by Sheri Landry
No.
That was why she went to the coffee shop this morning. The files we’re all looking for were there all along. She must have grabbed them when I was out cold.
My eyes prowl across the cold cement floor and back up to Dana. Parting her lips, she looks like she’s trying to find the words, but I blink hard to stifle my own anger. Of course we’re all still lying to each other. I haven’t told her our worst lie of all yet, and I bear most of the blame for our situation.
I’m a heartbeat away from asking her to explain when Logan cuts off my train of thought.
“As for the they part—you are not going to believe this.”
22
Dana
Two fingers on my right hand are starting to tingle, and I flex them to get more blood flowing as I watch Logan tell Michael about my deception.
That’s the thing though: I didn’t see it as deception at the time. I meant to protect them and keep everyone else in this town from ending up like Stan. How was I supposed to know that little old Betty and the ladies could probably have handled themselves? Or that the town had more than proximity holding them together?
And how was I supposed to know Maxwell would be coming here himself to witness my execution?
I didn’t know, because, just like last time, they kept me in the dark. Except this time, I’m alone. Before, I had Jessa. I had her and I lost her.
Logan talks to Michael as their eyes rest on me, and I continue fisting my palm as my fingers warm once again.
Kaley and I are tied differently than Jack, Michael, and Logan. Our arms are secured close to our bodies in front; theirs are spread out wide or back behind them. Kaley is bound, but I could probably get out of her ties if I wanted to. She’s wounded though, so what is she going to do, crawl out of here and down the mountain?
The other two guys from Michael’s team aren’t here, and I wonder if they are still alive. I don’t want any other deaths on my hands.
“Piper.” Logan’s answer catches my attention.
“What? But we haven’t seen her since—” Jack’s voice trails off as Logan nods.
“Since what? Who’s Piper?” I inject myself into their conversation. It’s time they stop keeping things from me. If I’m going to be the only one dying out here today, I want to know what they know.
All three of them look at me, and I furrow my brow while clenching my lips. Michael looks back to Logan, and his shoulders drop a little.
“We call her Piper. We don’t know who she is. It was the name she had on her name tag when we last saw her.” Michael pauses as the other two listen quietly. “She’s—this isn’t good.” His sober expression scares me.
“What kind of a killer wears a name tag?” Of all the things I should probably ask, this one is pretty low on the list, but I’m not sure I want answers to any of the other questions I have.
“It’s not what you think.” Logan takes over the conversation. “It was a setup. About seven years ago, we were working security for a senator who had gotten some threats on his life. We were to accompany him from a meeting back to his home state. They ambushed us in a coffee shop. She was dressed as a waitress. It was a random stop, and there she was, serving us roofied coffee.”
Logan struggles through his story. No doubt it isn’t one of his team’s finer moments, and the same anger he had when he saw that woman in the cabin comes back as he continues, “She shot him in front of us right there in the restaurant, took something out of his pocket, and walked out like nothing happened. She hasn’t been seen since, and we were never able to ID her.”
I suddenly feel sick. Is that what’s going to happen to me? I don’t want Kaley to live with this. That highly focused woman walked into the cabin like she had one purpose and all the confidence in the world.
They hunted us with skill, patience, and rigor, and one by one my options for walking out of here alive are dwindling away. My limbs turn numb again as I look at their faces, each one matching the next. Regret—maybe remorse. Are they realizing they are about to lose me, too?
The sharp contact of boot heels on cement commands our attention as we look in unison toward the person walking out of the shadows. I can tell by the look on Logan’s face that the one they call Piper is walking silently toward us, her face indifferent. It is the same woman Logan recognized instantly at the cabin.
She isn’t smug or afraid; there is no smile or frown. Her quiet confidence is unsettling. She carries herself with the credence of someone who is sure of themselves and their strength, and the men are silent.
I try to look past her, to see if anyone is with her, but the shadows make it difficult to tell.
Logan speaks first, drawing her attention to him. “Where are Grey and Charlie?”
“Your friends are alive. They are being held in another area close by, to keep you from attempting anything. They’ll be released to you—shortly.” She stops short of saying after they kill me.
“Why this contract?” Logan speaks up again, and she doesn’t answer right away so he continues, “Is that your thing? Taking out people who don’t deserve it?”
Her face twitches at his implication. “I do remember you, you know.” She speaks without emotion. “Do you really think the senator, that family man”—disdain coats those words—“didn’t deserve exactly what happened to him?”
“He was on his way home from meeting with a series of charities to benefit at-risk youth in remote areas. He had a daughter.” Logan’s tone tells me it haunts him still.
The flash of a smirk crosses her lips before her face becomes unreadable once more. She takes a deep breath. “We have access to different information than you do.” She doesn’t explain herself further, and Logan sneers at her, unaccepting of her reasoning for killing the person he was protecting.
“You know there is a fourth.” Michael speaks up, and her head turns to meet his eyes. She doesn’t speak, so he keeps talking, “The contract had four takers. Two are dead—and there’s you. There is one more out there.”
I think I see what he’s doing. He’s trying to distract her so she’ll go tell her team, and maybe we can make an escape. At least, that’s what I hope he’s doing.
“He’s been neutralized,” she answers apathetically, and Michael loses a bit of composure at her response.
Inevitability settles into my bones. These are the final moments of my life.
“Please. Can you take her away? I don’t want her to—” Choking on my words, I tilt my head toward Kaley. I don’t want her to watch me die. My lip trembles; I can’t help it. My limbs are stiff, and my eyes well with the start of my tears. I can’t keep them from rolling out of my lids and down my cheeks.
As Piper’s eyes settle on mine, her face softens before her hand goes to her ear and she pauses. She must have an earpiece in. Her attention turns back to me.
“I can’t move her. It isn’t safe. My buyer is almost here.” Reaching around behind her, she pulls a gun from behind her back and points it lazily at the floor.
“Please. Let them go. Take them out a different door. Maxwell will kill all of them. Just kill me now and get it over with.” Again her face changes as I plead, and I look back to Michael and the guys, who are all staring quietly at me. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper to them as more tears roll over my cheeks.
When Maxwell walks in here and sees them, he’ll kill them all, but not before he makes them watch as he kills me—slowly, because he never got to torture Jessa for defying him.
I lock eyes with Michael as he swallows a hard lump in his throat. What do you say when you know it’s the end? I feel like I should know this and I’m forgetting something. No matter how much time we get, it will always feel like not enough, and I won’t get another chance. What should I say?
“My contract is specific. I’m waiting for my buyer.” Tilting her head toward Michael, she continues, “They will not be harmed.” The confidence behind her words is not warranted. I know Maxwell. He’ll stay behind and kil
l them himself if he has to.
A door creaks open and the room around me dims. I thought I heard birds flying around in the rafters before, but the sound of my heartbeat is the only thing filling my ears. I don’t even feel cold anymore.
The footsteps stalk closer, and I watch the features on Maxwell’s face slowly come into the light. A sick pain hits my stomach as he zeroes in on the men before turning his attention to the woman holding the gun.
“You!” I’ve rarely seen Maxwell look surprised, but he pauses for a second as he assesses the assassin. He closes some of the distance between them, stopping ten feet away from her. “It’s been a long time. I can’t believe this is how we’re reuniting.” He takes in her face for almost a minute before returning to the room.
Whatever their history, only one of them looks surprised. Piper keeps her expression tight, allowing only a touch of recognition to escape.
“It was important I be the one who completes this contract,” she answers solemnly. She turns her head toward all of us secured on the floor before a sound catches her attention.
“What’s that?” Maxwell takes half a step back, looking toward the ceiling.
A rhythmic thudding of blades slicing through the air registers in the distance outside.
“That’s my ride,” she answers, without taking her eyes off us.
Maxwell relaxes. “Are there any others?”
“Everyone else is dead. Casualties.” She shrugs. Her response is clipped, but it seems to satisfy Maxwell.
I look to the three guys, and all of them are trying to process her information. She told us Grey and Charlie were hidden away and safe.
“Were there any files?”
“No.” Her eyes flash to mine before looking away, and I glance over to Logan. He’s watching her, confused.
I don’t know her reason for lying to him. She has the disk. Is this what she wanted out of this hit all along? Take me out, collect the money, and leave with Zane’s program? At least Maxwell won’t have it, but who will?
Maxwell looks disappointed, but one glance over at Michael and the guys tells me he’ll kill them as a consolation prize.
“They miss you, you know? They still talk about where you are.” Maxwell speaks carefully.
“I’m sure they do.” Her tone is detached.
I follow Maxwell’s stare to Jack. All three of the men are listening intently, confusion etched into their features.
“Oh, forgive my rudeness.” Maxwell feigns pleasantries, but they are short lived, as his face quickly turns into a triumphant sneer. “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to my sister.”
23
Michael
Of everything that could have gone wrong on this mission, this is the one thing I did not see coming.
The smug look on Maxwell’s face as he says sister feels like the figurative nail in all of our coffins—especially Jack and Dana’s.
Logan has gone deadly quiet beside me, and I know why. This same woman who killed the senator we were hired to protect years ago is also the one person Logan has been trying to find for almost fifteen years.
Maxwell’s sister seemed to vanish into thin air overnight. Every road we took to try to find her was a dead end. At times, it felt like we were chasing a ghost, and here she is, within reach, and he is powerless to do anything but glare daggers at her.
The knowledge she once stood only feet away from him in that diner will eat away at Logan—if we make it out of this alive.
“I guess you’re more of an estranged sister. I mean, we haven’t been in the same room now for, what, fourteen years?” Maxwell’s tone is hesitant as he speaks to her, and I glance at Logan out of the corner of my eye. He’s sitting still, taking everything in, committing her to memory.
“Something like that.” She’s measured; her eyes scan all of us.
It’s not lost on me that there’s no familial warmth between these two, no smiles or an embrace after all the time they’ve been apart. Maxwell looks as surprised as us at this reunion. The only one here who doesn’t look shocked is her.
“Bit of a black sheep, this one. Well, I guess, not anymore. You’ve done well for yourself, lamb. Daddy will be proud.” Her eyes flash at his nickname for her, but she composes herself quickly and Maxwell, his eyes on us, doesn’t notice. “This is such a trip. I can’t wait to tell them.”
Maxwell almost looks relieved. His giddy tone is out of place in this dank room, and his eyes keep looking over at her in what I think might be admiration.
So this is Maxwell’s sister. The daughter we all thought had been sent to live with family abroad a long time ago. She was so far off our radar, I don’t recall much about her. Our focus was always on Maxwell and Matteo Sparr, and I scramble to remember any information. I’m sure Logan knows every last detail.
That’s what happens when you obsess over something for so long.
She had one of those names that sounded soft and fragile, but I can’t seem to remember it. I’m sure it’s swirling around in Logan’s head, taunting him as he’s forced to sit here and look at her. A reminder, after all these years, of what he’s lost.
Maxwell falls back into his arrogance as he speaks to his sister. “Your people took my gun away from me outside. After you kill this one, leave me yours and there’s an extra hundred grand in it for you.” His eyes jump gleefully toward the three of us. Dana was right; Maxwell won’t walk out of here until we’re all dead.
“That isn’t in my contract,” she responds impassively. We are only words to her, an agreement on a piece of paper.
“Fine. Whatever. You’ll leave them tied up after, and I’ll retrieve my own gun from outside.”
She doesn’t respond. Instead, her eyes meet mine as they make their way around the room. She doesn’t continue on to Logan, and I wonder if she knows who he is and what she really took from him. I wonder if she knows the real grudge Logan holds against her.
Maxwell takes her silence for agreement and turns to Jack. “I was going to say this is just business, but we both know it isn’t true, Jack. You’ll die last, and you’ll bleed out slowly all over this concrete.” His hatred is palpable.
Jack has gone as silent as Logan. No one dares to move, and I look over to Dana, who is lost in her head. Her eyes are on the ground, focused on a spot beyond her feet. Her face is relaxed; she’s resigned to her fate. Kaley has her lips pinched together. Her face is red, and she is too scared to look up.
I want to say everything and nothing. I can’t make any of this easier. I can’t move. Yelling will only urge Maxwell to draw this out. It’ll show him Dana means more than someone we are failing to protect, and he will use that information to make all of us pay for Jessa’s public humiliation of him last year.
That’s what this is for him.
Revenge.
Because of what Jessa did on a live and very open stream, Maxwell lost face among many in his organization. The only thing keeping him in business was his link to his father. The massacre that is about to happen here will work in his favor. He can claw back some of the respect he feels he is owed among his criminal peers.
“You know, I was ready to move on, put all of this behind me, and I can’t tell you how happy I am now that he financed this hit.” Pacing a few feet, Maxwell glares at Jack for a few moments before walking to him and punching downward into his head. Jack grunts as his body jerks, his restraints holding him tight. “Fuck, that felt good.”
Jack kicks his legs up, and I reach one of mine over to force some distance between them.
“Enough.” It’s the first sign of anything close to emotion I’ve seen from the woman. Her eyes stay locked on Maxwell. “If you didn’t push the hit, who did?” Her eyebrows pinch together.
“It was Pa.” There’s a silence and a shift in the woman’s stance. She seems to straighten, her eyes scanning the room in thought.
“And he sent you to see it through? His only—son?” I hear the underlying question.
&nb
sp; Something has changed.
If the hit didn’t come from Maxwell, our intel is wrong. Our job remains the same, but how we operate may have to change.
We assumed Maxwell hired the contract killers for revenge, but he didn’t place the hit at all.
If Matteo Sparr is the buyer, why would he risk exposing his only son like this? The only answer sinking into the pit of my stomach is: there is something Matteo needs, and it is worth using his son as bait.
My mind jumps to Jessa. Could there be any chance Matteo knows she is still alive? Maxwell has no idea. If he knew she was still breathing, he would have gone straight for her; he would have made direct threats toward her. But Matteo? Maybe he knows Jessa isn’t dead and is using this whole hit as a ruse to get her to step out of hiding.
I catch the serious look on “Piper’s” face as she lifts her hand to her head before dropping it quickly. I noticed an earpiece earlier. Chatter must be picking up, and something is going to happen soon. A sick feeling flows into my bloodstream.
My mind goes to Grey and Charlie, and I close my eyes in a prayer for them. Not knowing what happened to them is worse than knowing, and I hope they were together. I hope they didn’t suffer if they are no longer here.
Then memories of my dad hit me. I remember the day I was told my father had been murdered in the line of duty. When we don’t have all the information about an event, our brains have this way of filling in the blanks for us, and my version of how everything must have played out still haunts me.
My own death will be the same way. No one outside of this room will know of our final moments, and the thought is an isolating one. This must have been what Dana felt for the past year. Thinking her only friend was gone and picking up the pieces all by herself.
I want to tell her Jessa is alive and she isn’t alone, but I can’t. Maxwell can never know. He’d use the full extent of his father’s organization to find her, and Dana would never forgive me.
