Subtle Target: Six Assassins Book 2

by Heskett, Jim

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  EMBER

  Ember saw the two guys waiting for her before she'd finished aligning her car into the parking spot. They were standing at the bottom of the stairs to the second floor of her condo building, eying her. They were standing away from the light on the stairs, but she could see their beady eyes staring.

  It was dark out, a chill in the air. She shivered quickly, but she knew it wasn't just from the weather. No question they were there for her. Two beefy thugs in jeans and dark jackets, leaning against the exterior wall and scoping her as she drove up. But she didn't recognize them; neither of them was from the three Five Points guys who had attacked her multiple times last week as revenge for the self-defense killing of their Branch mate.

  No, these had to be Lydia's guys. Ember suspected they weren't registered members of any Branch. They were like Roland — independent contractors who had a flair for the dramatic and got their kicks from toeing the line between legal and illegal endeavors. Business associates, not trained and vetted members of the Club. The fact that they would be so bold as to invite a rumble like this in public was evidence of that.

  Both were white, one with a buzzed haircut and the other’s with longer, disheveled sandy blond locks that could have looked good had he made an effort. The blond guy had a slash of a facial scar underneath his right eye. Buzzcut had no distinguishing facial features other than the ugliest — and stupidest — smirk Ember had ever seen in her life.

  She parked and kept her eyes on them as she emerged from the car. Fortunately, none of her neighbors were out and about right now.

  Ember held up both of her pistols and dropped them onto the driver seat of her car. They watched her do this. She did, however, keep her knife in her pocket. She didn’t expect to use it, but they didn’t need to know she had it.

  Out of habit, she glanced at her watch. Eleven thousand steps today. Not bad, especially since she would add a few hundred more while kicking these guys’ asses. Ember closed her car door and tilted her head toward the alley on the north side of the building. The last thing she needed was her neighbor Layne poking his head outside to see her scrabbling with the two men. Also, she made sure to lock the car so they couldn’t use her guns against her.

  Both of the guys obliged her and made a slow and laborious march toward the alley. There were no windows on that side, and it butted up to the grocery store's back alley, making it the perfect place to have a private fistfight. If she could contain them to this narrow space, she just might not attract the attention of the whole building. And, possibly, any grocery store workers hanging out on smoke breaks.

  “Where is Lydia right now?” Ember asked as she joined them. When they didn’t reply, she asked, “Where’s Roland? Why isn’t he with you?”

  The two guys said nothing, only balled their fists and faced off against her.

  “You know, less than a week ago, I took on three guys in a parking garage. One of them, I broke his collarbone. One other, I kicked him in the nuts so hard he puked on himself. You think I’m scared to go up against the two of you?”

  They both sneered and raised their hands in fighting stances.

  Ember slipped off her jacket and dropped it on the pavement behind her. “Don’t want to chat? Okay then, let’s dance.”

  Facial Scar leaped toward her. In a flash, he whipped a knife out of a sheath attached to his belt. She hadn’t seen that before. The blade was long, serrated, and curved.

  He came at her blade-first, so Ember sidestepped and allowed his momentum to carry him past.

  She swatted his arm to deflect the blade down and then grabbed his wrist and tugged him forward. He couldn’t stop himself, so he staggered along, putting ten feet between him and Ember.

  With the guy now behind her, she ran straight at the other one. Buzzcut lowered his center of gravity and spread his arms wide. He was inviting her to go for his midsection, which she knew was a trap.

  She reared back to punch with her right, telegraphing at his jaw. He pulled back the opposing side of his body to dodge.

  So, Ember changed gears and kicked him in the crotch as hard as she could. It worked last time, and it also worked tonight. In Ember's experience, men really didn't like being kicked in the nuggets.

  He hadn't seen it coming. Buzzcut staggered back, hands over his stomach. His face immediately drained of color, and he gasped in a wheezing breath.

  The air changed behind her. Ember whirled around to find Facial Scar running with the blade high. She pivoted away from his blade hand, so he launched the fist of his free hand instead.

  She didn’t have time to dodge his alternate attack. Knuckles smacked into her neck. Her windpipe closed up. She felt like she was choking.

  Couldn’t breathe.

  But, Facial Scar was shifting toward her and changing the position of his blade to stab low. Ember, head pounding, unable to draw a breath, spun and smacked him in the face with the back of her hand.

  His body turned, and she grabbed the back of his head and pushed him toward the other guy, still holding his stomach. These punks were too strong and lithe for her to take them on one at a time. She needed them together.

  They collided and fell to the ground. Ember heaved a breath and was finally able to pull in oxygen. Stars dotted the corners of her vision, but with a clear breath, she could move again.

  The knife man was still on top, and the blade hung limply in his hand. Ember hopped over to them, hovering above. They were entangled, struggling to free their limbs from each other.

  She grabbed Facial Scar's wrist and bent it back, forcing him to stab himself in the stomach. He howled, and Buzzcut scooted out from underneath him.

  He kept scooting until he was a few feet away, staring in horror at his colleague, now with a circle of red over his stomach. Facial Scar wriggled and moaned, his hands on the blade. But, he seemed to lack the strength to pluck it from his side.

  Finally, she had a second to think and compose herself, And, since these dunces thought it should be a knife fight, it was time to show them her own toy.

  She drew the knife from the sheath tucked just inside her pants pocket and dug her thumb into the slight groove on the blade's backside to reveal the folding knife, then flicked it open until it clicked into place. It wasn't the best fighting knife — for that, she preferred a military-style full-tang blade — but it was sharp and subtle, and it got the job done.

  She held the blade up to make sure the remaining threat could see it.

  "I'll give you a choice," she said to Buzzcut, who was still staring in horror at his friend. "You can carry your friend to your car and get him to a hospital, or I can slit your throat, and then I'll stand here while he bleeds out. You guys started this. Either way is fine with me."

  Buzzcut scrambled a few feet back, holding his hands out in front of him. “You’re crazy.”

  She hoisted her blade. “That’s not an answer.”

  He dropped back down to help his friend to his feet. Buzzcut had to almost carry him, while Facial Scar cradled the blade sticking out of his stomach. Together, they limped out of the alley, with Ember keeping a safe distance until they were both in their car and speeding out of the lot. A trail of blood droplets marked their passage.

  Ember massaged her aching throat and put her knife back in its sheath as she returned to the front lot. She noted the blood lining the grooves of her palms as she gazed up at the second-floor walkway.

  There she saw her hot neighbor, Layne Parrish, in a black hoodie and green fleece pajama pants, sipping a mug of something steaming in the night air. He gave her a nod and then headed back into his condo.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  LYDIA

  Day Six

  Lydia waited until her husband left to take their son to daycare before she approached the house. She was supposed to be in Utah on a real estate trip, at least until tonight.

  Once he had turned the corner, she drove up to the house and parked in the drive
way. The journey to daycare and back usually took twenty minutes, so she knew she had to hurry. He could be chatty with the daycare moms sometimes, but others, he came straight back. Lydia would have to abide by the quickest estimate. She had twenty minutes in the house, and not a second more.

  She had already visited the downtown apartment before dawn, and she would need to revisit that later. Maybe this afternoon, if she had time. There was one significant liability still in that apartment.

  Lydia needed three items from the house: the locket her mother had given her, a particular drawing her son had made, and a canister she kept in her office.

  Also, she intended to leave her wedding ring in a drawer there. That was more precautionary than anything else. In about ten hours, she would meet with Vincent Belcamino and his crew. Out of respect for him, she had promised to come alone, but she knew Vince wouldn't do the same. She didn't expect to die tonight, but she also couldn't predict the future when it came to powerful people like him.

  The canister was her safeguard — Not only in case this meeting went wrong, but also in case Ember Clarke happened to interfere in some way. Ember couldn’t have known about this meeting, but there was always the chance that she and Lydia would come into contact elsewhere, and she needed to be prepared.

  Lydia had one more day to kill her, and she intended to do it. Tomorrow. After this Belcamino arrangement was in the books, everything would open up. A whole new world of opportunity and leverage.

  Especially since she hoped to make Ember's death a part of her deal with the Belcaminos. A last-minute addition, but she thought they would accept it.

  Ember had easily dispatched her two employees last night at her condo. One of them had almost died en route to the hospital, those ineffective idiots. Lydia could clearly see sending one or even two guys after her target was not a feasible solution.

  She didn’t have an army, but Vincent Belcamino did.

  Tonight she needed to seal the deal, then get Belcamino to send a dozen guys to Ember’s condo at three in the morning. Maybe twelve was overkill, but it would get the job done. There was no sense in taking chances.

  Ember would die. It was as simple as that.

  Would involving organized crime in a Club matter jeopardize Lydia’s standing in her Branch? Possibly — likely, even.

  But it didn't matter. After she inked the lucrative deal tonight, it wouldn't matter. Killing Ember would be Lydia's swan song with the Denver Assassins Club — she'd leave on a successful contract completion and with plenty of money via this new income stream.

  She opened the front door and took a right toward her office. When she saw the foreign object, she stopped short.

  She sucked in a breath, feeling her legs go weak. Ink scribbled on the back of a business card.

  No.

  How had she done it? How had Ember gotten in here?

  Lydia immediately knew what she was looking at. One of her own business cards, sitting face-up on her desk. The name Ember Clarke was written on one side of it, along with a phone number.

  An innocuous white card, sitting all alone on the desk.

  Ember had been here. In her own home.

  She felt violated, suddenly terrified for her family.

  Lydia had to spread her feet apart and force small, steady breaths, just to keep the rage from taking her to the ground. Her teeth gnashed, and her skin spiked with heat. A few deep breaths to calm her racing heart didn't work.

  Tickles ran down her spine. Was there anything Ember Clarke wouldn’t do in pursuit of her goals?

  Lydia grabbed the card in one hand and her phone in the other and was about to call the number listed on it when she paused.

  Not yet.

  She didn’t have a plan yet, but there was also no immediate rush. This needed more consideration. Maybe she wasn’t thinking clearly at the moment.

  Lydia fixed her jaw and dropped her phone back into her purse. Provoking a reaction was exactly what Ember had wanted. Had she broken into the house and left this card to prove she could get to Lydia anytime she wanted? Or, was she waiting nearby, hoping Lydia would call to tip Ember off to the fact that she was at home?

  No, more likely, this was meant as a specific kind of message. That she had met Lydia’s family — that this trained assassin had come over when her husband was home; perhaps even their son. The fact that the card had been left out where either of them might see it proved the point.

  She’s upping the ante, Lydia thought. She’s making this personal.

  Lydia felt her jaw tightening again. “You asshole. You devious asshole.”

  She looked down at her hand and saw she had crumpled the card to bits. She dropped this into her purse as a realization came over her. If something did happen to Lydia at the meeting tonight, Ember already knew where she lived. She had seen her family.

  The card sitting here was also evidence that Ember had no scruples about getting in close and harming her family. That she would do whatever it took to get Lydia before Lydia could get her.

  Ember would kill Lydia’s husband and child. She had no doubts about that. Would Ember torture them?

  She had heard stories about the ruthlessness of Ember Clarke. Just last week, she had killed another assassin in cold blood in a national park because she'd wanted to steal his contract. That's what had started this whole trial by combat mess.

  Lydia wandered in a daze out of her office and into the kitchen. A picture of her family sat framed on the kitchen table. The three of them in Baton Rouge, on a boat, all buttoned up in matching green raincoats. Her son had been so little in the picture. His raincoat so long it hung down below his hands—all innocence, with no idea the dangers in the world.

  He was still so young. So unprepared for the nasty and brutish realities of life.

  All the things an amoral contract killer like Ember could do... all the horrible evils that woman could inflict on her family...

  I can’t let her kill my family.

  Ember would torture them. She would make them suffer.

  She would do horrible things to them.

  Lydia could see it all happen: If the meeting tonight went south, one of the Belcaminos would kill Lydia and stuff her in a trunk. Ember wouldn’t know about this, so she would charge into the house, rip her husband and child out of their beds and tie them up. Her husband was a good man, but he was no fighter. Ember could easily subdue him.

  She would beat them, burn them, cut them, demanding answers about where Lydia was. Then, once she didn’t get any answers, she wouldn’t have any reason to leave them alive.

  Lydia could see her son crying, scared, confused, not knowing what to say. Her husband would break down, trying to protect their son, and he would die in the process—an undignified death.

  A terrible death for an innocent man who had nothing to do with any of this.

  That couldn’t happen.

  I won’t let that happen.

  Lydia wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and marched back into her office. She pushed the file cabinet out of the way and accessed the wall safe behind it. A thumbprint made the biometric sensor beep, and then the entire front of the thing drifted open an inch. She’d had it installed after they’d moved in, and she’d explained to her husband that it was a gun safe, for those times she was home alone without him around, for ‘just in case’ reasons. The plan, as she’d told him, was to have some protection if and when she took meetings at the house while she was alone.

  They had both added their fingerprints to the safe, ensuring that both would have access to the weapon inside if it came to that.

  But she’d had never put a gun in it, and she’d paid the kid who’d installed it fifty bucks to reprogram it to remove her husband’s thumbprint so only hers would open it.

  Tears rolling down her cheeks, Lydia carefully removed the cardboard box from the interior of the safe and set it on her desk. There was a smaller box inside, this one looking more like a protective fire safety box. She brush
ed dust off the top, then fished a key out of her purse. She held it there, breathing, feeling lightheaded.

  Am I really doing this?

  She had never expected to use it.

  All of it felt like a dream. Like she was watching someone else do these things.

  The key clicked as it entered the lock.

  The math and timing floated through her head, bouncing around as random numbers until they all fell into place a few moments later.

  The meeting with Vincent Belcamino would happen at about six. It should take no more than an hour. That would put her back at home at 7:00 at the latest, carrying her suitcase and holding fake presents from her fake trip to Utah.

  Lydia studied the object and tried to ease her racing heart with measured inhalations. Tears from her cheeks leaped from her flesh, dripping onto it.

  She looked out to the hallway, listening for movement. Satisfied, she steeled herself and started her task.

  She set the timer on the bomb lying on the desk in front of her to detonate in exactly ten hours. A homemade package from one of her Oxy clients, but one she trusted. One who did reliable work and had never made a dud of a bomb yet. They were always precise.

  7:15 pm.

  If she wasn’t back by then, that meant she would require this failsafe to spare her family, because she’d be dead in the gym of Coleman Elementary.

  Or tossed in the trunk of one of Belcamino’s goons, and then dead soon after. Either way, Lydia had to do this.

  Because then, Ember would never be able to harm her family.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  EMBER

  Ember sipped her coffee as she parked near the apartment complex close to downtown. Her throat pulsed every time she swallowed, leaving a grimace on her face. That jerk with the facial scar had made a lasting impression with his one good punch.

  While Ember knew where Lydia would be this evening, she had hoped to catch the soccer mom before then. It would make sense for Lydia to want to tie up loose ends, like the drawer full of drugs and the handwritten sales notebooks with them.