The Mercenary: Skewed Part 5

Not that I was in a position to kill her right now even if I wanted to.

"Listen to me," I said. "I'm worried about the two dead men over there."

She gave me a look that made me think she was concerned I'd had too big a knock to the head and said, "They're dead."

"I'm aware of that. I mean I'm worried that whoever sent them is going to expect to hear from them sometime soon. If they don't, they're going to know something is wrong and send someone else in after them."

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You think?"

"Yes, I think. Have you searched the bodies? I doubt they'd have anything on them to identify them, but they might have cell phones."

I was taking a risk by mentioning this. Even though she'd taken the gun from me, she hadn't actually searched me yet, and was unaware of the cell phone in my own back pocket. Miraculously, it hadn't fallen from my pocket when I'd tumbled down the stairs. I was supposed to have used it to take a photograph of Verity after I'd killed her-proven to her father she was dead via a picture of her with a bullet hole in her forehead-but obviously that hadn't happened yet. The other two men weren't the only ones who would soon be getting messages questioning what was happening.

"We don't get any coverage down here," she replied.

"So if someone has been trying to get hold of them, they'd know something was off."

Her lips pressed together, her nostrils flaring.

I continued. "What about strange vehicles parked close by? They must have traveled here in something. They wouldn't use a cab, and wouldn't have parked too nearby, so I'd look at least a couple of blocks from here."

"You're just trying to get me out of the house."

"I'm not, I swear."

"So why help me, if you were sent here to kill me anyway?"

"Because if the friends of those guys turn up here, I'm as good as dead as well."

She exhaled a sigh, standing there with her hands on her hips, looking between me and the pile under the dust sheet.

A sudden bell chimed through the house, slightly distant as we were in the cellar. Vee straightened and turned toward the stairs. It rang again, insistent.

"s.h.i.+t," she swore.

"Are you going to get it?"

It rang again, and then again.

"If you are," I continued, "be careful." I flicked my eyes toward the pile of bodies.

"They're hardly likely to ring the bell," she said, and I knew she was talking about whoever might be following up on the location of those two.

"Just be careful."

"Since when do you give a s.h.i.+t about my safety?"

She gave a small growl, and the sound did strange things to my groin, and then she bent and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the roll of tape from the floor and tore off a length with her teeth. With two quick strides, she closed the gap between us, and then she leaned in and slapped it across my mouth. She was so close, the scent of her shower gel washed over me, and the swell of her cleavage was tantalizingly near. If I hadn't had a piece of tape strapped across my mouth, I'd have been able to lean down and lick her.

The doorbell rang again, and she stepped away.

I watched her a.s.s move in her jeans as she turned and hurried up the stairs, shutting the door to the cellar and the following click as she locked the door behind her.

Chapter Eleven.

V.

I didn't like leaving X alone in the cellar.

I'd left the wound in his leg uncovered, and hoped he didn't lose too much blood while I was dealing with my visitor. I didn't want him to lose consciousness again, not only because I wanted answers from him, but also because I found myself enjoying being able to speak with him. I knew I shouldn't trust him, but I liked that I was able to bounce ideas off him, and that he was giving me advice, though I knew I shouldn't trust a word that came out of his mouth.

Strangely, I got a sense of protection from him, as though he actually cared about what happened to me.

Was I crazy?

Yes, I must have been losing my mind. He was a hit man sent here to kill me. The only thing he cared about was seeing my corpse-he'd even admitted it himself. He wasn't only a hit man, he was a sick-as-f.u.c.k hit man.

I'd hoped whoever was at the door would have given up and left by now, but, as I approached, I could see the shape of a man blurred by the textured gla.s.s panel in the door. My car was parked out front, so they must have a.s.sumed I was still in.

I knew the visitor's ident.i.ty from the color of the uniform he wore.

Taking a breath and plastering a smile on my face, I opened the door.

"Deputy Kier," I said. "Dropping in on us again?"

The young deputy didn't even smile. "It's part of my job, Viola. Are you going to let me in?"

I hated that he insisted on using my new name. It didn't feel like it belonged to me at all.

I stepped back from the open door. "Sure."

Glancing down, I noticed a smear of blood on my fingers where I'd grabbed X's stab wound. I shoved the hand into my pocket, my heart pounding. He was bound to ask questions if he noticed the blood.

Heat flooded my cheeks, so to cover my panic, and because I wanted to get my hand under the faucet, I said, "Coffee?"

I mentally kicked myself.

The last thing I wanted to do right now was offer him coffee. I didn't like offering cops coffee at the best of times, but right now I had two dead bodies and an a.s.sa.s.sin tied up in my cellar, and it was setting me on edge. I hoped he'd say no and just leave, but instead he shrugged.

"Why not."

I went into the kitchen and he followed. I tried not to look toward the shut cellar door, but yet my eyes kept being drawn toward it, and my ears strained for any sound that might give the game away. My eyes locked on the set of shelving built into the wall beside the cellar door, and the top shelf where I'd stashed the guns. From where I stood I could see the b.u.t.t of one of the weapons, and my already pounding heart went into overdrive. I'd done my best to clear up the blood, but I knew he'd see the stain if he looked hard enough. To hide my fl.u.s.ter, I put my head down and almost broke into a run to get into the kitchen, hoping he'd follow without noticing.

He did.

"Is Nicolette at school?" he asked, taking a seat at a stool at the breakfast counter, though I hadn't asked him to sit down. He was good-looking, in a clean-cut kind of way that just screamed cop. I didn't miss the way his eyes flicked over my body when he thought I wasn't looking. He might be a law enforcement officer, but that didn't mean he wasn't also a man. I was used to being looked at in such a way, but for some reason it made me more uncomfortable with him than any other guy. I guessed I knew how to deal with other men-I could threaten to cut off their b.a.l.l.s if they p.i.s.sed me off too much-but I could hardly do that with him.

I turned on the faucet and acted as though I was filling up the coffee machine, while I scrubbed the blood off my fingertips.

"Where else would she be, Deputy Kier?"

"You can call me, Leon, Viola. I think we've known each other long enough for you to use my first name now."

"That's okay. I'll stick with Deputy."

I remembered someone had leaked our location, and a cold s.h.i.+ver ran through me.

Was he the one responsible?

Had he been surprised to see me opening the door? Had he called to the house today expecting to find me dead?

I wished I'd paid more attention to the expression on his face when I'd opened the door. Had he been shocked? Reared back a little? Anything? I tried to look back in my mind's eye to rerun the deputy's expression, but I'd been so concerned about everything else, I hadn't focused on it.

We remained silent while the coffee brewed. I poured the hot drink and carried his cup over to him.

"Everything all right, Viola?" he asked, leaning in slightly to look into my face.

I wanted to scream at him to stop calling me that. He knew it wasn't my real name. Even if he couldn't use my old name, I wished he'd stop saying the fake one so often.

Instead, I forced a bright smile. "Yes, I've just been struggling to sleep lately. You know, so much going on in my head. Can't seem to get it to switch off at night, especially 'cause I'm getting to bed late anyway because of the bar job."

"And how's that going? Anyone asking any unusual questions?"

I frowned. "No. Like what?"

"Just things you might not be able to answer."

"Like my nine times table?" I sniped, sarcastic.

His eyebrows lifted. "You know what I mean."

"No. No one has been asking me for anything other than another drink."

I turned away and took a sip of the coffee I'd poured for myself. Considering my late finish at work, and only getting a couple of hours sleep before everything had gone nuts, I needed the caffeine.

"Any news yet on when I'm going to be called to testify?" I asked.

"Won't be long now, I swear. Couple of weeks at the most, might even be less."

"And how's it all going?"

His lips pressed together into a thin line. "You know I can't discuss it with you, Viola."

I nodded. "Of course."

I wanted him to go away, and not only because of the hit man and dead bodies I had hidden down in the cellar. Seeing the deputy brought back memories of home and of the day we'd had to leave to join Witness Protection.

Ironically, I'd been made to do what I had in order to prove my loyalty, but the result had been the exact opposite. Doing what I had had pushed me over the edge. I was determined to make sure that man could never hurt anyone again, and the only way I'd been able to do so was by going to the cops and telling them everything, and promising I would testify against him.

My sister had already hated me, understandably, but I thought the day we'd been taken into Witness Protection cemented her feelings for me. She hadn't seen it coming. A knock came at the door, and I opened it to find a U.S. Marshal standing on the doorstep. He showed me a badge and said his name was Terrance and that we needed to go and pack some stuff in a bag right away. His arrival caught Nickie in the middle of getting ready for a date. She had exams to study for, had her friends, had the guy she'd been crus.h.i.+ng on for the past month finally asking her out, and now she was being made to give up her whole life and just leave.

I'd been better prepared, of course. I'd known it was coming. I couldn't warn her in case she said something to the wrong person, and then we'd both have been whacked. Even as we grabbed our belongings, I'd been waiting for a car to drive past and start shooting. Nicole had been crying and saying she didn't want to leave, and I'd grabbed her and said if she wanted to live, she needed to go with me now. It wasn't as though she could have stayed anyway-she was seventeen and would have no one to take care of her. She'd told me she hated me then, that I ruined everything, and I'd destroyed her life. I couldn't argue with her; I probably had.

All around us, the rest of the street had just carried on like normal. Kids were playing on the sidewalk, someone else was walking their dog. As I ran out of our house and down the steps onto the street, the lady from next door lifted her hand and waved at me, as though it was the most normal thing in the world for us to be running out of the house with bags and two strange men accompanying us. The whole thing felt so surreal.

We'd piled into a van with two U.S. Marshals, and then I noticed a second vehicle behind us with another two Marshals inside. But it wasn't until we started to pull out of the neighborhood where I'd lived my whole life that things really started to sink in. We could never go back. We'd never be able to see any of our old friends, or walk the streets we had when we were kids.

That night, we were taken to a motel. Nicole cried the whole time. I had a gun, one I'd managed to slip into my bag before we'd left. I didn't sleep either that night. I just sat awake, my fingers around the gun, though one of the Marshals found it eventually and took it away I didn't know if someone might have followed us at that point, and we'd be tracked down. A Marshal had been left to watch over us, and I could hear him on the phone to someone, complaining how he was on his own, and saying what did they expect him to do if s.h.i.+t blew up. I tried not to be frightened, but when a big guy like that was scared, I had to admit it worried me.

The next morning, we were taken to the clearinghouse, where we were given our new ident.i.ties. Two weeks later, we were brought to our new home.

I was worried about finally getting the call that I would have to fly back to New York to testify. It made me nervous to think I would be leaving Nickie here by herself, though Deputy Kier said they would be keeping an eye on her and she'd be fine. Mostly, I was nervous about having to sit opposite him in court and spill everything I knew-all the money-laundering, and murders, and robberies. He would go down for a very long time, and I was happy to see that, but that didn't take the nerves away.

"Everything okay, Viola?" Deputy Kier asked, using that d.a.m.n name again.

I plastered a smile across my face once more. "Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"

"As long as you're not having second thoughts," he said and took another sip of his coffee.

I shook my head. "Never. I want to see that son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h locked up for the rest of his life."

Chapter Twelve.

X.