by Matt Rogers
His voice grated. Rough. Gravelly. Deep.
She didn’t know he spoke English.
She wondered how fluent he was.
She slipped back into her persona, and batted her lashes. ‘Of course.’
She let him put a hand on her waist and gently guide her out from under the bimini. Wayne hovered on the side, surrounded by women but keeping a close eye on Ruby.
She noticed.
She played the part flawlessly.
Flicked her hair to one side and moved out under the night sky, giving her and one of the most murderous people on planet earth a little more privacy. There wasn’t much to gain from a man with such rudimentary English, but the key to operational success was fluidity. That commandment had been drilled into her from the age of twelve, and she sure as hell wouldn’t forget it in a hurry.
Zafir led her to the edge of the bow and went comfortably silent, sipping at his beer, admiring the view. It was quiet out here. She breathed the night air and listened to the ripple of the water far below, the distant murmuring of Monaco nightlife floating over the port. It might have been serene if her mind wasn’t razor sharp, focused on maintaining the illusion she was just another dumb bombshell who’d charmed her way onto a big boat.
Zafir said, ‘You speak … Arabic?’
Yes, she thought. Fluently.
But the woman she was playing certainly wouldn’t.
So she laughed softly and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Is okay. What your name?’
‘Ruby.’
He grunted an affirmation. Didn’t offer his own.
Kept staring out over the water.
He said, ‘You smart.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You seem … smart. Is this right word?’
She laughed again, and stroked his shoulder. ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’
He jerked a calloused thumb in the direction of the hardtop bimini, and the people dancing and swaying underneath it. ‘What you think of him?’
‘Aaron?’ she said.
Another affirmative grunt.
She said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I do deal with him. He try to sell me. You think he will … be bad business?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he will be.’
‘Why?’
She kept her hand on his shoulder, and leaned in close. ‘I think he is very, very good at what he does.’
Another grunt, this one less affirmative, more open-ended.
She watched his eyes, saw their haziness, saw the lack of focus in them.
She took a deep breath.
Went for it.
Said, ‘What’s the deal?’
He stared down at her. He was much bigger up close. An enormous slab of a man. The weight in his forearms alone… he would have the squeeze of death. She had no doubt he’d personally used it in Yemen.
He said, ‘I like you. Maybe I tell you later.’
Tell me later?
She said nothing. Drenched her expression with seduction.
He said, ‘Come.’
Took her by her thin wrist and pulled her back toward the middle of the deck.
‘Where are we going?’ she said.
He grunted, ‘Bedroom.’
Her heart stopped.
10
Wayne intercepted them halfway to the staircase.
He wasn’t panicked, but he sure moved quickly. She’d seen him coming, seen him detach himself effortlessly from the gaggle of females around the bar and slide across the space with a natural athleticism. Moving fast, but making it seem like he wasn’t. The attention to detail was impressive.
He caught Zafir on his bowling-ball sized shoulder and beamed wide and said, ‘My friend, where are you off to?’
Zafir smirked at Wayne. ‘Downstairs.’
Wayne laughed, low and steady. ‘Go pick a room. I’ll have the staff get it ready and then I’ll send her down.’
The warlord hesitated, befuddled by the English, deciphering it slowly.
Then said, ‘No. Her. Not others.’
Wayne nodded. ‘Yes, yes. You’ll have her.’
Then Wayne leant in close to Zafir and Ruby heard him whisper, ‘I’ll give her something that’ll make your night incredible. She will want you to do bad things to her.’
Zafir’s eyes lit up, still seized by drink, and he nodded in the affirmative.
Let go of Ruby’s wrist and teetered down the stairs, each footfall a thunderclap.
When he was gone, Wayne raised an eyebrow at her.
She said, ‘You’re going to give me something?’
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I just needed you alone.’
His top two shirt buttons were undone, exposing muscular tanned pectorals, and she reached out and placed a palm on the centre of his chest. Felt his heartbeat, slow and steady.
Always calm.
Always in control.
She said, ‘What do you want to do with me?’
‘He wants you.’
‘I don’t want him,’ she said. ‘I want you.’
Taken at surface level, a romantic invitation.
But it applied to the operation too.
Zafir was the target, but he was useless from an intelligence perspective. She didn’t need an unclear admission that could be interpreted seven different ways. She needed concrete proof, which could only come from Wayne.
He put his hands on her waist, and pulled her close, and she had to admit in another life, in different circumstances, she might have fallen for his ways. He was intoxicatingly attractive, even when she was clear-headed. He had everything going for him. Shame he had to stray to the unsavoury path.
Shame he had to do deals like these.
It was bound to catch up to him eventually.
Then, his face stone, he said, ‘It’s not about what you want. And it’s not about what I want.’
She raised an eyebrow, pierced him with her amber eyes. ‘Isn’t that all that life’s about?’
He smiled, and shook his head. ‘As much as I wish it was.’
‘Then what’s it about?’
‘What he wants. He’s a potential client. This is a business deal. I can see you’re sharp. I can see you’ve already worked that out.’
She said, ‘I’m not a whore.’
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Whores don’t get paid six figures a deal. That’s a whole different class of woman. That’s what you are.’
She paused.
Knew exactly what he meant, but the woman she was playing wouldn’t. So she gave her fake persona another couple of seconds to put it together.
‘I’m sorry?’ she purred.
‘I’m going to pay you a hundred thousand dollars,’ he said. ‘And you are going to do whatever the hell he wants for the rest of the night.’
‘Nooo—’ she started, but she kept her tone light.
Playful, even.
Like she was only protesting for the performance.
Meanwhile, her mind raced.
Am I going to have to do this?
Wayne said, ‘I’m not kidding. That’s the fee. And you will do it. Won’t you?’
What choice do I have?
The woman she was playing wouldn’t turn it down. She’d used a role to infiltrate Wayne’s circle, and now she was trapped in it. It was suffocating her, the walls pressing in on all sides, directing her toward a single syllable that filled her with disgust.
She said, ‘Yes.’
Wayne smiled. ‘That’s my girl.’
You’re going to fucking regret this, you pig.
She smiled back. ‘Then tomorrow… we can talk?’
He kissed her on the cheek, then crept his lips toward her ear and said, ‘Tomorrow, I’m all yours.’
She shrugged, coy but nonplussed.
Ruby Nazarian — the master of falsifying emotions.
‘Go find him,’ he said. ‘Make him happy. If you don’t, I won’t be plea
sed.’
For the briefest of moments, his eyes flashed.
The intensity of his gaze struck her so hard she almost broke character.
But she pulled it together, nodded shyly, and floated down to the lower decks without looking back.
11
The superyacht’s corridors turned claustrophobic.
Its atmosphere turned stifling.
They seemed to constrict on either side of her, the plush carpet swallowing her footsteps, silencing her resistance.
She’d never been in this position before.
How far are you prepared to go for the job?
She didn’t know.
She’d find out.
Zafir led her from behind, one hand on the small of her back. His touch was sickening. His breath reeked, and the sweat patches underneath his armpits were beginning to reek. The air smelt stale, an aroma he probably didn’t even notice as he bathed in his own squalor back home, all his attention seized by the systematic massacre of Houthi rebels.
He was a horrid pig of a man.
She was willing to do almost anything for the greater good.
But this?
He practically pushed her into a guest bedroom, as large as her suite at the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo and just as expensively furnished. The superyacht was staggering in its enormity. She couldn’t believe this room was onboard a boat. There was a four-poster king-size bed in the middle of the far wall, and a full en-suite bathroom to the right, and an assortment of sofas and armchairs scattered tastefully around the rest of the room.
She could almost feel Zafir thinking, We could have some fun in here.
One of the staff had placed a sealed bottle of Ace of Spades champagne in a silver ice-bucket on the bed. She assumed it was a custom request from Wayne, given it was all Zafir had been drinking at Sapphire. He clearly had an inclination for the beverage.
He gripped her wrist again.
She spun, forcing herself to remain calm. ‘Let me freshen up.’
‘What?’ he grunted.
‘I need to get ready,’ she whispered. ‘For… you know.’
He smiled, and kicked the door shut behind him, sealing them in. She steeled herself, reached out, and put a hand on his hairy swollen chest, just as she’d done to Wayne upstairs. He smiled wider. She said, ‘Go to the bed.’
Then she stood up on her tiptoes and said in his ear, ‘Start drinking that bottle. You’re going to need it.’
‘Why?’
‘For later.’
She flooded her gaze with something raw. Pretending she was obsessed with him.
It was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
He didn’t need any further encouragement, and she knew how slippery the slope of inebriation would get. He was already drunk, and his inhibitions were masked, and it would only take the slightest encouragement on her part to—
He thundered past her, kicked his shoes off, and snatched the bottle.
She slipped into the en suite, and softly closed the door.
Quiet.
Dead quiet.
Now, in the privacy of the bathroom, she could take a moment. It was all she needed. A single instant of respite amidst the madness, to regroup and re-orientate and—
You’re okay.
Cold calm fell over her. She could have gone back out then and there, but she didn’t. She waited. Counted out the seconds in her head, long and slow, until three full minutes had elapsed. In the grand scheme of things, a flash in the pan. Right now, an eternity.
Then she turned, reached for the doorknob, twisted, and pulled.
Her heart in her throat.
Whatever happened would spell either total success or an absolute disaster.
There was no room in between.
Not tonight.
She swung it fully open, and there was Zafir sprawled like a starfish on the silk sheets, staring up at the four-poster bed. His gaze was drifting all around, his vision seized in a merry-go-round. The bottle of Ace of Spades was overturned on the bed beside him, gold liquid flowing onto the bed.
He’d drunk almost half of it.
It had tipped him over the edge.
But not far enough.
When he heard the door swing open, he sat up, his lips full, his beady pupils searching for her.
He found her.
He held out both hands and beckoned.
An eerie smile drenched his lips.
Plan B.
She skipped toward him, loosening the straps of her dress, beginning to shrug it down. There were several factors at play. She had to assume he didn’t get wasted often, not back in Yemen, not when he was working. He’d gotten himself carried away here, and it would spill over to the next day. It had to. He had to be wholly inexperienced in this realm.
She hoped.
Amnesia was crucial.
She finished her merry dance across the room and took his hands. His tongue practically drooped from his mouth. She swung one tanned leg over him, planting it on the sheets beside his seated form.
Before he could process that particular development, she slipped all the way behind him, her movements lithe and lightning-fast.
He started to turn around.
It hadn’t sunk home what was happening.
Good.
She looped her arm around his throat and used her other hand to pull it tight. The art of the rear naked choke was in the technique, not the raw application of strength. Which was a good thing considering she weighed one-twenty and he weighed well north of two-fifty. If he had his wits about him he could have thrown her off in a single jerky movement, but alcohol delayed his reaction speed by a couple of seconds, and that was enough.
The pressure of her forearm compressed his jugular vein, restricting blood flow. His face went bright red and his eyes bugged and he spluttered once for breath. Both hands reached up feebly to swat her arm away, but it was a sinewy crowbar across his neck, corded with thin muscle, wrenching tighter and tighter until—
The carotid arteries narrowed.
He stopped struggling.
A few seconds later, he went out.
His eyes practically rolled into the back of his head, and he went to sleep.
12
She moved with efficiency.
Lowered him until he was prone on the mattress and rolled him onto his side. At least that way, if he vomited in the throes of unconsciousness, he wouldn’t choke to death on it.
A mercy, she thought.
She gritted her teeth and hauled him across the bed, dragging the enormous deadweight a few inches at a time. She wasn’t superhuman. There was a strength limit to a hundred and twenty pound frame, no matter how much she worked out. Bulk up to something fierce and she’d never make it onto a boat like this. But what was there had been conditioned with a strict powerlifting regime, so it took her less than a minute to get him in position.
Splayed across the left-hand side of the bed.
Again, on his side.
She gripped his shirt and tugged it over his head, shimmying it out from underneath his massive frame. Exposing a huge torso, covered in rolls of fat. Pale and sweaty and rank. She did the same with his grossly oversized dress pants, and lay both garments at the foot of the mattress. Then she draped the silk sheets over his bulk.
She rolled to the right-hand side. Slipped out of her dress, reached back and unhooked her bra. Threw the clothes off the side of the bed. Pulled the sheets up under her armpits, then tousled her hair until it was unruly. Reached under the covers and pinched the skin on her forearm hard enough to make her eyes water, deliberately letting the tears flow. It smudged her mascara down her face.
Finally, she used a flat palm to smear most of the lipstick off her mouth.
She leant over and wiped it off on Zafir’s unconscious face.
A second later, he stirred.
She fell back to her side, her eyes already closed, giving off the impression she’d been asleep for some time. She heard hi
s giant form stir beside her, creaking the mattress, shifting the bed. A dizzy groan escaped his lips.
She sensed him roll over.
Sensed his eyes on her.
Boring into her.
All she saw was the darkness of her closed lids.
No one stays unconscious for more than a couple of minutes at the very maximum. If they do, they’re guaranteed permanent brain damage. A rear naked choke, whilst vicious in appearance, doesn’t usually have long-term consequences unless it’s held long after the victim is already unconscious. That’s why in mixed martial arts, losing consciousness to a submission is endlessly preferable than being smashed unconscious by blows.
One carries a strong potential for brain trauma. The other doesn’t.
Ruby had suffered both, multiple times, in her training.
But Zafir wouldn’t know what had hit him. He was still considerably drunk, his head now pounding, pain drilling behind his eyeballs. Resurfacing from the shadow realm is disorienting enough when you’re sober. Ruby couldn’t imagine doing it blind drunk. He’d have missing patches of memory, and what was there would be indiscernible from a bad dream.
She felt him watching her.
Soaking in her dishevelled state, maybe glancing a look at himself in the mirror on the far wall, seeing the lipstick on his face. Incoherent, confused, head swimming. Nothing adding up. Then a shrug of acceptance, and she heard the thump of his head dropping hard to the pillow beneath him.
Thirty seconds later, he was gone again.
Asleep or passed out.
It didn’t matter either way.
She sat up, heart thudding, her vision narrowed to a tunnel. The raucous echoes of the party upstairs floated down through the empty corridors. The yacht seemed hollow now, vastly empty, and she saw it as the overcompensation that it truly was. Stress chemicals flooded her system, adding a tinge of fear to her surroundings.
She sat in bed, her mind racing.
Her options presented themselves, one by one.
She stayed quiet, assessing them, ruthlessly self-analysing.
Stand down, she thought. For tonight, at least.
There was no guarantee that Wayne was still upstairs. If she showed her face before the night was through, it’d only generate a hundred questions from the bodyguards, or the girls, or Wayne himself. She was under no illusion as to how important Zafir was. Wayne had already spent a staggering amount of money to impress him, and as far as the intel was concerned, this was their first night together. There was no telling when the deal would be done, or what it specifically involved. She wouldn’t find answers to any of those concerns tonight.
