by JA Huss
“Sure,” I say, feeling chastised. I hang the frame back on the wall and turn to face her.
Neither of us speak.
“I’m ready,” she finally says, breaking the awkward silence.
“Right,” I say. “Let’s go.”
I wave her forward towards the door but she shakes her head and juts her chin out. “You first,” she says.
Which is weird. But then again, this whole fucking night has been weird. “Sure,” I say, walking to the door and opening it up. But when I look over my shoulder, she still hasn’t moved. “Issy? You coming?”
She stares at me again. The seconds tick off. I start to feel uncomfortable, like she’s onto me. She knows I’m not a player in whatever game this is she’s playing. But just when I’m about to open my mouth and try to explain, she steps forward, and I relax.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“Silver Springs,” I say.
“What? That’s like two hours away!”
Shit. Is it? I have no idea where Silver Springs is. Fuckin’ Declan was supposed to text me the address, so I check my phone, find the missed message, then press the maps app to get directions.
“How will I ever be back in time for masterclass prep tomorrow?”
What does she think is happening tonight? It’s fuckin’ killing me. But I can’t ask so I lie. “What we’re doing in Silver Springs won’t take long, don’t worry. You can sleep on the way there and the way back. I’ll keep you safe.”
“You keep saying that,” Issy says. “But I don’t need your protection, Finn. I need—”
But she stops. She was just about to tell me what she needs and… goddammit. I really hate this game we’re playing. “You need what?” I prompt her, hopeful.
“I need what was promised,” she says.
“Why?” I ask, because asking what was promised feels like the wrong move.
“You don’t need to know why,” she says, walking over to the framed magazine cover to straighten it out on the wall. She turns to me. “You just need to deliver.”
Deliver. O-kaaay. “Shall we?” I ask, standing just outside the door.
“Sure,” she says, and joins me on the front stoop, stopping to lock her door from the outside.
I take her bag—which is pretty light, and that impresses me. I appreciate a light packer—and stick it in the trunk, then open the passenger side door and wave her in.
“Rules say no civilians in the front,” she says.
“I’m gonna bend the rules tonight for you, Issy. I don’t like the idea of you riding in the back.”
“Why?”
“Why are you so suspicious of me all of a sudden? I mean, we just had a good time. What’s up?”
“You’re just acting weird.” But she gets in the front seat. So I close her door, walk around the car, and get in my side.
“It is kinda weird, right?” I start the car, check the directions on my phone, and then pull away from the curb as she thinks about that. “I mean… don’t you think this is weird?”
“Which part?” she says. “What I asked for? Or that I let you fuck me?”
“Let me?” I laugh, again. “Begged me, Issy.”
“Whatever,” she says, waving her hand in the air. “I never beg. I just take what I want.” But I catch a small smile out of the corner of my eye.
“So no, not too weird,” I lie.
“Just a little weird?” she asks, still smiling. “It’s not a strange request. I looked it up.”
“You did?” I ask. Fuck, I’m dying to know what she thinks we’re doing tonight.
“Yes. I found a study online that cited almost eight percent of the female population fantasizes about it.”
I almost stop the car. Like my foot taps the brake, and we both jerk forward before I realize what I’m doing and correct.
“What the fuck was that?” Issy asks.
“I… uh… there was a cat running across the road. I didn’t want to hit it.”
Did she imply what I think she implied? Are we playing a sex game?
“Is this a big place?” she asks in my ensuing silence.
“Nope,” I lie again. Well, is it really a lie if there’s no place? I mean, we are going somewhere, but the safe house in Silver Springs is obviously not what she’s fantasizing about.
“How many people?” she asks. And when I look over at her, she’s biting her lip like she’s nervous.
Fuck. I have nothing for that. “You’ll see,” I say, getting onto the I-70 freeway that will take us up into the mountains.
“Are you curious?” she asks.
“Very.” I laugh.
“About which part?”
“Uh…”
“I mean, I know we’re not supposed to talk about this or it’ll ruin the illusion, but I’m sorta nervous and I can’t help it.”
Jesus Christ. Pull yourself together, Finn Murphy! You’re a goddamned FBI agent. You’re a motherfucking force to be reckoned with. This woman has you totally off your game! Step the fuck up and play!
I heed the internal monologue and collect myself. “I’m curious about the whole thing, honestly.”
“Because it’s weird?”
“I thought we already decided it was normal?”
“It is normal. Well, it’s normal to fantasize about it. I’m not sure how many women actually go through with it, so that’s… a little bit unusual. But you know what they say?”
“What do they say?” I’m dying. Fucking dying to know what they say!
“‘You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change.’”
“Who said that?” I ask.
“Zig Ziglar,” she replies. “One of my motivational heroes.”
“Ah.” OK, I like this topic far better than the fantasy sex game we’re not playing. So I take the opportunity to switch the subject. “Is he the guy who got you interested in motivational speaking?”
“Yup. His book saved my life.”
“You mean like… literally? You were what, on the edge of suicide and then you stumbled onto his words and you decided to give it all another go?”
“No, dumbass. I mean I was at rock bottom, not ready to off myself. That’s all.”
“Define rock bottom.”
“No, again,” she growls. “It’s none of your business.”
“Do you tell your students about your rock bottom?”
“Why?”
“I’m just curious. I find you kinda fascinating.”
“Because I’m in this game and I don’t look like the kind of woman who’d want to play?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I tell some stuff,” she admits. “Not all of it, of course.”
“Why ‘of course?’ I mean, ‘of course’ implies that missing stuff is too private to talk about, or too weird to talk about, or too painful to talk about. So which one is it?”
“You have to pay to hear that answer. That’s my livelihood.”
I smile, picturing myself at one of her women’s empowerment seminars. “Can I come tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Why not? Because I’m a man?”
“That’s not why. It’s just full. I have a waiting list six months long.”
“You’re pretty popular,” I say.
“Very popular. How much research did you do on me before today?”
“None,” I admit. Because it would be stupid to lie about that. I really don’t know anything about her.
“He had to have been planning this for a while. Couple weeks at least to come up with such an elaborate setup. Fuckin’ Chella. She must’ve given him a heads up a while back and they put this all together.” But then she laughs. “I do admit, it was a pretty good scam.”
“Which part?”
“The whole FBI thing. The raid or whatever. Like… he must have a lot of connections to pull something like this off, right? Do you know him well?”
“Who?” I ask.
She
shakes her head, turns towards the window to hide her smile. “Fine. I get it. Gotta keep up the illusion. I mean, obviously Chella is paying for this, so I’d feel bad if she didn’t get her money’s worth.”
Holy. Fucking. Shit. This is a business! I have a pretty good idea who she’s talking about. I don’t know who this Chella person is, but the who in all this—the mastermind, if you will—must be her lawyer, Jordan Wells.
I make a mental note to look that asshole up as soon as we’re at the safe house. Could be the break I’ve been looking for. I mean, Issy just said it herself. He must have some kind of power to set all this up.
Except… it wasn’t a setup. The raid was real. The handcuffs were real. The interrogation, the safe house—all real. I wonder if Declan knows anything about this Wells guy? I make another mental note to ask him.
“Hello? Finn?”
“What?” I say, snapping back to the present.
“I said, do you mind if I just close my eyes and sleep a little? I want to be rested for what’s coming.”
What’s coming?
“No, go ahead,” I say. “We’ve still got a ways to go before we get there. I want you rested too.” And then I wink. One more time to cement her illusion. To keep her in the fantasy. I need this time to come up with a plan because Issy Grey is gonna be one sexually frustrated deviant when we get to the Silver Springs safe house.
And there’s no telling how she might react to the truth.
CHAPTER SEVEN - ISSY
“Issy.” I wake up to a man’s attractive hazel eyes staring down at me, and for a second I can’t figure out who he is, where I’m at, or what the fuck is going on. “We’re here.”
But the panic fades as his face comes into focus. Special Agent Finn Murphy. Jordan Wells. The game. My night.
I rub the sleep out of my eyes before I remember I’m wearing makeup and stop. “Where?” I mumble out, still waking up.
“Silver Springs, remember?”
I squint my eyes and stare out the window, but it’s total darkness. I can’t see shit. “Is this the club?” I ask.
“Uh… yup. Come on, we should get inside.”
He opens his door, gets out, and walks around the front of the car to open mine. Suddenly my heart is beating faster, my body is flushed with heat, and I’m nervous.
Finn offers me his hand. “Come on, it’s cold out here. Let’s get inside.”
I get out, more from habit than anything, and he closes the door behind me and waves me forward towards…
“A house?” I say. “Where are all the other cars?”
“What cars?”
“The cars!” I say. “You know, that all the people come in? Hasn’t it started yet?” I check my watch. It’s after midnight now.
“They’ll be here soon. You’re supposed to come in first.”
“Oh,” I say, taking a deep breath to try to get my rapid breathing under control.
“Don’t trip,” Finn says, grabbing hold of my arm and leading me forward.
I do trip. Like immediately. Because the stone pathway leading up the dark house is uneven, just like the one at my house back in Denver. So I don’t pull away.
We stop at the front door, which is apparently locked with an electronic keypad, because Finn punches in a sequence of numbers and the door beeps. He swings the door open to reveal more darkness.
“Go on,” he says, encouraging me. “We gotta hurry before people start arriving. You want to be ready, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I whisper. But this whole thing is creepy as fuck. I really hope Chella knows what she’s doing and Jordan is trustworthy. I mean, the guy’s a lawyer, so you’d assume. But then again, there’s a million lowlife lawyer jokes for a reason, right? You can’t trust them. What the hell was I thinking?
He closes the door, eliminating the hazy moonlight leaking in from outside, and the entire place is pitch-black darkness.
I hold my breath, convinced this whole thing was a setup and he’s really here to—
Stop it, Issy!
I take seven quick breaths, then three long ones—the same technique I’ve been using to calm myself down for the better part of a decade—and say, “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” he says, flicking a switch to illuminate the room.
Which is… a living room. And not a well-decorated one, either.
“What the hell?” I ask, spinning around to see his face. “This cannot be the place.”
He shrugs as he punches in a sequence of numbers on the door again.
This time locking me in.
I don’t ask any more questions. I just react.
CHAPTER EIGHT - FINN
Her foot catches me in the mouth, then a fist chops me in the throat. I’m down on the ground gasping for breath in the span of three seconds. One second later the lights go off, and the darkness envelops us.
“What the—” I gasp out, just as I hear something crash across the room.
And I don’t get to finish, because she’s got something pressed against my throat. A stick, or a bat, or—
“You better start talking right now, Finn Murphy or whoever the fuck you are. Or I’m gonna break your windpipe with this fire poker.”
My body instinctively twists, unbalancing her, and the next moment, I’ve got her on her back and I throw the poker. It crashes against a wall.
There’s like half a second when I think I’ve got her pinned and now I’m on top, but she gets a hand free and jabs me in the eye. I can’t help it, I let go of her other hand and she clocks me—hard—right in the jaw. She delivers a second punch to my nose, and the hot sensation of blood dripping pulls me out of my momentary stupor. She’s on her feet, standing over me now, when I reach out, grab her ankle, and drop her to the floor. She kicks me in the chest, sending me reeling backwards, and then scrambles away—hidden in the darkness of the room.
“Issy—” I cough. Fucking Declan was right. This chick is goddamned dangerous!
“Who are you?”
I look off to the left where the words come from, but I can’t see shit. “Special Agent Finn Murphy!” I yell. “And I’m gonna arrest you now for assaulting an officer!”
“Fuck you!” she yells. And now the voice is somewhere else. Damn, this little bitch is fast. “This is not part of the game, and I’m two seconds away from taking you down for good if you don’t unlock that door and—”
I’m on my feet, heading in the direction of where I think the door is—but I don’t unlock it.
I flick the light back on.
She’s perched on top of a bookcase, crouched down on hands and feet, like a goddamned monkey ready to—
Just as the thought forms in my head, she leaps. Fuckin’ knocks me down and chops my throat again.
This time I don’t recover so fast. I can do nothing but roll over and wheeze as I try to draw in air.
“Stay down, Agent,” she hisses, searching my pockets, then backing away.
I don’t answer. Can’t answer. I don’t know how long I stay there, on hands and knees, my forehead pressed into the dirty wood floor as I try to remember what it’s like to breathe, but it’s a while.
During the time I’d like to say I got my act together. That I didn’t just allow a woman who barely comes up to my shoulders to take me down in the span of three minutes… but I’d be lying.
Because by the time I can breathe, she’s got my hands zip-tied behind my back and she’s sitting on top of me, pushing my face into the floor as she leans down into my ear to hiss, “You’ve got ten seconds to start talking, asshole. Or I will knock you out, break a window, climb through it, steal your car, and leave you here to stew in your own stupidity until your friends come save you.”
CHAPTER NINE - ISSY
“I’m supposed to protect you, Issy! I’m your goddamn bodyguard!” he yells. Well, it’s not a yell because he can barely manage to get the words out.
“Bodyguard.” I laugh, but get up off him and start pa
cing the room. “You’re obviously not my bodyguard, because I neither asked for, nor do I require, a bodyguard.”
“I swear,” he gasps. “That raid was real. That terror threat was real.”
“Bullshit! I have nothing to do with that!”
“Right, Einstein.” He chokes out a laugh. “You were set up. We explained this to you earlier.”
“You told me you were part of the game!” I yell.
“No,” he says, finally starting to breathe normal again. “You said I was part of this stupid sex game you’re playing. I just went along.”
“Fucking liar! Caleb sent you, didn’t he?”
“Who?”
I kick him in the ribs. Hard. “Don’t play stupid!”
“I swear,” he says, rolling over a little so he can look up at me. “My badge is in my front pocket.” He nods his head towards his jacket, which I didn’t search when I found the zip ties.
“Make one move and—”
“I’m fucking zip-tied, Issy! Don’t be an asshole. Just get my badge. I’m telling the truth!”
I do a quick pat down on his coat pocket and—fuck. I can feel what’s probably a wallet. I pull it out and yup—one of those leather fold-over things that hold badges. Flipping it open reveals an ID, which does in fact, confirm he’s FBI.
“Shit,” I say.
“Shit is right. You’re gonna be charged for this.”
“Shut up,” I say, pacing. “I need to think.”
“You’re going down for assault with the intent to kill. They’re gonna get you for evading arrest, kidnapping—”
“Kidnapping!” I laugh. “That’s a good one.”
“You’re holding me against my will.”
“I’m holding—You’re holding me against my will!” I yell back.
I stop pacing. He stops struggling and we both just—take a breath. He stares up at me, craning his neck to try to make eye contact.
I wait.
Finally he says, “Listen. I’m FBI. Whoever this Caleb person is, I’m not a part of that. Whatever this game is, I’m not a part of that either.”
I don’t know what to think, so I keep quiet.
“Someone called into… somewhere earlier today….”
