Come Back

by J. A. Huss

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tries again, clearly nervous about the new direction this conversation is taking.

  “You probably don’t. You probably have no idea. Because you left the ship. You left them all there to die and never looked back. So how could you know?”

  She turns her back, head still shaking.

  “You can judge me if you want, but the truth is, Harper, we’re all killers here. Even you, baby. And your tally puts my first year to shame. Because you got thirteen souls, right out of the gate.”

  Chapter Eight - James

  Thirteen. I can almost hear the echo in her head.

  She leans over to swallow down the bile before it comes up.

  She knew. She knew she had to have killed some of them… but… thirteen. Yeah, that surprised everyone.

  “What’d you use?” I ask as I put a hand on her shoulder and instead of shrugging me off, she lets it stay. Her body is hot and it feels like touching fire. “Because it certainly did the job.”

  “Visine,” she says calmly. “Several bottles of Visine in the water pitchers at dinner. There were a lot of guests on the ship that night. Too many for me to pick out my new husband. So I poisoned them all.”

  Clever. “Well, then you and I are more alike than you know. Because the poison you used is actually one of my calling cards.” I look over at Sasha. I think she’ll appreciate this little factoid. “The active ingredient in Visine is tetrahydrozoline.” I look back over to Harper. “I told you under the pier last week I had a little blue octopus in me. And the active poison in the blue-ringed octopus is tetrodotoxin.”

  “Tet,” Sasha says with a smile. “That’s why you’re called Tet?”

  I nod, but my eyes are still on Harper. “You used my calling card, Harper. Because when I want to kill someone for personal reasons and not get in trouble, that’s the way I have to do it. My assigned poison is tetrodotoxin, not Visine, but it’s got tet in the name and that’s too close.”

  This changes everything. Everything I’ve been told over the past year is tainted with the view that they might think I killed all those people for Harper. How the fuck am I still alive?

  The blackout, James, Tet whispers in my head. They know you’re confused. They know you’re missing time.

  And that—that makes me laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Harper snaps at me. “I killed thirteen people and you’re laughing? Is my father even alive?”

  “Do you care?”

  “Of course I care!”

  “As far as I know he is. I have not spoken with him for a very long time.” I’m the one who turns away now. Because this will require a lot of thinking on my part. The problem is suddenly a puzzle. Who is who? How does it all fit together? Who is calling the shots? Why was I really sent to the beach? What the fuck happened in those hours I lost?

  “Is there a way to find out?” Sasha asks. “If the Admiral is dead?”

  “I’m pretty sure there’d be some sort of global alert if the Admiral was dead.” I should push Sasha for her answers too. I really should. But she’s being very good, almost on my side, so now is not the time to shake things up.

  “So now what, James?” Harper looks down at her feet. She’s facing the sun still, and it’s about to set, so the bright glow from earlier is gone. I wanted us to be together tonight so we could watch the sun go down again, get her back in her routine. But the rippling orange and yellow colors across the Pacific Ocean were magical. Beautiful and filled with promise of a new tomorrow.

  The dissipating, diffracting light playing across the hot current of air in the desert has a hopeless feel to it.

  This desert sunset feels like the end.

  “You have to make a choice, Harper.” I take her hand and turn her around. “You trust me and let me lead the way.” I stop to search her for doubt. She holds her eyes steady, unlike mine. My eyes dart all over the place, waiting for lies, for pretenses and ulterior motives. But I don’t find any of that in Harper.

  I find grief.

  “Or you can go your own way. You’re not my contract, Harper.” I slip my hand behind her neck. She’s sweaty from the heat. Her shoulders are turning pink from the sun and when she looks up at me, her eyes are pink too. She’s had enough for one day. “You’re not my contract, and if you stay with me, I promise to take care of you. I promise I will keep you safe. I promise that the only way they will hurt you is if they kill me first.”

  “Because I belong to you?”

  “Yes.” God, that makes me so happy there’s no way in hell I can hide the smile. “You belong to me. You’re mine. So if you stay, you need to understand that. You’re mine.”

  “And you want me now?”

  I slide my fingers down her arm and tug on her hand until she takes a step toward. “I’ve always wanted you.”

  She stares into my eyes, so intent on finding motive there. But she fails. Because I’m telling the truth.

  “Sasha,” I say as I turn and lead Harper over to the porch. “Bedtime.”

  ‘”Bedtime!” Sasha snorts. “I don’t have a bedtime!”

  “Whatever.” I ascend the stairs with Harper and take her back inside. “But we’re going to bed.”

  Chapter Nine - Harper

  I let James take me away. Back into the house where the air-conditioning isolates me from the outside and makes me feel protected. Which is absurd, because James just admitted to being responsible for something akin to genocide.

  Maybe what the Company does is good. I’ve been told my whole life it is. They keep things in check. The assassins take out very specific targets to stabilize world governments, world economies, and preserve the future of freedom.

  But that’s the kind of bullshit Nick and I used to read in comic books whenever we could get our hands on them in a port city. Superhero stuff. He was fascinated by it, since he was being trained to assassinate people too. He believed in them. He made me believe in them.

  Until we learned I was sold. And even though that book says I was promised to James, I’m having a hard time accepting it.

  Why would the Admiral give me to some killer? Wouldn’t he want me to be safe? How could I ever be safe with James? I study his muscular back as he leads me down the hallway to the bedroom. He’s a dream in the body department, but the shit inside his head is something else. Something I might not be interested in seeing more of.

  Tet. It has a whole new meaning now. And the fact that I used his calling-card poison to kill… what does it mean? For me? For him? How did the Company interpret what I did? And how did he not know? He told me he was briefed right after I ran last summer. Didn’t they tell them how I did it? Didn’t they assume he was in on it?

  We walk into the last bedroom and he closes the door. The room is dusky, but he makes no move to turn the lights on. Instead he walks over to the window and closes the blinds until the place is near dark. He stares at the covered window for a few seconds and then lets out a sigh. “Where do you want to start?”

  My body goes still. “What do you mean?”

  He turns and tips his chin up, like he’s building up his confidence. “I’m not gonna talk about it in front of the Smurf, but whatever you want to know, here’s your chance. Ask me. Ask me anything.”

  I’m momentarily stunned. I think I should take my time, have a plan of attack for getting the truth from him because this might be my one and only chance. But the question rolls off my tongue like it was waiting all day. “What happened to Amber?”

  “My brother shot her in the chest on the last job I did.”

  “Why?”

  His jaw clenches. “Because she got in his way.”

  “Is that all it takes for you guys? Just get in the way? And that’s enough to forfeit a life?”

  His eyes narrow at these questions, hopefully because he’s thinking it over and not because I’m pissing him off. I shift my weight from one foot to another, the silent moments ticking off from a clock on the
wall.

  “Sometimes.”

  “Is that why you killed your brother? Because he killed Amber?”

  “Not specifically, no. It was a combination of factors. He was my target. Your father wanted him eliminated, but in addition to that I owed my friend Merc a favor. Merc owed his friend Ford a favor. Ford wanted Tony out of his family’s life. I had two contracts on him.”

  “And… there was never a moment where your inner self said, ‘Hey, James, this is the guy you grew up with. You’re not gonna kill him. You’re gonna find a way not to, or you’ll die trying?’ Because if I was ordered to kill my brother, that’s what my inner self would say.”

  “I did think that, Harper. And there was a brief time where I thought I could pull it off. But everything went wrong, people showed up. Amber showed up. She wasn’t supposed to be there. And her sister, Ashleigh… she was Tony’s high-school sweetheart. He risked everything to try and keep her out of the Company, faked his own death. Abandoned her right before she gave birth to their child. And then Ford appeared. He found Ashleigh. And Ford decided he wanted what Tony walked away from and made it happen.”

  “And Tony wanted her back.”

  “He was not about to give her up after all he did to get to that point, especially to that guy. But Tony never saw me coming.”

  “They never see you coming, do they?”

  “I’m not the kind of guy who likes to be seen.”

  “And Sasha? How does she fit?”

  James looks away quickly, then recovers. It’s fast, but I catch it. Nick and I used to play a game when we were kids. Who could tell a lie better. Who could spot a lie better. I was always a better spotter than liar. And that momentary glance away was the tell-tale sign of a lie.

  “Sasha is… collateral damage. Left over from a job Merc did last Christmas. Merc is responsible for her because he got her father killed in an off-the-books job, but somehow Ford claimed the Smurf and decided Merc owed him a favor for fucking up her life. He and Merc go way back, so…” James throws up his hands. “Merc took that debt seriously and called in a debt I owed him.”

  “So Merc cashed in his debt to Ford by having you kill Tony. Because you owed Merc. And debts are… meaningful?”

  He nods and it rings true. And yet it’s not the whole story. But I’m not very interested in Sasha now. I’m interested in us.

  James walks over to me and takes my hand. “Harper, listen to me. OK?” I nod and then he’s pushing me to sit on the bed. “None of that matters right now. It’s fucked up, I get it. I killed my brother. But he had a hit on his head. He was a dead man whether I did it or not. No amount of running or new identities would ever erase that. And Amber, she wasn’t a girlfriend. I did care about her. But I left her behind years ago. Years, you understand? I had a bodyguard put in charge of her, they fell in love, I guess. She married that guy. OK? She wasn’t a girlfriend. Ever. Yeah, I loved her in some way, but it wasn’t the way you think. I liked the idea of keeping her out of my dirty life. I just wanted to keep her safe. And I did. She moved on, got her own life. But then it all fell apart and that letter, you need to understand, that letter was regret for my failure to keep her safe and nothing else.”

  I don’t know. Some of what he’s saying makes sense. “But why did you hate me so bad? What did I ever do to you? I was just a kid.”

  He pushes me back on the bed and my stomach does little flips inside. But at the same time, I don’t want sex to be the reason I let this go. I need more. I put my hand on his chest to ward him off, but he grabs my wrist and hikes it over my head, pressing it into the mattress. “Now listen, Harper. Hold still and listen.”

  His eyes plead with me and I nod. He swallows hard and then scoots up next to me on the bed so we’re lying together. He places his fingertip on my forehead and then lightly drags it down the bridge of my nose and pauses on my lips.

  My mouth opens of its own accord and I nip at it playfully.

  “I never hated you, Lionfish. I loved you the very first moment I set eyes on you when you were six.”

  “You did?”

  He nods. “I did. But loving a six-year-old is wrong. You have to understand that. It’s so dirty, there’s no way I could deal with the powerful draw you had on me. And that was before you were promised. The Admiral paraded you out on the beach that day for me. You were in that little ruffled bathing suit that made you look like a Swan Lake ballerina. You were the cutest fucking thing I’d ever laid eyes on. Perfect. And innocent. And sweet.”

  I smile at that characterization of me. I’d forgotten about that ridiculous bathing suit. I threw a tantrum to get it in some hotel gift shop the day before. And normally a tantrum is the last way to get my father’s attention. But he gave in.

  Did he give in on purpose? To parade me? That makes my stomach sick.

  “I wanted you to be my age so bad that day.” We both laugh a little at that. “You have no idea how hard it was to listen to your father talk about you and have to turn down his offer.” He stops to cup my face and plant a soft kiss on my lips. “You will never understand how much it hurt to say no. I wanted you. But it was wrong, Harper. Accepting a child bride as payment and promise for a job was wrong.”

  I sigh a little. I can certainly see that. And before I knew he was my promise, I was repulsed by the thought of belonging to someone in that way. I felt sold. But with James, it’s… different.

  “I want you now, Harper,” he says, like he’s reading my thoughts. “I have you now. And I know you want me too. But if I’m wrong, here’s your opportunity to say no.”

  I can’t move. This feels permanent. Like this yes or no answer will decide my fate.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” James says.

  And then his bare chest is brushing up against my body and his mouth takes what he came for.

  Me.

  His tongue twists inside my mouth as he lifts up my shirt, gently at first, but then he loses patience and lifts me up off the bed and drags it over my head in one swift move. Before I can even appreciate the coolness next to my bare skin his hands are on the button of my shorts. Then the zipper.

  “Take them off,” he commands softly.

  I wiggle them down my hips, over my knees, and then fling them away with my foot, my eyes never leaving his.

  He grins and everything I saw under the pier that day, back before I knew for sure that he was a killer, all those thoughts flood my mind. How beautiful he is. How he holds my attention with his gaze. How he makes me throb with want and longing. My hand goes to the bulge in his jeans. He’s so hard against my hand, the throbbing between my legs becomes an uncontrollable ache, letting me know that I am very close even though we haven’t even started yet.

  “Harper,” he says, bringing my attention away from my pulsing need and back to him.

  “Yes?” I answer back in a whisper.

  He smiles and lies down next to me as he lets out a breath that sounds a lot like a sigh. I feel him relax and then he takes my hand and laces our fingers together. “I’d like a do-over.”

  “What?” I laugh a little. And in that instant, that laugh changes everything. I put aside my tally and the Admiral, and the loss and sadness I’ve been feeling since my brother split us apart last summer. The sensual mood breaks with the laugh as well. But in its place comes something else. In its place comes…

  “A do-over,” he says again. His fingertips find my belly button and the light touch traces little concentric circles around it. And then he releases my hand, flips on his side—propping himself up on his elbow—and extends his hand again. “I’m James Fenici, nice to finally meet you.”

  I bite my lip to stop the tingling in my nose and throat that comes before tears. He takes a deep breath like he might be worried his gesture will go unappreciated.

  But he’s got nothing to worry about. I extend my hand and we join together in a new way. “Harper Tate,” I whisper.

  He flops on his back and then reaches for me, pulling my
cheek up to his chest as he puts his arms around me. “Miss Tate, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted your name. I’ve been thinking about you for almost thirteen years. And I’d like to erase that little pink notebook. I’d like you to forget all of that stuff. Because those were the words of a man trying to convince himself he was not in love.” He leans down and kisses me softly, his hands cupping my cheek as he grabs hold of my lower lip and then releases it. “But I am in love. I fell in love with a six-year-old. I’m sorry, it’s fucked up, but that’s just how it happened.”

  “I fell in love with you that day too, James.”

  “But I’m not sorry for telling your father no, Harper. I’m not sorry because it was a test. Men don’t give away daughters like you.”

  I look away and shake my head. “But he did. I don’t understand that part.”

  James turns my head back to him with a gentle touch to my chin. “A man worthy of his daughter would say no, Harper. He was never going to give you away. And now that I have you here, I have to ask you.”

  My heart does that now-familiar thump. “Ask me what?”

  He slips out from under me and pulls me up to a sitting position as he drops to his knees on the floor. I cover my mouth to hide the smile.

  “Harper Tate,” he says. “Will you trust me?”

  My whole face goes hot and tingly and I look away to hide my reaction.

  James guides my gaze back to him again. “Don’t turn away from me, please.”

  I stare down as he gazes up. And then I notice how naked I am. His bare chest is pressed up against my knees. His breath is tickling the inside of my thighs. My heart beats faster as all these senses crash together like I’m caught in a wave. Suddenly I’m trembling.

  He slides his hands up my thighs and grabs my hips so he can scoot me to the edge of the bed. He places himself right in the v of my legs and then looks up at me, awaiting my answer.

  “I don’t know…”

  “Just give me a chance, OK? Get to know me a little, and give me a chance.” He leans his head down to kiss my belly. “You have to trust me.” His eyes dart back and forth as he searches for doubt inside me.