by Amber Lin
* * * *
Back in the suite, the men all split up into separate bedrooms. We had a few hours before it was time to leave. We were supposed to be resting, but Luke was far too tense. He kept looking over the old schematics of the Barracks, even though our entry and exit routes were well laid out.
“Come here.” I patted the bed. “I’ll rub your shoulders.”
He hesitated before throwing down the papers and lying on the bed. I climbed onto his back, and he groaned.
I laughed. “I haven’t even started yet.”
His words were muffled in the sheets. “But I have.”
With gentle strokes, I rubbed some of the knots out of his shoulders and back. I knew his mind was on what we were going to do in a few hours, but I felt some of the worry leave his mind as the tension drained from his body. But like an electrical current, the worry seemed to flow from him to me. Our opening moves were pretty well decided, but what happened at the end? It seemed vague, which I had first assumed was because we couldn’t predict Henri’s reactions. Still, a question lingered.
“So assuming we get in quietly and you do arrest him. How are you going to explain that to your boss?”
It was quiet.
“Luke?”
“I’m not planning to arrest him, Shelly.”
Which meant… “I thought you were joking about shooting him on first sight.”
“I was. I’m going to talk to him first.” He struggled to sit up.
I moved off him. “You’re going to talk to him. And then shoot him. That’s…that’s…”
“Murder,” he supplied.
“Not legal. I was going to say that’s not legal.”
“I told you I’ve done worse than you thought.”
Despite his glib words, he spoke with a solemn intensity. This affected him deeply, his long-standing adherence to the rules not so easily discarded.
“If I arrest him, he’ll just walk. You know that. And even if by some miracle he ended up in jail, he would be able to organize things from there. At a minimum, that would mean putting a hit out on you, on Ella.”
“On you too.”
“I’ve spent twelve years of my life fighting for the law to take him down. It hasn’t. It won’t. This is the only way.”
The words were eerily familiar. This was the only way. Everyone wanted Henri dead, but no one had the guts enough to do it. Not Jade, not Marguerite. Not even me, only Luke. But I wondered how much it would cost him. I wondered where his breaking point was, and whether this was beyond it.
On impulse I pressed a kiss to the back of his hand. Feeling silly, I glanced up. His eyes glowed surprise and approval in the dim late-afternoon light. This close, I could see the gold-and-black striations through the deep green. I had a sudden premonition than this would be the last sight I’d ever see.
I shivered.
“Are you cold? Come lie down. We have a couple hours.” Despite his casual words, none of the intensity had faded. He observed me with an almost cruel glint in his eyes.
But I knew him better. He felt the same pull of fate, the same inevitability. It had always been coming to this.
I kissed him, infusing the touch with all the love I couldn’t say. I couldn’t be a proper girlfriend for him, but God, I could do this. I undressed him slowly, carefully, my dreams unfolding with each touch, my hopes flayed open with each caress. His body fit him perfectly—strong and lean. He had faced down immeasurable challenges but known hunger. I kissed and nipped and sucked every part of him I found beautiful, learning the ones that brought him the most pleasure. Then I settled between his legs and filled my throat with him, drank my fill of him, and soothed him softly until he fell into a loose-slung sleep. Only then did I feel comfortable in the nook of his arm, basking in the warmth of his satisfaction.
I woke up ten minutes before the alarm was set to go off. Stumbling out of bed, I rinsed my face and went outside to the sitting area of the suite. The only one there was Jeff. He stood at the window, staring out with a brooding expression. I wondered if he was nervous about what we were going to do.
He turned when I came out. “Hey.”
“Hey back. Couldn’t sleep?”
His expression was sheepish. “Maybe Rico was right about the caffeine.”
I laughed, heading to the minibar. “Oh man, you guys drank all the water.”
“Well, you scared us with that stuff about dirty glasses.” He lifted the bottle he held, cap gone but mostly full. “Here, I’m good. You can have the last one.”
“Thanks, Jeff.” I took a drink. “You’re a gentleman.”
He blushed pink. Endearing, despite the fake tough-guy act. Men with earrings always acted like they were great lovers, although they knew they really weren’t. But hey, who was I to judge? We were all overcompensating for something.
He joined me at the table. “What about you—nervous?”
“I guess it hasn’t sunk in yet. Feels kind of surreal. I mean, if things go well, I might be free of him by this time tomorrow. And if things don’t go right…” I shuddered. “Probably best not to think about that.”
“I know Luke’s going to do everything he can to keep you safe.”
I took a swig. “What if it’s him I’m worried about?”
“Don’t. He tends to land on his feet.”
“You’ve known him a long time, then?”
“Forever,” he said. “Since we were kids.”
If they’d known each other since they were kids, then that meant he’d seen Luke’s hard life. It meant Jeff probably had a story of his own. In fact, if they’d both been on the street together… “You weren’t a… ”
“A rent boy?” He snorted. “Not likely. I don’t have the face for it, even if I… Well, no. I did other stuff to get by. Mostly beating up anyone who got in our way. We all had our parts to play.”
I considered that. “So what can you tell me about Luke? Besides the feet-landing thing.” Jeff looked away, far into the distance, though I couldn’t tell whether it was the past or the future.
“He’s a good guy. I mean, a really good guy. If you ever feel like you need to doubt him, you don’t have to.”
“Hmm. This sounds like the beginnings of another intentions speech.”
“A what?” he asked blankly.
“Both Rico and Major gave me one. What are your intentions where Luke is concerned? Don’t hurt him, or you answer to us. That sort of thing.”
Jeff chuckled. “Luke’s a big boy. If he’s with you, I’m sure it’s because he wants to be.” He shrugged. “I gave up trying to control the future a long time ago.”
“I hear that. Sometimes you just gotta ride it out.”
He granted me a half smile, making him look boyish. “Pun intended?”
“Always.” I tilted the water bottle to offer the last inch. When he shook his head, I inclined my head in thanks. “To riding it out,” I said in a toast before downing the rest.
Luke came out of the bedroom and yawned. “Are you corrupting Jeff too?”
“Hardly.” I went over and curved against his side. “I’ve been on my best behavior.”
“See now, I wasn’t even worried until you said that.”
I started to laugh, but it became a little watery. I turned my face into his shirt, and he hugged me back. I liked to think he understood all the things I couldn’t say. I liked to think he felt it too, the melodious tumble of locks fitting together that happened whenever we came close. From our professions to our backgrounds, everything conspired to keep us apart. But from the moment we’d met, all I could think about was being together.
Chapter Fifteen
The crunch of gravel sounded loud in my ears. The men had earpieces, but they weren’t made for smaller ears, nor was I familiar with using them.
Besides, as Luke was fond of telling me, my job was to stay near him. Stay near Luke. Boy, had he drilled that into my head. Stay near Luke, and if something went wrong, stay near Major. I sup
pose the other guys came next in the “stay near” directive. But if things got that bad, I was probably fucked anyway. That part Luke hadn’t said, but it had been in the grim set of his mouth, the veiled look in his eyes when he’d asked me one more time to stay back.
He couldn’t have made me. I was tired of running. Like Marguerite had said, I ended up hurt either way. At least this time, I had a shot. Make it count.
Luke and Major were stuck with me, while the other two men circled around. There were several parts of the plan referred to as redundancy, and I chose not to overanalyze situations where we might need that. I would be fine, and more importantly, Luke would be fine. One day this would all just be a funny story that we never, ever told anyone.
As we approached the compound, we didn’t see any signs of life, which somehow scared me worse. I leaned away from the trees, as if Henri’s men were waiting there, ready to jump out and shoot us. I had seen evil in my life, but usually it was in plain sight—most often right on top of me, pushed inside me, with its hand fisted in my hair. It was the quirk of cruel lips when my teacher met my father at parents’ night and told him how well behaved I had been. I wasn’t used to this subterfuge, to shadows that moved and sounds without a source, and I found I did not like them.
Which was confirmed when we heard the squawk of a handheld radio nearby, and I almost squeaked in response. Luke pushed me back into a corner, then Major covered us both, like shields made of flesh and bone. The other two men were entering at a different entry point on the perimeter.
The guys slowly came closer, and I could see the red light of a cigarette. I watched the light bob in his hand, bouncing with his step.
We were not actually hidden from sight, tucked against a cutout of the building. If it were broad daylight out, we would be completely visible. But our dark clothes melded with the shadows, and so we would be missed. Probably. Except I was the only one who could see the guys and the red pinprick of light.
Luke held his body against mine, his arms holding me in, his breath light against my ear. Major was holding him in, facing me, with his breath brushing faintly against my other ear from over Luke’s shoulder, so it looked like we were getting that threesome after all.
The two guards were maybe five feet away from us. If the guys noticed us, if they shot at us, Major and Luke could be dead before either of them realized they were exposed. Would they even hear anything? A slight scuff in the gravel as one of them raised his gun to aim. A high-pitched whine as the bullet zoomed near. Or maybe they’d just go down. One minute giving full-body hugs, the next—lights out.
I had known we were risking our lives here. That was what euphemisms like fighting chance and get your hands dirty really meant, after all—kill or be killed. So aside from the abject terror, I was feeling very suave and sexy about the whole thing. I had actually been shot before. Had Luke or Major been shot before? I didn’t know. Which meant I might have been the badass of the group, even if I didn’t get to have an earpiece. I did, however, have my gun in a holster at my side. That had been Major’s last stand. I could come, he agreed, but I had to be armed.
I liked him better after that.
I watched the guys come closer, drawing crazy red circles in the dark, like some sort of screen saver reenactment. My heart pounded; my throat was dry. My breathing sounded like a racehorse, and I thought they must have heard it. They must have seen the whites of my eyes, because Lord knew I was staring, frozen, unable to blink or look away. The two men in front of me were crouched over me, shielding my body with theirs, but I felt protective of them.
“Shhh.” A breath of a sound. Luke’s hands ran down my arms, softly, lightly.
I didn’t need his comfort. I needed him to stay alive. I should tell him to stop, but I was petrified, about to break down bawling, so I just stood there and shivered as Luke pressed a kiss to my temple.
“Almost,” he said, so quietly I almost couldn’t hear him. Just the sound, like a hiss but soothing. Almost what? Almost over, I guessed, but it wasn’t. This was only the beginning. We weren’t even inside yet.
“Hey,” the smoker said, waving his cig. “When the fuck do we have to get back?”
“A few minutes.”
“I’m so tired of that shit. At least out here, I can breathe.”
More waving of the red light. I was like a cat with a laser pointer, watching with bated breath.
The other guy coughed pointedly. “Maybe you can, but I can’t breathe for shit with all this smoke in the air. Jesus Christ, put that thing out.”
“Fuck you. Maybe if you had a drag, you’d stop being so uptight.”
“Excuse me if I don’t want to get my ass chewed out today.”
“Yeah, yeah, or maybe you’re looking to get a piece of ass. The amount of fucking time you spend with that girl. You probably spend half your paycheck.”
“Do I complain about where you stick your dick?”
One red circle, another. “I’m just saying this for your own good.”
“Yeah, well, for your own good, put that fucking light out. If someone sees us, we’ll get docked for being unsafe. And you’ll be paying me back for it.”
A snort. “So you can spend it on, what’s her name, Candace?”
The red light lifted. The guy took a long drag, then blew out just as slow, taking a final hit.
He flicked the cigarette. It flew in a long red arc. It only took a second for my fevered, oxygen-deprived brain to figure out where it would land. On us. Almost anyway, but it was enough—I tensed. Luke felt it, and through him, Major did too. They turned, ready to strike, to defend us against an attack that wasn’t coming. And in doing so, their defense would expose us. With one hand, I grabbed Major’s wrist, the one pressing against the wall by my head. Trust me. With the barest breath, I said, “Wait,” and I knew Luke heard me because his body stilled.
The little red cigarette landed at our feet, creating a small glare on Luke’s shoe. Luckily, the men were already heading the other direction. When their footsteps had faded and fifty-two beats had passed, Major blew out a breath. “Jesus,” he muttered. “That was too fucking close. Next time we run into someone, we don’t sit around like ducks. We disarm them.”
“We’re too wired,” Luke countermanded. “We almost blew our positions because of a fucking cigarette.”
“I would have got them.”
For the first time, I approved of the arrogance in Major’s voice. I needed some of that surety.
“We stick to the plan,” Luke said, and that appeared to be that.
The word airport was really overselling the Barracks. It was actually a set of five hangars, each with a small circuit of offices in the back. The hangars were organized into a pentagon, facing a circular pavement that led out to a singular runway.
The design of the place was simplistic, which would work in our favor. The downside was that we didn’t know which hangar Henri would be in. If we went busting into the wrong ones, we would set off alarms, and Henri would have time to bolt. So it was important that we find the right hangar before going in.
Which is why they’d brought gadgets. Specifically, heat-sensing goggles.
The building next to us was completely empty. One down, four to go.
We crept around the side, where Major checked out the next one. “Four below, two upstairs doing the horizontal tango.”
“Having fun there?” Luke asked.
“Nothing like infrared voyeurism to make my night brighter.”
“Let’s go in,” Luke said.
“We don’t know he’s in there.”
“Six people total? Those are good odds. And we’re here. Let’s go.”
“Five,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Five that could be Henri. Those are the odds. I’m assuming Major saw an old-fashioned boy-girl party upstairs, which means one of them is female.”
“Shit, that could be him,” Major said. “Having a good time while his hired help
ers do all the work.”
“How was he taking her?” I asked.
“What?”
“The position,” I muttered impatiently. “What position was she in?”
“Uh…missionary.”
“Not Henri,” I said decisively. Neither man questioned my conclusion.
“He could still be on the first floor,” Luke said.
“Here. Let me see.” I reached for the goggles. “Come on.”
With clear reluctance, Major handed them over. I peered inside. It took me a couple of minutes to line up my eyesight correctly and then to make sense of the blue-red blobs on the screen. I checked the two upstairs first. Yup, still going at it. And nope, no way would Henri resort to something as intimate or leveling as missionary. Besides, he was an ass man.
I lowered the goggles to the second floor. First I only saw a single mass, like some sort of a shapeless amoeba. Then one separated and shrank a little—sitting down, I guessed. Another moved away—and sat. I pictured guys gathered around a break-room table, talking shit and grabbing a beer.
Henri wasn’t here. Even if their specific activities were slightly different, no man was singled out from the crowd, held away as Henri preferred to be. This was the disorganized chaos of jacks and marbles. Henri ruled the space around him with the rigidity of a chessboard.
“Not here,” I said.
“How do you know?” Major asked impatiently.
I really didn’t want to have to explain the marbles-and-chessboard thing to him. He’d just give me that frowny look and tell me I was stupid again.
“He just isn’t.”
Major looked ready to argue, but Luke cut him off with a glance. “Next.”
Two down, three to go.
The middle hangar was the trickiest, because people were milling around. My heart began to race. Most likely this was it, if only because of the activity outside. I counted four men carrying machine guns. There didn’t seem to be any urgency to their movements—which meant our entry wasn’t detected—but energy crackled in the air. As if they were waiting.
This time Luke and I hung back while Major checked out the building with the goggles. “Too many to get an accurate count,” he said when he got back. “But I’m estimating twenty total.”
