When it was over, only a few minutes at most, Len was kneeling on the mat, coughing, holding his ribs. Abe stood in front of Charlie, barely sweating, face placid save for one lifted brow. “The world is a big, cruel place,” he said, firmly. “And size does matter in some things. But not in this. You don’t have to be big to kill a man. You don’t have to be strong in your arms – only in here.” He tapped his own chest with a single finger. “Are you strong there, Charlie Fox?”
“Kill?” Charlie asked, heart beating wildly.
Abe snorted. “What do you think you’re here to learn, boy?”
~*~
The balcony was the same as he remembered: narrow, paint flaking, thriving palm tree in a pot and an ash tray on the tiny table at elbow-level. It overlooked a courtyard of sorts, a rectangle of dirt where the backs of four buildings converged, sealed behind a locked iron gate, littered with bits of paper rubbish and a tangle of dead weeds. Lights burned in the window across the way, warm and fuzzy through a veil of curtains.
The slider opened and shut, but Abe made no sound, as usual. He came to mirror Fox’s position, elbows leaned on the rail. He already held a lit cigarette between two fingers, smoke pluming from his nostrils.
Fox sucked down the rest of his own cigarette and flicked the butt over the rail.
“Don’t litter,” Abe said, rote.
“We need to get on the road,” Fox said. “We can’t linger. I won’t ask you to come with us…but I wish you would.”
“Ah. You don’t have to be worried about an old man. No one wants anything to do with me.”
Fox straightened. “Fine. Suit yourself.” He heard the hard edge in his voice but couldn’t get it under control. Frustration built like heartburn in his chest. Why was this old bastard so stubborn? Just like Dad. Were they all like this? Maybe the world would be a better place without them. “Far be it from me to…” He turned, reaching for the door, and trailed off when Abe pinned him with a look. It was dark out, only ambient light to illuminate their faces, but it was enough to give Fox a glimpse of his old sensei’s weaponized disapproval.
He lingered, caught between staying and leaving.
Abe stared at him a long moment, then turned back to the courtyard. “Do you know why I went to Israel?”
“Because you’re from Israel?”
Abe nodded, solemn. “It’s the same reason I chose the name ‘Abraham’ for myself. It took me a very long time to find out where I’d come from originally. The others didn’t care, but I had to know. I had to make sense of it. Why us? What was so special about thirteen orphans? I thought, maybe, if I could understand where I’d come from, my blood, that I could realize what I was supposed to be doing.
“I found my old file, finally. Not all of them had survived, but mine had. I was born in October of 1948, in Jerusalem, just five months after Israel’s founding. I thought that was important. That it meant something – that I meant something. And I chose a Jewish name for myself, and I went there – back home.”
Fox realized that he’d taken hold of the balcony railing, and had squeezed it so tight that his knuckles had turned white. “Why are you telling me this?” His voice came out as a whisper. “You never have before.” And he would never have dared to ask.
“I’m telling you,” Abe said, calmly, “because it’s important. Shut your mouth and listen.
“I went home to Jerusalem to figure out who I might have been if it wasn’t for Project Emerald. And what I might do after, now that I knew. But it wasn’t home. And so I moved on.
“I’ve lived in Tokyo, and Moscow, and Bangkok. I’ve backpacked through villages without names, and spent months on trawlers in the Artic. I’ve seen the world, kid, and I ended up here again. In London, teaching schoolkids how to kick ass in every language I know.”
He turned to Fox again, and Fox was struck by the motion, the way it wasn’t at all casual. Like a bird of prey swiveling around to look at you.
“I’ve lived the sort of life they make movies about,” he said. “But it wasn’t an adventure. I’m good for one thing, and one thing only: killing. I didn’t make your life better, Charlie,” he said, emotion coloring his voice for the first time. “I made it worse. Just like your father did. Get away from this thing. Take the kid, and your girl, and leave us. We’ve all known this end was coming for us for a long time. You can’t stop it, and you’ll only get yourself killed in the process.”
Bits of rust and old, flaking paint crumbled beneath Fox’s grip as it tightened on the rail. He took a deep breath and told himself to really let what he’d just heard sink in; absorb the words and their meaning, and then react in a thoughtful, informed way.
He could believe any account in which Abe had traveled the world. He understood karate, and Krav Maga, and a half-dozen other forms of martial arts in a way that couldn’t be learned in a classroom. Abe had been trained by masters, and then become a master himself in turn. Fox had always thought, half-jokingly, that he was some sort of spy or assassin. It turned out that part was true – again, no surprise.
The surprise was the way Abe thought about it. The conclusions he’d drawn about his life, and his worth. And his willingness to turn away help and die.
Okay, so, yeah. He couldn’t be thoughtful.
“Are you fucking serious?” he demanded. “You want me to – I can’t even – are you listening to yourself?” he spluttered. “You made my life worse? That’s what you think you did? I can’t even–”
“You’re shouting.”
“You’re bloody right I’m shouting! I–” He checked himself. Balled both hands into fists and studied his knuckles, heart racing, trying desperately to calm himself. He had old scars there; some were silvery lines from hasty surgeries, others deep pink crescents from teeth. A tiny roadmap of violence he noticed every time he gripped the handlebars of his bike, or washed up before supper, or reached for a woman. A man could drown memories in drink and drugs, but there was no covering scars, and the stories they told, pressed right into the skin for all the world to see.
These scars were his. Souvenirs of a life lived violently, by choice.
He let out a shaky exhale and lifted his head. Fixed his old sensei with a look. “Do you remember how short I was the day you met me?”
Abe snorted. “You’re still short.”
“Taller than you.”
“By a hair.”
“The point I’m making is: I was a scrawny little kid. With a giant attitude. I was mad at the world – and Dad. A little at Mum, but mostly Dad, yeah. You taught me how to do something with that anger, Abe.”
“You kill people.”
“And I’m bloody good at it. In fact, I like it. You’re not going to get any sympathy from me on that front, old man. I serve my club. I keep my family safe. My niece puts her baby to bed every night knowing that I – that all of us – are keeping a watchful eye.
“Now I’m sorry what those government bastards did to you. It wasn’t right. But don’t go feeling so sorry for yourself that you drag me into it. I know who I am, I know where home is, and I know it’s going to take a lot more killing to keep the lot of you safe.”
He pointed to the slider. “Go in there, pack your damn bag, and get to the van. We’re leaving, and you’re coming with us.”
Silent a beat.
Abe said, “And what if I still say no?”
“Then I’ll kick your wrinkled ass, and throw you over my shoulder.”
Abe sucked down the last of his cigarette and crushed it out in the tray. “Well. Alright then.”
Seventeen
Raven woke to the ringing of her mobile and was not happy about it. She peeled up the corner of her velvet sleep mask to find that it was still dark, and that her bodyguards were, for the moment, blessedly quiet.
Phillip’s idea of security involved an unwinnable choice between two less than pleasant options. She could stay at the clubhouse until things were settled – whatever the hell that meant. She’d bee
n a member of this family long enough that she knew “settled” could take a few days or a few years, it depended, but it all ended in somebody dead, and a news story on the tellie. The other option was to stay at home, to go to work, and live her life…but with a full retinue of Lean Dogs as security in tow. “No cuts,” she said.
Phillip had grinned. “The cuts keep you safe. Nobody thinks twice about bumping off random security thugs. But Dogs? Whoever these wankers are, they don’t want that fight.”
She’d chosen the security detail. Lesser of two evils? Fuck her life.
They’d followed her home the night before, into her home. She’d taken a moment, looking at them in their dirty boots, and jeans, and cuts, and hated them. Felt incredibly resentful toward her eldest brother.
They’d sat up in her lounge, not smoking, because she’d forbidden it, but drinking her good vodka cut with tonic, and she’d tossed and turned for hours before finally falling into a fitful sleep. She didn’t fear them – loath as she was to admit it, these Dogs boys were a good sort, after a fashion – but it unsettled her nonetheless to have men who weren’t family in the other room while she was trying to go to bed.
Shallie and Chef were their club names. She didn’t ask for their real names; she didn’t care – she told herself. She didn’t care about this club at all, outside its ties to her blood family.
Shallie was big – professional wrestler big – and she’d suppressed an inner chuckle watching him try to sit carefully in one of her dainty chairs.
“Perhaps the sofa would be a bit sturdier,” she’d suggested.
“Oh, right.” Thus, the process had begun all over again, ending in a groaning sofa and a nervous biker.
Chef had a distinctly military look about him, very calm, but very stern.
Phillip hadn’t sent idiot children to watch after her, and that alone ratcheted her worry up another notch. She wasn’t a junkie or club friend; she was a successful, fairly well-known businesswoman in the fashion world. Surely these people, Pseudonym, couldn’t afford to just kill her…could they?
She knew the answer to that, which was why she struggled to fall asleep to the murmur of strange voices in her lounge, and didn’t breathe a word of reproach toward them.
Now, she sat up, clicked on her bedside lamp with a wince, and reached for her mobile. She didn’t recognize the number flashing across the screen.
Her bedroom door swung open, an exhausted-looking Shallie looming huge and unexpected on the other side.
Raven stifled a surprised shriek and clutched the covers to her chest. She wore a camisole, but it was lace and silk, and it was the sense of invasion anyway.
“Get out!”
He ducked down, tucking into himself, but stayed. “We’re here to keep you safe, miss. Who’s on the phone?”
“Well I can’t know that if I haven’t answered it yet, can I?”
The iPhone trilled again.
Shallie dropped the doorknob and stepped back a pace, but he didn’t leave, still stood, taking up all the space in her hallway.
Still holding the sheets across her breasts, she answered with a swipe and an aggravated, “This is Raven Blake.”
“Miss Blake,” a smooth masculine voice greeted. “This is Clive Mahoney, from Gleaux Cosmetics.”
“Oh.” She sat up straight, sheets falling, forgotten, into her lap. “Clive. Hello. Yes, I was going to give you a ring today.”
“Ah. It is rather early, I’m afraid. Did I wake you?”
“No.” Her heart hammered so hard in her chest that she was definitely awake now, and sounded it.
He chuckled, a low sound like a purr, more polite than humorous. Still, it was pleasant to the ears. “I didn’t figure. Odd that, in this business, no one ever gets any beauty sleep. Not that you would need any.”
Her gaze darted toward her window, the closed curtains and blinds.
“Sorry,” he said. “That was creepy, wasn’t it? When Ryan emailed me yesterday, she sent me a scan of your business card, and I recognized your name straight away. I watched you walk in the Versace show at New York Fashion Week five years ago.”
Raven didn’t know what her face was doing, but it prompted Shallie to ease a few steps into her room, frowning at her with concern. She waved at him, but he stayed. She’d have to have a talk with Phillip about that.
“Yes,” she said, and knew that the nerves were bleeding into her voice, “well. That’s. Very. Um.”
He chuckled again, true this time, soft. “Good Lord, I’m making an idiot of myself. I didn’t intend to ring you first thing and make you uncomfortable.”
“Some people just seem to have a knack.”
Another laugh. “I don’t usually.” Then he cleared his throat and adopted a more serious tone. “As I said, Ryan emailed me. I believe the two of you had a conversation yesterday? She gave me a heads-up, and I thought I would reach out and suggest a meeting. You said you were interested in some product samples to use in gift baskets?”
“Yes, right.” She slid into her business persona, and hammered out the details with him. She didn’t want to meet him in person – alarms were pinging in the back of her mind – but she was too much Devin Green’s daughter, damn it, to pass up a chance to get the good dirt she needed to make a case. They scheduled for one, and he left her with one last attractive little laugh and another apology.
She set the phone aside on her night table, chewing at her lip in thought. She needed to call the clubhouse and make sure her “assistant” would be ready by noon, at the latest, and had to check in with Phil, and with her mum, who was technically the president of their company, and–
“Everything alright, miss?” Shallie asked.
When she turned to him, she saw that Chef had joined him, the two of them incredibly out of place in her cream on cream on blue toile bedroom, in their boots and leather and denim.
“Everything would be better,” she said, crisply, “if you great louts weren’t in my boudoir before I’ve even had a chance to slip into my robe.”
Shallie blushed.
Chef looked mildly chagrined.
“Right, miss. We’ll just be out here.”
“Go ahead and ring my brother,” she called after them. “If I have to be up this early doing his work, he can damn well be up, too.”
~*~
Axelle woke with a blinding headache and the sinking sense that she’d done something she shouldn’t the night before. She opened her eyes to a blinding shaft of sunlight, shut them again, and rolled over with a groan. When she dared peek again, she found that she was in the guest room that she’d been given all to herself, and that she still wore last night’s clothes. A wiggle of her feet proved that someone had taken her boots off.
That had probably been Albie.
Her only memories of last night, blurred and dark at the edges, centered around him, and the way his smiles had grown wider and less reluctant the longer they drank.
She remembered the heat and weight of his hand at her waist. The grain of stubble along his jaw, viewed from up close – had she kissed him? Or just leaned in close, swaying, unsteady on her feet. Close enough to smell the leather-cologne-wood shavings tang on his skin…to wonder what it would taste like.
She ran her tongue along her teeth and tasted only the foulness of morning breath, and the regret of having let herself get sloppy.
Her phone rang – oh God, the headache – and it was Raven.
“Good morning, sunshine,” she greeted, bright, cheerful, and definitely not hungover.
“Ugh,” Axelle responded.
Raven laughed. “Overindulged, I see.”
“Ugh.”
Her tone became worse than teasing. “In more ways than one?”
“No.”
“Goodness. Well, it’s time to rise and shine, I’m afraid. I’ve got a meeting and I need my assistant.”
“A meeting where?”
“Chop-chop. Be ready by noon.” The call cut off.
<
br /> Axelle scowled at her phone screen until it went black, and then was forced to look at her own haggard reflection.
A reflection that looked even worse in the bathroom mirror when she finally shuffled her way in.
She climbed into the shower and resolved not to look at herself too closely the rest of the day. A plan that lasted right up until she set foot in the pub and spotted Albie having a late breakfast at a table over against the wall.
She paused, hand on the bannister, and asked herself why her gaze had gone right to him, straightaway.
The pub was almost empty, only a tired prospect behind the bar, playing with his phone, and a few other members having coffee and scones scattered around the wide, low-ceilinged room. He could have stood out because he was only one of a handful. Or because he was the only one sitting with a straight back, alert and well-groomed as he paged through an actual newspaper and ate eggs with the queen’s own manners.
But the truth was wrapped up in those hazy sense-memories from last night.
She hadn’t had a crush on anyone in a very long time. It was damned inconvenient, and most unwelcome. She contented herself with the fact that it didn’t count: it was just physical. She didn’t know him, definitely didn’t like his club or what it stood for, and it didn’t matter what he’d told her, or how upstanding he seemed – her attraction was rooted in the cut of his jaw, and the no-nonsense set of his brows, and it was something she could shrug off like an ill-fitting jacket when the time came to do so.
Her first instinct was to join him. But she checked that, hanging back. And then she checked that. She was embarrassed, sure, but avoiding him would show that she cared what he thought, that she was even ashamed, that being near him stirred up some sort of emotion.
So, head held high though it throbbed like a beating drum, she walked over to his booth and slid in across from him.
“Morning,” he greeted without taking his eyes from the paper. He reached for his coffee and sipped it.
Prodigal Son (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 3) Page 14
