Game of Shadows

by Amanda K. Byrne

  She should have tried harder to stop him. I’m hearing things. “What?”

  The smile on her lips is a mockery of the expression. “I know what your father allegedly does. And I know he trained you to do the same.”

  I can’t feel my lips. “You knew.”

  Her hands flutter, a useless movement that’s completely out of place. “We argued constantly when you were younger. Your father said it was what you wanted, and up until you took your first job, he said it was just training. Harmless. You were a lot happier, and you were spending more time with him, so I figured everything worked out for the best.”

  My own mother let me down. She failed me. “Why? Why didn’t you stop him?” I would have lost my dad then, but at least now I wouldn’t be constantly fighting the shadows waiting to seep in.

  “I did,” she argues. “I filed for divorce. We were in the first stages of negotiations when you started…perking up. I knew how upset you’d been that he wasn’t being much of a father to you. Around the time you were sixteen, things seemed to be a lot better between you two. If I made a mistake, it was assuming he’d come to terms with having a child who wouldn’t carry on the family tradition.”

  I made my first hit when I was sixteen. Cyanide poisoning.

  Everything is far away. Mom peers at me, waiting for a response. I don’t have one for her. The woman I thought was strong and capable and fierce is nothing but a coward.

  My heart shatters under the strain, the shards sticking into my soul and leaving it bleeding. I stand. “I’m your child. You could have talked to me. If I was old enough to do what Dad does, I was old enough to listen to reason, and you were supposed to be that voice of reason.” The door isn’t nearly close enough. Each step is like wading through concrete.

  “Cassidy. Dear. Please let me explain.” There are tears in my mother’s voice. Strange, but it’s the thing I need to shut down my emotions. Turner’s training is a blessing, holding me together, holding back the pain and the chaos. If taking lives hasn’t broken me, losing both my parents won’t, either.

  I glance over my shoulder. “We’re done.”

  Her protests go in one ear and out the other as I stride out of her office and down the hall to the reception area. Nick’s in the same spot by the elevator, leaning against the wall, and he straightens when he sees me. I walk past him and push open the door to the stairwell.

  Mom knew all along. She knows what Turner does, knows what he’s done to me, never mind I asked for it. She didn’t try hard enough, didn’t fight hard enough, and there’s no reason why that will ever make me understand. She’s my mother. She fights for me when I can’t fight for myself. It’s what parents do. And she didn’t. She chose my father over me.

  Shut it down. Lock it away. Don’t think about it.

  The sunlight’s blinding, and it takes me a minute to reorient myself. We cover the distance to the car in half the time it took us to get to the office, and he’s easing the car away from the curb within minutes.

  My therapy bills are going to be outrageous.

  We get caught in another snarl of traffic, the drive stretching on forever, the silence heavy with unasked questions. The moment Nick puts the car in park, ensconced in the underground parking garage, I’m out of the car and heading for the entrance. I need the ocean. Even in the cheery light of day, I need its constancy.

  It takes a while to find a deserted patch of beach away from late season tourists and locals walking their dogs and toddlers. The waves roll in and draw back, in and out, in and out, always changing, always staying the same.

  I burrow down, wiggling my butt into the sand, staring hard at the glinting water, waiting for it to work its magic. Waiting for those soothing tendrils to twine themselves around me.

  Instead I get Nick plopping down next to me, handing me a pair of sunglasses. I slip them on.

  “I take it things didn’t go well.”

  “Shhh. This is the part where we don’t talk.” C’mon, waves. Do your thing. Break down the other Cass and replace her. His hand slides up my back, cups my nape.

  “Nick.” The warning in my voice is a bright red flag.

  He ignores it. Tugs me closer.

  I jerk backward. “Stop.”

  He turns my face toward him. “If I’m reading subtext correctly, you told your father you weren’t going to be taking any more jobs yesterday. Since you didn’t stay for lunch with your mother, I’m guessing shit didn’t go well there, either. My sisters are tough, and if this happened to any one of them? They’d be wailing banshees right now.” His hand slides along my jaw. “You don’t need permission to fall apart, Cass,” he says softly, his words almost lost to the crash of the ocean. “It just happens.”

  I don’t have that luxury, but the need for it, to collapse, to crumble, to become a violent, whirling mess, vibrates through me, setting off alarms and bells and tripwires, cracks fissuring and spreading, creating canyons. “I’ll be fine,” I say, the first sob rising and falling in my chest, dying before it can be released.

  I scoot away, wishing the waves would consume me whole.

  Chapter 9

  The names on the screen blur together. I blink, and they separate. “I think if I stare at this monitor much longer I’ll go blind.”

  Nick sits back in his chair. “Probably ought to eat something, anyway.”

  The thought of food makes my stomach clench in protest. I haven’t eaten a thing all day. I should be starving.

  Nick spent hours compiling a list of possible suspects, rivals in business, legal and otherwise, people he slighted or maybe felt they were slighted. The names mean nothing to me, but staring at them gives me something else to focus on. I yank the tie out of my hair and reorder my ponytail. “Can we go back to my apartment tonight?” Studying would be a better use of my time.

  “No.”

  “I need my textbooks. I’m not talking about staying.”

  His mouth stays shut, his eyes on the list. “I feel like Mexican,” he says at last.

  Mexican?

  “El Dorado. You know what you want?”

  El Dorado’s a restaurant a few blocks from my apartment. Denise and I eat there probably every other week, always ordering the same thing: enchiladas. Their mole sauce is incredible. My stomach perks up at the thought of guaranteed tasty food. “Chicken enchiladas with mole sauce.”

  He reaches for the phone sitting on the desk to call in the to-go order. Crap. To-go order. We can’t sit around in a restaurant enjoying our meal. The targets are still on our backs. Being out in public is an unnecessary danger, but I have to get to class. I’ll go crazy otherwise. The normality of it is one of my last tethers. I’ve given up too much already.

  I gnaw on my upper lip, Nick oblivious as he mutters to himself and scrolls up and down the list. “Nick?”

  “Hmm?”

  “My first class is at ten tomorrow.”

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  He shoots me a look as he pushes away from the desk. “Don’t give me that shit.”

  I draw up my knees, heels resting on the seat of the chair, arms tight around my legs. He’s more likely to let me go if I play nice. “I have an exam on Friday. I can skip tomorrow.” I lace my fingers together, bone on bone.

  “Cass.”

  “Please,” I whisper, hoping he won’t hear the wobble in my voice. I’m teetering on the edge, grasping at threads so slim they pass right through my hands. “I need this. I need something.” The last shred of my carefully constructed life. It’s all that’s holding up my faltering house.

  His scrutiny is painful, burning through my skin to scorch the bones below. In this moment, I am the girl he says I am, one wrong move away from being laid out and flayed until I’ve got nothing left to bleed.

  When his head bobs up and down, I almost burst into tears. I swallow hard. “I’ll need my textbooks. My notes. I’m not quite ready for it. I’ve got anot
her paper due Monday, so I’ll either need to borrow one of your computers or bring mine back.” I’ll e-mail my profs. Make excuses. It’s only for a few more days. It has to be.

  He stands. “Food’ll be ready soon.”

  * * * *

  The place is a mess. Furniture overturned, books and papers mixing with plates and pots. A quick search shows nothing is missing. My laptop is on my desk where I left it. I gather up my books and computer and fit them in my bag while Nick rights the couch.

  I flop down. “I can’t decide if whoever did this is supremely stupid or very dedicated.”

  He hands me my take-out carton. “Nothing’s missing?”

  “Nope.” My appetite’s returned, though, and my stomach growls in anticipation. Delicious, delicious mole sauce, all for me. I slide off the couch and sit cross-legged on the floor, then set the carton on the coffee table,. “So explain the list to me.”

  He sets his own carton on the table and settles in. “It’s everyone I can remember the family has crossed paths with business-wise.”

  “That’s a really long list,” I say around a mouthful of enchilada. “Seriously. Can’t you narrow it down? Who did you piss off a few years ago?”

  Sauce clings to his bottom lip, and he licks it up with a quick swipe of his tongue. “A few years ago? Why not recently?”

  “Huh?” Tearing my gaze from his mouth, I meet his eyes, find there’s no smirk in them. Only curiosity. “If someone in your organization crosses you, do you always take care of it immediately, or do you sit back and wait to see if it happens again?”

  “Usually immediately. On occasion it’s smarter to wait.”

  I swallow a bite of enchilada. “People who hire an assassin to do their dirty work for them typically wait a while. It takes planning and finesse. Revenge is a dish best served cold and all that. You’re looking for someone who won’t do it themselves and likely crossed your path at least a year ago.” I uncap my bottle of water and drink. “Were there any of your own family members on that list?”

  His face goes blank and smooth as a wall. “My family has given me no reason not to trust them. We make an effort to play to everyone’s skills and give them plenty of opportunity to prove themselves. Having me killed is counter-productive. Moreover, any grievance that would cause someone to want me dead would be handled within the family, not farmed out to a hired hit.”

  “It’s also incredibly naive and trusting to believe none of them would wish you harm. You’ve probably done things not everyone agreed with one hundred percent. And now that I think about it, they’d be more likely to get someone else to make the hit. It puts distance between them and the act, making it harder to trace it to them. That is, of course, assuming they’re smart enough to cover their tracks.” There’s been more than one story in the news in the past few months of regular people paying good money to have someone else knocked off.

  He narrows his eyes. “There’s something wrong about you saying that. Very calm and matter of fact.”

  I shrug. “It’s matter of fact for a reason. I may have told Turner to suck it, but he did train me to do this. I know the mindset. I may not have the experience he does or the depth of knowledge, but I know who hires out for something like this, what jobs would throw up warning signs. He drilled it into my head. Frankly, if you want to know who hired me, who those men were, you’re going to need to figure out who in your past wants you dead badly enough to send backup along just to make sure the job gets done.”

  He points to my enchilada. “You sharing?”

  I cover the container with my hands. “You had your chance. You should have ordered the mole sauce yourself.” He opted for shredded pork with traditional enchilada sauce.

  “That was before you started whimpering like the enchilada was fucking you hard…and you liked it.”

  I do not make sex noises when I eat. The tips of my ears burn, and he grins. “One bite,” he cajoles, inching over.

  Not fair. So not fair, not when he’s invading my space, all sexy and slick talking, his lips close enough to bite. Hands shaking, I cut off a piece and spear it with the plastic fork, swirling it in the mole sauce before holding it out for him to take.

  He doesn’t.

  He closes his lips around it instead, and my heart explodes. I tug the fork free of his lips, fast enough the prongs probably scrape across the roof of his mouth, and scoot away until I’m on the opposite side of the table. “Your family?” I concentrate on cutting up the rest of my enchilada, body vibrating with sudden tension.

  When he doesn’t answer, I glance up. His hands are fisted on the table, jaw tight. The hunger in his eyes stuns me. It’s desire and anger and madness, swirling together and coating his features, thick and sticky.

  “You lied,” I whisper. Because what’s on his face is too real to be faked. Too tangible.

  He snaps the plastic knife in half. “I told you the truth the other night. I don’t mess around with girls.”

  The last sticks propping up the remains of my pride crack and collapse. He doesn’t mess around with girls, yet he sees fit to flirt with me. Taunt me. If I don’t break this cycle before it starts, I’ll continue throwing myself at him, rejection be damned. “I see.” Monotone. I’m as neutral as Switzerland, as barren inside as a desert. With quick, efficient movements, I pack up the rest of my food and carry it into the kitchen. “I’d like you to leave.”

  “Your place hasn’t been cleared by the police, and we haven’t figured out who those men are.”

  “You’re under no obligation to protect me. I don’t need it.” Nor did I need his surprising wordless confession and the verbal arrows that came with it. Any other day, I might have been able to handle it. Today? Not so much.

  “The men are after you,” I say quietly. “We’ve been operating under the assumption that they saw me with you and, for some reason, would come for me as well. I can’t see it. I have nothing to offer. By now they’ve found I’m just a college student.”

  He unfolds himself and gets to his feet. “They broke into your apartment.”

  “That’s if it was them. If it was, they likely assumed you were staying here. Looking for you, not me.” Step, step, step. The counter’s the only thing separating us. “The rule still stands.”

  “I really fucking hate your rule.” But he doesn’t move any closer.

  “Yeah, well, you don’t have to live with it anymore. Go home, Nick. No one’s coming after me.”

  I edge past him and pick up my messenger bag to carry it back to my bedroom. It’s as bad as the living room, sheets and blankets tangled and lumped together, clothing littering the floor. I dump the bag on the floor and get to work, stripping aside the sheets to wash, picking up clothes, throwing pillows on the bed.

  “You can stay with me until the police clear your apartment.”

  Snorting, I continue my clean-up efforts. “Thanks, but no thanks.” I drop to my knees to retrieve more clothes from under the bed. “Figure out who in your family you can trust. You’re better off asking one of them for help, anyway. They’ve got all the information on who you’ve done business with.” My knife is missing. I’d hoped the long, wicked blade was hidden in the mess, but with everything picked up from the floor, the bed stripped bare, it’s not anywhere.

  I crawl out from under the bed and brush my hair away from my face. “If you could bring my clothes back tomorrow, I’d appreciate it.”

  He rocks on his feet, hands in his pockets. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving you here.”

  I smile in spite of myself. “That’s probably the big brother in you talking. Do I need to remind you I almost sliced through your throat the other night?” He’s downsized the bandage on his neck. “How’s your arm?”

  “How’s your leg?”

  Tight and itchy. My ankle’s mostly back to normal, though. “Fine.”

  The air between us grows heavy and tense, the weight of it threatening to crush the ai
r from my lungs. Once, just once, I want to know what it’s like to kiss him on my own terms. To memorize the taste and feel of him, to know his response isn’t a calculated act.

  Idle thoughts are bad for you. Idle thoughts lead to bodies in motion. The distance between us shrinks, his gaze locked with mine. I lay a hand on his chest, heart stuttering. The line of his jaw is as hard as I imagined, rough with stubble. It’s perfect. Warm and real and perfect.

  He clasps my wrist and pulls it away, lifting it to inspect the bruising. It’s almost gone. “Lock the door behind me.” He doesn’t release me.

  I lick my lips, my gaze flitting from his eyes to his mouth and back again. “You have issues with my age.”

  He lifts a brow. “I’m thirty-two. Yeah, I’ve got issues with your age. I’ve got issues with your past choice of employment too.”

  “I don’t.” And I rise on my toes and press my mouth to his.

  His lips give under mine, firming, answering my unspoken question—yes, he wants me. His head and body are in disagreement, and it doesn’t take much for his body to overrule the brain. I control this, control this kiss, and I want slow and thorough and hot, very hot. I want tongue and teeth and low moans, hands skimming and roaming, the feel of his body against mine.

  I get it. He gives it to me, gives it all, parts his lips and allows me entry, and I want to devour him. This is all I’ll get because there’s nothing left to hold us together. Just his mouth on mine, as eager as I am, his hand wrapped around my ponytail, holding my head at such an angle he can take over. He shifts us so I’m whimpering and clawing at him, shifts so I’m giving him everything he’s asking for, and he’s doing it slowly, tauntingly, drawing it out. I want his mouth on my skin, my jaw, my neck, lower, much, much lower, because if I had any doubts before, they’re gone now. Sex with Nick would be the most mind-blowing experience I’d ever have.

  Except he stops. Leaves it at lips on lips. It’s how it should be, the two of us panting, propping each other up. I can take this one perfect moment and tuck it away for safekeeping. Anything more will lead to regret, and regret has a taint you can’t get rid of.