Her Assassin For Hire

by Danica Winters

  Oh, how time flew.

  As the sun began to set as they headed east, it lit up the cabin and a shaft of bright pink light was reflected against his cheek, making his stubble stand out. She had always loved that look on him and it harkened to a time when they had been comfortable enough to really let the other see them—warts and all.

  She thought of herself; he may have had a wart or two, but she was the one who was weighed down by them.

  He flipped the page of the magazine.

  “Are you going to stare at me the entire flight?” he asked, giving her a sly grin.

  Without missing a beat, though she was embarrassed at being caught staring, she replied, “I was just wondering how long you were going to go before you noticed the booger hanging out of your nose.” She laughed, mocking him by playfully wiping at her own.

  He instinctively rubbed at his nose, finding nothing. He smirked. “You think you’re cute, don’t you?”

  She laughed, the noise coming from deep in her belly. As the sound escaped her, she caught herself, afraid that by really truly laughing she was minimizing the situation in which they found themselves. As she thought about it, she realized this was the first time she had really laughed in months—since Trish’s death.

  “What are you reading?” she asked.

  “You know, you didn’t have to sit all the way over there.” He nudged his chin toward her. “Why don’t you scoot over and we can check it out together?” he said, motioning for her with the magazine. “That is, unless you want your own space.”

  As much as she did appreciate the extra armrest, she grabbed her Moscow mule and stepped across the aisle. As she settled in, she noticed that there was a subtle warmth that radiated from him, almost like she was sitting next to a space heater.

  She had forgotten how he had always seemed to be just a few degrees hotter than her. At night, in the winter, she had loved getting into bed and setting her feet on his leg so she could get warm. He had complained about her icy toes, but at the same time he always moved closer to her when he knew she was chilly.

  After she had lost their baby, all the things that had made her love him had vanished. It was as if all the little moments were erased the moment the nurse put the lifeless newborn into her arms.

  She wasn’t sure which one of them was no longer moving closer in bed at night after it had happened, but the days after their loss had broken them. Irreparably.

  Or, at least she had thought.

  She moved her foot closer to his, like she used to do when they were in bed with one another. Without seeming to realize, he bridged the distance between their feet until they were touching.

  He leaned in, his shoulder brushing hers as he spoke about whatever article was on the page. It was something about a guest ranch in Wyoming, but she barely heard him. Rather, all she could think about was how his body felt against hers.

  Be still her heart.

  Though she should have moved away, and kept her distance from him, she found herself pulling in his scent—a mixture of his Aqua di Gio and fresh leather. She could feel her cheeks flushing as desire coursed through her.

  Damn...

  When they had been apart and a man had walked by wearing Eli’s cologne, she had always taken notice, but none of them had ever smelled this good. Pheromones were for real.

  She crossed her legs as she tried to gain control over her body. She wasn’t a cavewoman who needed to cede her better judgment to her baser instincts. She was a grown-ass woman.

  “Zoey?” he said like he had asked her a question and she had failed to respond.

  “Yes,” she said, trying to cover her lack of attention.

  “You have been to a gentleman’s club?” he asked, with a dumbfounded look that made it clear she had made a major error in not listening.

  Crap.

  “No...” she said, heat rising in her cheeks. “I mean, yes...but, no.”

  He folded the magazine and looked over at her. “Now I’m going to need to hear that story.”

  “Yeah, right. I already feel stupid enough without opening myself up for further scrutiny from you.” She stuck out her tongue playfully.

  “Oh, come on now. Did you dance on the pole?”

  “Kiss my butt.”

  He laughed. “Just when it’s getting good, you have to bring out something that much better.”

  The heat in her cheeks intensified. She hadn’t meant it like that.

  “You know very well that wasn’t what I meant,” she retorted.

  He put his hands up in surrender and made an innocent face like he had no idea what she could have been referring to. “My apologies.”

  This was too close to flirting. Yeah, she loved the banter between them, but she had to nip it in the bud before it became more.

  She caught another whiff of his cologne and he moved to put the magazine down on his table. She forced herself to check her grumble, a sound she was sure would be a mixture of desire and annoyance.

  From the side of his chair, he pulled out his computer and handed it to her. “I was thinking that it would be good if you ran a scan, see if we can pick up your brother anywhere else in Sitges.” There was a tightness in the way he spoke, as though he were uncomfortable with them growing emotionally closer, just as she was.

  She was grateful for the change of direction. Neither of them needed to complicate their lives more than necessary.

  Once this was over, and they had tracked down whoever put out the hit, she and Eli would both have to go back to their lives—lives that didn’t revolve around one another.

  No doubt, Eli would have to go back to Watch Dogs and begin work on another contract.

  Though, maybe she could talk to her brothers about bringing him back on in STEALTH. Since she had started working mostly for their new military-grade tactical gear line, she had left a void in their company. He wasn’t up to her level of tech acumen, but he could act as another hand. They needed someone they could trust.

  She started running through the databases, pulling facial recognition and looking for her brother’s features. There were a few vague hits, but nothing for the area and the time he would have been in Spain. Aside from his brief moment in the bank, it was as though he had disappeared.

  The thoughts of all that could have happened to him crept into her consciousness, but she tried to sweep them away. It did her no good to think about whether Chad was alive or dead. As far as she was concerned, until she was one hundred percent certain of anything else, he was alive.

  She grumbled.

  “Finding anything?” he asked, careful to not look over her shoulder.

  She had always appreciated a man who gave her space, especially when it came to her job.

  “No, and it’s starting to piss me off.” She closed the computer and rubbed her hands over her face.

  “Just because he isn’t appearing anywhere right now doesn’t mean we won’t find signs of him tomorrow. You’ll see,” he said, but even she could hear the false optimism in his voice.

  “You don’t need to try and make me feel better—we both know that this may not turn out well. By now he may even be on the other side of the world. There’s nothing to guarantee we’re heading in the right direction.” The thought made her stomach cramp.

  “Your brothers are smart. Chad came out of hiding to appear at a bank—a place he knew he’d be on camera. He has to have known you were monitoring every eye in the sky for him. He did it on purpose.”

  Man, she hoped so.

  “If that was the case, why didn’t he give us more of an idea of what he is up to? Or where we can find him? Better yet, why not give us a sign to at least let us know he’s okay?” She took a breath. “He would have sent me something to let me know he was safe—and yet...”

  “Maybe he did. We could take another look at the vide
o.” He went to open the computer, but stopped as he glanced over at her.

  “I have looked at that damned video at least a hundred times now. I’ve run every kind of test on the damn thing, and there’s nothing. Nothing beyond what we already found.”

  “Did you pull the video of them leaving the bank?” Eli asked gently, trying not to get her even more riled up. “Maybe we could at least see which direction they headed?”

  “There’s nothing.” She could feel the storm clouds of a migraine rolling in. Eli was trying to help, and bless him for it, but he was crazy if he thought she hadn’t exhausted every resource at her disposal to get a pinpoint on Chad’s location.

  She’d even looked deep into the dark web in hopes she could ID the woman at Chad’s side, but it had been to no avail. The woman had been careful to not show too much of her face.

  Though she loved and trusted her brothers to keep her safe and to do their best, there were only a few things in her life that she had ever trusted with every part of her soul. One was Trish, who was now gone, leaving her with her only other source of comfort—technology. It never let her down. It kept her safely tucked away from war zones but close enough that she could deal a deathblow upon faceless enemies. She could control the digital world like it was a ball of clay, only limited by her abilities—abilities that could give the world’s best hackers a run for their money.

  For the first time ever, she felt let down by the one thing she identified herself by. For there to be no more signs of Chad felt like there was a void in her heart, as well. But was it her abilities which failed her, or was it the machines she loved so much?

  She was so very tired.

  Like he could read her mind, Eli took the computer and put it away. “Let’s just call it a night. When we get to Sitges, if your brother isn’t there, so be it. We can call this expedition a vacation to the Med or something.”

  She sent him a drawn smile. “It’s been a long time since I put my feet in the sand.”

  He cringed slightly as she spoke of sand, making her wish she had said something else instead.

  “I just mean—” she started, hoping to correct her misstep.

  “Do you remember that night in Tikrit?” Eli said, interrupting her.

  “The night we were going to take down the leader in ISIL.” She nodded as her thoughts moved to the cool night spent under the stars of the Iraqi desert. She had loved lying there, next to him, watching the darkened windows of the house for any sign of life in hopes that she and Eli could relay coordinates for the drone strike.

  “Boots on the ground, baby,” he said, quoting their old inside joke.

  Whenever they were in a new place, a place they found they often hated either for the job or the people they were sent in to destroy, he’d always say, “Boots on the ground are worth a thousand in the office.” And he’d always been right. It was part of the reason they were so highly sought after as a company. They always brought down their target.

  It was his boots that were always on the ground, and the simple reminder was just his way of telling her he would catch her if she fell.

  Eli glanced over his shoulder toward the rear of the plane. “There’s a couch back there. I bet it folds out into a bed. Why don’t you take this chance to relax? I have a feeling that when we get to Spain, the last thing on our minds is going to be sleeping.

  There was a certain sadness that seeped into her as she looked over at Eli’s strong green eyes, his wide-set jaw. Her gaze moved down to the muscles of his neck and the place where they gracefully melded into the burgeoning muscles of his chest. His pecs had gotten bigger since the two of them had gone their separate ways.

  She gave herself a quick apprising glance. Maybe she should have put in a few more miles at the gym, but how could she have known she’d be hoping to attract a man—and not just any man, but Eli Wayne.

  No, she was not trying to attract him. She couldn’t be. They were friends. Only friends.

  Just like before, with him so close to her, she wasn’t sure that relaxation could possibly be in her future. But she was tired. And he was right; once they arrived it would be go-time.

  “You don’t think someone is running a decoy to flush us out of hiding, do you?” she asked. “I mean, think about it, even if the Gray Wolves have nothing to do with the hit out on Chad, they have to know of its existence. If so, they probably know we are looking for him. And what better way to have us come running than for us to spot him and fear for his safety?”

  “How well do you know your enemies?”

  She pursed her lips. “Well enough to know they would do anything it took to wipe us off the map.”

  There was a long silence between them, as he, too, must have realized the validity of her concerns. They may well have been walking into a trap—and it was quite possible that she and Eli wouldn’t make it out of this one alive. One of the good things about her sending her brothers away was the fact they were unlikely to fall victim to the same fate.

  At a certain level, she should have been afraid, but an odd sense of excitement filled her. It was like the threat of pending death made something click inside of her. Perhaps it was residual anger from the attacks at the ranch, or that someone was willing to use her brother to get to her, or maybe it was something else entirely, but she couldn’t help feeling justified in making whoever was behind this pay.

  “What are you thinking?” Eli asked.

  “I’m thinking, if that’s the case, and someone is setting up a trap for us, we should set it on its ear. Let’s turn the hunters into the hunted.”

  He nodded, and his eyes brightened.

  They weren’t prey.

  “If Chad really is behind us spotting him at the bank, then we have nothing to worry about, but if I’m right about others possibly being involved, we need to make a plan.” She got up and walked back to the couch where, in front of it, was a small table with a pad of paper and a few magazines spread across the surface.

  Eli followed her.

  As they sat down, the flight attendant came out, refreshed their drinks and brought them each a sandwich before retiring to the front of the plane, closing the door behind her. Zoey couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten more than a few breath mints. Looking at the plate, her mouth watered. As Zoey took a bite of the pastrami sandwich, the mustard oozed out and a blob landed on the notepad on the table.

  Eli laughed and she gave him the side-eye. As she did, he took a bite of his sandwich and a bit of mustard dribbled down the front of his shirt. “You know what I call that,” she said with a chuckle, “karma. It serves you right for laughing at me.” She nudged his knee as she teased him.

  “For the record, I wasn’t laughing at you.” He dabbed at his button-up shirt with a napkin as they finished their sandwiches. “Actually, I was thinking about that little bistro where you and I went to dinner once. You know, the one where the guy played the accordion?”

  She hadn’t thought of that night in forever. That was when she had first told him she was expecting their child.

  The little restaurant had been at the center of Avignon, an area seldom visited by tourists in one of the best eateries in the city. It was private and quiet. Their table had been just outside, set on the edge of the cobblestone street. When they had arrived, no one else was there as it was early and Eli had teased her for wanting to go to supper with blue hairs.

  It had been a warm spring night, and the air was filled with the scent of lavender and the salty freshness of the sea. In many ways, the place was like the setting of a beloved rom-com in its perfection.

  Was Eli bringing this up in order to talk about what had happened with their child, or was there another reason? She didn’t want to ask him as she wasn’t sure either of them was truly ready to confront the past.

  “What about it?” she asked, hoping he would play by the unspoken rules th
at kept them from reopening those old wounds.

  His eyes softened as he glanced at her, as he, too, must have been thinking of the news she had shared with him that night. “I think of that evening all the time. I often think about how beautiful you looked. Your hair was dyed black then—you remember?”

  “I haven’t dyed it black since then.”

  “You always look beautiful, no matter the color of your hair. But that night, there was just the right amount of sunshine to light up the strands of your raven hair. And when you turned, your hair would shimmer and take on faint hues of copper. I didn’t tell you then, but you reminded me of a butterfly.”

  She took in a long breath. It had been so long ago, but he seemed to remember that night with crystalline clarity. In a way, she felt guilty for not remembering it nearly as well as he did, but her guilt was quickly replaced by endearment. He had definitely loved her once.

  “A butterfly?” It seemed unreal that she could ever remind someone of something so delicate.

  He nodded. “You were, and have always been, breathtaking.”

  For the second time that night, she could feel herself melting. No one spoke to her as he did. She had forgotten how charming and special he was—and how he could make her feel.

  She wished she could be as eloquent and respond in a way that would make him feel as beloved, but she could come up with nothing. There were no words that would capture the tumultuous storm that filled her when he was near.

  “Do you remember the song the guy was playing on the accordion?” he continued, graciously taking the pressure off her and only further reminding her of how wonderful he was.

  She shook her head. That night had been mostly a blur thanks to the nerves and anxiety that she had felt knowing that she had to tell him that their lives were about to change.