Otherwise Unharmed

  I shook my head and started to correct her, but she shushed me and stroked over my jaw with her fingers. I’d been far too preoccupied to shave, and I could hear the slight scratching sound as her fingertips rubbed against the stubble on my face as she continued.

  “You went overseas to serve in the best way you could. You led people in battle. You were willing to give up your life for someone you didn’t even know. You stayed strong in your heart, no matter what they did to your body, and never gave them any information even though it might have been easier on you if you had.”

  I blinked a couple of times. I hadn’t really thought about those years in any way other than the negative, and I wasn’t sure how to react to her words.

  “You are perceptive,” she continued. “You always know exactly what I want and need. You’re loyal and brave. You have endured so much—far more than any one person should ever have to face—but you kept going.”

  “I didn’t endure it,” I replied. “I cracked. I totally lost it.”

  “Everyone has their breaking point, Evan. That’s not bad; that’s just being human.”

  All I could do was stare at her. I wanted to deny it all—I wasn’t like that—but it was as if she had wormed her way into my head and dug out all the things I once was and held them to herself as truth. I wanted to remind her of what I had become since then—a cold-blooded, merciless killer—but I didn’t.

  I kissed her instead. Again and again I kissed her because I didn’t have any words for what I was feeling.

  *****

  Back in the hotel room Gavino provided for me, I placed the bag on the table and quickly ditched my clothes to get a shower. I didn’t bother to shave though I needed to. I was too anxious to get to my weapon. Once I was done with the shower, I pulled on my jeans, poured myself a scotch on the rocks, and quickly turned my attention back to the Barrett M82.

  Reaching over to the switch, I turned the light on near me so I could see clearly. The light was low, but it was enough for what I needed. I silently pulled back the zipper of the gym bag and pulled out the pieces of the sniper rifle slowly and carefully—nearly with reverence. It was how I felt about the weapon—it had been one of the few constant things in my adult life. Every time I touched another piece of it, I felt like I was becoming more centered.

  With my heart beating a little faster in my chest, I examined each of the pieces, starting with the upper receiver as I removed them from the bag. I checked for any marks that weren’t there before, checked that the springs were still tight, the impact bumpers weren’t twisted, and the barrel was clean. There were a few minor scratches on the scope that weren’t there before, but overall, it looked like everything was all right.

  I continued my inspection over the bolt carrier group, the lower receiver, and the bipod assembly. Once I had completed the appraisal, I pulled out a cloth and a small bottle of oil and started to clean it.

  I went over each and every part—removing powder residue and deposits from the barrel and then lubricating each piece with oil. I caressed the smooth metal, and the touch of it in my hands wasn’t unlike touching Lia in the way my mind calmed and focused on the task. When it was cleaned and oiled to my satisfaction, I began to assemble it.

  There was no way I could have adequately expressed how I felt to have my Barrett in my possession again. I knew it made my fingers tingle to touch it again, and my mind flashed through the many, many times I had fired the weapon. I remembered handing over seven thousand dollars—all the money I had at the time—just to be able to take it with me when I left the Marines and never regretting leaving myself practically penniless in the process. I could have bought one on the street for less—government spending and all—but I wanted that one.

  Though I never really referred to it as a she or anything like that, if my Barrett were a woman, I would definitely fuck her.

  I had to fire it. Just had to. The shooting range wasn’t going to be enough, either. I needed a real, live, soon-to-be-dead target.

  Gavino had given me two assignments over the last few days, and it was time to take care of one of them. I had already completed most of the recon on a particular coke dealer named Henry Martin. He kept coming up short on his payments to Gavino, and his excuses were becoming less and less believable. Gavino wanted to make him an example, and I knew exactly where to find him.

  Henry Martin was into hookers far more than I had ever been. He would go through a half dozen of them in a week, and I knew where he’d been picking them out lately. I also knew of a nice, tall building right down the street with a perfectly unobstructed view of the corner where he would likely pick up a whore.

  I didn’t even have to wait long.

  From the top floor of a high-rise apartment building, I located myself inside an abandoned unit at the far edge and watched Henry’s eighties-style Cadillac pull up to the corner. The position gave me a clear view of the area I was targeting on the other side of the river, and no one would be able to locate which unit I was in even if the shot was heard.

  Without even using the bipod, I held the weapon up against my chest. I closed my eyes for a moment and reveled in the feeling of the Barrett’s stock against my shoulder and my hand on the grip. I opened my eyes again to look down the scope, make a couple of minor adjustments, and wait for Henry to position his car at just the right angle.

  He seemed happy to comply.

  I took a deep breath and slowly let it out through my mouth. As soon as all the air was out of my lungs, I pulled back on the trigger.

  The kickback was welcomed. The scent of the blast entered my nose, and there was no way a hot meal on Christmas Eve ever smelled any better. I didn’t even care so much that the shot was perfect, clean, and precise—it was just having my rifle with me again that mattered.

  As I slid the window closed, I couldn’t hear the screams of the hooker who had been leaning up against the car. I stood slowly, caressed the barrel, and quickly disassembled the rifle to put it back in the bag and make my exit. I went back to the hotel room and cleaned the whole weapon again just because I could.

  Nothing could have completed me more than having my Barrett back.

  Chapter 17—Altered Plans

  “We spend too much time on this cargo,” Rurik was saying to Gavino as we all sat around his office and discussed the plans for the next shipment of human cargo. “We should focus on real money—drugs and caviar.”

  “We must see this through.” Andrey shook his head. “We were cheated with the last batch Jenna picked up, and we must be sure we are not cheated again.”

  “We weren’t cheated,” Jenna muttered. “It’s not like they crossed us on purpose.”

  “You don’t know that,” Gavino growled. “That’s why you need a babysitter this time.”

  “I am not babysitter!” Rurik shouted.

  Andrey responded harshly in Russian, but Rurik was not to be dissuaded.

  “You go, then!” Rurik said to the other Russian. “You go be caretaker for babies, and I will take care of caviar. Micah and I have more important businesses.”

  Andrey glanced at Gavino, who only shrugged. Micah remained uncharacteristically silent.

  “One of you must be there,” he said. “You want to be a bigger part of this organization, then you are going to represent.”

  “It is dangerous,” Andrey remarked.

  “Evan will be there for our safety.”

  Rurik snorted and shook his head. I leaned back in my seat and raised my eyebrows at him as I took out a cigarette, and they all continued to argue over who was going to be where. Ultimately, Rurik talked his way out of the trip, and Andrey was assigned to go in his place.

  He seemed very pleased with what was a very minor victory, I thought. Too pleased. If I gave a rat’s ass about Rurik, I might have paid more attention, but I didn’t.

  I should have.

  The meeting broke up, and I stood to leave. I needed to get all the details to Trent quickly so he would get o
ff my ass about it.

  Jenna brushed up beside me as we were leaving.

  “It looks like we’ll be working together in a couple weeks,” I said.

  I stepped out of Gavino’s office building and into the cool wind as it blew down the street from the lake, signifying the beginning of fall. Jenna had followed me out, which she often did when we had a little group chat with the boss. It usually turned into a heavy make out session, but we hadn’t done anything else.

  It still left me feeling uneasy every time it happened, but I kept telling myself it was part of the job.

  Jenna leaned against me and wrapped her arms around my body to grip my ass and pull me against her. I’d spent six weeks lying low with Lia—moving her around and making sure no one was following us—and avoiding Jenna. It also meant Lia was right there in my sights the whole time, so I could be sure she was safe. Though I’d kept in contact with Gavino and done a few jobs for him, for the most part, we stayed in hiding.

  “Mmm…yes, working together will be nice.” Her mouth found mine, and I did my best to seem receptive.

  Even as I made out with her, my thoughts were focused on the plan that lay ahead of me.

  Gavino was leaving his office with his goons to get their side of everything organized. The plans had been laid out for picking up a shipment of girls from Haiti, and I was supposed to go along as protection for the group. Gavino was going because he was an idiot.

  Well, that wasn’t his reason, but it was still true. No one as high up in an organization like his should be anywhere near those kinds of goods, but he seemed to think it was the only way he could guarantee the cargo was what he wanted. The last shipment came loaded with some contagious disease, and the cargo was practically unsellable.

  It was a sick, twisted business to be in at all, and that was from the point of view of a killer.

  Jenna seemed perfectly fine with the whole thing, which was also fairly disturbing. Maybe spending time with Lia was making me soft or something, but the more I was around Jenna, the less I liked her.

  It’s just part of the job, I reminded myself.

  “When are you going to give this to me?” Jenna hummed against my mouth as her hand found its way to my cock….again.

  “Maybe it’ll be your reward for a job well done,” I responded. I nipped at her lip before I stepped back a bit and smiled at her. “I gotta get prepared.”

  “Prepared?” she asked as she gave me a look of disbelief. “What do you do besides aim and shoot?”

  “It helps to have ammo,” I told her. “I need to go shopping.”

  Ammo shopping was probably the male equivalent of a chick claiming she needed to wash her hair, but it got me out of the situation for the time being. I had enough for the job as it stood, but I was going to stock up anyway. I had the feeling additional ammunition was going to be necessary at some point, and the last thing I needed was to run out. I also had to meet with Trent and couldn’t have Jenna delaying me too long.

  Trent went above and beyond to be a total dickhead.

  “Playing hide-and-seek with your bitch?” he said as he sat down across from me and smirked.

  I leaned against the plush seat in the 676 Bar and tried to keep my cool. Though it was near the window, I made sure I was carefully blocked from street view.

  “Not sure what you mean,” I replied. It was better to sit back and let Trent be an asshole than to let him get to me, though it was difficult a lot of the time. He was a master at pushing my buttons.

  “Well, you moved out of that posh place on Kingsbury to a crappy little shack up north,” Trent said with a smile. “Now you’ve ditched that one for an apartment downtown. Much more convenient.”

  And the paranoia button was pressed most decisively.

  “Keep the fuck away from her,” I growled under my breath. “You keep pushing me like this, Trent, and I don’t give a fuck who you are and who you work for—I will fuck you up.”

  He laughed.

  “You can’t touch me,” he said, “or all the evidence goes straight to the courts. You know I have that set up.”

  I did, too. It didn’t stop me from wanting to put a nice, round hole between his eyes.

  “You go too far and I’ll no longer give a shit.”

  Trent leaned in close.

  “You can’t scare me, Arden,” he said. “I have you by the short and curlies, so cut the shit and give me my information.”

  Every muscle in my body tensed, and I wanted to spring at him and rip out his throat, but I forced myself to loosen up enough to give him what he wanted.

  “The shipment will be here in five days,” I told him, “October nineteenth, right before midnight. Greco will be there and so will Andrey but not Rurik. I’m going along as protection for the shipment. He’s nervous; there’s no doubt about that. Jenna screwed up the last time, and Greco doesn’t want it happening again. Just remember, if you’re busting people, I’m your fucking informant. I don’t expect to be hauled away in cuffs, got it?”

  “That won’t happen,” he said. “You have my word.”

  Like I could trust that.

  “It better not,” I said. “I have some insurance as well, you know. If I go down with this, you aren’t going to live to regret it, capicse?”

  “Since when are you Italian?”

  “Do we have a fucking understanding?” I pressed, ignoring his comment.

  “I already said it wasn’t going to happen,” he snapped back. “Now who’s being pushy?”

  I folded my arms over my chest and stared at him.

  “Where’s the drop off?” he asked.

  “Just north of Roosevelt by the south branch of the river, the power substation, and the railroad tracks.”

  “I know the place,” he said with a nod. “Where will you be?”

  “There’s a building right there in the yard,” I said. “I’ll be on top of it.”

  “Well, that’s nice and close, isn’t it? I take it you’re sniping again.”

  I didn’t see any reason to respond to him, but I did watch him closely. There was something about the way he was sitting and the slight contraction of the muscles around his eyes that told me he was hiding something. Either he was trying to get me to let something slip, or he knew something I didn’t and was thinking about it intently, but I didn’t know which.

  There was definitely something wrong. I felt it during our last in-person meeting as well, but I still couldn’t quite figure out what it was—something about the location or about sniping, maybe. I didn’t get the impression he was lying outright, but he was definitely keeping something from me—something vitally important.

  “Why don’t you just spit it out?” I asked as I continued to stare at him intently.

  His eyes tensed a bit more, and he reached for his drink—a distraction and delay tactic, most certainly. He didn’t respond other than to smile his nasty little smile at me before he got up and left.

  I found myself wondering why his eyes looked so familiar, but shook my head to remove the thought. I’d never met him before—I was sure of that.

  *****

  The day before Jenna’s shipment was to arrive, I moved Lia and Odin to a nice apartment close to the area where the whole thing was going to go down and gave her instructions to keep everything packed up and ready to roll. I had my hopes up that all of this was going to go smoothly, and once Trent had Gavino in custody, I could just grab Lia and get the hell out of town. Once I had her safely away and Trent had turned over the evidence he had on me, I would contact Rinaldo and explain everything.

  Telling Lia exactly what was going on didn’t seem like a great idea to me, so I had told her nothing about the shipment of people destined to go into slavery. Though I expected everything to work out, I didn’t want to get her hopes up. Surprising her by packing up and leaving the city behind us seemed like the better plan. I was getting excited about the prospect of leaving with her and Odin, though, and couldn’t completely hide th
at.

  “You’re in a good mood.”

  I kissed Lia’s cheek and grabbed her ass just for good measure.

  “I like seeing you when I walk in the door,” I told her as I crouched down and rubbed Odin’s head. “You look fucking hot in the kitchen.”

  “Is that mostly because you know I’m making you dinner?”

  “Maybe.” I shrugged and laughed. I wasn’t about to explain how much being able to use my sniper rifle meant to me or how good it felt to have it close by—I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to understand. Instead of explanations, I played fetch with Odin for a few minutes while Lia loaded up plates with steak, green beans, and baked potatoes.

  After dinner, I shoved all the plates aside and pulled Lia to her feet. With one hand, I bent her over the table as I unclasped my belt with the other. Her jeans and panties quickly found their way to the floor right before I entered her.

  I loved to fuck her from behind because it gave me the perfect view of her ass. It was the most beautiful ass I’d ever seen, and I still hadn’t fucked it. I slowed down my thrusts a little as I sucked on my little finger for a moment.

  “Do you know how much I want your ass?” I asked her.

  Lia’s panting breaths were the only answer I received as I started thrusting into her faster.

  “Tell me to stop if you want me to,” I said as I slowly spread her cheeks and rubbed around her backdoor with my finger.

  “Evan…”

  “You want me to stop?” I really, really hoped she didn’t.

  “What are you going to do?” She bit down on her lip as she looked back at me, her eyes cautious. I didn’t want to push her.

  “Just my finger,” I replied. “That’s all. If you don’t like it, I’ll stop.”

  More panting and a quick nod was her reply.

  I slowed my penetrations again and gently eased my finger into her hole. I heard her gasp, and I paused for a moment before going farther, knuckle by knuckle until my finger was all the way in. My hips moved slowly back and forth, and I started matching the rhythm with my hand.

  “You like it?” I asked. I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it.