Liam just laughed. “What? Threatened by you? What are you going to do, write a speech?”
John raised his hand as if to punch him, but I wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head on his shoulder and whispering into his ear, “John, come on. You know he's right. Back off.” I then turned to Liam. “Look, he's staying, all right? The plan only works with three people.”
“Whatever,” Liam muttered as he cocked his head to both sides, stretching out his neck. “As long as we don't have to scale the fucking building.”
“It's the UN, Liam. I'm pretty sure our little scaling technique wouldn't work.”
“Eh. True,” he replied. “Ready?”
I nodded. “Hell, yeah.”
He just chuckled. “You enjoy this too damn much.”
I laughed. “Say what you will,” I replied before I took off running through the bushes. I heard footsteps behind me as John and Liam followed. I let the cool New York air wash over me as I ran, sucking in as much oxygen as possible in order to preserve my energy.
As we got closer to the building, I slowed to a fast walk, running my hand against the back wall until I came to a nick in the concrete. “This is perfect,” I whispered, kneeling and holding my hand out for one of Liam's lasers.
“Be careful,” he muttered as he placed the pen-shaped weapon in my palm.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I replied, setting to work on the wall. After a few seconds of firing the laser, the concrete gave way. A smile played at my lips as it quietly tumbled to the ground in powdery crumbles. “Okay.” I glanced back at John, who looked more nervous than I had ever seen him, and Liam, who just stared blankly back at me. “Are we good?”
After Liam nodded, I turned back around, knelt, and proceeded to squeeze myself through the small hole I had cut out of the wall. I closed my mouth, holding my breath and pressing my eyes shut, as if that would help. The sharp concrete jutting out of the bottom the hole cut through my stealth suit, jabbing me in the torso, but I ignored the pain, aggressively wriggling my body until I had cleared the hole.
Once inside, I heaved a sigh of relief, squinting my eyes until they adjusted to the dark room. I gathered from the dark silhouettes and shapes of brooms and mops that we were in some sort of utility closet. John grunted, and was immediately shushed by Liam. “I still don't see why we couldn't have just used a goddamn door.”
“Because doors have cameras. Taking out a camera gives us little to no time before security knows we're in the building,” Liam explained.
I busied myself with taking in every inch of the closet, trying to discern from the position of the walls, the size of the shelves and the back of the door, where in the building we were.
“Don't walls have cameras?” John asked.
I turned back around. “South wing.”
However, Liam was not paying any attention to me. “Is that a serious question?”
I snapped my finger in his face. “Liam. Focus. South wing, okay?”
He huffed, then followed me to the door. I sucked in air as my fingers wrapped around the cold latch, squeezing the metal with my hand in order to hide its uncontrollable trembling. Cold air settled in the back of my throat as I used all of my concentration to steady my breathing.
“What are you waiting for?” he whispered.
“N-nothing,” I replied as I opened the door. Like a vacuum, all sound seemed to disappear as soon as the door swung open. I hung my head out of the room, looking both ways so that I would be able to tell John which way the archive rooms were.
I felt John's head as he rested it on my shoulder. “Okay so now what?”
“Down this hallway. Take the first left, then...”
“Then another right and a left, take the elevator you should see right in front of you up to the 17th floor and you should be there,” Liam finished.
John nodded, pushing himself in between Liam and me. As soon as he had reached the threshold, he hesitated and shot me a worried look.
I raised an eyebrow. “What are you waiting for? Go ahead! We'll cover you.” My lips folded into the most convincing fake smile I could muster.
He nodded frantically and then stepped into the hallway.
As soon as his Jimmy Choo clad foot contacted the linoleum floors, there was a loud clumping as every light in the hallway dramatically flipped on. John squeaked as if he had just been electrocuted and jumped back into the utility closet.
I glowered at Liam. “Motion sensors? Really, Liam? You couldn't have guess that much?”
He just shrugged. “Please enlighten me on how the hell I was supposed to know the lights on this particular floor are motion censored?”
I groaned and looked away. “Fuck you, Liam. Just go take care of it.”
He shrugged and pressed past us until he was in the hallway, where he took off in a run. I imagined he was going to the security hub on the fifth floor and decided it was best if I gave him a little bit of a head start before setting out into the hallway.
“Where is he going?” John asked me.
I sighed. His questions were really starting to grate me, but I could imagine how difficult and scary breaking into the UN building must be for a lawyer, so I just decided to deal with it. “To the security hub, to take out the cameras.”
He nodded. “But can you cover me by yourself?”
One look at him told me that he was genuinely worried for my safety. A smile tickled at my lips. “John, the only reason we have three people is to account for surprises like this. This is really just a one person job, but you know your way around the archives and Liam knows his way around the UN, so we thought this would be best.”
Once he nodded, we both stepped into the hallway. I set off in a fast walk, darting my head to either side of me in order to take mental snap shorts of everything I saw, just to be safe. When we reached the elevator, I pressed it. My foot began to nervously tap the floor as we waited. It felt awkward being in the building I once worked at as a hostile intruder. A strange kind of nostalgia settled in the pit of my stomach as I stared at the elevator doors. It started in the pit of my stomach, then slowly began to seep into the rest of my body. It contaminated my blood cells and neurons until it was all I could do, but to feel sorry for everything that had happened in the last year. More than anything, I began to actually miss working for the government. I used to wake up every morning with a real purpose and a job that was so important that no one could know about it. Yet, in the blink of an eye, I had been spit out and wasted.
There was a ding as the elevator arrived. We entered, pressed the button for the 17th floor, then watched as the door closed.
John turned to me. “Are you okay, Jeanine?”
One glance at him told me he was being genuine. “Yeah, I'm fine. Why?”
He pressed his hand into the back of my neck and began to gently massage it. “Nothing. You just seem really tense.”
I shrugged, then smiled at him. “This is me on the job, hun.”
The elevator doors swung open and I immediately took off, turning corners and taking note of every camera as I did so, being sure not to show my face in any of them, just in case something happened with Liam and they were actually getting all of this.
When we came to a large, bolted, iron door, I pulled a hair pin out of my pony tail and set to work on the lock.
“Isn't this a little more complicated than just picking the lock?” he asked.
I shrugged as I worked. “I'm really fucking good at this,” I replied as I leaned into the door, listening to the clogs turn with every press and lean of my pin. Finally, I heard everything give way. With a smile, I gently pressed my body on the door and felt it open.
The archive room was nothing more than just a computer lab with thirty Macs and a television screen. Liam and I had learned on one of our first days on the job that each screen was a different topic. There were no labels or any other ways to tell the difference between the screens as a person was just expected to have memorized thes
e things and know where the piece of information they were looking for might be.
“That one.” I pointed at a computer closest to the front of the room, one that looked exactly like all the others.
“All right. Fine. Whatever you say.” John then went to sit at the computer, pulled his over-sized jump drive out of his back pocket and then set to work. The light from the computer screen illuminated John's face as he worked. I turned my back to the door, watching him. Through his dark eyes, I could see the reflection of the computer screen, which so far, was nothing more than the desk top. His lips parted ever so slightly as he opened them to release an agitated sigh.
“What's wrong? What's happened?” I asked, leaning over the top of the desk top so that I could see the screen myself.
He shook his head, a smile playing at his lips. “Nothing, Jeanine, relax.” He then clicked on the icon for the hard drive and began transferring files. “Do you mind telling me what this is that I'm taking?”
“Just documentation of communication,” I replied.
He peered up at me and even through the darkness, I could see the worried look in his eye. “I'm not sure how I feel about this job of yours.”
I let out a chuckle. “Well, don't worry about it then. You don't have to feel anything because it isn't your job.”
He shrugged, averting his gaze. “Fine. I'm just worried about you.”
“Well, don't. I know how to protect myself.”
“It's not so much your life as it is the quality of it that I am talking about.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean how can you be fulfilled if your job in life is to kill people?” he demanded.
“My job in life is not only to protect my country but to literally protect the world,” I argued.
“By killing people.”
I groaned. “Really, John? I am not in the mood for this conversation.”
“Look.” He took his hands off of the keyboard and folded them in front of himself. “What if we scratched this whole idea and just ran away? I have the connections. I can get us out of the country and somewhere safe by tomorrow. You won't ever have to worry about any of this.”
“I already ran away once. I don't want to ever have to do that again.”
John shifted his gaze to something above my head, his eyes wide with terror. I barely had time to even speculate about what he was looking at before something slammed me in the head, hard. I fell forward, hitting my head on the desk and immediately tumbled to the ground with a thump. My mouth opened as wide as it would go as my abdomen contracted in my efforts to stop myself from screaming out in pain. As I laid there trying to reorient myself, I could just barely hear words and shuffling feet as if through water. My eyes flickered open and shut over and over again as I placed both of my palms on either side of me and stood up.
Three security guards stood in the spinning room. Two stood next to already handcuffed John and the other was doing something with the computer on the other side of the desk. He had just barely noticed me up before I grabbed his head with both hands and slammed it against the desk. John seemed to have taken this as a cue to start fighting back himself. He kicked the man standing directly behind him in the shin, then scurried toward me. I jumped over the desk and ran toward the two men, pulling out a retractable baton from my shin pocket.
As soon as I was within reach, I slammed the baton in the man on the right's face. I flinched as blood splattered all over me, and only paused to swipe it out of my eyes before punching the other guy in the neck. He grabbed his neck and started coughing as he stepped away from me. The other man came up behind me, grabbing my neck in both of his hands. I started running backwards and drove his back into the wall. With a grunt, I lunged, then heaved him over my shoulder. I only had a second to catch my breath before the other guard started running toward me.
I sighed, shaking my head as I withdrew the gun in my back pocket. I wished I could say I didn't want it to come to this, but quite honestly, this was the only way it could be. As I pointed it at him, I continued to contemplate options, trying to figure out the best way to debilitate all three of these men to the point where we could safely leave without killing them. My eyes darted from one man to the other as my lips folded into a smirk.
“Jeanine! Don't!” John screamed as both guards drew their own guns.
“Too late,” I muttered as I shot both of them.
There was a thump behind me. “Jeanine....” John called with a strained voice.
I whipped my body around, pointing the gun at the first guard I knocked out, the one who had John's neck in both of his hands. I squinted one eye, slowing my breathing in an effort to relax for long enough to make this shot.
John shook his head.
“Keep still,” I muttered through gritted teeth.
“Jeanine, you don't have to do this.”
I pulled the trigger. The man flew back with such force that he pulled John with him. John's hurt and terrified scream filled the archive room. My heart was racing more than it ever had in my life as I stowed the hot gun away and rushed toward him.
John was lying on the man, soaking in his blood and frozen in shock.
***
Chapter Six
John opened the front door of his house with a speed that suggested we were being chased by the Scream mask.
“Hey. Calm down. No one's gaining on us. It was a clean job,” Liam muttered at him with a reasonable tone.
“Right. If you call three casualties clean,” John replied, pressing into the house as soon as the door would open.
“Collateral damage,” Liam argued.
John ignored this. “I'll see if Alorah's awake so she can check on your face, since we can't go to a real hospital,” he said as he rushed up the stairs.
“Don't worry about it. Liam always cleans my wounds anyway.”
John stopped, whipped his body around and glared at me. His mouth opened as if he wanted to say something. But he didn't. He just pressed his lips together, turned back around and disappeared up the stairs.
I sighed. “He's really pissed at me, and I have no idea what to do about it.”
I could see Liam shrug through the mirror. He turned my bathroom faucet on and ran his fingers under it, waiting for the water to get hot. Once he was satisfied, he clogged the sink, grabbed a face towel and watched the water fill up the sink. “Well, Jeanine, I don't really know what to tell you,” he replied with a smirk.
I giggled. “Yeah, well, I guess you're probably not the best one to go for advice on this subject.”
He just shrugged as he squeezed out the towel. “Well. I am a friend and friends give advice.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you a friend? You been behaving a lot like an angry ex lately.”
He shot me an apologetic look. “I don't know what you're talking about. We can't be exes if we were never dating. We're just good friends.”
“Who used to have sex but don't anymore.”
“Right.” Liam nodded.
I knew he was lying to me, that deep down he struggled to accept all of this, but who was I to call his bluff?
“Okay.” He finished cleaning my cut, then re-bandaged it. “I have to go print out all of that information if we want to drop it off tomorrow morning.”
“Okay.” I nodded and he left.
***
Chapter Seven
There was a knock at my door. “Come in,” I called, before returning my gaze to the television.
“Hey.” My heart skipped at the sound of John's voice. “How's your head?”
“Fine. It wasn't too bad anyway,” I murmured, scooting over so that he could join me in the bed. Once he had slipped under the covers next to me, he grabbed my hand. His grip was strong yet unstable.
“I've had nightmares since... since the UN,” he muttered.
I nodded, trying not to think about what exactly he saw in his nightmares. Me shooting people, blood splattered all over my face. “I'm so
rry.”
“It's just hard for me to stomach.... Jeanine, you were never a murderer. I don't know what happened to you.”
“I'm not a murderer.”
“You kill people for a living.”
I turned my face away from him. “We've already been over this, John.”
“Just because they are bad people, or security risks or whatever, doesn't make them any less human. Their blood is red just like ours. How do you sleep at night?”
“I've always been an insomniac.”
“Jeanine—”
“John. I understand how this could be difficult for you to stomach. I understand how it might be hard to get over the fact that those three men you knew nothing about are dead. But think about the alternative. Say I didn't do what I knew I had to. Say they won the fight. Then we wouldn't have gotten this information and we'd have no way of proving the fact that the UN is helping insurgents.”
“You know the only reason you even care is because you have to prove they exist to clear your own name. It isn't about terrorists. At least not this time.”
I ripped my fingers out of his hand.
“Jeanine—”
“I work for those who make the difficult decisions people like you are too fucking weak to even face.”
“That's not even fair.”
“I am not going anywhere. Not as long as I can help here.”
I felt the bed rustle as he stood up. “Well, if it has to be that way then.”
“It does,” I replied.
***
Chapter Eight
“So you broke up with him?” Liam asked.
I turned away from him, focusing on the trees as they raced past the window. “Yup.”
He sighed. There was the sound of the turn signal as he turned away from me. This didn't feel like the last time. Now, it seemed much too easy to walk away from him. It could have been because now I had a reason. I had something to tell myself about him to make me feel better if I ever felt the need to cry about it. He wasn't right for me. He couldn't be right for me if he didn't agree with my lifestyle. If he couldn't handle it, then how could ever...
Memoirs of a Retired Assassin (Trilogy Bundle) (Romantic Suspense) Page 8
