One Second After Another (The After Another Trilogy Book 3)

by Bethany-Kris

  Penny only shrugged back.

  Where was the lie?

  “How did you find me?” he asked. “Tonight, specifically.”

  “I know the right people. And I’m good at making phone calls.”

  “And you’re here because—”

  “Out of respect,” Penny told her former boss. “In case you had something to say to me, or you wanted to make a request. I thought it was only fair, considering ... well, you know.”

  “That I paid millions for you to become what you did? That you’re offering a single million to make it all go away? That every effort we made to make you invisible was completely shot to shit? Or how about even that I’ve had to lie to my son and—”

  “How did you know it was me—the bounty, I mean?”

  Cross smirked, reaching forward for the glass of whiskey on the table. He downed half of what remained in the glass in one go and set it back down on the table with a crack. “Who else, Penny? Who else would do that the way it was done?”

  “I’ve got a lot of enemies.”

  “Now,” he agreed.

  “I always did.”

  The second she made her first kill within the ranks of pedophile rings overseas, she became a target. Each kill she added to the list after the first only added more to her back. It never really bothered her—that was a sacrifice she was willing to make, after all. Better her than ... everyone else.

  Right?

  She wasn’t so sure anymore.

  “You didn’t need to come here—not for respect or anything else,” Cross told her, sighing as he cracked his knuckles and leaned back into the booth. “The contract with The League is void. You’re free to do what you want without my input, and honestly, I expect you to do just that.”

  Well, then ...

  “I am,” she replied softly.

  “Then, you’re lying. Again. Like that night in the office on your birthday. You didn’t come here for the respect of the matter because I’m sure nothing I have said is anything you didn’t already know. Or suspect, either way. What are you lying about now?”

  Penny swallowed hard, hating how he was right. “I’m trying to figure out something.”

  “What?”

  “What comes after, I guess. If there is one for me. I’ve been thinking about it. I have a lot of time to do that sort of thing lately. Apparently, they just kept me busy to keep me from thinking ... not because I was doing what everyone else wouldn’t.”

  Cross considered her with that hard stare of his. The silence between them dragged on until she thought maybe it would be better to just turn around and leave. “That depends, Penny.”

  “On what?”

  “When the after is.” He lifted one shoulder, the blazer he wore custom fit to his tall form while the gold cufflinks caught the lights overhead when he waved an arm. “Because as soon as you do something irreversible that would hurt The League, they’re going to answer with an equal action. It’s inevitable. And you’ve made things easy—the cleanup, I mean—with the bounty. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of someone signing their own death warrant in such a way.”

  The longer she stared at the man who had only been a part of her life for the last few years from a distance, the more she thought about the last time they had truly talked. Not the usual orders in a file, a new job discussed over a conference call, or a message passed between her handlers and delivered to her. They were never ... a team.

  It wasn’t like that.

  “I keep thinking back to when I was that terrified eighteen-year-old girl asking you to help me in that office,” Penny said, “and everything felt so hopeless. You were the only person that had a solution to my problem, but it didn’t get better.”

  “The hopelessness?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the solution wasn’t what I expected it to be, either. It did change everything for me, though.”

  “For the better?” he asked.

  Well ... look at me, she thought. Was it better?

  “That’s yet to be determined,” Penny murmured in reply as she turned on her heel to leave, saying, “Thank you for seeing me tonight.”

  “Penny,” Cross called at her back.

  She hesitated. “What?”

  “I hear there’s an important event coming up for Senator Tracey—an official engagement dinner to Allegra Hatheway.”

  Her throat tightened with flaring anger that rose up from the pits of her empty belly. Even eating lately was an added chore. “It’s nothing.”

  “Lies. It’s the first—maybe only—opening you’ll have to kill her. They know it, too. The League, The Elite. They’ll be expecting you there. Is that a risk you’re going to take?”

  “What choice do I have?”

  Even if it might kill her.

  “Good luck,” Cross said.

  Penny headed down the stairs, saying to herself, “I don’t need luck—I’m still trying to find hope.”

  THE ROOF OF THE OFFICE building currently undergoing construction in its underground garage was twenty stories high. With lax security and a clear view of the Manhattan restaurant situated diagonally from the office building where Penny worked fast behind the shelter of an air conditioning system.

  One piece at a time, her rifle came together under her skilled hands. The sniper would allow her miles of vision, but she only needed the block of distance between her roof and the front of the restaurant where her mother would soon be arriving alongside her senator fiancé.

  The rattling of the air conditioning system was loud in her ear. Darkness coated her every movement, only the glow of lights from nearby buildings and a single security light somewhere at her back giving her any visibility to work.

  Nothing she couldn’t handle.

  Nothing she hadn’t done before.

  She wouldn’t usually pick a spot like this to work. Beyond the difficulties the roof provided to her plan, the noise was distracting. No sniper with any choice in the matter would willingly choose to take long-distance shots through crosswinds while an air conditioner roared beside them. It was made for disaster.

  A missed shot.

  It was also perfect for Penny.

  Or rather, perfect for what she needed. The large metal shades on the system kept her hidden from view of anyone who might be on a higher, nearby roof watching for her. The roof of the office building itself, despite the crosswinds, allowed her a perfect view directly inside the front of the restaurant through the windows, a good portion of the road, and the entrance of the business.

  It couldn’t get better.

  With only the barrel of her rifle sticking out on the side of the roof, Penny laid flat to the cement and came eye-level with the scope on her gun. The case lay open beside her, waiting and ready for her to dismantle and pack up the weapon as quickly as she arrived to unpack it.

  The butt rested comfortably against her shoulder as she moved the sights to scan the road and entrance of the restaurant. Cars were already arriving, dropping off the only people who would have access to the business for the evening. Guests of the engagement party between Senator Gilles Tracey and Allegra Hatheway.

  Penny checked the windows, too, and the people inside. Some faces she recognized, but that was only from old family ties. She wasn’t late—or too early. History and the expectations of people like her mother’s family told her that some shit never changed. The party might have started ten minutes ago, but the guests of the hour were never late. Everyone else was always early.

  Penny didn’t mind waiting.

  Soon, a black car with a familiar flag attached to the front and rear of the vehicle pulled up to the entrance of the restaurant. Even if Penny hadn’t noticed the political flags, the security that quickly moved from the entrance of the business to the sidewalk where they could open the rear doors of the car said more than enough. Another black car pulled up right behind, suits stepping out from every angle just to surround the town car with legs spread shoulder-width apart and hands fold
ed at their backs.

  She didn’t care about them.

  Gilles Tracey stepped out of the car first—then, Allegra. Wearing a royal blue gown that matched the color of her soon-to-be husband’s vest and tie. The wind in the city streets had the skirt of the gown billowing around the two as they shared words, and the security stepped further back with neutral expressions.

  At least they were neutral.

  Allegra and Gilles were anything but. The man with gray at his temples whispered something Allegra’s way, his narrowed gaze and shake of his head saying more than what Penny could understand through the sights of her scope.

  The man wasn’t happy.

  Allegra tried to soothe ... like she did.

  It didn’t work.

  Body language spoke volumes—theirs was screaming. Yeah, Penny bet it was hard to sleep next to Allegra lately what with all the trouble Penny had caused for her mother and the senator. She couldn’t say she was sorry for it.

  The only problem?

  Penny didn’t have a clear shot.

  But she might if only the senator would just mo—

  “If you shoot,” she heard a dark, but familiar, voice say from somewhere behind her, “then anyone looking for you within a five-block radius will know exactly where you are. This building is twenty stories high—you’ll never make it down before someone is here.”

  Penny had been holding her breath. The air slipped out with a name as her shoulders sagged, “Luca.”

  She didn’t look away from the scope—didn’t know where he was except behind her. She didn’t take her finger off the trigger, either.

  “Let’s be real, they’re all here—anyone wanting to claim the bounty, people from The League ... definitely protection for Allegra. You’ve made it entirely possible for them to connect the dots. Why wouldn’t they be here? You’ll have, at most, two minutes. Can you do this in two minutes, babe?”

  God.

  She still didn’t move even as she asked Luca, “How did you find me?”

  10.

  Luca

  “HOW did you find me?”

  Luca drew in the cold whisper of the wind with his next breath, wishing for even a second that he could remember what it felt like to be sane again. Penny’s question hung in the air between them, although from his vantage point where he had exited onto the roof through a hatched door, he could see her body flattened against the roof. He imagined he didn’t have the same vantage point as her, though, seeing as how she hadn’t looked away from the scope on the rather impressive rifle for even a blink in time.

  Who was she seeing?

  Someone driving on the street? A passerby on the sidewalk? Her target?

  Allegra?

  Luca couldn’t help but wonder if he was too late—it always felt like he arrived seconds after the big bang at every fucking point in his life.

  “Well?” he heard her ask. “How?”

  The question seemed simple. It wasn’t.

  “Details aren’t really important,” he tried to say.

  Hoping she took the deflection. She didn’t.

  “But they always are. Especially in your business,” she tacked on for good measure. As if he needed the goddamn reminder.

  Details were what got him here in the first place.

  He’d been awake for going on forty-two hours. All it took was a single, early-morning phone call from his godfather. Cross confirmed what Luca already believed—Penny was going to take her chance of making a hit on Allegra at the woman’s official engagement dinner in Manhattan. Luca suddenly found himself in the heart of a city pouring over every square inch of a six-block radius that he could because ...

  Shit, she had to be there. That’s where she was going to be.

  No one could tell Luca that in all her years of training as an assassin that Penny would leave things to chance. She was exactly the type to stand out in a crowd—dangerous for her considering the current circumstances of a bounty on her head—so he expected he would have to find her in the shadows.

  But the days turned into hours. And then minutes.

  Luca should have been used to chasing ghosts by now, but it didn’t get easier. For whatever reason, the universe had decided to bless him with putting him in the right place at the right time that morning as he watched Penny scout the office building with several floors currently undergoing construction.

  She was just there. He thought he’d hallucinated.

  But no.

  “In most cases,” he said, staying back behind the shadowed line that the hatch door afforded him. A three- or four-foot space on the roof separated him and Penny—a stream of yellow light illuminating the nothingness between them from the security light overhead. He doubted anyone could see her from the position she rested under the metal hood of the air conditioning unit, though. “But not for you. See, when I treated you like anything—anyone else—that I was tasked with finding, it always led me nowhere. You were never the same. You’re not like other people ... or things. How can I expect you to act like it?”

  She made different choices. Her reasoning came from a different place. It couldn’t be the same.

  He watched Penny’s back rise with a deep breath that he had to wonder was meant to steady her when she said, “If I ask you to leave—”

  “I won’t.”

  “You have to.”

  She still hadn’t looked away from the scope. That crosswind came in strong with the next gust, and Penny cussed as her elbow tucked back along her side, telling him she had been preparing for a shot.

  “I can’t fucking get it,” she muttered.

  He still had a chance to make her think clearly. It was one last thread for him to grasp on and use because the rest of him felt battered like an old flag from the winds of chaos that this woman could create.

  “It’s a big night—you know this is a stupid fucking move,” Luca told Penny. While the black fabric of her cropped tank top and cargo pants melted into the shadows around her, he could still see the way she tensed at the truth. “So you make a clean kill but then what—you spend the next six blocks in a gunfight with every person that’s hunting you.. There’s got to be a better way, Penny.”

  “She can’t keep living.”

  That was it.

  That was all she said.

  And God knew he understood ...

  Penny was born into privilege. She had every reason to succeed. Except the people meant to love her had been the same people who hurt her in ways no one would ever truly comprehend. There was no innocence—no chance to be innocent. No gray when the world had to be so very black and white for her. She couldn’t be normal when they had broken her first, and then someone else had to go and make her the exceptional.

  Only to tell her she couldn’t be that, either.

  An exceptional lie.

  He wondered if her entire life felt like it had led up to this moment. If so, then yes, he understood perfectly well why she wanted to take her chance tonight. Despite the risks, he might even do the same.

  He simply didn’t think she had to.

  “Penny—”

  “She can’t keep being free,” Penny snarled from the ground.

  “But you could do this in a better way.”

  He dared to take a step forward, but that was the wrong move. The noise of his sneakers scuffing the roof had Penny jerking away from the rifle. She moved like lightning, sliding gracefully to her feet and darting through and beyond the stream of light to push him back toward the stairwell leading inward from the hatched door.

  “Stay out of the light,” she told him.

  Not go.

  Not leave me alone.

  Not even this is my business.

  All of which he would have understood and even respected. Instead, she told him to stay out of the light, and he knew why. Anyone higher might see them—her. Him. He locked stares with her, desperate to find what she had left behind there. That thing growing between them. He was sure he found it in
her wide blue orbs that reflected fear when her hand hit his chest again and she hissed, “Goddammit—stay out of the light, Luca.”

  “Penny—”

  “I didn’t have a clear shot.”

  That was all she said before she turned away, ready to head back for her rifle. The festering anger and panic that had accompanied him from the moment he realized she had left him behind in Nevada finally came rushing to the surface when she dared to walk away from him at that moment.

  “Don’t fucking walk away from me again.”

  His hand stuck out hand, finding the back of her neck in a tight grasp that had Penny gasping when he yanked her back to him. She spun around under his handling, and he was already closing the distance between them. His mouth crushed to hers, and the kiss that consumed them both reminded him of drowning. He knew he needed to breathe, that he should try to come up for air. Except he didn’t want to when he could taste her on his tongue, and the very heat of her mouth proved she was alive.

  The kiss ached. Every stroke of their lips came rougher than the last. His chest took the pummeling from his racing heart in stride, but he couldn’t say the same for his nerves.

  Or his soul.

  That was all hers anyway.

  His hand loosened at the nape of Penny’s neck, but not enough that she could move away from him when he murmured against her lips, “If you do end it here, then I’m here to help you do it. No matter what. You’re not alone. You don’t have to be alone—I’m here. Let me be here, Penny.”

  Because didn’t she know?

  He’d never wanted to stop her.

  Only help.

  11.

  Penny

  IT was Luca’s eyes that could kill Penny. Those green-blue orbs of his that always seemed to stare right at her, landing on her with a heaviness that she could feel. No one ever looked at her the way he did. They either looked through her, overlooked her, or tried to find something they could change.

  But not him.

  Not her Luca.

  Because he was.

  Hers.

  She just wasn’t sure if he knew it—it’s why he was one of the last things she felt like she had to worry about while she finished her business. Before this, he had been her friend, and then for years he had been a piece of her past that just wouldn’t let go. He had become her temptation, too. She didn’t doubt that after this, he would still be hers in some way.