32. Calista
Chapter 32
Calista
M y computer. That’s what’s under the rug, beneath the floorboards. In a simple safe I crack with ease.
I don’t know where Smith is, but I’m glad he’s not here right now.
My fucking computer, all my shit. Passport. And on top are two tickets to DC.
He lied.
I guess I should be shocked. But I’m not because I can see on the computer he gave me what he’d poked into. I can hack most things. Like his phone, like all of Eric’s social media accounts as well as his mother’s, their credit card usage. Hell, I can even get into the CCTV around the office that the senator’s using in Lower Manhattan.
“You sick fuck,” I mutter at a photo I found on a dark web profile. Eric likes young girls.
Fourteen, fifteen, the explicit photos don’t lie.
And… fuck it. I flip back to the curated social media page of his mom. It’s perfect. Cool and calming centers, waterfalls, her at elite events. Just always left of center and shadowed, as if sh e’s not the intended subject. It’s clever. It makes her the focus but not in your face.
Put her in a lineup, and even I’d be hard-pressed to pick her out.
If he’s in that office… Jesus.
And his mother just posted a picture of him a day ago, her comments about what good he’s doing and how she’s now off for her honeymoon.
Then she has this to say: The first to arrive and the last to leave, always with time to listen to any concern from anyone, a real honest American.
What a bunch of bullshit.
“So honest you’re into trafficking,” I mutter at the man’s smiling photo.
If he’s the first to arrive and the senator’s heading back in the next day, then he’s probably already there.
“Perfect,” I announce to the screen.
I snap the computer shut, go back to the safe, and pull out a Glock. There’s also a round with the pile of stuff. I load the gun and tuck it beneath my hoodie. And then I dig around in my old backpack. I have a stun gun buried down at the bottom. I pull it out and make sure it still has juice.
It crackles in the air and I grin.
The mini stun gun is purple and looks like a sex toy. I tuck that away, too.
Next, I load the phone he gave me with a card I have for emergencies. I head out into the predawn air. It’s cloudy, and using the slight chill as an excuse, I pull the hood over my head and follow maps to the nearest subway.
When the train finally arrives, I’m still early enough that it’s only moderately crowded. It’s about five a.m., so there aren’t a lot of people waiting on the platform. I ride the F train to Second Avenue and at Chrystie Street, I book an Uber. It’s there in minutes. Black.
For a moment, my heart beats hard. But I’m being stupid. Because there are lots of black cars. I start to cross over to it so I can check out the license plate when something big hits me from behind. I crumple to the pavement right as the car explodes.
My ears ring and vision blurs like the world’s dissolving around me. I’m dragged up and half carried away, then thrown into another car.
I kick the man and go for my gun, but he fights me, pinning me down against the seat. I manage to knee him in the balls, and he starts to swear.
“For fuck’s sake. Do a buddy a favor and blow up a fucking car, not to mention save the spitfire he’s got a hard-on for, and she tries to take out your fucking junk. Sit the fuck down,” he growls.
I stare, sitting up, breathing hard. “Reaper.”
“Yeah, you’re just lucky your idiot boyfriend wants you alive. You were supposed to stay in the damn safe house. I tracked you. And if I can, anyone can.”
“Let me go. I’ve an asshole to stop.”
The man rolls his flat, hard, dark eyes. “Gotta be more specific. What kind of asshole?”
“Eric T. Brown.”
He grins. “Good thing I stopped you from blowing up. I’ll take you right to him.”
Reaper turns to say something to the driver.
That’s when I move fast. I grab my stun gun and hit him right in the nuts.
The man howls and I double over and throw open the door, then hit the pavement at a run .
I dodge through the people on the street, round a corner, then dart over Houston Street to a slew of horns and tire squeals. A bus narrowly misses me. But I make it to the other side and race down the street to Forsythe, then turn onto Stanton.
Luck comes my way with a cab, and I wave it down. Leaning forward, I give the address.
“You on the run?”
Shit, I’m breathing hard. “Jogging.”
The cab driver just turns on his radio and Madonna sings about being frozen, but I barely listen to the old song. Everything burns but I can relate, because I feel like ice inside.
I just sent a bolt of electricity into a man’s balls.
A man who’s not just a friend of Smith’s, but one I’m pretty sure is a stone-cold killer. The car—I can’t think about that explosion. The driver’s talking again but I offer monosyllabic answers, and I catch something about a ‘car bomb’ and this ‘damn fuckin’ city.’
Smith… If Reaper knew where I was, so will Smith. And now I’ve got the CIA and Reaper out for my blood. And Smith?
I don’t know.
That’s the God’s honest truth.
In a different world, without my fate prewritten, nailed in the wall above my head, I’d want to get to know him more. I’m not sure we’d be enemies. Not by personality clash, and not by virtue of what’s going on.
I’d want to know the handsome, older man. Explore kink and filth and my limits with him. I’d want him to take me hard and fast. I’d like to fight with him, see who could draw blood first. Have him choke me until I’m hazy and a sea of base emotions.
He’s witty, extremely smart, maybe as smart as me, which is a thrill of its own. And he’s got a kindness hidden in that callousness he likes to exude .
I’m not talking about the charm he turns into advantage, charm he treats like a weapon. No, I mean that softness, like when in the middle of hard sex play, he took time to make sure I wanted anal. And then he eased in slow when we both know he didn’t have to.
He did that for me.
I want to do normal things with him like go out for romantic dinners, wake up next to him, help him in his job, play chess with him.
I want to know all the tiny things that make him up. Favorite foods and movies and books. Preferred weapons.
I want?—
“We’re here.”
The cab driver’s words jolt me out of my daydream. I pay him with the card on the phone and then get out. The office Riley is using is in an old pre-war building. Since it’s early, I make my way around the back and down the alley between buildings. There I find the open door for the maintenance staff. It’s easy enough to go in through there, and knowing Riley, he’ll be on the first floor.
I take the stairs.
His office is big, and I slip inside, past where a receptionist would sit.
Voices freeze me.
“You’re going down, you prick,” Riley snarls.
“C’mon, I skimmed off the top, fed some of my fantasies, then set up some deals for you about the blueprints I got.” That must be Eric.
I sidle up closer to the door.
“Blueprints that you implicated me in,” Riley says. “And the fucking sex trade? I trusted you. And I’m not burning for you. I just dealt with the fucking FBI?— ”
“You were banging young whores. Which I can set you up with. We go over to Bolivia?—”
“What the fuck? I’m not going anywhere, but you are.” There’s a knowing note in his voice, like Riley’s going through motions, eager to just get rid of this man.
Did—?
The door opens and I’m face-to-face with my old mentor.
“Who’s the cunt?” Eric mutters, coming up behind Riley.
“The cunt,” he says, “is CIA.”
“Well, fuck,” Eric says. “Guess you two can have a shootout because I’m not going down for this.”
I don’t see it coming. One minute Riley’s turning to him, the next minute he hits the floor, brains and blood all over my sneakers and the carpet. The loud bang of the gun still rings between my ears, and now that weapon’s pointed at me.
My blood moves, cold, sluggish in my veins as my stomach does a sickening lurch into my bloody shoes.
Behind me a door bangs and I know who it is before he steps into the room.
“Put down the fucking gun, Brown,” Smith snarls. “You just shot an unarmed man.”
I start to reach for the gun, but Eric stabs the gun through the air. “Hands up, bitch. I’m going to blame the cunt here. Right after I kill her. Or maybe I’ll shoot you and have you bleed out while I fuck her up. Taste the cunt’s cunt with my cock and gun, maybe something nasty, like?—”
“I will fucking feed you your own dick if you hurt her. Mark my fucking words.” Smith takes a step forward. He doesn’t have a gun. His hands are open at his sides. And…
Fear lacerates me.
No way he’d come in without a weapon. I look at him, his jacket. There, at the back, a small bulge where he hastily tucked it .
I swallow past the burning, searing lump.
“Smith… please,” I whisper. “Go. I don’t have a life anyway, not anymore.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Aw… how sweet, trying to protect her. Who the fuck are you? I’m hazy on the who’s who here. I came to make sure the senator didn’t live to tell the tale of any of this. A break-in, whatever. I’m good at that shit. Besides, I’ve got a ticket out of here in a few hours, so… Who wants to die first?”
Smith’s going to do something insane. And he’ll die for it.
A tiny sob escapes and I push past him. It’s the wrong thing to do. Eric’s eyes narrow and his arm jerks. We both see it. I’m in the line of sight.
It all happens in slow motion.
Eric pulls the trigger as his arm jerks and it’s pointed right at me. The gun goes off.
An anguished roar, Smith’s shout, full of anguish, rage, fills the air, my blood.
The bullet comes at me… right at the same time Smith leaps. I see him fly in the air and he hits me so hard, I fall to the floor.
But as I fall, the bullet hits flesh. Not mine.
Smith’s.
It rips into him, blood spurting in the air.
He goes down.
Hard.
And his gun clatters on the floor next to him.