SOLD TO A KILLER Page 14

  The doors slide open.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Felicity

  I want to be brave, but the truth is fear is stabbing me like a knife. It stabs into my head, causing it to pulse, and into my heart, causing it to beat furiously. It stabs into my arms, causing them to feel heavy, weighed down. It stabs into my finger, causing it to grip the trigger weakly.

  The door slides open and I see sunlight for the first time in days. I imagined I was being held in some evil villain’s lair, the kind of thing you see in a James Bond movie, but when the door opens, I am met with a hallway with flakes of paint chipping away. Off to one side sits disused equipment, half-covered with tarpaulin, and out of the window which sits opposite the elevator, I see a grey car park.

  But I only have half a moment to observe this.

  Ten or so men crowd in the hallway, Mr. Black’s men, all of them holding rifles, all of their sights trained on us. No, not us. Just at Bear. I’m too valuable to them, I realize.

  Bear aims his gun and is about to fire when—bang!

  The room is filled with blinding white light and a ringing so loud it drowns out the sound of the alarm. I cover my ears. I want to sink into the wall and disappear. My ears feel like they’re bleeding. I try to open my eyes but they’re hazy. I can’t see a thing.

  Then the sound of bullets tears through the air and all thoughts of bravery leave me. I throw myself to the floor and cover my head with my hands, squeezing my palms against my ears against the noise. Bang-bang-bang, as bullets pepper the air around me, pinging off metal and smashing into wood and drywall.

  It lasts what seems like forever, but then a firm hand grips me on the shoulder and hauls me to my feet.

  “Open your eyes, girl.”

  Slowly, I open my eyes. Bear looks down at me, his single eye blood-red from the explosion.

  “What the . . . what the hell was that?” I wheeze.

  I look down the hallway as I ask the question. All of Mr. Black’s men are laid out flat, dead. I turn away. I can’t bear to look at them. Smoke drifts up from Bear’s gun.

  “It was a flashbang grenade,” he says.

  “Wait, did you . . .”

  He nods. “Aye.”

  “I didn’t even see it,” I say in disbelief.

  “I’ve been doing this a long time, girl,” he says. “They didn’t see it either. And by the time they knew what was happening . . .”

  “Yeah,” I say weakly. “I see that. I . . . uh . . . you’re a good shot.”

  My head still rings and speaking is difficult.

  Bear nods. “Aye, that I am. Seems this old bear still has some fight in him, eh?” He nudges me gently in the shoulder. “Prop open the door. I need to move these men, keep the doors open.” He tilts his head, listening. “Dammit, there are more up here. Quickly.”

  I hold open the elevator door as it beeps continuously at the obstruction. Bear goes to the closest dead man, grabs him by the arm, and drags him toward me. He drags him all the way to the elevator doors and drops him there. Then he nods at me, and I step from outside the doors. A moment later, the doors try to close, somebody downstairs pressing the button. But they close on the dead man’s torso, blocking it off, beeping over and over.

  “Right,” Bear says. He heaves a sigh and waves a hand at me in a follow-me gesture. “Time to get you out of here.”

  “What about Roma?”

  Bear’s face goes tight. “He’ll catch us up later,” he says.

  I’m about to respond when two men run into the hallway. They both hold the big, chunky rifles of Mr. Black’s men and have the same tough faces, scarred and battered through years of fighting and bloodshed. If I saw one of these men on the street, I’d never dream that anybody could take one of them, let alone both. Bear drops to one knee, aims, and fires twice. Two clean shots take the men right in the head; they drop.

  He stands up and begins jogging toward the end of the hallway. I have no choice but to follow. I keep thinking of Roma. Where is he? I ask myself. Where the hell is he? Bear rounds the corner and I follow. We crash through an old rickety door, squeaking as it’s forced on its hinges, and out into a wide open factory area. The stairs are like the stairs of a fire-escape, metal railings but not contained within walls; I can see the entire factory. Disused equipment sits pressed against the walls and the floor is covered in a layer of dust so thick I spot it from up here.

  Bear jogs down the stairs and I jog after him. I feel as though I am outside of my body, watching myself. Watching this inexperienced woman follow this hardened killer. This kind-hearted killer, but hardened nonetheless. We reach the floor, our footprints marking the dust like snow, and make for the exit.

  Bear lifts his massive leg up, aims, and kicks the double doors. They swing open with a sound like tearing and sunlight attacks my face. It’s so bright after days of the black bag and the cell that I have to cover my eyes and squint through my fingers. Then, slowly, I part my fingers and look up at the stark blue sky. I almost cry at the sight of it. I think: I’m free. That’s immediately followed up with: But there is Roma?

  Bear takes me softly by the arm and leads me to the car park. “Have a pick-up stashed here,” he says. “They thought I was one of them, one of the guards. That’s the mistake Mr. Black made when he hired mercenaries. They’re good in a fight, but they’re not observant. A hitman should be a killer and a detective.”

  I’m shocked by how calm Bear is talking, by how gently he grips my arm. He’s just killed a dozen men. I think of the bloodbath in the hallway and wonder how it’s possible somebody could cause carnage of that magnitude and then speak calmly afterwards.

  He leads me around the corner of a small outhouse—I glance inside and see a broken-down toilet—and to a red pick-up truck. He opens the passenger side door. “Okay, let’s get to it.”

  “But . . . Roma.”

  “I know him well,” Bear says. “If he’s not here by now, it’s because he can’t be.”

  “But—”

  Suddenly, there’s a loud crash followed by the tat-tat-tat of gunfire from the direction of the factory. Without thinking, I jump into the car. Bear jumps in after me, starts it, and pulls away. The tires screech and we reverse into the car park.

  Roma stands at the doors. Beyond him, seen only as a mass of moving heads from where I sit, are around ten men.

  I press my hand against the glass, screaming: “Roma!”

  Roma shakes his head, lifts his weapon, and fires at us. I flinch. The bullet whizzes overhead.

  “It’s a signal,” Bear grunts, putting the car into gear. “It means he wants us to get the hell out of here.”

  Before I can protest, Bear screeches out of the car park.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Felicity

  Three days, I think, standing in front of the mirror of my childhood home.

  It’s the mirror I stood in front of for prom and the mirror I stood in front of before I went off to college. It’s pink-framed with stickers all around it, stickers charting my growth to maturity. First boybands, and then metal bands, and then quotes from books, and then fitness and motivational quotes. I never pealed a single sticker off. I guess some part of me knew that one day I’d return a changed woman and need a reminder of who I was before the change occurred. I think of the innocent, hopeful girl who stood before this mirror so many times. I think of her and I miss her.

  I keep thinking about Roma and the gunshot. Surely it’s possible he could’ve done something and gotten to the car in time? Surely it’s possible he didn’t have to shoot at us? Surely it’s possible he could’ve gotten away with us.

  I adjust the flower on my red dress. My kidnapping has been a public scandal in the time I was away. Dad was bombarded with questions and even some ridiculous accusations, namely that he orchestrated the whole thing to garner some twisted political attention. Now, tonight is his big night, his chance to parade me in front of the press and his colleagues and show that I was
the victim of a horrible kidnapping, not some political scheme. But not just any kidnapping, I remind myself. Dad wants to make it clear that it was a Russian kidnapping. Like it or not, I’m political currency now.

  Dad knocks on the door. “Can I come in?”

  “Yes,” I reply.

  He steps in and looks around my bedroom, exactly how I left it before college. Posters of fitness buffs and DVD covers of my favorite movies cover the walls. My bookshelf, directly next to my bed, is chipped from where I used to absentmindedly claw at it with my nails in my sleep. My prom dress hangs in plastic covering on the back of the door.

  Dad is wearing a tuxedo. He looks old and tired. But that’s what politics does to people. Only his sparkling green eyes are completely untouched by the madness of politics. He glances around the room. “There’s no need for you to come tonight, if you’d rather stay in,” Dad says.

  He means this, I know. He’d be willing to put me first. But in truth, I don’t want to stay in. I’ve been locked in the house for three days and all I can think about is Roma, the gunshot which cut through the air above us. And Bear, the way he dropped me off half a block from Dad’s house and coasted after me as I jogged down the street. When he saw I was safely through the doors, he drove away. God knows where he’s gone. I feel guilty. I didn’t even have a chance to thank him, I was so stunned.

  “I want to come,” I say. “It’ll be fun.”

  I try a smile. Dad doesn’t know about Roma. As far as he knows, I was kidnapped and that was that. I gave the Secret Service the location of the factory, but by the time they got there, it was empty. Mr. Black moves fast.

  “Fun?” Dad tilts his head. “That’s one word for it. If you can call taking a dip with a pack of hungry piranhas fun.”

  I can’t help but giggle. But always, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking of Roma. It’s like my thoughts run on two sets of tracks. One runs in the present, talking and eating and sleeping and jogging on the running machine. The other is constantly, without pause, dedicated to Roma. I wonder what happened after he fired off that shot. Did they kill him? Do they even know that he’s the one who set off that explosion? Did firing the shot give him a decent alibi?

  “You seem distracted,” Dad says. He joins me at the mirror. “I’m so proud of you, Felicity. You know that, don’t you? I can’t say I don’t miss the days when you asked me for advice—and permission, if truth be told—but I’m proud of the woman you’ve become. You’re handling this with grace and poise.”

  “Maybe I’ll remember that when I’m President.” I laugh.

  Dad nods seriously. “You better.” He pauses, and then goes on: “When you were gone, I kept thinking about you—about how I raised you, I mean. I kept wondering if I’d done a good job, you know, after your mother . . .”

  “You did a fine job,” I say. “Don’t be silly.”

  “I’m sorry I was away so often.”

  I roll my eyes. “Dad, you’re an ambassador. That’s sort of the point, isn’t it?”

  “Well, if you insist on being technical, yes.”

  “Is it almost time to go?” I ask.

  Dad nods. “Ten minutes. We have a large function room on the first floor, Secret Service coming out of the wazoo, lots of them plainclothes.”

  “Need to keep up appearances,” I say.

  Dad nods again, and then leaves.

  He shuts the door behind him and I turn once again to the mirror. It hasn’t been that long since I set out on my backpacking trip. What—a month? And yet so much has happened in that time I can’t help but wonder if I’m looking at the same woman. The features are there, the eyes and the cheekbones and the lips and the nose and the chin, all the things which make up my face. But I’m sure I see something underneath it, something which wasn’t there before, something dark and hard and gritty.

  It’s Roma, I realize with a shock. I’m seeing Roma.

  I look closer. Yes, he’s there, in my expression. Roma’s hardness, Roma’s capability.

  Please, I think. Please, Roma, don’t be dead.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Roma

  Crates of beer surround me, forming walls around the chair I’m tied to. The truck doesn’t move, but anybody from the outside—maybe we’re parked on a main street, I have no damn clue—will just see a beer truck. And there’s no point in screaming. I know Mr. Black. This truck is soundproofed.

  I shot at her, I think.

  That’s true, and yet what the fuck else was I supposed to do? Mr. Black let his men use his private elevator, the one Bear hadn’t managed to block, and they were swarming after them like flies on shit. Ten of them, all coming, and Felicity was looking at me like she was going to jump out of the car and follow me, like she was going to put herself in danger. I couldn’t let that happen. All the fighting and the bloodshed could not be for nothing. I had to make her leave. I love her. I couldn’t let anything happen to her.

  I’ve been tied here for around two days at a guess. No food. No water. I’ve tried breaking free from my bindings, but I’m stuck fast. Wrists together, ankles together, wrists and ankles tied to the chair, and a taut rope around my chest and my waist for extra security. The bindings dig into my skin, causing the skin around my hands to bleed. I feel it dripping into my palm. Still, it’s only pain. Pain I can take. With Felicity safe, I can take all the pain in the world.

  My only hope now is that she takes this safety and runs far away. Runs and runs to someplace even Mr. Black can’t get at her. I don’t care what happens to me. Kill me, torture me, burn me, bury me—it’s all the same. This is what happens in our game. Bear once told me, when I had just started in the business: “Boy, you get to killin’ long enough, you’re gonna get killed. That’s just the way life works. Everything moves in circles.”

  I didn’t believe him at the time. But like so much he said, it’s true.

  I close my eyes and I think, wonder what could’ve been different, wonder who my parents were, what my last name is. I’ve never wasted much time on that. My parents were probably just crackheads, addicts who couldn’t be bothered with a kid. But now, on what I’m sure is my deathbed—or deathchair—I wonder on it. If it wasn’t for Bear, I would never have known a father. And even he only got to me after a few years on the street, living like a feral amidst the other unseen feral children of the gutter.

  I laugh grimly into the almost-complete darkness, the only light coming from a small orange signal set high in the truck, probably an on light for the coolers.

  It’s been a hell of a run, I think. Now go, Felicity, and be safe and happy.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Felicity

  “I don’t like all these windows,” one of Dad’s Secret Service agents says.

  His name is David Brown and he’s been with Dad for as long as I can remember. I used to think he looked like a superhero, tall and black-haired and muscular with an expression which never looked unsure. But looking at him now, after meeting Roma and Bear and seeing Mr. Black’s men, he looks inconsequential. He looks around the function room, long, wide windows set along the walls. Chandeliers hang from the ceiling and politicians stand in small circles, waiters walking between them holding silver platters of champagne and nibbles. I notice several people looking at me, trying and failing to be discreet.

  Dad speaks through his teeth. “You have the place secured, don’t you?” he snaps, a smile plastered on his face. That’s a politician’s trick I’ll never stop being impressed by, their ability to smile whilst being angry. “We couldn’t exactly hold the party in a dungeon, could we?”

  “Sir.” David nods, taking a step back.

  A stage has been erected at the front, a podium dominating it. I know that I’ll be standing up there later with Dad, being paraded as safe, evidence that he is not scared and certainly not guilty. Any annoyance I felt at being used as political currency dropped away a long time ago. Dad’s been a politician my entire life; it’s all I know.

/>   Dad turns to me, his politician’s smile plastered onto his face. “We should mingle,” he says.

  And so we mingle. Women wearing sparkling dresses which cost more than many apartments compliment me on how well I seem to be taking it. Men in suits tell me I’m brave, a testament to American resilience. I’m approached by a journalist who wants to write my story as a memoir. I politely tell her I’ll think about it and continue circling the groups. I hear Dad’s forced laughter boom throughout the room as he talks to congressmen and women. At some point, I end up at the side of the room, leaning against the wall, sipping my champagne and looking over the faces of everybody.

  I look and look but all I can think about is Roma. Dead? I think in horror. Or alive and still working for Mr. Black? Please, God, don’t let him be dead!