on the corner—as I pause in front of the store. Standing in front of so much silk, lace, and satin, the memory of the heat in his eyes, the way his mouth felt on my body, takes over my senses. My skin is vibrating as I reach for the handle of the door. I step into Lavish , the heavy scent of expensive perfume washing over me. I hope he can see the smile on my face as I tell the sales girl I’m in the market for something new.