by Amity Cross
We followed as the man walked purposefully through the streets of St Germain, stopping to look in the windows of shops as he paused, or pretending to marvel at a landmark. The commercial tourist area faded into less populated streets lined with a mix of private apartments and shops, before turning into purely residential.
We were still deep in the city, well within walking distance to the wine bar, but it was a more lavish part of the urban sprawl. This was where the rich and entitled lived in their gilded cages. I glanced up at the rooftops, taking in the flowers along the terraces, wrought iron, gold inlay and eighteenth century French architecture. This was big money. And when I said big, I meant millions of euros.
“How much money gets tossed around these things?” I asked, my voice low.
“Hmm?” X replied, sounding distracted. Our tail was still in the distance, oblivious.
“Lafayette’s operation. He’d have to have some serious cash.”
“You think he’s Lafayette’s man?”
“C’mon, X. Do you think Sykes could afford a place like this? I’m not a genius by any means, but I do know that these houses are old, posh and that isn’t fools gold.”
He tightened his grip on mine, ducking behind a tree when the goon stopped at the corner ahead. When he turned, X grasped my face and pretended to kiss me. If that was his idea of a public display of affection, it was a pretty poor one.
“It’s a billion dollar trade,” he said, his voice low. “Rich and powerful men pay a lot of money to keep their depravity a secret, Mercy. A lot of money.”
“They keep them as slaves?” It was rhetorical, but X nodded.
“So they can play out their ultimate fantasies without any repercussions,” he said.
“That’s sick.”
X stiffened at my reaction, something unknown passing across his face. Regret? Fear? I wasn’t sure.
“X?” I whispered.
He glanced up and when he noticed our mark had moved on, he herded me down the street.
I tugged on his hand and he shook his head. “Not now, Mercy.”
The man rounded a corner ahead, moving out of view so X lengthened his stride. When we reached the intersection, he flattened his back against the side of the building then peered around and across the street. I settled beside him, watching and waiting. I was at his command.
Our mark was approaching the front of a lavish looking apartment building that stood five stories high. There was a man stationed at the front door, which led me to believe that it was one complete residence. He didn’t have a visible sidearm, but I suspected he might have one under his suit jacket. The man we’d been following came to a stop in front of the other and I knew without a doubt that this was his destination.
He began talking in French, fast and heavily accented. I didn’t understand, but X seemed to. He listened intently, his brow furrowed.
“Lafayette,” he said after a moment. “This is one of his residences. And he’s home.”
I grimaced, but didn’t say it. It was the wrong guy.
“We’re getting closer to the wrong man,” X said, his voice tight.
“There’s still a chance tomorrow night,” I said. “We might learn something.”
“Perhaps.”
“Can we do something now? About Lafayette?” If we were here, then maybe we could case the second most wanted sicko on my list.
“No.” X shook his head. “We need to take out Sykes first. If we get to Lafayette before then, then it’ll spook him. We’ll lose our chance and who knows when the next one will be.”
Understanding, I tugged on his hand. “Then we better get out of here before we’re seen.”
X shook me off and frowned, still listening to the two men converse. After a minute, the man we’d followed disappeared inside, leaving the guard out the front.
“Okay,” X said. “Now we go.”
We made our exit, returning to St Germain via a winding route and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the neighborhood, casing the surrounding buildings looking for roof access.
A few streets over we found the perfect place where we could watch the bar. It was high, the roof abandoned and had a direct line of sight to the rear entrance. X said it would do considering the time constraints and the pressure we were under. I took his word for it.
Peering across the rooftops I caught a glimpse of the spires of Notre Dame and drew in a deep breath. For a moment I could pretend that I was here on a romantic getaway instead of missing out on all the things I wanted to see before I died.
Because I might. Die, that is.
X moved beside me, his gaze following my line of sight. I sensed he wanted to say something, but he remained silent. He knew more than anyone not to instill false hope into a situation. He was a numbers man in the sense he believed in the hard evidence. Romance was beyond him and so were dreams.
He let me stare wistfully for a moment before saying, “We will come back tomorrow once the sun begins to set. Until then, we wait and watch.”
My skin began to prickle in anticipation and I nodded, casting away my silly dream of romance. Tomorrow we’d make our next move.
Let the chips fall where they may.
Chapter 22
X
They knew we were coming.
The other thing that was passed between the two men were the words, ‘it is in place’.
That was the gist of the two men’s conversation, but we already knew that, so I never told Mercy what they said.
I spoke three languages. English, French and death.
I always thought it was something the man from the room had taught me, speaking another language, but now I wasn’t so sure. Was my family French? Or did I learn it for a job or was I taught it in school? I never knew, but I could understand it, and considering our current location, it was an unexpected boon.
If they knew we were coming, then I could use that to our advantage.
Mercy crouched beside me in the darkness. We were on the rooftop we’d scouted the day before, the duffle beside me. Instead of papers, it was full of equipment. Vaughn had left us a pair of military grade night-vision goggles, which were proving extremely useful. I showed Mercy how to operate them and we took it in turns to watch the back entrance of the bar.
There was nothing to talk about, so we sat in companionable silence, watching the streets of St Germain below. The night bristled with some unknown electricity, the sensation prickling along my skin. Perhaps it stemmed from the danger below or perhaps it was something else entirely. It was much too philosophical for a man like me. Hits were rarely so unpredictable…maybe it was that.
Nine pm came and nothing. No sound, no lights and no movement. I wondered what their game was. If they were trying to lure us into a trap, it wasn’t working very well. Sykes didn’t know me at all.
He was working alone on this one. The ‘truce’ that he’d had with Royal Blood must’ve been severed the moment I took off with Mercy. If it was still intact, then this would be going down much differently.
We watched until the night deepened and the people out enjoying the evening started to go home. We waited until midnight and nothing untoward was happening at the bar. Maybe I’d been wrong and they’d just abandoned the place. Cut their losses and moved the meeting to another place.
Mercy held out her hand and slapped me on the thigh. “Movement,” she murmured. “Two glowy green men with guns.”
I raised my eyebrows and grasped her thigh in turn.
Handing me the goggles, she said, “They’re just standing there. Waiting.”
“Waiting for us, I presume.” I settled against the wall and peered down to the street below. Mercy was right. There were two men with semi-automatic weapons, but they weren’t stationed at the rear entrance, they were concealed. Waiting...
Motherfucking assassins.
I pushed off the wall and stood, not worried that they’d see me all the way up here. It was dark, we were partially obscured f
rom their positions and it looked like they were only armed with guns.
Mercy stood cautiously beside me. “Do we take them out?” she asked. “Or cut our losses?”
I began to grind my teeth, anger rising as I formulated a plan. There were two men and two of us.
“One each,” she said, her voice eerily calm.
There was a hundred percent chance that this was a trap and I didn’t want her walking into that. This had ceased being a straightforward hit a long time ago. We were in unpredictable territory that even seasoned assassins got jittery with. Anything could be waiting for us down there. Anything. I could deal with it, but her? No, she had to stay put.
“X, I can do it..”
“No.” I shook my head.
“I can do it.” She stared me down, her eyes cold, and I began to see the change in her more clearly. She was becoming like me.
I grasped her shoulders and gave her a shake. “You need to do as I say, Mercy.” Her eyes widened. “Stay here.”
“Why?”
I let my grip slacken and trailed my hands up into her hair. My gaze flickered to her lips and I leaned down and kissed her. She melted against me, her hands fisting into the lapels of my coat. Deepening our embrace, I traced her lips with the tip of my tongue and she responded in turn. My need for her touch seared through me, my blood humming, my cock stirring.
Pulling away with a heavy sigh, I whispered, “Stay here. Promise me.”
For what I had in mind, she had to be far away. I couldn’t risk her being caught up in the aftermath. I had to be in and out like lightning.
Her gaze softened, her lips swollen, and she nodded. “I promise.”
I sighed, tension I hadn’t been aware I was carrying bleeding from my shoulders. “Wait for me.”
She nodded again and I pulled my gun out, checking the cartridge and the silencer on the end. Mercy turned and retrieved something from the bag and a moment later, pressed another loaded cartridge against my chest.
“Just in case,” she whispered.
I knew this was the moment where people said ‘I love you’ before they left to be a hero, or in my case...be a monster. I didn’t know if that’s what I should say, so I said nothing. I cupped her face in my hand, running a thumb over her lips. Then, I turned and walked away.
It was approaching one am and the streets were silent, apart from a few people who looked like employees from the surrounding restaurants making their way home. No eyes paid any heed and I moved silently toward my target. A shadow amongst shadows.
If I were Sykes and I knew there was a hit out on me, I’d wait until there were no witnesses to eliminate the threat. He anticipated that we’d come looking regardless and therein laid the danger. If whatever waited inside that building didn’t kill me, the men waiting round the back would. Quick, clean, problem solved.
I approached the rear of the wine bar silently, keeping to the shadows, acutely aware that Mercy was watching from above like a hawk. Some guardian angel.
When I turned into the street where the targets were located, I backed against the wall, watching for movement. When I saw none, I made my approach, a meter at a time. Slow progress, but it meant that the likelihood of being spotted was close to zero. I had to be a ghost for my plan to work.
Two bodies.
Edging closer, I flattened back into the shadows as I caught movement at my three o’clock. The muzzle of a semi-automatic glinted in the orange glow of a street lamp in the distance and when the man who held it glanced toward my position, I got an eyeful of his face.
It was the man from yesterday.
I pulled out my gun, the end heavy with the weight of the silencer. Two bodies.
He held a semi-automatic rifle in one hand, a cigarette in the other. I caught sight of his friend in the opposite doorway across the lane. He had a similar firearm, his gaze much more on task than his chain-smoking mate.
They really didn’t know who they were waiting for, did they?
I didn’t hesitate and I didn’t think about it. I shut off the part of me that had slowly been coming back to life, the part that felt remorse, and I fired.
I shot the alert one first, the bullet hardly making a sound through the silencer. He fell to the ground with a grunt and the other guy straightened up in surprise, cocking his rifle and looking for their assailant. I didn’t even blink. I aimed and fired, the bullet embedding into his head. Two shots, two bodies.
Ten seconds and it was all over.
They really had no fucking idea.
Waiting a full thirty seconds in case one of them twitched, I moved forward and opened the rear door to the bar. It swung outwards with a creak that echoed into the silence around me. Nothing came out to greet me, so I peered inside, pointing the gun into the murky interior. No movement, no sound, no nothing.
Glancing down, I stilled, my suspicions confirmed one hundred percent.
A tiny wire spanned the width of the doorway, sitting at exactly ankle height. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I would’ve missed it.
A tripwire.
If Mercy went first without knowing what to look for, then we’d be splattered on the far wall, cooked alive. That’s why I wanted her to stay. She of all people had to make it out the other end alive.
I glanced back at the two bodies in the street behind me and grinned. They didn’t know who they were dealing with, so it was past due that I gave them an inkling. It would buy Mercy and I some time, then piss them off royally when they found out the truth.
Time for some fireworks.
Mercy was livid by the time I made it back to the rooftop.
“You were inside for so long…” she began to argue.
I knew it was out of worry that her hackles rose over these things, but there was nothing for her to get her knickers so twisted over. This was my life, my job, my skill. There was nothing for her to fear.
I pressed my fingers over her lips to silence her. “Never worry about me, Mercy.”
She knocked my hand away. “You know I won’t listen to that.”
I glanced up at the sky, but the city lights had dulled out the stars so only the brightest shone through.
“What were you doing?” Mercy asked.
“Disposing of the bodies,” I replied blandly.
“Inside the bar?”
“Give me your phone,” I barked.
She shoved her hand in her pocket and pulled out the burner phone I’d bought for her yesterday. “X, what did you do?”
She didn’t look pleased, but this wasn’t about making Mercy happy. This was about saving our goddamn fucking lives.
“Cover your ears,” I snapped, snatching the phone from her.
“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” she retorted, clapping her hands against the side of her head with a scowl.
I snorted. A whole fucking lot of it in about one minute. Dialing the number for my burner, I tossed the phone on the ground and covered my ears.
It took about thirty seconds for the call to connect and start ringing…and when it did, the night sky lit up, obscuring the stars.
Couldn’t really see them anyway.
Chapter 23
Mercy
You see explosions in movies all the time.
They’re big, spectacular and controlled. The hero runs from the scene of the blast, leaping out of the way of the fireball into safety.
It doesn’t happen like that in real life. I wasn’t expecting the force...or the heat. X told me to cover my ears for good reason. I could feel the shock wave even up here in the clear air, a quarter mile from the scene.
We watched the fireball drift upwards into the sky like some kind of metaphoric apocalypse, our arms jammed together.
“That could’ve been us,” I said, my heart thumping wildly. I dropped my hands, the sound of cracking glass and flames filling the air.
“Not today,” X replied, his expression stony.
He was right. We’d cheated death yet again and I
wondered how many times we’d have to do this dance before it was all over.
X grasped my hand, pulling me away from the edge of the building, but I was fixated on the rising smoke. My blood felt thick in my veins and whooshed through my ears in a wild beat of adrenalin. This…this I wanted to do...
I’d always felt a burning hatred towards Sykes, but this was something different. Could I watch him burn like that? Could I take pleasure in human suffering? Could I switch it off like X?
The heat from the blast radiated against my face as fire began to engulf the upper floors and I stared at the carnage like a demon who’d finally returned home. It was exhilarating…mesmerizing.
“Mercy,” X hissed behind me. “We need to leave.”
I let him pull me away from the edge of the building and into the stairwell.
Maybe I could flip the switch and become X’s equal. If what he said was true, if he really was a monster, then he was shaping me in his image.
Once, the thought would’ve made me sick. Now it made me feel alive.
Maybe I could be like that after all.
Chapter 24
X
Mercy was silent the entire walk back to the hotel.
Her gaze darted here and there, her breathing heavy. I began to wonder if she was having another breakdown, or if she was aroused by the whole scenario. I’d basically shown her the size of my giant…ego...by blowing up that building with little more than a bit of rewiring and a mobile phone.
We made it back without incident. We weren’t followed and our extraction went unnoticed. The first fucking thing that had gone to plan since we set foot on French soil.
The moment the door to our room closed, Mercy launched herself at me. Her lips smashed against mine and I forced my tongue against hers, my cock instantly hardening.
