by J. A. Huss
I bump right into a large older woman wearing a maid’s uniform. “Can I help you?” she asks cautiously in her thick Spanish accent.
“I’m looking for Raul,” I reply back.
She eyes me with suspicion, making the lines on her forehead come together in a v pattern. “Who is asking?”
“Six.”
“OK,” she says, sucking in a breath, like she’s preparing for terrible news. “I am tonight’s Raul. What you do need?”
“Dinner,” I say with a smile. “For three, top floor.”
She laughs. “Dinner?” She laughs again. “Dinner,” she repeats, shaking her head. “Whew, I OK with dinner. I do dinner for you, Mr. Six.” It comes out Meester Sex, but that’s just fine with me. I bet she thought I had a body cleanup job for her. She’s a maid, after all. That’s what Company maids do. “You go upstairs,” she says, scribbling something down on the back of a business card that has a sailing yacht on it and says, Tate Global Engineering. She hands me the card and I flip it over to read the script. Company Man. “You go up, I tell them you coming.”
“Thank you,” I tell her as I leave the way I came in. When I get back to the lobby Harper and Sasha are huddled next to each other as they watch TV. They could be related, that’s how alike they look right now. Long blonde hair. Sasha has blue eyes, and Harper’s are brown, but they both have petite features. Small noses, small mouths, and lean bodies from years of being outdoors.
“Let’s go, girls.” I wave them to me and they both come quickly. “What’s wrong?” I ask them.
“Harper thought she saw someone she knew outside.”
“Who?” I ask as I hold the elevator doors open for them.
“I don’t know,” Harper says, looking over her shoulder. “He just looked familiar. Some guard we had on ship. But that’s silly. He was a personal guard, and they never leave the ship.”
We’re silent as the elevator takes us to the top-floor restaurant. She’s probably imagining things, but I don’t like the new vibe in the air all of a sudden. The doors part a few seconds later and before us is the grand dining room. The maître d’ smiles widely, even though we are not dressed.
Being Six has certain perks. Getting your ass kissed by a glorified waiter is not usually up there with my top ten, but right now, it’s number one. Because I just want Harper to have a nice evening.
“Your table is waiting, sir,” the maître d’ says. And then he waves us forward to the waiter. We are taken to the far side of the restaurant and seated in front of a window with a view that impresses even me.
“Wow,” Sasha says as she takes a seat facing the window. “I bet the sunset is fantastic.”
I look over at Harper and smile. I sure the fuck hope so.
The waiter calls off the day’s specials and Harper’s eyes light up with the mention of fresh fish flown in daily on the weekends. The waiter takes drink orders and as soon as he leaves Harper leans in and kisses me on the cheek. “A fish taco stand this is not.”
“No fish tacos for you, baby. Not unless we’re sitting on the sand in some Third World beach and washing it down with a bottle of beer.”
“That sounds just as good as this.”
“Yeah, but there’s no beach here, so fish tacos are out. Now what’s it gonna be?” Both girls look over the menu and that makes me smile inside as well as out. They can both use a nice normal dinner for once. I’m pretty sure Harper has not has a sit-down dinner since she left the ship. And Sasha… well, I doubt she’s ever had a formal dinner like this. I glance down at the menu, opt for my usual, and then turn to Sasha. “You gonna get the buffalo burger?”
She shoots me an annoyed glare. “Why would you assume I’d want the buffalo? Because I’m from Wyoming?”
“You were in Wyoming, James?” Harp asks.
“No, I found Kamikaze Smurf camping out in the middle of Colorado.”
“Alone?”
Sasha lowers her head and pretends to be busy with the menu. “It’s a long story,” she mumbles.
“Harper,” I say to distract her away from the long story. “What are you getting?”
“Hmmm, the grilled mako shark with pineapple rice, I think. How about you?” She smiles sweetly at me as the bright sun hits her at an angle and illuminates her bronzed shoulders.
I lean in and grab her thigh, then fist my hand in her hair. “Fuckable. You are simply. Fuckable.”
“Hello?” Sasha says. “I’m right here.”
And then the waiter appears and I rattle off my order. “Chilean seabass for me and the mako shark for this lovely lady.” The waiter nods and murmurs something about good choice. I’m making him nervous but I don’t care. “Sasha, what’s it gonna be?”
“The buffalo burger.” I hold in my snicker, but she hears it anyway and shoots me a glare. “What? It’s the only thing on here I recognize.”
I turn back to the waiter. “The buffalo burger for lovely lady number two.” He nods and retreats.
“Pffft, like you really think I’m a lovely lady,” Sasha says.
“I think you’re a little shit who has no idea how good she’s got it right now. Better?” I shoot back.
“James,” Harper admonishes me with a kick under the table. “Be nice.”
“This is me being nice.” Her hand on my thigh captures my attention and all thoughts of Sasha disappear. “Harp”—she giggles—“don’t start something you can’t finish. They have a men’s room here too.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Oh, I don’t need a dare to fuck you in a public restroom, darling.” She tries to withdraw her hand but I capture it before she can, and then I slide it tight up over the top of my thick hard-on. “You do this to me, you pay the price.” I place her hand on the table and lean in to her ear. “If you do it again, I’ll take you right here on the table. Don’t test me.”
“Oh my God,” Sasha says. “La-la-la. I can’t hear you.” She closes her eyes, covers her ears, and shakes her head. “La-la-la…”
“So, Sasha. What’s your job in the Company?” Harper asks, changing the subject and managing to make me more uncomfortable than I just made the Smurf.
“Nah,” I say, waving a hand at Sasha. “We’re not talking shop tonight. This is down time.”
“I disagree, James,” Harper says. “I saved her life this morning and I hardly know anything about her. We’re living in the same house and we’re traveling together. So I want—”
“No,” I interrupt. “Not—”
“Hunter,” Sasha says, ignoring me and cutting me off at the same time.
“You’re a girl. You’re not a hunter,” Harper says with a laugh.
“I am a hunter. My dad raised me to be a hunter and he was in charge of training all the hunters before this current group. So I’m even legitimate.”
Fuck.
“You’re not the first Six, James,” Sasha sneers at me.
“Conversation. Over. Let’s move on to something else.”
She redirects her attention to Harper. “I’ve been trained to hunt. I’ve been around the hunters my whole life. Not you,” she says to me. “They kept you away. But some of those guys you killed this past year? They were my friends.”
“Friends? Please. How many times could they have been passing through Wyoming? Or picking up guns from a western gun show? A handful at the most.”
“If you say so,” she says sweetly.
I might not know her all that well, but I know her well enough to understand what that means. “You’ve got another secret you’d like to share?”
“I have lots of secrets.”
“Um,” Harper interjects. “You’re right, James, let’s talk about something else.”
“No,” Sasha says. “Let’s talk about secrets. I’ll tell you one of mine if you tell me one of yours, James.”
“James,” Harper says, turning to me and placing her hand on my thigh. It’s a diversion this time. “I don’t want to hear secrets, OK? Secret
s are darkness. Secrets keep the darkness alive. I hate secrets and I don’t want to know them.”
I remove her hand from my thigh and place it back on the table, never losing eye contact with Sasha. “Sorry, baby. This is too good of an opportunity to pass up. You first, Cocky Smurf.”
Sasha smiles broadly and then turns her head and shoots me a sideways glare that makes her look every bit the hunter she claims she is. “OK. My secret is…” She smiles over at Harper now. “I met someone special last summer.”
“Who, a boy?” Harper asks, eagerness in her voice. Apparently this is a secret even Harper can get in on.
Sasha has to bite her lip to stop her smile. “Yes.” She slowly pulls her gaze from Harper and redirects it to me. “Nicholas Tate.”
The entire restaurant goes silent. Or maybe not. Probably not. I think it’s just that I stop hearing everything because the only thing I do hear is an echo of those two words.
“Pardon me?” Harper says. “My brother went to see you?”
Sasha is still looking at me. Her mouth moves and if I was a little bit closer to her, I’d slap my hand over it to stop her secret from spilling out. But I’m not. So it does. “He’s come to see me a bunch of times.”
“You’re lying,” Harper says. “How would he find his way to Wyoming?”
“Does it matter how?” Sasha asks. “I mean, really, that’s not even in the top million most important things to ask about what I just told you.”
“What should we ask then?” I finally come back to reality to deal with what she’s saying.
“Oh no. Not until you tell me your secret, James. Then if you want to keep playing, we can. But now you owe me.”
You owe me. She said the same thing on the plane when she told me Harper was not at home.
“Make it a good one, Tet. Because mine was a bombshell.”
I take a deep breath and look over at Harper. She’s gone white. Her perfectly tanned face is sheet white. “Have you seen him lately?”
Sasha shakes her head, like she’s saying no. But that’s not what she’s saying. “No more questions until I get a secret from James. And don’t lie, James. I’ll know.”
I have so many questions. And I want them all answered. But I have very few secrets, at least none that can be revealed at this table right now. I roll them around in my head and make a decision. “You want to know why Merc isn’t around? The details? Not what I told you earlier.”
She weighs this internally and then gives me a slight nod. “That will do for starters.”
That will do for enders too. Because that’s the only one I have that won’t ruin everything. “The person who killed your father was US Senator Channing.”
She swallows, and then nods. “I knew that.”
“You did not know that. You guessed it, but now you know. Because I just told you. My turn. Who—”
But then the wait staff is here with our food, looking very uncomfortable as they serve us. I wait until the food is all on the table and then we all thank them like the polite people we really aren’t.
“That conversation is over,” Harper says. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Let’s just eat.”
She’s on the verge of tears and I’m instantly sorry. I lean in and whisper, “Just enjoy your dinner. I’m sorry if I’ve ruined it. I just wanted you to have a nice night.”
“It’s not ruined, James. It’s fine. I just… I just want to talk about normal things tonight.” She picks up her fork and cuts into her shark steak. It flakes apart like it’s supposed to and she smiles when it touches her lips. “This is really good fish for being out in the middle of the desert.”
“I caught a shark once,” Sasha tells her.
“Me too!” she says excitedly. “Deep-sea fishing was something we did a lot.”
“I’ve never caught a fish in my life,” I admit.
“What?” Even Sasha joins in on this conversation. I’m sure she’s thrilled about being better at fishing than me. And as is starting to become the norm, we drop the deep dark secrets and talk about nice things to make Harper happy. Growing up on megayachts. Growing up on cattle ranches. Growing up on the beach.
There’s no mention of the Company. It’s a dirty world we live in. It’s dangerous and deadly—we know this.
But we don’t have to talk about it right now.
Those secrets aren’t going anywhere. We’re carrying them around on our backs like a cross.
Or, maybe more fittingly, an albatross.
Chapter Twenty-Four - James
The sun is just starting to drop on the horizon, already washing the sky in a haze of red and orange. In about fifteen more minutes, it’s gonna be perfect. I don’t want to miss it, so I kiss Harper on the head and push back my chair. “Be right back, gotta take a piss.”
I make my way through the tables to the short hallway where the restrooms are located and push the door open. The attendant nods to me and then goes back to his feigned towel-folding. I whip my dick out at the urinal and do my business. I don’t talk to the attendants. I’m not a snob, I just want to finish my piss and get the fuck out of the bathroom.
The door whooshes open, so I look over and see the attendant make a quick escape. He must read minds. I give myself a shake, zip up, and then turn to wash my hands.
“Hello, James.”
It’s been a long time, but there’s no mistaking who the man is entering the facilities. Tall, dark, and yes—he fits the bill in all the cliché ways. The once-brown hair is graying a little at the temples, but not much. And maybe it’s a trick of time, since I was so young when we first met, but he looks the same to me now as he did that day on the beach when he offered me his daughter in exchange for my freedom.
The funny thing is, I never wanted my freedom back then. I wanted to be Six in the worst way. He should’ve asked Tony. Tony would’ve jumped on the chance to kill his way out of the Company.
But he didn’t ask Tony. He asked me.
I never wanted to kill my way out of the Company.
I wanted to kill my way in.
Careful what you wish for. You just might get it, Tet says in my head. “Your boys are getting sloppy, Admiral. She spotted one as soon as we got here.”
“How is she?” the Admiral says back, ignoring my statement. We may not have had a lot of face-to-face meetings over the years, but we’ve talked hundreds of times by phone. I know him better than most and ignoring my dig on his security is typical. He likes to control the conversation at all times and he hates to hear about less than perfect performance. But he does hear it. And I know for a fact he will speak to that guard later. There is zero tolerance for fuckups in our line of work. “She’s well, I hope? I realize you’ve only been in contact for a very short period of time, but I expect her to be well.”
I’m suddenly imagining Harper bent over a couch with my finger in her ass. He will kill me if he finds that shit out. No doubt, promise or not. I turn the water on and begin washing my hands. “She’s doing real good, actually. She’s happy. She wanted seafood tonight, so this place worked out perfect.”
“And you’re on track? With the mission?”
What mission? Jesus fucking Christ, how many mission do I have going right now? “Yes, sir,” I say calmly. “One hundred percent on track.”
“And the files? Has she… mentioned them? A hiding spot? Something?”
“No, sir,” I reply as I turn the water off and reach for a towel. “But I haven’t brought it up yet. I had to leave for a little bit, so we just reconnected.”
“Yes,” he smiles. “Are you enjoying my gift?”
I smile back. What fucking gift? But of course I don’t say that. Because I have missing hours… Or days, Tet adds inside my head. It might be days. “Yes, sir. Much appreciated.”
“She’s wild, isn’t she?”
“Wild…” Who? Harper?
“Her father was an important man at one time, but his loyalty was questioned. Never proved, obviousl
y, or he’d have been dead a long time ago. So I expected the girl to have a similar nature.”
Sasha. He sent me Sasha as a gift. To do what? “Yes, sir, she’s a little shit. But fairly easy to manipulate. Do you have something specific you’d like me to use her for?”
“Her father was wild as well,” the Admiral says, ignoring my words once again. “So the apple and the tree, right?”
We share a small chuckle. Ha ha, yes, the apple and the tree. I have no fucking idea what he’s talking about.
“And my son?”
I shake my head. This I can answer and it’s even the truth. “No, sir, nothing on his location.”
“Well, I have to say I’m a bit surprised by that. You haven’t done much, Tet.”
The Company name stings a little, I have to admit. I’ve always been James to him. Or Six, but only once that first day. It’s always been James. “My time’s not up, so I’m not worried.”
“If the child has not given up his location yet, then she’s of no use to you. Have you questioned her about it?”
I feel like I’m coming in on the middle of a meeting, that’s how confusing this shit is. Did I miss a message somewhere? What the fuck was I supposed to do with Sasha? “We were just talking about it at the table, actually. So she’s close.”
“Good. Get that location tonight and I want her eliminated before dropoff.”
“Yes, sir,” I say automatically. “Drop off is still on schedule.”
“Don’t cut it too close, understand?” His dark eyes bored into me. “I have a deadline too.”
“Sir, I understand. We’ll be on our way tomorrow.”
“Excellent.” He smiles at me and I force one back. “I’ll see you soon. Please bring me good news.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, but he’s already turned his back, walking out the door.
I wait a few seconds, then follow and make my way to the bar. “Pack of Reds, please. And a lighter.” The bartender walks off and returns a few minutes later with my smokes. I am not a big smoker these days. In fact, I officially quit three years ago. But ever since Tony, I’ve been using them to think things through.
