When he was inside of his room, Jonah paced half of the night away and wondered if she would come to same conclusions that he had with the information he gave her. It took her until eleven to decide to call him. Every minute he searched for her and then waited for her to take this chance would hopefully pay off.
He didn’t even get as much as a hello when he answered the phone. “So what you’re telling me is that you need me to be your slave?” But she did call back, and she already surmised what he wanted, so he wasn’t going to complain about her lack of social niceties.
“Basically. But I think we should save the full breakdown for later when we are a bit more secure.” His phone was a secure line and unable to be tapped or listened in on in any way. But what about hers?
“My line is secured, and I would assume you wouldn’t have given me the number if your security was lacking either.”
“All right. I know you are a smart lady, Jaden, and I assumed you would have gotten the gist of my plan.”
“Yeah, Jonah, I think I already know what you are looking for. If I’m correct, and I usually am”—she stopped for a moment then continued—“you want me to play your slave at the coming auction. I can’t go as anything else because these events are for men only. The few women present will be the ones on sale or already owned. You want to make a purchase and then use the information you get while there to find out who is behind the slave trade. But I do have one question.”
“Yes, Jaden?”
“Why me? You had to burn through many a resource to figure out who I was. I know that it had to take at least five months, and that’s with a lot of skill combined with finesse. In that time you could have found a candidate who could fill whatever requirements you are looking for. I’m not the only female capable of meeting your needs, and yes, there are not that many with the exact same skill set, but still…” She let the words trail off as if she really didn’t get it.
“I work with a group called HIT U. Our teams were created for these types of jobs. Most governments won’t touch the sex slave trade or human trafficking because no one in power cares about a few missing women. Not enough to spend the extensive resources that can be saved for other issues or until the problem beats them in the head. You are perfect for several reasons, Jaden. First, you are combat trained in multiple forms of fighting styles. Second, your talents with computer hardware are bar none. Third, your appearance is perfect to play this role. I knew I wanted to work with you from the time that I learned about your involvement with the Jourdain job. And lastly, you have not been involved in government espionage at any level, so your profile has not been leaked anywhere as yet. That anonymity is very important.”
He took a moment to deliver the kicker. “And by the way, it took me ninety-eight days.”
She appeared intrigued. “Really? Next time, I have to use more proxies. When I established my presence, it was many years ago, and I really haven’t done much in that time. Plus, I’m getting too old to be doing this sort of thing. Was it just you?”
“Really? Since when is thirty-something too old? And yeah, just me.” He was pretty sure she wanted to know if her preferred identity was leaked or not.
“It has been for a while. You haven’t heard? Thirty is the new fifty.” He couldn’t help the laughter that barked out of his throat unbidden. If thirty was the new fifty, then he was damn sure close to social security.
I wonder if that excuse would work with Uncle Sam if I went in to file a claim? The errant question made him chuckle slightly before he quelled the laughter to respond. “But I don’t think that matters. You’re going to do this job anyway, aren’t you?”
“I can’t say right now. I think that I need to sleep on it.”
“No, you don’t need to sleep on it. Jaden, you are the kind of woman that makes her decisions in a split second. You know what you will do in any given situation, but you like to plan how it would be carried out. I know that you have your answer already. What you are unsure of is if you want to work with someone else. Or rather, work with me.”
“That’s not the case. If you haven’t noticed, I have a life here. I have a business with obligations, and I can’t just waltz away from those to help you.”
“I assume you read and researched the entire packet, right?”
“Of course, but I don’t see what that has to do with the price of tea in China.”
“I have an operative who can take your place for the next few weeks. He is an expert and trained in France by—” Jonah then named a renowned pastry chef with several Michelin stars. Of course, Jaden was slightly starstruck. She did well for an untrained chef. “And I will personally help with your paperwork. Johannes will bring his wife with him, and she will help out also.”
“And I’m supposed to trust complete strangers because you say so? And what about Kris? She is in the middle of her training.”
“Jaden, I don’t want you to take offense, but Kris will never be a tenth of what you are. She just doesn’t have the ability to be you.” She was silent for so long that Jonah was sure she was pissed and he had negotiated his way out of a sure thing.
“I know that. But I promised her as long as she was willing, I would teach. She has potential, just not on the front end of this line of work. But she is good with intel. I have used her data on several occasions.”
“I’ll give you that. But if you want, I can have Dayna work with her. She isn’t as skilled as you, but she does know her head from a hole in the ground.”
Jaden huffed. The breath sounded as if the owner were irritated. “At least give me the night before I commit.”
“I can do that, but you already know what your answer is going to be. So you may as well save yourself and me a whole lot of time and speak on what you want to do. The choice is yours.”
Jaden was still silent, but this time she seemed hesitant instead of thoughtful. “Yes… I’ll do it.” The words were punctuated with a sigh, as if she envisioned working with him was going to be a headache and a half.
He felt elation at her agreement, but it wasn’t because of the job she would be doing. No, it was just because he now had a reason to be near her for the next few months. And he definitely had plans for her, if she was game.
* * * *
“So when do my new employees get here?” Jaden was curious as to when she would have to teach a crash course in the fine art of baking.
Jonah was silent, long enough that Jaden was sure he was about piss in her Cheerios. “They arrived this morning.”
“You were that sure of my answer?”
“No. You are an unknown. But I will admit that I had high hopes, and I wanted to capitalize on your agreement immediately, if and when you gave it.”
“For some reason that seems too pat, but I will find out the truth eventually.”
The bastard chuckled, and the sound grated, her ire kicking up another notch as a result. “I’m sure you will.”
She hung up the phone. In the moment, she was torn about the object of her disgust. One second she hated herself for being weak enough for the guy to fall into his plans so neatly. The other second, she hated him for being so damn desirable that she easily toed his line and sang like a canary to his tune.
Jaden couldn’t sleep, but she knew that she had to do something about the situation at hand. The file that Jonah gave her called her name, and she couldn’t resist rereading the pages he compiled for her.
The group was apparently a long-standing one, and various cells were noted in several missing persons’ cases. There were even some attributed to Jourdain, and that left her with more questions that she wasn’t sure that she wanted the answers to. She knew now exactly how Jonah had learned about her and how he tracked her down. Jourdain was on the list as dead, but he must have been high-ranking on the wish list, enough so that there was a capture note next to his black-slashed info.
Her untimely assassination of the man must have thrown a monkey wrench into the works, as Jonah needed
information that could only be supplied from the dead man. That was the only reason Jaden said yes, or so she told herself. She didn’t regret killing Pietr, but she did regret that her actions helped men like him continue unchallenged with their illegal and immoral activities. She was sure that was why Jonah was so confident about her answer. He knew that she would feel the guilt of the hundreds of sold women because of her ill-timed actions.
She slept after too many thoughts put her mind into overload, and she knew that Kris wasn’t going to be happy with the developments as such. The morning started earlier than normal, and her eyes watered continually from the lack of proper rest. It had been at least a week since she’d slept her minimum four hours a night, and she definitely felt just like the elderly woman she’d proclaimed to be at dawn.
But she shrugged off the sensation of being trapped in quicksand from the knee down with a few stretches and a cup of coffee. Kris came in half an hour before the shop opened and helped her make champagne cream cupcakes for the early afternoon tasting. It wasn’t until they finished the last of the sugared pearl detail that she let the new developments spill.
She gave Kris most of the details, but not all. She didn’t want her sensitive friend to feel any shame about being alive, free, and happy at the cost of another woman’s freedom. And she knew Kris like the back of her hand. Kris would pretend like it didn’t bother her. But it would. It bothered Jaden, and if the thought was enough to make her feel the liquid burn of guilt? It would probably destroy Kris, and there was no way Jaden was going to allow anything to get in the way of the sorely needed healing process.
It would take time and understanding to get past some of what had been done to her during her captivity. It took Kris three years to even speak about it, and even then the she almost broke down. Now here Jaden was a few years later and she wanted so badly for her only friend to be whole again, even though she had never known Kris when she would have had reason to be that way.
Kris’s response surprised her. She didn’t expect the younger woman to be willing to change so much about their lives without several complaints. But Kris was awesome and completely accepting.
“I am not going to be a baby about it…I promise. When I was trapped in that room with him”—Kris hadn’t progressed far enough to say Jourdain’s name without an issue, but that was a fight best left to another day—“I knew I was going to die and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. When you saved me, I had the hope again that I could get the chance to appreciate everything that I didn’t before. I got a second lease on life that night, and these other women deserve the same.”
“Thank you, Kris.” The girl hugged her, a small affection that even now was hard to accept. “I should be gone for a few weeks or so. After that I can come back and forth for a while until I finish.”
“And what about that guy, uh what’s his name? Jonah? I know he likes you. I could see the way he looked for you yesterday when you took your break. He was a bit obvious about it, too. Then when you thought no one was watching, you went out to the dining room and I saw your disappointment when you realized he was gone, so I can safely say you like him back, too.” Kris smiled the earsplitting grin of a kid with a wide watermelon wedge in hand on the hottest day of summer.
Jaden did, but she didn’t want her feelings about the man to be so apparent. Especially to the woman she mentored. Jaden was the one who was supposed to be insightful in this relationship. That was one of the perks of the job. “Well, about the wedding, I’ll come back for that two days before and help prep everything, so you should be fine with the extra help. But you have to cover evenings. The two of them will most likely want to open together, and I’ll need you to shut down shop at night. I can’t promise that they can cover you, and the last thing we need is to close early.”
Kris squinted at Jaden, and she knew that the quick change of subject was for now unchallenged, but was noted in a mental Rolodex somewhere. “Yeah, yeah, I know it’s bad for business.”
“Thanks, Kris, you don’t understand how much I—” But Kris cut her off before she could even try to express her appreciation for the extra help.
“Stop it right there. That’s what friends are for, right?” Kris winked and laughed the unusually emotional sentiment off with a smirk.
That evening Jonah showed up at closing time. She wasn’t sure how he planned for this to work and hopefully tonight would leave fewer questions and more answers than the night before.
“I want to talk to you when you’re finished if that’s all right with you.” His demeanor didn’t seem to ask her. Instead the phrase respectfully demanded her consent.
Since that fit in with her plans, Jaden opted not to make this molehill into a mountain. “That’s fine. Why are you here then?”
“Well, I seem to have gotten a terrible sweet tooth lately, and this would be a good place to satisfy that urge. Or so I heard.”
Of course, Jaden thought, the way to this man’s heart lead right through his esophagus. “All right, I’ll feed you. What do you want?”
“I missed you, too, Jaden.” The words were accompanied by an infectious grin. “Whatever you have is fine with me. Look at it this way. I tried to be good and not show up for every meal today. Can you at least give me that?”
“Yes, I think you’ve been a good boy. But that doesn’t mean that I am the food bank either.”
“And I was prepared to pay. But with all of the attitude in your tone, I think I deserve a free meal now. You don’t want to leave your customer disappointed now, do you?”
“Really?” Jaden’s tone was drier than the Mojave. But she did miss the sight of him today, and she knew that she had already gotten too used to seeing him. So she fed him anyway and refused his money.
Chapter Six:
Baggage
Jonah had to nearly sit on his hands all day to keep himself away from the bakery that morning. He went across town and got a few doughnuts, along with a frou-frou cappuccino that Jaden’s shop didn’t serve. Nothing was as good as the muffins he’d devoured the other day, and he was far from happy about the fact that he ate one thing, yet craved another.
Jonah always relished his time alone when he was about to start a new operation so he assumed she would think the same way he did. If she needed space, that was more important than his culinary hankerings, and he was sensitive enough to give it to her.
He spent an hour at a local park as he ran a few miles then he talked to Dayna and Johannes about his change in plan afterward. The pair seemed game for anything, so long as they were together. The couple was in dire need of alone time, and the weeks they would spend at the bakery were the closest thing to a honeymoon that the two had to date. And they were nearly at their first anniversary. Jonah made a mental note to get them a block of leave time set up after this job was done, something that none of the teammates had gotten in a while.
The rest of the day was spent in an attempt to locate the IP address of the PC that sent him his e-vite to the slave sale. The team had captured a lower level buyer named Gianni Lanham, and he rolled over for immunity from prosecution, along with anonymity for his help. But all of the information his team had received didn’t help with the singular, most crucial element.
The computer tech that set up the automated messages was damn near perfect.
The signal bounced from hundreds of locations and was housed in a virus that was sent to ignorant host computers. The host PC was used as a mule as the owner’s personal e-mail account spat out a flux of flotsam spam e-mails out to conceal the one real message.
Each hacked computer was designated for one real e-mail recipient, while the spam was used to hide the intended message along with its prescribed recipient. He was pretty sure that his theory on how the whole situation worked with the messages was fleshed out logistically, but proving that was another story.
Almost all of the locations from his recently received e-mail had been verified and didn’t even know the program wa
s being harbored. But when the virus was activated, the computers would crash after the message was sent. Even a thorough check of the tower, hard drive, and the code content wasn’t enough to locate the malicious virus. When the computer was turned back on, it was if there was never anything there to begin with.
Not to mention the computers were never used again, so tracking the source was harder than hell. The only theory he could come up with involved throwaway laptops at public Wi-Fi hot spots and at least ten people working simultaneously. When he thought about the headache of the virus and how outclassed he was due to his time constraints before the mission, Jonah could see the wisdom in finding Jaden. Hopefully between the two of them, he could get enough information on the virus so he could reverse-engineer the codes into something viable.
When he arrived back at the Sweet Tooth Bakery, he only felt relief even though Jaden had an attitude. But he just knew her lip was because she missed him. She proved it when she fed him again, even though his service was without a smile. Jonah wanted to eat with her, and he just looked at his meal then back at her.
But when she went into the bathroom, he decided to serve her something to eat for once instead of being served.
He walked back into the kitchen, and the room was a mass of organized chaos. There were pans and pots of all sizes, scales, and a mass of tables along with convection ovens covering one wall. He saw a heel of bread on the counter, and he knew it had to be the end cap from the loaf that made his sandwich. The small five-inch bread butt was already split, and he stuffed it with turkey, along with a few other things he saw in the crisping drawer, hoping that Jaden wouldn’t find fault with his choices.
Jonah put some homemade potato chips on the plate, along with a pickle and one of the pretty cupcakes covered in pearls beside the food he just made her. He put the plate beside his and waited for her to come back.
The Laughing Assassin [Assassin's Diary] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 8
