Knowing the call could take anywhere from a couple of minutes to an hour or more, I grab another bottle of water and wander out onto the porch.
The sticky heat of the night drops over me like a wet blanket, smothering in its weight. The humidity around here is insane, giving the air a tangible quality, like I can squeeze it between my fingers and watch it ooze out like syrup. The hut is at the end of a row of other huts just like it, some with their porch lights on, some dark. This close to the beach, there isn’t much of a bug problem, and I lean on the railing, staring out over the black water.
Funny how the ocean is the same no matter which one you’re looking at. People earn their living on it. Swim in it, play in it. The color is different. So’s the temperature, and the creatures swimming through it.
It’s the same because it’s always, always changing, breaking apart and reforming, holding on to most of the old stuff that keeps it recognizable as a salty body of water, letting in enough of the new that scientists either scream with delight over previously undiscovered species or moan about the fate of the planet as its levels rise.
It’s also not mine.
My ocean is the one near the Santa Monica pier. The place I’d go after a job, a kind of meditation that allowed me to slip back and forth between Cass the College Student. and Cass the Assassin. I miss my ocean. I miss Los Angeles, I miss my friends, and I miss my mother.
I miss Turner something fierce.
The door opens behind me, and Nick steps onto the porch. He props his elbows on the railing. Our bare shoulders touch, the only body parts that do, and out here in the messy heat it’s almost too much. “Good news? Bad news? Indifferent news?”
“Har.” He shifts to wrap his arm around my waist, pulling me to his chest, ignoring my half-hearted protests that it’s too hot to cuddle. “That was Con. LAPD raided one of the escort agencies, and the manager’s being brought up on charges. Con’s concerned he’ll talk.”
“You let a man run that service?” In the movies, it’s always women who run those businesses.
“Hedid a good job of it until he got greedy and started selling drugs out of the office. Been charged with possession with intent to distribute. Fucker had a couple kilos worth of cocaine waiting to be doled out. Tough as the drug laws are, he’ll be going away for a long time.”
Well, shit. “What are you going to do?”
His chest rumbles at my back as he growls in frustration. “Let him use our attorneys. Pretty much the only way we might have a chance of him keeping his mouth shut.”
Which means if he doesn’t, his fate will likely be very different. I turn around and place my hands on his chest, needing some space. I can’t stumble around in the dark any more. I’ve already done two jobs for his organization. With Isaiah in hiding, the chances of me taking another life are pretty high. I need to know what Nick does with the people who betray him. “What happens if he doesn’t? What if they offer him a deal? If he was stupid enough or desperate enough to run drugs while engaging in other barely legal activities, his loyalty might snap.”
He dips his head, his gaze locked on mine. “I think you can guess what happens.” His voice is quiet, the words final and brutal, the last swing of the gavel. “The organization demands loyalty. You reach a certain point where to be trusted with the scope of what we do, who we are, means if you break the oath, you pay the price. Whatever the price might be. It’s always high, and it’s never what you expect. Right now, he’s probably thinking if he talks, we’ll come for him. We might. It might be his brother. It might be his wife.”
My stomach clenches in a violent, shuddering knot, my mouth dry as I stare at him. No. No way. Innocent people. He uses them like...like...tools. “His wife? You go after women? Do you murder children, too?” Say no. Please say no.
In the low light, the shadows on his face take his blank expression and twists it into something sinister. “We do what needs to be done, Cassidy. Sometimes that means using whatever leverage we’ve got. Sometimes that’s women and children, though those are last resort measures.”
I back away, out of his arms, skin prickling as the truth hits home. I knew Nick was as deadly as me. Without seeing it in action, I guess I didn’t really believed it.
I sure as fuck do now.
Game of Shadows Page 22
