by Jillian Dodd
“I would prefer to forget the incident,” I state, tightly closing my eyes and shuddering. “People were shot in front of me. While I’m grateful to have been rescued, part of me would have rather been fed to the sharks than to have witnessed such gruesomeness. There is no way I could ever speak of it to the press. The British agent was good at his job, that’s all I will say.”
“Before the incident, there were rumors you would become the next Princess.”
I frown. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry if I’m intruding,” he says sincerely.
“No, it’s okay. The Prince—I mean, the King—seems to have taken the ordeal in stride. I have not. And the Prince’s cousin who was killed was a friend of mine who had just gotten engaged. Her sister, Clarice, was so distraught, she relinquished her crown and moved back to France.
I study his face for any reaction to Clarice’s name.
There is none, whatsoever.
I can see why he has the reputation he does. He is very calm and collected for someone who just committed two high-profile murders.
We talk through the entire flight, pausing only to listen to the announcements. The assassin known as The Priest tells me his name is Henri and that he’s a retired real estate investor who moved to Cannes and took up selling local real estate to keep himself out of trouble. He even produces a business card with his full name, Henri Durand.
“My brother and I were considering a purchase on the French Riviera, maybe I’ll call you next time we are in town.”
When we land, I get a text.
Marcus Latrobe: My dearest Huntley, I regret to inform you that a small fire broke out in my Paris studio, and I will be unable to meet you this afternoon as I must deal with the authorities and the laborers who were treated for smoke inhalation. My driver will pick you up as planned but I will not arrive until later this evening. Please accept my deepest apologies. We have lunch reservations at Les Bourges, and I suggest you go without me. It takes most people up to a year to even get a reservation and their food is quite divine. Because I am a founding member, you will be allowed access in my absence. Please enjoy yourself.
Me: I completely understand and will see you when you arrive. I’m looking forward to it and appreciate you taking time during your holiday to meet with me. And I will definitely keep the reservation.
The assassin politely gestures for me to deplane ahead of him, and it goes against all my training to allow a man of his talent to follow me.
When I get to the terminal, I stop right in front of him and mutter, “Merda.”
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I hold up my phone and roll my eyes. “I rush here on a moment’s notice. I don’t even have a change of clothing with me and now the designer is delayed. And he says I should go to some private club called Les Bourges by myself for lunch.”
“You are uncomfortable dining alone?”
“No, not at all. I’m just”—I pout—“disappointed.”
“It just so happens that I am also a member of the Les Bourges club.”
“You are? Is it really that good? Am I going to look stupid being there alone? You know what, I’ll just go shopping to kill the time. It was nice meeting you.”
Then I turn my back on him and make my way out of the airport where I greet the driver holding a sign with my name on it. As the driver leads me to a car that’s idling at the curb, I fight the urge to turn around to see where the assassin is. I know he’s behind me, though. I can still feel his presence.
As I’m sliding into the backseat, his hand stops the door from closing. I may look like a rich girl whose biggest care in the world is lunch, but that doesn’t mean inside I’m not ready to strike at any moment. And I am fully prepared.
But I want to kill him in his home.
I want him to feel violated.
His safe haven no more.
I want him down on his knees.
Begging for his life.
“Miss Von Allister, would you like a lunch companion? It seems my afternoon appointment was cancelled, as well. I can show you around the club.”
He’s living in plain sight just like me, I think. Deep cover but not hiding.
And I know I’m playing a very dangerous game.
I remind myself of my mission. Find out who hired him. Then kill him.
This isn’t at all how I imagined things would go down when I came face-to-face with him again. My plan was to do what I was taught—alter my looks, my gait, my posture, pretend to be different people, and simply let him lead me home.
Instead, I offer him a ride.
The assassin’s car is at the airport, so he declines my offer and meets me there.
The Les Bourges Club, which translated means upper crust, doesn’t look like much from the outside. An old wooden door set in the middle of an orange stucco building is sandwiched by a tailor and a leather goods store a couple blocks from the harbor. There is no sign denoting the entrance, just gold numbers above the door. I step into an entry with worn wooden floors. A hostess greets me by name and says, “This way, please.” She leads me down the hall past the dining room, where fashionably dressed people are crammed together at little tables, and to another wooden door. She opens it, waves her hand toward a set of stairs, and says, “Enjoy.”
I glance upward, wondering what is awaiting me at the top. I am weaponless and in a horrible tactical position, totally exposed. If The Priest has any inkling that I am after him, he would be smart to meet me here. To send me up these stairs. I’d be easy to pick off.
I take a deep breath and remind myself that Huntley would love this place. And I will admit, I’d love to explore it with someone other than The Priest.
I clump up the stairs in my heels, announcing my presence, but gripping my bag tightly in my hand. With the metal spikes that adorn it, it could do some damage in a pinch.
At the top of the stairs, I am greeted by yet another hostess. “Monsieur Durand is waiting for you in the Spy Bar.”
I gulp. The what!? Did I hear her right?
She leads me to a contemporary room that looks out of place in this old building. It features black and white marble floors, a stainless bar with Lucite stools, and red velvet walls covered with posters from every 007 movie ever made.
The assassin is seated on one of the stools chatting with a pretty bartender in a tight red dress. She sets a drink on the bar. “Your usual.”
I sit down next to him.
“What would you like?” he says.
“A glass of champagne would be nice.”
After a long lunch at the club, where I manage to get the assassin a bit intoxicated, I offer him a ride.
This time, he accepts.
When my driver drops him off, I tag the location on my phone and am driven to the designer’s home. I’m escorted to a bedroom where a suitcase awaits me.
I thank the butler and mention needing a nap.
Inside the suitcase are black yoga pants, a matching top, and a pair of black running shoes.
It reminds me of the uniform I wore during my six years at Blackwood.
I remember how M’s face would light up when we would sneak out to the club and how she would dance with reckless abandon. I hope she’s dancing her ass off somewhere now.
I drop to the bed and allow myself to cry.
I can’t believe they are all dead.
Because of me.
I owe it to her—to all of them—to figure out what Black X is up to and why.
I pull myself together and continue to unpack the bag, finding a handgun buried under the clothing.
I get myself into mission mode by checking the gun, pulling the assassin’s address up on the Internet, and studying the surrounding area. I need to be able to get in and out of there without being noticed.
Because it’s a residential street and not more than a mile from where I am, I decide to walk rather than drive. I find a yoga studio just a block away and check their online schedule.
<
br /> I glance at the clock.
I don’t have much time.
I jog around the assassin’s neighborhood before I approach his house. Google Earth is great for planning, but nothing can beat your own visual reconnaissance. I study the area, noting possible escape routes and problem zones. After doing my due diligence, I check out the assassin’s back yard. Most of the homes in the city are row houses, but on this street and the one facing it, there are detached villas, each with their own fenced garden.
My original thought was to slip into the garden and break into the home, but that is fraught with risk. Especially during daylight hours. And although I was trained to quickly disable most security systems, I wouldn’t want to try doing it with an assassin in the house.
So, I decide to just walk up to the front door and knock.
“Hey,” he says, looking pleasantly surprised when he opens the door. “You out for a run?”
“Yeah. The designer was further delayed, so I decided to take a yoga class and discovered the studio was just down the street from you. Class doesn’t start for awhile, so I thought I’d stop by.”
The assassin stands in the doorway, blocking the entrance and not allowing me inside. I was hoping not to have to force the issue.
“Um, sorry, it was rude of me to just stop by without calling first.”
“No,” he says. “I’m glad you did. Would you like to come in?”
His words are like music to my ears. “Yes, thank you. I would.”
He steps aside.
I walk in.
He closes the door.
I reach for my revolver then spin toward him, gun leveled, causing his eyes go wide with astonishment.
“What are you doing?”
“Put your hands on top of your head and walk in the living room. No sudden movement, or you’re dead.”
He does as I ask.
“Get down on your knees.”
Once again, he complies.
I now have the assassin exactly where I want him.
Exactly where I envisioned him all these years.
In the exact position he had my mother in—on his knees in front of me.
My gun pointed directly at his forehead.
“Tell me who hired you to kill the President,” I demand, keeping both my focus and aim directed at him.
“Who sent you?” he asks. There’s a slight tremble in his voice, something I hadn’t expected. He had to know with his chosen profession that someday it would come to this.
“You killed the President of the United States. Did you really think you’d get away with it?”
“Yes, I’ve gotten away with every job I’ve ever been hired for. I am the best.”
“Not this time,” I say as my finger twitches against the trigger.
This is it. It’s time.
I take a deep breath, wondering why I’m hesitating when a tiny voice behind me says, “Papa?”
My heart stops.
My throat goes dry.
My body stiffens.
I don’t dare turn around.
“Please,” the assassin begs, “not in front of my child.”
His child?
Images of myself watching my mother in this exact position flash through my brain. Only this child sounds much younger than I was. Seeing his father’s head blown off would warp him forever.
“You didn’t offer that courtesy to my mother,” I reply, still remaining cool on the outside, even though internally I am panicking. I cannot allow a child to experience what I did.
“Your mother?” he asks, then a look of recognition crosses his face, and his hand involuntary goes to the scar on his arm.
“Don’t move!” I yell. “Put your hands back on top of your head.”
“Chauncey, don’t do it!” the assassin yells.
I glance over my shoulder and see a boy of about six waving a gun in my direction.
Will this be my end?
Shot by the son of the man who killed my mother?
One lucky shot and boom, I’m gone from the world, and who would care?
Lorenzo, maybe, but he would soon seek comfort in another woman’s arms. Daniel probably wouldn’t even notice until he got horny. Ari would feel like he failed his mission, and that would be it.
The assassin gets up and takes the gun from his son. “If you were going to kill me, you would have already done it.”
“I wanted you to know who I was first. I was sent by my government, but they gave me this job because I have been dreaming of this moment for the last six years.”
“You have to believe me. I didn’t know you were there until you shot me.”
“And then you tried to kill me!”
“How did you find me?”
“I was given the location of your Paris hit and followed you. I blew you a kiss on the train, got rid of my disguise and got on the plane to Cannes as myself.”
“That was you on the train? That was a good disguise.”
“Thank you.”
“You better get this over with then, and when you leave, please, take my son with you. We don’t have much time.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you know where I am, others do, too. There has been a bounty on my head for years. There is no doubt that they will be here soon.”
“Papa?” the child says again.
He speaks to his son in French, telling him everything is all right and that he’s proud of his bravery. When he wraps his arms around his son in a hug, there are tears in his eyes.
He believes it will be the last time he sees him.
“Do you feel it?” he says to me. “Can you feel the chaos coming our way?”
I do. And the sound of a helicopter in the distance isn’t making me feel any better.
“Where should we go?”
“Set of stairs leading to an underground tunnel,” he says, pointing to a bookcase. “You have two options. Kill me, take the credit, and earn the bounty. Or—”
“Or what?”
“Don’t let my son see what you saw. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have wished that on any child. Please, take him far away from here. Leave me for them.”
The chopper is getting closer. I quickly run all possible scenarios through my head and come to a decision.
“There’s a third option.”
“What’s that?”
“You come with us.”
“How could you ever trust me?”
“How could you trust me with your son?”
“Because you don’t have the eyes of a cold-blooded killer. They’re getting closer,” he says.
“Then I’m in danger, too. We could fight them together and win, but it would be difficult to protect your son during the battle. And we won’t know how many of them there are.”
“They will come in full force. I’ve killed too many men to send just one.”
“What if we had a surprise for them?”
“Like what?”
“If they are coming in force, I assume they will shoot first and ask questions later. Do you have a gas stove?”
The assassin smiles at me. A smile that spreads to his eyes. Eyes that hold the joy of fatherhood.
I tuck my pistol in the back of my pants, grab his son, and carry him down the stairs. “Stay here. We’ll be right back,” I say to him in French, then I run up to the kitchen.
The Priest now has an assault rifle, but it’s hanging loosely across his body.
“Let’s help it along.” I open his pantry, but don’t find what I’m looking for, so I open the refrigerator and find a metal take-out container. I throw it in the microwave and then slam the door shut, as the sounds of the chopper get louder. They are almost directly above us now.
Knowing we don’t have much time before things get ugly, I set the microwave for two minutes and hit start as The Priest turns on the burner, then blows out the flame.
We both run to the bookcase and down the stairs. He picks his son up, kisses him, then
pushes him into my arms. “Go.”
“Come with me!” It takes everything I have to not feel like a child myself. Even though I hate him, I don’t want him to die right now.
“Please, go,” he begs. “I will follow if I am able.”
I wrap my arms around the child, kiss his forehead, and tell him to hold tight. Then I run as fast as I can down the dark tunnel with one arm out, praying I don’t crash into anything. The tunnel is a straight shot, and I’ve traveled a very short distance when I come to another set of stairs.
“Stay here,” I say, trying to set him down. But the boy clings to me, shaking his head, obviously scared.
“Promise you won’t make a peep?”
He doesn’t reply, just nods his little head.
I take a deep breath, grab the pistol from my back, and aim it in front of us as I silently traverse up the stairs. Just like in The Priest’s home, there is a wooden door at the top. I open it, peeking out of a matching bookcase in the front room of a similar home.
There are sheer curtains covering the windows, but I can clearly make out an assault team—dressed in black military garb, their faces covered—as they rappel down from the sky. One team of four moves into position in front of the house, the other takes the back. I briefly wonder if this is how many they will send some day when I’m through serving my usefulness.
Of course, I work for my country, not for the highest paying bidder.
The helicopter has a military look but no identifying marks. The only things of consequence are the matching PP-19 Bison submachine guns the men are carrying, which are favored by the Russian Spetsnaz, their special forces.
I look back down the stairs, hoping to find The Priest coming to tell me the rest of his escape plan as the men’s boots hit the ground, and they start firing in unison at the house.
I hear a whoosh.
Knowing what’s coming next, I hurl my body on top of the boy as the air flashes orange and the house across the street explodes into a fireball.
The detonation blows out the windows of the house we’re in and sucks all the air out.
