For those who like a little darkness with their light.
An Assignment
Kass
The sound of rain.
Metal scraping.
Fast breathing; accelerated heartbeat…
“It’s empty.” Blix’s voice is cold, and my nerves fly to red-alert.
We’re in a warehouse where dim lighting casts black-and-blue shadows, and the smell of rain grows stronger.
Petrichor, the scent of rain on dry earth.
Lunging forward, I reach inside, frantically feeling around, raking my fingers through layers of what feels like crimped strips of paper. “I don’t understand.” My voice is a cracked whisper. My life is on the line.
“You don’t understand,” he mocks.
“No…”
My shoulders try to shudder, but I take deep breaths, doing everything in my power to stay calm. Fear is a sign of weakness, and weakness is like fine wine to my cruel boss. If I beg, he’ll shut down, and then I’ll be lost.
“Another job compromised. Even more of my money gone.”
Control.
“Last year I made you a million—”
“And you lost it all in one night.”
Calm.
“He betrayed us both.”
“You fell in love with him.”
My stomach roils as I reject that accusation. I’ve only been in love one time in my life, and it wasn’t with some lowlife Miami drug dealer.
“He was a dirty dealer,” I counter. “He made us believe we could trust him. We let him get too close, and he betrayed our trust.”
“You let him get too close.” He hits the you hard. “Now you owe me even more. And you will pay. Make no mistake. Everybody who owes me pays.”
Ice filters through my stomach. He takes a slow step away, turning his back to me. I hold my breath, listening to his heels click on the damp concrete. Raindrops begin a staccato thrumming on the roof. The rhythm grows faster, and the metallic smell of damp asphalt floods my nose. The pungent sting of tobacco cuts it as he lights a cigarette.
A cloud of blue smoke surrounds me. “What am I going to do with you, Kass?”
An ironic smile is in his words, and my throat closes. I’ve never been in the room when it happened, but I’ve heard what Blix does to people who disappoint him. I’ve cowered away from the noise of grown men screaming like girls, and I’ve smelled the noxious mix of vomit and urine as their bodies fight his torture. Certain sounds stay with you forever. The dull snap of Blix’s wire cutters as he removes his victim’s fingertips is one of them.
My response is fast, breathless. “I know where he’s staying. I can take you to him.”
“And how are you going to do that?” Another cold smile. “In your car?”
Vile, evil, villain. The words appear in my mind like flashes on a touch screen. None of them are strong enough. A bead of sweat rolls down the center of my back, and it takes everything in my power to hold still as he steps closer, so close, I feel his warm breath on the tiny hairs at my temple.
I fix my gaze straight ahead, mentally seeing his pale blonde hair, his flat white-blue eyes as I answer. “Call Taz. Tell him to go to Port Everglades. There’s a motel across the street, a Crown Inn.”
He raises his hand, and I wince, bracing for the blow. Instead, I hear the grinding of his thumb over the metal wheel, and a burst of orange fire shoots from his lighter, straight up in front of my eye.
“No
!” I jerk back, whimpering.
It only makes him laugh. “He’d better be there.”
I pray he is, although I know what it will mean when they find him.
“Taz will bring him here, and we’ll have a short lesson on stealing from the boss.” He’s still beside me, exhaling cigarette smoke around my hunched shoulders, evaluating me.
I have to turn this around. Clenching my jaw, I force the knot in my throat to relax. I force my shoulders down. “I don’t need that lesson,” I say in a low, steady voice. “You left me in charge because I’ve never let you down.”
A sharp pinch on my upper arm makes me cry out in pain. “Never is a long time. Running this unit is a man’s job. They steal from you because you’re weak.”
Swallowing, I control my voice. “I am not weak.”
“He’s been slipping an empty box into every shipment for the past six months. I’ve got suppliers all over the Caribbean demanding blood. I’m about to give it to them.”
I still focus straight ahead. I won’t let him see the fear in my eyes. “So you’ll kill Davis. Then what? Send them my head as a peace offering?”
“Not your head…” The tip of a knife blade bites the top of my cheekbone. “But perhaps your blue eyes.”
My will slips, and I shriek. “NO!” My hands fly up, cupping around my face.
He only laughs again. The click of his heels echoes in the large warehouse as he walks away from me. The noise of the rain has quieted. “Apparently, I have to use my own eyes,” he mutters.
“Or eyes you own,” I say still holding my face in my hands.
“They’re worthless, but at least the color is nice.”
I can’t stop shaking. Constant shudders rack my body. I hate being alone with him. I hate when he treats me this way. I hate the power he has over me—the power I gave him when I made that first deal so many years ago, all those years ago when I was desperate and had no other choice. That day I was so low, I hoped this job would kill me. I have so many regrets.
Blix’s buzzing phone distracts him from his game of torture. “Blix.” The voice on the line is unintelligible, but I know it’s Taz, his sergeant at arms, his capo. “Yes… At the warehouse… Bring him here… I have everything I need.”
He finishes the cigarette. Stomping it out, he moves quickly to the back of the warehouse, and I know he’s lost interest in me. I know the way his features are changing, and the dead focus entering his eyes as he prepares to deal with a traitor. He’s detaching from whatever human feeling is left in his black heart.
Drawers and cabinet doors open and close, and he lifts out tools, dropping them each with a sharp Bang! on the metal countertop. I’m not going to die, at least night tonight, but dread still twists my stomach. I know what’s coming when Taz arrives with Davis.
“So you’re back.” My voice is demure, not challenging. “Why?”
When Blix left six months ago, I’d heard he was running from some government job gone wrong, and all I could hope was never to see him again. I was wrong. The worst ones never die.