Play Nice

by Gemma Halliday

But she hadn’t deserved this.

  Dade let out an audible breath through flared nostrils before standing.

  “You knew her?”

  “Not well,” she answered truthfully.

  “There’s nothing we can do for her now,” he said, then he moved past Mrs. Olivia’s prone form, raising his gun in front of him again as he stepped back out onto the landing.

  Anna followed, forcing herself not to look at the body of her neighbor.

  I’m sorry.

  Instead, she focused on the rigid line of Dade’s back, moving toward her apartment, pushing the door open, disappearing inside. Again the thought occurred to her to flee, run now, run as fast and as far from here as she could. But she knew she stood little chance of escape against these men. None if she fled unarmed. So, instead, she crossed the threshold a beat after Dade, staying as close to his back as possible.

  They’d broken easily through her locks, the brass fittings dangling uselessly in their splintered wooden settings. Her security chain had been snapped in half, the alarm box ripped open, exposing a jumbled mass of wires, completely disabled. All the measures she’d installed to protect herself were laid bare as the childish illusions they were.

  And they’d been just as thorough with the rest of her belongings. Every dish in Anna’s kitchen lay in pieces on the floor, knives, silverware, utensils littered throughout. Every piece of clothing from her closet was strewn haphazardly across the apartment. Her bed had been plucked clean of sheets, the mattress upended. Stuffing from her sofa covered every surface, cushions slit systematically one after the other. A pile of bullets sat near the linen closet where she kept her stash of emergency ammo. The chaos was designed to distract her, but she knew already what they’d taken. The laptop from her desk, bills from the table by the door, and a toothbrush from her bathroom. Recent activity, records, DNA. That’s what she’d take.

  Dade did another sweep, even though they both knew that had someone been in the apartment, they’d have been targets by now. The gunmen had come and gone. They were too late.

  “Lenny?” Anna called softly, not entirely trusting the steadiness of her own voice.

  Silence.

  Tears pricked the back of her eyelids, but she refused to shed them, hanging on instead to that blessed numbness.

  “Lenny?” she asked again, scanning the room, praying to see some pile of clothes shift, some whimper from beneath her bed, any sign of life.

  Dade circled the room, pausing in the kitchen. He shoved his gun into his pants, reaching down to pick up the discarded bag of dog chow. He held it up and shook it, the few remaining pieces of kibble bouncing around inside.

  A wet, black nose emerged from the closet next to the bed.

  Anna sucked in a breath, diving toward it.

  “Lenny!”

  She threw open the doors, wrapping her arms around his neck as he regaled her with wet, slobbery kisses. This time she couldn’t help it. Warm, wet tears slid down her cheeks as she hugged his furry neck to her face. Jesus, he was just some dumb animal. She didn’t know why it meant so much to her to see him alive. But it did. As if he were the one thing in the world she still had, the one thing that hadn’t been ripped from her this morning.

  Dade’s rough voice cut into her relief. “We have to go.”

  Reluctantly she released her grip, using the back of her hand to wipe at her cheeks.

  “There’s a body next door. The police won’t be far behind us.”

  Anna sniffed. Nodded. “Let me get some things first.”

  Lenny followed her as she dug through the mess. She spied a duffel bag in the corner and grabbed a change of clothes at random, quickly shoving them in. Then she crossed to the dresser on the far wall.

  The drawers had been pulled out, two of them smashed into unrecognizable splinters. She stuck her hand in the top opening, slipping her fingers into the crack between the body of the dresser and the top rim. It was a tight fit, one that she knew large, masculine hands wouldn’t be able to manage. She ran her fingers along the edge until she felt raised plastic numbers. She dug with her fingernails, prying the credit card away from the wood until it slipped loose into her waiting palm. Behind it, a plastic ID fell away from the wood as well. She quickly shoved them both into the back pocket of her jeans.

  “You think that’s smart?” Dade asked. She looked up to find him watching her, intent. “Using a credit card?”

  “It’s not mine.”

  She moved into the bathroom. Again, cupboards lay open, purged of their contents. Cosmetics, cleaning products, and reams of bathroom tissue lay mingled on the tile floor. Anna stooped down, pawing through the mess.

  “Who does it belong to?” Dade stood in the doorway, again watching as if taking mental note of her every move.

  “Anyone I want it to.”

  He gave her a questioning look, but didn’t press.

  Anna’s hands closed around a box of overnight maxi pads. Half had already spilled onto the floor, but she reached inside and removed the one stuck to the bottom of the carton, carefully unwrapping it from its powder pink shell. She unfolded the pad, revealing a slit along the right side. She slipped two fingers into the cottony interior and came out with a micro SD card the size of her fingernail. It went into her pocket with the credit card and ID.

  Dade raised an eyebrow in question again, but she ignored it, instead brushing past him back into the studio, stopping at her linen closet to scoop a handful of bullets from the floor. She crossed to the kitchen and paused only once more to grab the bag of dog chow, rolling the top over with a crunching sound and shoved it into her duffel.

  “Ready?” Dade asked, crossing the room to face her.

  She nodded. Then held out her right hand, palm up. “My gun.”

  He looked down at her hand, then up at her, something akin to amusement flitting momentarily across his features.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m not leaving here unarmed.”

  “You’re not unarmed. You have me.”

  Anna squared her shoulders. “I don’t need you. I don’t need an escort.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Give. Me. My. Weapon.”

  Dade looked down at her, crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes an impenetrable wall of black. He shook his head very slowly, side to side.

  “You don’t get it. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you,” she said. All the fear, panic, guilt, and regret she’d felt that morning converted into pure, undiluted anger as she stared him down.

  “You really think you’re in a position to do that?” he countered, taking a step toward her. She took one back, the small of her back coming up against the cool tile of her kitchen counter.

  “Look, I don’t know who you are, but I know how to handle these guys myself,” she said.

  His voice was low, even, refusing to respond to her growing agitation. “I’m not sure you do.”

  Anna laughed, a hollow sound completely devoid of humor. “You have no idea who you’re talking to, do you?”

  In one quick movement, her hand shot behind her, latching onto a paring knife, flicking it out in front of her.

  Dade looked down at the shiny tip, pointed at his chest. His jaw tightened. Anna saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down, his chest rise and fall a little faster.

  “Actually, I do,” he countered.

  She opened her mouth to protest but he rode right over her, silencing her with one simple word.

  “Anya.”

  She felt her insides turn to ice, her heart lurch. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I told you. Nick Da—”

  “Shut up!” She shoved the knife menacingly toward him.

  He did. But he still held his ground.

  “I’m leaving,” she said. “With my gun. Now.” She held out her hand again, wielding the knife in the other.

  Lenny barked in the background, sensing the tension in the air. Anna prayed he stayed put. Already, she knew the
disadvantage she was at. Dade had her by close to a hundred pounds, all trained muscle from what she could tell. Trained by whom and how well, she could only guess at. But she knew her upper hand was hanging on by a thread.

  “Put down the knife,” Dade commanded.

  Anna opened her mouth to reply, but again he didn’t wait for her response.

  “Or I’ll have to take it from you. And I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Adrenaline surged through her at the threat and, without thinking, she lunged forward, her wrist flicking with practiced speed, slashing an angry red line just below his collarbone. He flinched, hands shooting out to capture her wrist, twisting her arm behind her again, shoving her body forward until she was bent over the counter. She retaliated with a mule kick backward, catching him in the groin. He groaned in response, his hold on her loosening just enough for her to twist sideways, bringing her elbow up into his solar plexus.

  He swore on a whoosh of air, doubling over.

  She twisted to the side again, breaking free of his grip. She spun around.

  To face the barrel of his M9.

  She froze.

  Of course he’d pull his gun. Of course he wasn’t fazed by a superficial cut, of course she couldn’t have expected to get away while he still held both their weapons.

  You’re out of practice, Anya.

  Though she did notice that his breath came hard, his nostrils flared, telling her the effort had cost him something. She took some small satisfaction in that.

  “Until we know who these guys are,” Dade ground out, “you’re coming with me.”

  “I know who they are,” she retaliated defiantly.

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “It’s the KOS,” she shot back, amazed at how easily the words flowed from her mouth, the secret she’d kept for so long practically spilling out of her. Words she’d been trained never to speak to anyone, words that she’d tried desperately to forget everyday for the last decade and a half. “Members of the former Yugoslavian—”

  “I know who the KOS are,” he cut her off.

  “And they know who I am,” she said, the truth of it stinging like a slap. “They’ve tracked me down. They’ve hired these men to kill me.”

  Dade shook his head, his eyes steady on hers. “No. They haven’t. Not these men.”

  Something in his voice changed. Almost imperceptibly. Yet there, enough to pause her arguments, instead prompting Anna to ask, “How do you know?”

  He took a step toward her, his gun still steady in his hand, still trained on her midsection. His eyes holding hers—black, flat, void of all emotion.

  “Because I’m the man the KOS hired to kill you.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Dade watched Anya’s eyes go round, doubling to twice their size. Then, without warning, her free hand shot out, slapping at his cheek. It was an act of pure instinct, he could tell. She was trained better than that. He had a gun on her for Christ’s sake. But she wasn’t thinking logically. In fact, he had a feeling she wasn’t thinking much at all. She was in shock.

  Which surprised him. The trained professional in his files didn’t seem like someone who indulged in emotion, shock or otherwise.

  “Stop it,” he commanded, grabbing both her wrists in one of his hands. They were tiny, her body shaking under his grip.

  “You sonofabitch,” she spat at him. “Do you know who these people are? Do you know what you’ve done? They’ll find you. They’ll find you, too!”

  She was rambling. And he didn’t have time for it. In the distance he heard sirens. A common enough sound in the City, but considering the dead body next door, they were anything but comforting.

  “We have to go.” He tightened his grip on her wrists.

  She let out a bark of laughter. “You’re kidding, right? I’m supposed to go quietly with you to my execution, is that it?”

  “We’re running out of time. The police will be here any minute. Do you want to explain the dead woman next door to them?”

  Something flickered behind her eyes. An emotion that, in someone else, he might have mistaken for regret. It lingered only a split second before they clouded over with pure defiance again. “I have nothing to hide.”

  “That’s bullshit, and we both know it.” Dade grabbed her duffel bag, shouldering it himself, then moved his grip to her upper arm, steering her toward the broken front door.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she protested, jerking her arm backward, trying to wiggle from his grip.

  But he held on tight, sure his hand would leave a mark later. “You don’t have much choice.”

  “Shoot me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She took a wide stance, feet flat, shoulders back, chin lifted.

  “If you’re here to kill me, do it. Shoot me.”

  He paused a moment, searching her face. It was a dare. But he wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t prepared for him to take her up on it. He could read emotions clear as day surging behind her eyes now. Anger, frustration, and desperation all undercurrents running beneath a thick layer of defiance. But no fear. Whatever she thought he was about to do, she was beyond fear.

  He had to respect that.

  “I don’t have time for this,” he answered, propelling her forward toward the splintered front door.

  “You don’t have time to shoot me? It’s easy,” she said, leaning in close, invading his personal space in a very deliberate way. “You just pull the trigger.” She held her index finger and thumb up to his face. “And … pow!” she finished, shooting her mock finger-gun at him.

  “Don’t tempt me,” he ground out, then gave her a hard shove toward the front door.

  She stumbled as he pushed her forward, the dog bounding along at her side. Her limbs were stiff, fighting him every step of the way, and he could feel energy roaring just below the surface. She was not going to “go quietly” that was for sure.

  Still maintaining a firm grip on her upper arm, he propelled her down the stairway, pausing at the building’s entrance to scan the yard before moving quickly to his SUV.

  Anya was a good six inches shorter than he was, and slim. It wasn’t hard to manipulate her physically, and he had to remind himself not to get too comfortable in his ability to overpower her. She’d taken down men larger, stronger, and more dangerous than he was, as her file indicated. And he could feel her waiting for an opening to repeat that experience now.

  He had to be sure he didn’t give her one.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, her eyes on her dog as they crossed the small square of lawn.

  Dade squinted against the glare of crisp sunlight off the buildings across the street, acutely aware of the sirens growing louder now as he pulled keys from his pocket.

  “Did you hear me?” she persisted. “I demand to know where you’re taking me.”

  “Jesus, would you just shut up and get in the car?”

  He pulled open the back door, motioning the dog in. Quite frankly, the animal was the last thing he needed right now. But it was clear that the dog was the quickest path to Anya’s compliance. While he was an encumbrance that was almost comical at this point, he was Anya’s one weak point. And Dade needed all the chips on his side he could get. At least until he figured out what the hell had gone wrong with his hit.

  He shoved Anya into the passenger side, shutting the door behind her. The sirens were almost on top of them as he slid into the driver’s seat and pulled away from the curb. It took all he had not to speed away from the scene, to keep his pace even—a few miles above the speed limit to avoid appearing guilty, but considerably slower than he’d have liked to put distance between himself and the mess this job had become.

  His contact had said nothing about multiple shooters. Dade had been assured he was the only man working the job, a job designed to “tie up lose ends,” or so he’d been told. Either he’d been lied to or someone else had Anya in their sights as clearly as his employer did. Which wouldn’t be outs
ide the realm of reality, considering the deeds outlined in her file, but it was a hell of a coincidence that they should both decide to neutralize her at the same time.

  And Dade was not a man who believed in coincidences.

  He’d already taken half payment for the job—the other half payable when he’d neutralized the target. Anya’s location had been disclosed by his contact, and a timeline set for completion of the job. Dade had planned it quick and easy, no contact, no mess, one bullet the only evidence left behind, traceable to a gun that would have been at the bottom of the San Francisco Bay by now.

  Only nothing had gone according to plan today.

  Dade glanced across the console at Anya, her jaw still clenched in defiance, arms crossed over her chest in an unconsciously protective gesture.

  It would be the easiest thing in the world to drop her right now, finish the job, toss the body into the bay.

  But something was holding him back.

  Sitting this close to her, watching her arms wrap around herself, her hands clench and unclench with tension, he had to admit it was hard to think of her as the anonymous target she’d been this time yesterday. A complication he hadn’t counted on. Just like the dead neighbor, the ransacked apartment, the animal shelter full of bullet holes, and a witness to it all in that redhead.

  Dade drew a breath in through his nostrils, letting it out slowly between his lips.

  But one problem at a time. He’d take care of the redhead later. Right now …

  He cut his eyes to Anya, again. While her posture was stoic, her eyes were busy scanning the interior of the car, the street in front of them, the map on the GPS unit attached to his dashboard, ready to jump at the first opportunity he gave her.

  Right now there were too many unknowns. Like who was after her, why, and what, exactly, they might do if Dade shot her first. Until he knew what he was dealing with, he couldn’t risk making those kinds of enemies. This was purely business to him; the last thing he needed was to paint a target on his own back by pissing off some lunatic bent on eliminating Anya himself.

  No, what he needed were answers. And, like it or not, Anya was going to give them up.