Hit List (Maggie Black Book 2)

by McSporran, Jack

Maggie strode over to him and pressed the needles against the region south of his belt. “And what do you think I’ll do if you don’t tell me?”

  “Okay, okay. They left a few days ago.” Samuel squirmed, sweat beading across his head and top lip.

  Maggie rolled her eyes. Men and their penises. “And went where?”

  “Back to Ferentari. In Bucharest.” Samuel rhymed off an address that Maggie stored in the back of her mind.

  “You’re sure?” The Romanian capital seemed too obvious a hideout given their recent exploits. It would make more sense to avoid their home turf given they were taking on an entire government. Then again, it said something about the syndicate’s cockiness and gall to remain. Plus, the home side always had the advantage in any game.

  “Yes,” Samuel said, speaking freely now to avoid an unfortunate mishap with the needle. “I had to arrange collection of my last batch of girls and get them through the border myself.”

  “What? They didn’t offer a delivery service?” The way Samuel and his ilk spoke of other human beings like they were items, like he had simply ordered some pizzas, made Maggie’s skin crawl. She had to work hard to keep her face impartial. It was the language Celine used, too. A way for traffickers and pimps to detach themselves from those they exploited.

  “Not then. Ivan had just been arrested, and they were lying low.”

  They certainly weren’t lying low these days. Far from it.

  Maggie stepped back and took her needles with her. “See, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

  Free from the threat of skewering, her captive regained some of his balls and spat out at her. Luckily for him, he missed.

  “You are a real bitch, Celine Delacroix.”

  “And don’t you forget it, Mr. Thomas,” Maggie replied over her shoulder, making a show of removing her gloves. “If you so much as bleat a word to Dalca’s operation about our little chat, I will come back and take great pleasure feeding you your own cock, after I castrate you.”

  That sobered him again, and his shoulders drooped as his short-lived bravado died away. “I won’t say a word.”

  “There’s a good boy.”

  Maggie waved Ashton to follow her like he was one of her goons and they made for the exit.

  “Wait!” Samuel called.

  Maggie stopped and turned on her heel. “Hmm?”

  His face was pale. “Aren’t you going to let me go?”

  She smiled at him, sweet as treacle. “I’ll make sure your security knows where to find you.”

  In a few more hours, of course. In the meantime, Maggie had a plane to catch.

  Chapter 18

  Essex, England

  14 July

  Secret Agent Janice Harris hung up the phone as the call went to voicemail. Again.

  She redialed. “Come on, Paul, pick up. Pick up.”

  No answer.

  “Shit.” Janice tapped the side of her phone with her fingers. “Could you hurry, please? It’s an emergency.”

  “I’m going as fast as I can, love,” the taxi driver quipped, taking a left turn as Janice had done countless times on her commute, eager to get home after a trying mission or enduring long hours in meetings at HQ.

  The Director General had been good about keeping Janice close to home after she told her about Paul needing to go out of town quite a bit for his new job. Janice had been so relieved and enjoyed the opportunity to get home most nights so she could tuck the kids into bed before going back out. After years of being away from them for days, sometimes weeks at a time, it was a blessing to be able to spend some much-needed quality time with her children.

  Now it felt like a curse.

  Her phone buzzed, and she answered immediately with tremoring hands. “Paul?”

  “You’ve been compromised,” Grace Helmsley said, to the point as always.

  Janice checked over her shoulder for the hundredth time to ensure no cars followed her. “I know. I managed to get out.”

  The job had been straightforward enough. Surveillance took time and patience, but it was paying off, and Janice had garnered enough intelligence to systematically take out key players from the gang in London’s East End. Run by the notorious Frank Fletcher, the gang laundered their cash through a private security firm. When the receptionist job came up, the Unit had jumped at the chance to plant one of their own inside Fletcher’s camp, a move that proved to be lucrative in getting some heavy hitters off the streets. Until now.

  “Come in,” Helmsley said. “We’ll ensure no one can reach you.”

  Janice itched to hang up on her boss. Paul might try to call back, and she must warn him. She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to remain calm. She should never have taken on a case so close to home.

  When news broke in the office about Jim Hunter and the list of agent names being exposed, Janice had asked Paul to fly back from his business trip in Abu Dhabi without delay. He knew she worked with the government, and though she wasn’t able to tell him the specifics about her job, she’d made sure to emphasize that it came with an element of danger. Too much information, really, but when Paul had proposed all those years ago, Janice wanted to make sure he knew what he was getting into.

  But Paul never asked for this. Neither did the kids.

  “Okay,” Janice said, resigning herself to uprooting her family and going into hiding until things blew over. Their safety was paramount. “I have to get Paul and the kids first, then we’ll all come in.”

  Helmsley’s voice sharpened. “Agent, report to headquarters immediately. I’m sending a team to collect your family.”

  “I’m almost there,” Janice said, the driver now only three streets from her house. She checked her watch. The kids would be home from gymnastics by now, likely sitting with Paul on the couch watching cartoons before dinner.

  “Janice, listen to me,” Helmsley said, deadly calm. “It’s too dangerous. Stay away from your house. That’s an order.”

  Janice shook her head. She had to see for herself. Had to be the one to get them to safety. She didn’t trust anyone else. Especially now, after Brice Bishop’s massive betrayal. For all Janice knew, the leak of the list was an inside job.

  The taxi took the last turn, and Janice instructed the driver to park a few houses away as a precaution. Nothing appeared untoward from the outside.

  “I’ve got to go.” Janice tossed some folded bills to the driver, not caring what she gave him, and got out the car. “We’ll be at HQ as soon as we can.”

  “Agent Harris. Janice!”

  Janice hung up, the first time she’d ever defied Grace Helmsley, a woman she respected and had looked up to her entire career.

  Skipping the front door entirely, Janice slipped down the back of her next-door neighbor’s house and crept into the garden, using the fence to shield her from being spotted by any lookouts to the back of the property. The kids weren’t playing outside, but that wasn’t odd. Trying to get them out for fresh air was always a battle, both too preoccupied with their tablets to bother looking up from their screens most of the time.

  The chirping of birds enjoying the extended hours of daylight sang through the air, high-spirited laughter coming from the park across the way from children happy to be free from the shackles of school. The light breeze carried with it the scent of burning coal as people made the most of the change in weather, knowing it was on borrowed time, and fired up barbeques, which were lucky to be used more than a couple of times a year.

  Normal. From the outside, at least.

  When she was certain no one was watching, Janice easily scaled the fence into her own garden and landed on the soft grass. Keeping low, she pulled out the gun from her handbag and abandoned the rest by the back door. She could come back for it once she made sure the coast was clear.

  The twin doors leading into the kitchen were glass and Janice risked a peek inside. No sign of trouble. She pried open the door, glad she’d oiled the hinges not too long ago. The back door slid open in si
lence and Janice slipped out of her shoes, tiptoeing inside and closing the door behind her.

  The house was quiet.

  With two kids under the age of ten, it wasn’t a common phenomenon in the Harris household. The washing machine churned in the corner, meaning someone had been there to put it on. Less than thirty minutes ago, given the timer setting.

  Had they left? In her panic, she hadn’t noticed Paul’s car, too busy scanning for suspicious-looking vehicles or unknown faces pacing the street. A stupid slight on her part.

  Janice had found herself in countless predicaments and dangerous scenarios, able to keep a steady head. It was what she was trained for. All of that flew out the window when said danger involved the ones she loved most.

  The pounding of her heart rattled her chest, like it could break through her rib cage at any moment, the beats thundering in her ears and disrupting her attention. If anything happened to them, it would be all her fault. Why hadn’t she left as Maggie had? Gotten out when she first discovered she was pregnant with Emily? Why hadn’t she just gotten a desk job somewhere?

  Janice pressed her back against the wall and moved into the hallway. No voices, no racket from the television. The kids’ jackets were hung on the pegs by the front door, but that didn’t mean much. It wasn’t raining today, so there was no need for heavy coats. She’d laid out shorts and T-shirts for them before rushing out the door that morning for her shift at the security firm.

  “Paul?” Janice called, unable to stand it any longer. “Honey, are you there?”

  No answer. Her legs threatened to buckle as real, unfiltered fear coursed through her.

  “Emily? Justin?”

  Nothing. Had they gone out? Maybe for a drive or to get some ice cream? If Paul was driving, he couldn’t answer the phone.

  “Paul?”

  Gun at the ready, Janice moved down the hall in stocking feet and nudged open the door to the living room with the barrel of her gun.

  It inched open, and her heart sank to the pit of her stomach as her entire world stared back at her from the center of the room. Paul and the kids were bound to chairs dragged in from the dining room, their eyes wide as soon as they spotted her.

  Janice ran toward them, instinct taking over as her worst nightmare played out before her. She got to her knees and fumbled with the zip ties locking her boy and girl to the chairs, their little wrists red from how tight they’d been secured. Paul was screaming something to her, but the thick tape over his mouth blocked the words.

  Before she could decipher them, Janice felt the presence of someone behind her, her usual keen senses picking up amid her collision of shock and fear that crashed through her mind like waves in a raging storm.

  Something switched in her brain then. The fear on her family’s faces. The blood trickling down Paul’s temple from where he’d put up a fight. Someone had hurt her family. Entered their home and violated them in the one place they should feel safe. A familiar sensation overthrew all other emotion. One the Unit had cultivated in her and turned into a weapon.

  Rage.

  Janice spun on her right knee and swiped her left leg across the carpet, catching the intruder off guard, sending him to the floor with her. Without even thinking, she fired her gun and sent a bullet into the side of the man’s head before she even registered his face.

  “That’s quite enough of that, Kerry. Or should I say, Janice.”

  Janice looked up from the dead body beside her, his blood spattered across the cream-colored carpet. The children wailed innocent tears behind her, and she longed to wrap her arms around them and promise them everything was going to be okay. She didn’t dare move.

  Frank Fletcher had his own gun trained on her; a man and woman stood at his sides. Janice recognized them from the security firm, along with the man she’d just taken out. They were killers—Frank’s crew he dispatched when things turned sour between him and his business partners, or when his verbal threats weren’t enough, and someone needed roughing up or removal from the picture entirely.

  “Drop the gun,” Frank ordered, his hoarse voice carrying over the whimpers of the kids and Paul’s futile attempts to free himself from his chair.

  With three guns aimed at her, Janice did as she was told. If they fired, one of them might miss and hit the kids.

  “Don’t harm them,” she begged Frank. “Please. This is between you and me. They have nothing to do with this.”

  She got to her feet, holding her arms up to show she had no intention of fighting. He had her, and she would follow his orders to the letter if it meant saving her family. Or until an opportunity arose to take the three of them out.

  “You should have thought of that before you crawled into my life and fucked things up for me,” Frank spat in his cockney accent. He wasn’t known for his mercy or forgiveness. You didn’t mess with a man like Frank Fletcher and get away without being made an example of.

  “I admit, I’ve helped get some of your people arrested, but you’re safe,” Janice insisted, slowly creating as much distance from Paul and the kids as she could in an attempt to lower their risk of becoming collateral damage to any punishment Frank chose to inflict on her. “You know how careful you are. How everything is set up, so it won’t lead back to you. I have nothing on you,” she lied. “I was to do what I could about those on your payroll and then get out. They’re giving up on trying to pin anything on you.”

  Frank growled. “Lies.”

  “You’re eating up too many resources without enough results. It’s not a good look for my employers.” Janice analyzed the room, searching for anything she could use to her advantage. A makeshift weapon. Something she could use as a barricade to block bullets while she charged at the gangster and his cohorts. But there was nothing. Nothing close enough she could reach without taking a bullet first.

  Frank glared at her, though he remained calm for a man who just found out he was being spied on by the government from the inside. He’d been monitored for months now so they could finally remove him from the picture and ruin the criminal empire he’d established in his corner of the city.

  Janice knew more about him than she was letting on. She’d seen the pictures of the bodies found in the Thames. The pieces of those who’d dared betray him, found in the forest by a dog walker. People who went after Frank didn’t live to tell the tale once they were found out.

  “Please,” Janice said, tears falling down her cheeks now. “Take me away to do what you will. Just let my family go. Don’t make them watch this.”

  The kids would never recover from what they were about to see. They’d witnessed enough already. Paul looked at her with glossed eyes, defeat shining through as he understood her meaning.

  Janice wasn’t walking away from this. Frank wouldn’t allow it. Couldn’t. She would be yet another example, a cautionary tale to anyone who thought twice about going after him. Not even the government could take him down.

  Little did he know Janice had sent enough intel to put him away for life, but she omitted that detail. As pleasing as it would be to wipe that smug look off his hard, brutal face, his wrath would be worse.

  Besides, he’d find out soon enough. A little pang of regret stirred in her at the thought of not being there to see it. She turned to her dear children and loving husband. She wouldn’t be there to see a lot of things.

  “I won’t make them watch,” Frank said.

  “Thank you,” Janice said, relief flooding through her. As long as her family was safe, she could handle the rest. As long as they weren’t hurt for her actions. As long as they lived.

  Frank raised his gun, along with his two colleagues, and each of them aimed to fire.

  “No!” Janice screamed, moving too slow to do anything.

  The shots tore through the air and embedded themselves into her family with sickening proficiency.

  Janice fell to the floor by the chairs, covered in blood. Her entire world, gone in an instant.

  Frank Fletcher crossed t
he room and stood above her. Janice peered up at him with resignation.

  “I told you I wouldn’t make them watch.”

  The last thing Janice heard was the blast from a gun, and everything went black.

  Chapter 19

  Bucharest, Romania

  Janice Harris was dead.

  Leon swore and leaned against the hood of their rental car, ducking his head into his arms. “They wiped out the whole family,” he said, rage shaking his graveled voice, knuckles whitening as he clenched the phone he’d just gotten the news on. “Husband and two kids.”

  “This needs to end.” Maggie knew Janice. Had even been on a couple of missions with her over the years. She was a good agent and was always open to help Maggie in her early days, Janice being almost ten years her senior and vastly more experienced at the time.

  Another agent down. How many more would the Unit lose before it was all over?

  Ashton patted Leon’s back. “Come on, big guy. It’s time to get moving.”

  Leon inhaled a deep breath and straightened up, gathering himself and regaining his composure. He’d always been closer to his colleagues than Maggie had. “Brothers and sisters in arms,” he’d say, an ideal picked up from his days in the army. “Got to stick together and look after each other.” Now that he was the man supposed to oversee their care, the continued deaths, and threat of more to come, was taking its toll.

  Maggie knew Leon well enough to know he was blaming himself for all this. Part of her longed to reach out and comfort him. To wrap her arms around his broad shoulders and promise him everything would be okay.

  But that would be a lie.

  Things were far from okay, and the time for grieving and blaming himself could wait. Right now, they had a job to do, and the sooner they completed their task, the sooner the needless violence and deaths would stop.

  They’d parked on the street when Helmsley rang with the news, already on their way to the address Samuel Thomas had given under duress. Though just over three miles from Bucharest’s city center, Ferentari appeared like another world.