43. Chapter 43
Chapter forty-three
Aaron
“ W ho is this bitch to you?” Savage asks as we step to the hotel across from Nicole’s row house in Greenwich Village.
“Nothing but a fuck and a distraction I clearly couldn’t afford.”
“Good luck proving the ‘nothing but a fuck’ to your woman.”
I shouldn’t have to explain , I think. I love the hell out of Ashley. I’d die for her. The only thing I want to do with Nicole, at this point, is kill the bitch. But with all the lies I told Ashley, I can’t expect her to see anything but another, and I don’t know where that leads us.
For the next twenty minutes, Savage and I do nothing but watch Nicole’s place. But I’m ready to get this the fuck over with, so it’s time to make that happen. “Stay here,” I order Savage; I’m about to move forward when Savage grabs my arm.
I eye him. “You do know that I could kill you, right?”
“You do know I’d enjoy watching you try, right?”
“It’s always amusing when someone big and tough thinks I can’t kill them,” I say. “Right up until the moment I do. What do you want, Savage?”
“I don’t stay behind. What’s the plan?”
“You staying behind. She’s the kind of killer who drops men like you like flies.” I jerk my arm away from his reach and head out to the street.
He exits behind me. I feel him there, but he doesn’t approach. He’s not staying behind. If he ends up dead, at least I tried to save him. I cross the street and cut to a side alleyway. I’m at the back of the building on the fire escape in about sixty seconds.
I’m silently on top of it and at her bedroom window in another thirty seconds. And holy hell, one glance in the window, and I find her fucking some asshole she’s probably using like she did me for her million-dollar payout. I reach for the window, and suddenly, she reaches under her blanket and shoots the man with a silencer on her weapon.
She then gets up, pulls on a robe and walks to the bathroom. She doesn’t know I’m here.
I silently break the window, just enough to turn the lock, doing so using a technique I’ve long ago mastered, and then open it, before climbing inside. I then cross to stand against the bedroom wall by the bathroom. I don’t bother to pull a weapon. I don’t need one to kill her or anyone.
The bathroom door opens and the tingling down my spine tells me that she now knows I’m here. On first sight, she’s fully dressed, and she turns toward me, gun in hand. I knock it away, but she’s no easy mark. She comes at me, and we exchange blows before I shove her against the wall.
“Long time, no see, lover,” she says, her blonde hair wild, her lips painted red.
“You know what I want,” I say.
She runs her tongue over her lips. “I know just how you like it, too.”
No. No, she really doesn’t. “How I like you is dead. Give me what I want or that fantasy will be realized. I don’t know why you ever thought I was the guy to fuck over.”
“A million dollars and I’ll give you everything you need to destroy Mick.”
“Give me what I want, and I’ll let you live,” I counter.
“That’s not how you work. We both know it. Release me. Let me clean up my mess, or better yet, help me clean up. Then we’ll—”
I snap her neck and let her fall to the ground as Savage comes in through the window. “Alright then. I guess she gave you what you wanted?”
“I know where she keeps her treasures,” I say. “She just didn’t know I knew.”
“Then why’d you even mess with her?”
“I wanted a read on her,” I say, bending down to grab her cellphone, which I scan for calls. There’s one to an unknown number that I’m guessing was Mick.
“And I guess you got it?” Savage asks.
“She was buying time,” I say. “She called in help, which means she planned to go to Mick and fuck me over again, and that we’re about to have company.”
I walk to her bathroom, stepping up on the toilet seat. I hit a button that looks like a screw by the vent above me, and it opens. Inside, I find a box, which I pull out and then hop down. “Let’s go,” I say. “Before Mick’s men get here.”
“Mick is on his way personally, per our team.”
My lips quirk. “Interesting.” The front door bursts open with what is clearly a forced entry. My eyes meet Savage’s, and my message is clear. He can stay and fight with me or leave through the window. He smirks and draws his weapon. I shove the box in my hand under the bed.
Thirty seconds later, we’re battling a half dozen men. Another sixty seconds after that and Savage and I are the only two standing. “Fun and love, man,” he says. “Fun and love. I love this shit, and love is fun. But where the hell is Mick?”
“I’m right here.”
I turn to find the big brawny man, I used to consider a friend, standing in the doorway. “I turned everyone you trusted against you,” he says. “Even your beloved mentor. He fell for a woman, just like you have. I threatened her. I protected her. He died to save her. Now, you can do the same. Kill yourself, and she lives.”
That’s all I need to hear. I know how big this is. I know how dangerous this is. I know he means what he’s saying. So I do just what he wants: I pull my gun, and I shoot him dead.
Savage steps to my side. “Look, man. I’m glad he’s dead, but that was kind of anti-climactic. I wanted the assassins’ battle, two warriors beating each other’s asses. Lights. Cameras. Action.”
I ignore him and walk to Mick, squatting down to search his body, finding nothing, not even a wallet. Savage calls his team and says, “Move in,” allowing a search and seizure of the house where Mick has been operating. But they won’t find anything. Mick is too smart for that. But Nicole is too smart to have nothing on Mick. I walk back into the bedroom, grab the box I’d found in her ceiling and open it. There, I find photos and documents that prove Mick to be the spy that he was. I also find a passport with my name on it and Mick’s photo.
I will soon be free of all charges.
Ashley will soon be free, too. Free to stay or to go. Free to leave me. Free to live the life she’d chosen before I chose her.