Binary Code

by D H Sidebottom

  “You don’t remember us tearing up my house last night?” I asked, quirking a brow and kicking off my shoes. “I know I said I wanted to forget, but this is getting ridiculous.”

  Carter paled and edged back towards the front door, his Adam’s apple bobbing harshly when he forced himself to swallow.

  “Gullible old shit.”

  Laughing, I turned and walked towards the counter.

  “Funny.” I gripped the edge of the worktop when Carter’s mouth touched my neck, his hands on my shoulders. “I should punish you for playing such a cruel trick.”

  “It wasn’t a trick. Anyone would think you get sexual amnesia.”

  “Oh no, babe. I remember your cunt very well, and I won’t be forgetting it any time soon.” I shook my head and rolled my neck as his lips fused to my flesh. “Now, are you going to tell me what really happened?”

  “Nope.” I shrugged him off, grateful when he stepped back and gave me the space I needed. “I have no reason to tell you.”

  “Was someone here? Or did you freak out and trash your own home?”

  Did he really believe I’d done this? No, he didn’t. He knew it was someone else, he knew my home had been invaded, and the son of a bitch had the audacity to try and make me look like a crazy to hide his own protective urges.

  “I did it, of course.”

  “Tell me the truth, Harley Queen.”

  My body locked up and the kettle dropped from my grip onto the floor, the smash unheard through the buzzing in my ears. My brain physically burned as the name ricocheted off every lobe, taunting me, mocking me. My throat closed in and suddenly I couldn’t breathe, my lungs wrestling with the shock coursing through me.

  “Harley?” Carter’s soft voice hardly penetrated, but his touch did as he gently led me over to the table and guided me onto a chair.

  He dropped to a crouch in front of me, the worry in his gaze soft yet stern. “Breathe, babe. It’s okay, you’re safe.”

  My head shook and my body vibrated with terror. Finding my voice, I choked out, “Don’t ever call me that again.”

  He nodded slowly. “Okay. My bad.” He raised his hands to show he meant no harm. I scoffed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

  He blinked at me and exhaled loudly. “I’m not quite sure I can give you an answer to that.”

  Running his thumb over my bottom lip, gently pulling it away from my teeth, he sighed. “What the fuck did he do to you?”

  I halted and my breath stopped with my catatonic state. Why was he asking such a ridiculous question? Did he honestly expect me to answer it? Where had his suspicions come from, and why couldn’t I lie to him and tell him he was wrong? A part of me wanted to let him in—the sane part of me screamed at me to run away.

  “You need to go.”

  Anger lit his eyes with my brush off. But, surprisingly, he nodded. “Sure.”

  I couldn’t figure out if I’d enraged him, or hurt him. Both emotions glared back at me for the few seconds that he remained staring at me. Then, without another word, he upped and left, pulling the door closed quietly behind him.

  The itch in my blood, the memories invading my agonised mind, the tears that scorched my cheeks, could only be halted by one thing.

  And it wasn’t until the very next day that the coke-induced oblivion slipped away and once again the self-hatred crept back in.

  Twelve

  If she wanted me to leave, I’d leave. I should have known she wouldn’t be different, just because I’d been hired to kill her, and I’d decided to save her—at least for now. Why would that make her different to all the fucking others? Answer: it wouldn’t.

  I left her house without looking back, closing the door behind me and leaving her to whatever mind fuck she had going on in her head. I didn’t want to be a part of it, just so I could get some ass and a tight pussy. No chick was worth that much hassle.

  Except…maybe she was. I stopped halfway down her street and turned to look back at her house. The autumn sun was beginning to dip low in the sky and Harley’s house caught the first orange glint of sunset. I scanned every window I could see, but not once did she step up to one to look for me. I knew something plagued her; I knew something tortured her memories and kept her locked somewhere in the past. The way Jack had mouthed Mikey’s girl as if she were nothing more than just that—someone’s property—had told me everything I needed to know about Harley Davids.

  She didn’t just need protecting from me.

  Pulling my phone out of my pocket as I rounded my car and slid into the driver’s seat, I scrolled through my contacts.

  “Jace,” I clipped when the head of security for Chimera answered my call.

  “Carter? What’s up, boss?”

  “I need a little help. Off the record, and I’ll double payment.”

  “Anything. What do you need?”

  I’d found Jace at another club, when I’d been out doing some market research and sizing up my competitors before development on Chimera began. He’d been standing at the door, his brains and qualifications forgotten as he ticked names off a list on a clipboard and was left to decide if someone met the expectations of what the photographers inside wanted. I’d stopped to talk to him on my way out, having gathered all the information I needed, and he’d secured a job with twice the salary within three minutes of me stepping out of the doors.

  “I need around the clock surveillance.” Jace knew nothing about my other job, and I would keep it that way, thinking on the fly to keep him in the dark. “A friend of mine has been having some trouble with an ex. I want eyes on her every second of the day…” Backtracking, I let the unwelcome possessiveness commandeer my ability to speak. “Every decent second of the day. I want the names and files of everyone who comes into contact with her.”

  “Yes, boss. Do we make contact?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  I gave him Harley’s details and he agreed to have himself, or his assistant, Terry, on Harley’s tail at all times, watching her six and keeping her safe while I worked to unlock her secrets. If she wasn’t going to let me in, I was going to break in.

  “What did you get up to last night?” I asked Jobe as I grabbed a bottle of beer and slumped on the sofa opposite him.

  “Ah, you know.” He tilted his head from side to side. I rolled my eyes. “Worked the bar for a while, met a pretty blonde and fucked her in the bathroom.”

  “Blonde?” I asked, taking a swig of beer. “They’re not usually your thing.”

  “Neither is banging in a bathroom covered in piss and puke, but we work with what we’ve got, mate.”

  I laughed, shaking my head when he sparked up a joint.

  “You have to do that in here?”

  He shrugged. “Are you going to send me out into the rain like a dog?”

  “Nope,” I said, throwing my arms over the back of the sofa.

  The best way to deal with Jobe was to not deal with Jobe. It was best to let him do his thing, search for his kick, and I knew he’d soon get bored when he realised I wasn’t taking the bait.

  “So,” he said, hiding his shock when I leaned forward and plucked the joint from him. “How’s…what’s her name?”

  “Harley.”

  “Yeah. How’s Harley?”

  Now, here was my dilemma. Harley had pissed me the fuck off…I’d checked my phone at least a hundred times throughout the day before I realised she didn’t even have my number. What kind of girl screwed a man and didn’t even attempt to stay in touch? None I’d ever been with. I wanted to toy with her. I wanted to lay her modesty out on the table between Jobe and me, and allow us to both laugh at the weak little woman who had fallen into the trap that was our life. The other part of me—the part I was least familiar with—wanted to keep what we had a secret. Secrets were the way to happiness. Keep the world out and no one could screw it up for you.

  “Does it take you that long to scroll through the archives and remembe
r a woman?” Jobe said with a laugh.

  Instead of answering him right away, I sat back and took a draw, remembering just how competent weed was at clearing a raging mind. Two puffs and I felt like I was floating, and I laid my head back on the sofa.

  “She’s hot. She fucks like a whore and she kicks me out like a dude.”

  “Sounds too good be true.”

  “She is. If anyone knows that, it’s us.”

  Jobe clinked his beer against mine and snatched his joint back. “I thought you didn’t like the stuff.”

  “I don’t.”

  “But…”

  “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like.”

  “An example if you please, oh cryptic one.”

  “Like killing someone we want to protect. Or protecting someone we want to kill.”

  “Making a tough choice is half the fun.”

  Jobe sat forward, the evil glint in his eyes reflecting back at me as he rested his elbows on his knees and offered me his joint. I stared at it for what felt like forever. I stared at it like it was the choice I had to make, like somehow it would give me the answer and grant me possession of my balls once again. It didn’t. Instead the wisps of smoke reminded me of the sway of Harley’s hips and…I missed her.

  Fucking women. They were only good for one thing.

  “It sure is,” I finally said, reaching out to take another hit.

  Harley Davids didn’t see many people in twenty-four hours. She hadn’t moved from the kitchen the day she’d sent me away. Jace had arrived almost immediately and determined she’d been sleeping on the kitchen floor. She’d finally stood up once darkness had fallen and stumbled to bed, climbing beneath the bed sheets fully-clothed. It pissed me off that she’d slept on the floor, tucked up in the corner against the cupboards, surrounded by her broken furniture in her invaded home. Burglaries didn’t have to result in chaos; I knew better than anyone that it was more than possible to break into a house and leave no trace. It pissed me off because I wanted to protect her. Not only could I not do that because I was actually supposed to take her life, but because she wouldn’t let me. She’d opened me up to something I hadn’t experienced for a long time and then she pushed me away to make me feel ashamed for having hope.

  “We have a fella called Evan Gordon. He and the subject-”

  “Harley.”

  “Yes.” Jace cleared his throat. “He and Harley appear to be close. I’m forwarding you his image and profile, along with those of a Ben Sharpe. He, too, seems to be friendly with Harley. Neither of them appear to pose a threat, and she hasn’t left the house yet.”

  “Stay on her.”

  “Of course.”

  I ended the call and continued to tap away at my keyboard. Harley had found her Number One somewhere, and I knew we had three more to go. We. I should have stepped away—far, far away—but I couldn’t. Instead, I was finding out everything I could about Jack Forbes, and all his known associates. He’d been a snake. I sniggered when I thought about the irony—I was sure he was buried somewhere now, being eaten by the bacteria who would be eaten by the bugs who fed the worms that snakes fed on. It almost made me laugh out loud, but then I stumbled upon his criminal record. One Jack Forbes had been to prison ten times in his forty-two years of wasted existence. Turns out he was a dirty fucking rapist drug dealer, and Ariel15 had done the world a favour when she ordered his hit. I broke into a few more databases, hacked into a few more archives and compiled a list of everyone Jack would have met in prison, people he was arrested with, who he’d stayed with during his many phases of probation, and anyone else who was mentioned in any of the files on any of the platforms I spent the entire day searching. One name popped up and burned itself into my memory. I suddenly had something to focus on. This hit had become more than personal. It had become everything.

  I wouldn’t search him yet. I wouldn’t dive into his life unannounced and take every detail about his existence as if I owned it. I still had to find and extinguish Numbers Two and Three. Then, and only then, would I allow myself to find him and make him wish he’d never set eyes on Harley Davids.

  Michael McKenzie.

  “Dude, you need to sleep.”

  Jobe let himself into the office and when I looked up from the screen, I swear I saw my exhaustion bouncing back from him. We’d always been in sync; when he was stressed I got the headache. When I was running on fumes he could barely lift a cigarette to his lips. I guess we’d gotten lucky like that, but tonight he wouldn’t agree. His dark eyes were hooded with tiredness as he glared at me.

  “I will. I’m almost done.”

  “It’s-” he looked at the time on his phone. “3am. Last time I came to check on you, at one, you were just finishing up. You’ve been almost done since eight this morning. Time to stop.”

  “I can’t.”

  “What the fuck is the issue anyway?” he asked, sitting down on the seat next to me—the one reserved for when we needed to pull together. “Harley? Dude, you can’t be serious.”

  “I’m deadly serious. I need to figure this out.”

  “No. We know how this is going to go. You’re going to do your job, and we’ll both have a little fun in the interim.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “Can you?”

  I thought about it, and scrubbed at my eyes. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was tired, confused, definitely not thinking straight, and I needed to get over it.

  “Yeah.” I laughed, shutting down my computer. “Of course I can.”

  “Good.” He smacked my back as he stood up and waited for me to follow. “Now, go and knock one out so we can both get some sleep. Forget about this girl…she’s just got you riled up because she’s your first.”

  “You’re right,” I said, raising my hand to show him where my fist and I were going to avoid this conversation. “She’s just another chick.”

  “Yep!” He laughed, throwing his hands up in triumph. “And I can’t wait to fuck her into next week.”

  Thirteen

  Vanessa smiled up at me as I leaned over the gallery reception desk. “The holidays you asked for are fine.”

  She grinned and clapped with excitement. “Yay. John’s been looking at this little lodge in Snowdonia.”

  “Snowdonia? At this time of year?”

  “Exactly this time of year.”

  Shrugging, I frowned when she looked over my shoulder and groaned quietly.

  “Harley.”

  I curled a lip before planting a smile on my face and spinning around to face Bill Clancy. The man was persistent, I’d give him that. “Mr Clancy, what a pleasure.”

  His eyes roved down me, the image of sex in his eyes as he practically raped me with a single gaze over my body. Finally, eventually finding my face, he smiled. “I heard on the grapevine that you have a new Strovosky piece in.”

  “Then you heard correct.” I swung an arm towards the front of the gallery, gesturing for him to follow me. “I must say,” I spoke loudly, deliberately keeping my eyes away from him. “It’s one of his finest. I think this particular watercolour will be highly sought after.”

  I could feel him staring at my backside and I cringed inwardly as his leer burnt through the material of my skirt.

  Coming to stand before the exhibited canvas, I stiffened when Bill stood far too close to me, his arm brushing my hip and sending a quiver of revulsion into my sour stomach. Stepping aside, I swallowed back the bile. “The landscape is very personal to Strovosky, the image taken from the terrain…” I took another step back when Bill took another closer. My skin began to crawl with invisible insects, nausea making me blow out a steadying breath the closer he got to me. “…that surrounds his own private villa in…”

  “Harley.” Bill’s voice was low and phlegmy, the sound making me want to gag. “When are you going to give in?”

  I shuddered, unable to hide the reaction from his close proximity. “Mr Clancy, I…”

  “I know you want me.�
� He lifted a hand and ran the backs of his fingers down my arm. “We could have so much fun together.”

  Quickly, snatching my arm away from him, I stumbled slightly and grabbed onto the rope barrier that stretched across the front of the canvas.

  A hand came from nowhere, fingers curling around the top of my arm and pulling me gently into a body. “Darling, there you are.” Carter leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. “Open,” he demanded quietly.

  I did as he asked, instantly parting my lips for his tongue to slide against mine. He moaned on a breath, the faint flurry of warmth tingling on my tongue.

  Finally breaking away, his kiss leaving me breathless and needing to hold onto the barrier even harder, he blinked at Bill as though he hadn’t seen him stood beside us. “Ahh, Bill. How are you?”

  He slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me possessively into his side, his fingers digging into my hip almost painfully.

  “I didn’t know you two were an item,” Bill spat, his glare on Carter’s dominant caress.

  “Oh, did you not?” He looked down at me, his eyes twinkling and a soft smile curving his mouth. “Yes. How long is it now, Harley, darling?”

  “Uhh, around six or seven weeks.” I smiled up at him, trying my best to mirror his affectionate gaze.

  “In fact, if you’ll excuse us, Bill, I’ve come to steal my gorgeous woman away for lunch.”

  Without allowing Bill a retort, he grabbed my hand and directed me over to the staff door that led to the gallery office.

  “Code,” he growled when I stood mute and stunned.

  Nodding and pulling myself out of the haze, I punched in the door code, not caring that Carter watched every press of the keys. It was easy to change it.

  “Well here we are again,” he smirked as soon as we entered the office and he kicked the door closed behind me.

  I shook my head, holding up a finger and retreating backwards. “Sex is out. I have a lunch date.”