The End of Games

by Tara Brown

  He pulled me back into him and wrapped his arms around me, "I'll be there, Evie. I want to play dress up with the wig later."

  I pulled back, "It's not your color."

  He laughed, "I think I'd look very sexy as a blonde. The bra worries me though." He kissed the top of my head, "Be safe. Jack is tracking you, don’t worry."

  I turned and walked away from him, "Famous last words as far as this team is considered."

  Servario was standing outside of the washroom. He smiled, "You ready to go then?"

  I gave him a sour look, "Of course. I'd hate for you have any of your paid-for time wasted."

  He winked, "Girl after my own heart." He grabbed my hand, squeezing too hard, and pulled me out of the casino ballroom to the elevators. He walked too fast, dragging me in my heels. James was gone as far as I could see.

  When we got to the elevator, he stopped. He seemed on edge. I didn’t now what to do. Did I tell him I was Evie, or just assume he knew, or let it ride as Kim? Was he going to fuck me? I knew that answer and felt horribly excited about it.

  The elevator dinged and he pulled me inside with a jerk. Inside, he didn’t molest me. He didn’t move beyond pressing the very last number. He stood there, focusing on the numbers or the little bit of his reflection he could see in the metal strip in front of him. He just held my hand and waited.

  My nerves were shot as each number changed. I almost jumped him as we got halfway up the building, but I reminded myself he had conned me, using Steve and was friends with James. He was a bad man, even my vagina was shaking her damned head. The tension in the elevator was intense.

  Finally, we got to his floor. He dragged me off and down to the single door on the floor. He produced a key card, swiped and opened the door fluidly. I was swept inside as he closed the door and dragged me to the sitting room. He pointed at the view, "Lovely, isn’t it?"

  I nodded slowly, unsure of what we were doing. He walked past me to the kitchen. The suite was insane, as they always were with him. He brought me an icy flute of champagne and took my hand in his, "There is something I want to show you. There is a reason this is my favorite hotel."

  He pulled me into the next room where there was a full living room. It was huge—billiards table, couches, massive TV's, and a bar.

  He drank back his champagne and dropped to his knee, pushing me against the billiards table.

  He lifted my dress, pulling my panties to the side and licked my slit. I gasped, startled and unsure of what to do. I leaned back on the billiards table, clutching the flute as he slid a massive finger inside of me. He sucked and stroked my clit with his tongue, swirling it and pumping his finger in and out of me. I made the weird sound only he ever made me make. My mouth hung open, my flute dropped to the floor below, smashing, and my legs nearly buckled as I orgasmed in waves all over his tongue and finger.

  Abruptly, he stood and flipped me on my belly. He pulled my ass back, positioning it. I heard his buckle and his pants drop. Then I heard a foil packet—a condom? That was new. There was no warning as his erection slid between my lips, plunging into me. I cried out as he bent over my body, "As I recall, Evie, you do like to be fucked on billiards tables."

  Pain was everywhere as he ripped the wig from my head, "I have a deep dislike for blondes, Evie. You should know this."

  I winced as a single tear slid down my cheek to the felt.

  I moaned into the felt as he shortened his strides, rubbing the head of his cock back and forth on my G-spot. He grabbed my ponytail, pulling it out and grabbed a fistful of my hair, right at the good spot. He pulled my head back, making me clench down on him, squeezing to make contact even more. He grunted and pushed my face into the scratchy felt as he thrust all the way in, driving his dominance over me home. He pumped several times before finishing. I was still waiting for my orgasm when I realized he was done. With the condom on, I didn’t realize until he was slumped over me.

  He started to laugh, "Goddamned, I missed you."

  I shook my head, "I didn’t miss you."

  It was a lie, but I left it out there anyway as I breathed into the felt and tried to gain some kind of idea on what was happening.

  He got off of me, letting me get a full breath. I walked awkwardly to the couch, trying to adjust all of my clothing. I sat, still stunned and confused. He was dressed and playing with his phone, ignoring me or the fact we were both in a heap of trouble.

  I glanced at the wig on the floor as I absentmindedly ran my fingers over the subtle bumps on my cheeks from my felt burn.

  "Tell me why you are here!"

  I swallowed hard and told him the story. He listened but seemed to be getting increasingly angrier. He dialed a number and paced, ranting on the phone. "It's me, what's happening? Where is Steve?"

  "What does that even mean, Franklin?" He sounded fierce, the kind of fierce I would never want directed at me. "Well, you misunderstood my meaning and went with it anyway. Steve has gone rogue. Find him and gut him like a fish."

  He slammed the phone onto the bureau and looked at me with the same severity he had just been giving Franklin, whoever that was. "Explain it to me again, every word can have a meaning."

  I shook my head, "He told me that you had both been in Venice where you were jumped, and he was beaten while you were taken. He woke to the note from James with a stamp from this hotel on the back of it. It is James' handwriting. I would know it anywhere."

  "And this is after your home was burned to the ground, you were nearly murdered, and then went to basic training? You left your children to go to basic for three weeks? Evie, I am finding this all very hard to believe."

  I nodded, "Me too."

  "Where are the children and your mother?"

  My eyes lifted, "Weren't you tracking me with those shoes?"

  His face flinched, "What shoes?"

  Shit. "So you never asked Steve to come to my house? You never asked him to leave me a note?"

  He shook his head, "I sent you a postcard. Why would I come to your house and risk you like that?"

  My heart hurt a lot. Not a little—a lot. "So it wasn’t the best week of your life? The X and O kisses of course were not you. How could I be so dumb?" He looked like I was insane. I sighed, "Fuck. Steve put the tracker in a pair of shoes and left them at my house? So you don’t know where my family is?"

  He shook his head, "I don’t, but I’m assuming Steve does. This is very bad."

  I was having a hard time fearing Steve. I shook my head, "Maybe, maybe not. What I do know is, I would die a thousand deaths before telling you where they are." Steve knew where my children were. If he was bad, it meant he was there in my town with my mother and my children. I had to get word to her.

  He tossed me his phone, "Call your mother and warn her about Steve. If he found you, James will too."

  I looked at his phone like it was covered in the Ebola virus. He sighed and sat across from me on the couch, "I just don’t understand what the objective was, coming here and risking yourselves to find me? You really came all this way to find me? To save me?" He was mocking me.

  I didn’t blame him. Flying to Europe to save an arms dealer from my ex-husband sounded almost worthy of a James Bond novel.

  "I came for James."

  He raised his eyebrows, "Go get him."

  I shook my head, ignoring the fact my feelings were a little hurt that he wanted me to leave. "You owe me answers first."

  His eyes narrowed, "I don’t owe you anything, Evie." I loved the way he said Evie with his accent.

  I nodded my head, smiling at him, "You do. Why the fuck didn’t you kill James? Why did you stop me from killing him?"

  He looked off to the side, "That mouth of yours has gotten worse. Boot camp didn’t do you any favors. Let's go have a shower. I want you again and I have no interest in the blue eyes or dark makeup. I like ponytail Evie better."

  I pulled my legs in, hugging them to me, "Answer my question first."

  He flashed his eyes at me,
"He was my way back in, Evie. I knew you and I would never work. The spy and the arms dealer is a story for the romance novels, not real life. Stop being so melodramatic and naïve. My protection in the world is being the big bad wolf. The people James works for, fear me. Saving James ensured they know I am loyal to the cause of destroying the Burrow."

  I covered my face, "Then why the fuck did you drag me into all of this?"

  He shook his head, "I didn’t. I saved you. The Burrow will protect you. You look innocent to the people who matter."

  Exasperated, I point in a random direction, "Then who the fuck tried to burn my house down."

  He pointed at me, "I won't tell you again, stop shouting and stop swearing. Be a lady."

  I got up and stalked off, "Fuck you, Servario."

  I heard his angry footsteps behind me, but I didn’t care. I walked to the shower and started taking my clothes off, "Let's get this over with. If you aren’t going to help me, then I'm leaving after the shower."

  He started to laugh, "I paid for the night, I get the night."

  I slid my finger into my eye, sliding the contact out. He grimaced, "Dear God, why? Don’t do that. Why do you always have to let me see ALL the things you do? Why can't there be a little mystery with you, Evie? You pass gas, burp, eat too fast and lick your fingers. You take all the covers and then kick them off and I'm freezing. You are like, like a… like a… like a wife."

  I did the other eye, holding back my laughter. "What—this doesn’t turn you on? Think of me as the girl who saved you from ever settling down. We both know you would cheat on her and end up divorced. What would happen to your evil empire then? You'd have it split up in bad-guy court."

  His face was epic. He was angry and I knew the sex we were about to have was going to be all about him. Nothing like getting fucked by an annoyed sex addict.

  Chapter Eight

  Yeah, eh

  His body was wrapped around mine, intensely. I wondered if I could ‘coyote ugly’ and sneak from the bed; I only really needed my trigger hand. I looked down at the covers, smiling. I had taken them all and kicked them off in the night. He was probably huddling to me for warmth.

  Poor arms dealer.

  I lifted his hand and slid from under him with a great amount of effort. He moaned as I lay the covers on him again and tiptoed from the room. All I had was the dress that looked like Monica Lewinski had borrowed it, so I grabbed one of his pairs of boxers and a dress shirt from the master suite. Luckily it was empty because I had forced him to sleep in the smaller room. He had agreed all too easily. I could imagine the horrors that had gone on in the master suite. He had used a condom all three times we had done it, that was a bad sign.

  I pulled on my blonde wig and smoothed it against my head.

  The suite was empty, no bodyguards or random people in there. He was alone. That was weird too. He was probably getting more paranoid after the whole Roxy thing.

  I walked over to the mirror in the hallway and drew with the lipstick in my clutch, Russian Red of course.

  "Fuck you, Servario!"

  I added a heart at the end and smiled. The humor wouldn’t be lost on him but maybe wasted.

  I snatched his phone and walked out the front door. It felt ballsy and ridiculous to be leaving that class of a hotel in his underwear and dress shirt, but I didn’t care. I looked like a whore either way. Of course, the water bra was where it belonged, in the trash. So I was back to being a regular-sized whore.

  I took the stairs, running all the way to the basement. The parkade was similar to the one in Vegas. I dialed the number Jack had given me to our secure line for messages, "It's me. I am on the lamb. I have his phone so he's going to be tracking me, I'm sure. I'll go to the Trevi Fountain and wait." I hung up and started to run, barefoot through the streets of Rome.

  Only the actual Romans were awake; it was the wee hours of the morning. I flipped through his phone when I was several blocks away and pressed Steve.

  "Hello?"

  I snarled, "Steve, you little traitor. I honestly believed you were a good guy. The name really is deceiving."

  He paused, "Evie?"

  "The one and only."

  "Oh shit, you scared me, I thought it was Servario phoning. He thinks I’m at my mom’s. I turned off the tracker on my phone."

  I rounded a corner, "Tell me what the fuck is going on."

  He sighed, "Evie, we are in hot water. Servario went back to being old Servario the minute we left you. He is all playboy from hell again. He and James are buddy-buddy again. It's like he's free or something. He double-crossed you on James and I knew it. I wanted you to see it."

  I frowned, "So you sent me here, into a trap? Are you with my mom still?"

  "Yeah, but I didn’t send you into a trap. I knew you could handle it."

  "Put me on speaker phone."

  "Hello, Evie dear. How are you?"

  I sighed, relieved and scared, "Mom, Steve and Servario have severed their ties a bit. He isn’t working for him anymore. I came here and James and Servario are having themselves a bromance. I don’t know what to believe."

  I heard Steve cry out in pain and smiled, "Mom?"

  "Yes dear, we need to get off the phone now. I will be stripping him and flogging him in the yard when the kids go to school. Go buy disposable phones and call me from there." The phone cut out as Steve screamed louder.

  I looked down at the phone in horror. She really was unassuming. I almost felt bad for Steve.

  I rounded the corner of the next block and stopped a man who gave me an odd look when he realized I was wearing men's underwear, "Trevi Fountain?"

  He pointed to the right, "Three blocks that way." He wasn’t Italian, German maybe, and only about twenty. He looked like he was doing the crawl of shame too.

  I nodded, "Thanks."

  He smiled, "No problem. You American?"

  I shook my head, "Canadian."

  He nodded with a bigger smile, "I like Canada. Very nice country, very nice people."

  I laughed, "Yeah, that’s us. Thanks again, eh." I padded off to the right, hoping Servario wasn’t awake just yet.

  When I got three blocks over, I smiled at the sign for the fountain, but when I rounded the corner, my smile was gone. Servario was standing in front of it. I scowled, "Really?"

  He was out of breath, "You have a bad habit of leaving me before I am really ready for you to go."

  I shrugged, "What can I say, I like to keep you on your toes."

  He chuckled, wiping the sweat from his brow, "You are excellent at your job then."

  I laughed, "Did you run here?"

  He nodded, "I did and I am not fond of running, especially not in the morning. Now let's get you some clothes and get some breakfast. Those are my favorite underwear."

  I shook my head, "I'm not staying with you. You aren’t telling me the truth and you're using me for sex. I am fairly confident you have women to serve that purpose."

  His eyes gave away the emotion his face wouldn’t. I walked past him to the fountain, "You know I've never seen this."

  He didn’t move with me, just watched me as I walked closer to it. After a moment, he spoke softly, "I could show you so much more than this one fountain."

  I shook my head again, "I don’t want to see the world your way. I want to see it with my kids and my mom. I want to take tacky pictures and stay in alright hotels. I want to eat at the places where kids eat for free until four and my mom gets a senior special. I don’t want this ‘yacht and jet and bank account from hell’ lifestyle. The blood money never washes clean, and my heart hurts when I think about the things you do when I'm not around." I pointed back towards the hotel, "I know you fucked the girls in that room last night. They told me you did. You are the big bad wolf and I am the stupid girl in the red cloak."

  His face was intense, "Evie, I swear I am not always going to be this man. I swear it."

  I pulled his phone out and took a picture of the fountain. He laughed, "You keepin
g that then?"

  I nodded, "Yeah. When we were in the room earlier and you called someone and acted like you didn’t know where Steve was, who was that?”

  He frowned, “Why?”

  I shrugged, “I phoned Steve and he said he sent me here to see you back in action. I just don’t know what is a lie and what’s true anymore. I can see you playing me like a fiddle, and I have this terribly overwhelming feeling like it’s for a good cause. Like you are risking me for the greater good." I sat on the rock wall, feeling the spray of the fountain, "It could just be that I want to believe that though.” I sighed, “You know, I wanted to open a bookstore that had a coffee shop in it. That was my dream when I got pregnant and I couldn’t be a spy anymore."

  He walked to me, hesitant, "You still can."

  I nodded, "I know. But can you imagine yourself in a bookstore, helping me serve coffee, running the cash, and baking the muffins?"

  He licked his lips, "I could just be the silent partner who sat upstairs, drinking coffee and reading."

  I shook my head, feeling a bit sick, "I don’t want a silent partner. I want honesty and simplicity. Instead, you have me caught up in some scheme, my husband is an undead fucker who my kids still miss, and my mom is an assassin. I'm here to try to save your stupid ass and you don’t even need my help. You know my mom is probably killing Steve right now. Is he even a bad guy?

  He took a step toward me but I got up, seeing the people I was waiting for walk around the corner. I waved as I walked away, "See ya 'round, Servario."

  "Evie, don’t go. Let me explain."

  I flipped him the bird as I walked to Coop and Luce. Both watched him, fingers nervously moving to where their guns were hiding.

  Coop scowled at Servario but Luce smiled at me, "Nice outfit, Evie. As always, it is fashionable and interesting."

  I laughed bitterly, "I wanna go kill James and go home. This always was a bunch of bullshit." I glanced at Servario as we made our way back to the street, "He isn’t a concern of ours yet. I'm sure one day the mission will be ending him, but right now, he's just a scummy arms dealer."