That saved a wretch like me…
Within a week, Sambo and I were heading to the airport to get on Org’s—my father’s—private jet and soar off to Barbados. I had a new passport with a new name: Cindy Vrez. Not exactly sure why I needed a name change, but I got the feeling Org was trying to hide me, bury me deep where no one would find me, or find out about me.
I didn’t ask questions, though. Because my life, it wasn’t mine anymore. Hadn’t been mine since the night Chad wiped out my parents. Just been bouncing from one form of imprisonment to the next, always owned, never free.
Although, with Chad, I wanted him to own me, I begged him to master me, I loved being beneath him. Unfortunately, despite my craving to be ruled by him, he set me free. Something I never asked for. He never closed the birdcage and melted the key.
Now Sambo was my new owner. Or maybe it was Org. Whatever, I couldn’t give a shit about semantics. I was in someone’s prison, and no matter whose it was, prison was prison.
Sambo slipped his big, thick fingers through mine as we sat in the back of a town car, like we were a contented couple. “You okay, babe?”
I didn’t pull my fingers free of his, but I didn’t reply or gave him my attention either.
He was sick. Seriously sick.
How could he just steal me and expect me to ease into a relationship with him? It’s not even like I was faking shit with him. I’d been pretty straight-up with him about the whole situation, that I wasn’t attracted to him, period, and might never be. Let him know I thought this was imprisonment. And he’d never given any reaction whatsoever. The man was like a bucket of dirt.
What he was expecting out of all this, I had no idea. Didn’t he have an ego or something? Or did my revulsion turn him on? Did he get off on women cringing from his touch? Or did he like the pomp feeling of knowing he had complete ownership of me. Not control, but ownership, granted by my so-called father and my reluctance to beat him senseless and run. Did he not know that if I so desired, I could turn this all around in a snap? That he wasn’t the one in control, but me?
Men. Such fucking idiots.
Soon we were on the tarmac, rolling up to a jet. Usually, whenever I boarded one of these impressive white jets with that familiar gray and red stripe on the side, it’s because I had someone somewhere in the world to go “take care of”, or when I was returning from “taking care of” someone, somewhere in the world.
I idly wondered how many of those babies The Organization owned, seeing as sometimes there were as much as five assignments being carried out at the same time in different parts of the world.
When the car stopped, I removed my fingers from Sambo’s, opened the passenger door, and clambered out. No need waiting on him to get out and open it for me, pretending to be something we weren’t.
The driver got out at the same time and busied himself with our luggage.
Bringing my hand above my eyebrows to shield my eyes from the sun, I looked up at the jet, at its length, its height. Then all of a sudden, I didn’t feel like moving to Barbados anymore. I was a confused wreck. Unstable, with suppressed grief. Grief I needed to let out before it fucked my head to smithereens. No matter where I ran off to, I would never be content. My life was a shitfest. Pointless. And what I really needed right then, more than anything, was death.
A pretty blonde hostess appeared atop the steps leading up to the jet, a trained smile plastered on her face. By now I knew the hostesses on these jets weren’t just hostesses, and the pilots weren’t just pilots. They weren’t assassins, but because they worked within the realm of The Organization, they were all trained in defense, to kill without hesitation if necessary, or to off themselves should it ever appear they’d be compromising The Organization.
At the time when I’d learned all this from an air hostess while heading out on an assignment, I hadn’t known about The Organization. Just The Voice. Now I had a full understanding of it all.
Rounding the vehicle, I headed toward the jet, then up the steps. The hostess’s eyes on me were sharp, assessing. She had curly, honey-blonde hair cropped just above her shoulders, a gold hairpin scooping up one side. The shade of her lipstick, a pinkish-red, was fucking hot, nothing short of a turn-on. I wanted to kiss that lipstick right off her lips then transfer the residue to her pinker lips down below.
She stuck her hand out when I finally got to the top of the steps, and I studied it before I took it, noting that she had long, slim fingers—which I preferred—with square nail beds painted a similar pinkish-red as her lipstick. “Nice to finally meet you, Jhay Byrd. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Her hands were a little too soft, though. Made me wonder how often she’d ever had to grip a gun. “It’s undeniably a pleasure to meet you…”—I dropped my gaze from her distractingly luscious lips to her name tag—”Ayra.”
I slackened the clasping of our hands but didn’t let go, and instead swept my palm up the erogenous soft skin on her inner wrist. When the expected sound of her breath catching hit my ears, I whispered, “And I look forward to learning a lot about you during this flight.”
She tried to utter something, but only a soft sigh came out as I cruised my thumb-pad from her wrist down to the center of her soft palm and drew a few circles.
I felt Sambo come up behind me on the steps but I didn’t stop.
Ayra glanced over my shoulder and cleared her throat. “I’m not sure what you—”
Gripping her wrist, I yanked her in closer to me and whispered against her blushed cheek, closer to her ear, “If you’ve heard all about me as you formerly stated, then you know exactly what I mean.”
Ayra swallowed, and I let her go, allowing my hand to fall to her hip then drift teasingly across her waist before I walked off into the jet.
Tan interior, big, comfy chairs, monitors, fruit salads and champagne, red and gray striped carpeting down the aisle—it was the same as the others.
I opted for a seat closer to the front, hoping Sambo would take a seat far from me to give me some space, instead of the empty seat facing me across the table.
Hearing him lumber down the aisle toward me, I sighed and dipped into my satchel for my e-reader and powered it on.
Sambo sat down in the seat across the table. A minute of nothing, then, “This how you’re always gonna be? Acting like you got no respect for me?”
Tapping on the J.R. Ward e-book I’d started reading the night before, I replied, “Sambo, I’m not acting like I have no respect for you.”
I could practically hear his teeth grinding. “I’ve been extremely patient with you, Jhay. Reasonably tolerable. But if you don’t want to see the bad side of me, the side that’ll fist you in the face then jerk off on the bruise, I suggest you—”
Ayra materialized, her trained smile still in effect.
Setting my e-reader face-down on the table, I gave her my undivided attention.
“Now that you are both settled, we will be taking off in fifteen minutes,” she said flowingly, her eyes avoiding me, looking only at Sambo. “Please know that I am here at your disposal. So if there is anything I can help you with…”—she looked at me here— “anything at all, don’t hesitate to—”
“I need to have a word with the fucking pilot,” Sambo snapped, voice gruff. Flat-out inimical to Ayra because I flirted with her. “Now, bitch.”
Ayra met his stare, and there was a glint of something menacing there in those hazel eyes. Yeah, she was picturing herself beating the shit out of Sambo. Did he not know she wasn’t just a hostess and could probably snap his neck faster than he could stand? Maybe he wasn’t one hundred percent knowledgeable on how The Organization operated. Quite possibly so. Because I’d been assassinating for these people for six years, and knew absolutely nothing about who they were until Chad educated me. So maybe Sambo was partially in the dark, knowing only what they wanted him to know.
Ayra delivered a sly smile, her gaze sliding to me and then back to Sambo. “Sure, sir.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked in an utterly dull tone when Ayra left us, picking up my e-reader once more. “Kick her off the plane?”
“I know you want to fuck her, but it’s not happening,” he gritted out. “Piss me off any further and you’re not gonna like it.”
I rolled my eyes, only half-lending him my attention. “Easy with the threats, Sammy boy. Last I remember, I was the one who had your life in my hands. You should be thanking my deceased lover you’re alive, you worthless shit. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” Taking my eyes off the e-reader, I set the thing down again, then rested my hand atop the table and locked my gaze with his. “And don’t forget who my father is, or the fact that he owns you now because you’re a lazy shit who wants to keep me so you can mooch off him.” I pushed forth a little victory grin at the tightening of his jaw. “You. Can’t. Touch. Me.”
Sambo’s hands fisted on the table, his jaw working, but he had nothing to say, because he knew I was right. Like I said earlier, I might be forced to stay with him, but he wasn’t the one in control. I was.
A throat cleared above us. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
What the…?
I froze.
Sambo froze, the anger sliding off his features as fear took over.
That voice.
That smooth, suave, serene voice.
Holy. Fuck.
How was this even possible?
Sambo watched me as I watched him, neither of us looking up. I didn’t want to look, because I was afraid if I looked up, I would wake up and find this was all a teasing dream. That I didn’t just hear him speak. That he wasn’t really alive. That he really did die. That everyone hadn’t been fucking lying to me.
I didn’t want to look up because I wanted this so much to be real.
Sambo was stronger than I was in that instance, because he broke our frozen gazes and slowly tipped his head up. I watched his Adam’s apple bob weightily in his throat. “The hell’s this, Niiveux?”
A suppressed gun appeared next to Sambo’s temple, and my breathing hitched when I saw the hand holding it.
That hand that was so gentle in its touch. That long index finger on the trigger, how hot and slippery it used to look with my arousal all over it. That thumb, the skilled manner in which it would circle my clitoris…ohmygod I missed that hand.
“You insult me by asking this, Sambo,” my undead lover replied in that beguilingly easy voice of his. “You stole my favorite toy. And now, playtime is over.”
His favorite toy? This made me look up, about to tell him just who was a toy and who wasn’t, but not a word could leave me at the sight of him. He was dressed impeccably like a pilot, full get-up, hat and all. And oh what a hot ass pilot he was. He was fresher than early morning breeze, everything about him exuding sex, power, and control. I wanted to fuck him. Right there. I really wanted to pause this moment with him and Sambo and fuck him standing up.
Time freeze. Please. I needed a goddamn time-freeze remote.
Chad kept his eyes on Sambo, not giving me the courtesy of an acknowledgment.
“B-But Org—” Sambo started to stutter.
“Org has been playing a game,” Chad said, “And I’m playing right back.”
“What?” Sambo looked confused.
“You didn’t know he’s made me his right-hand man? That I now have control of his team, access to some of his power, the ability to find anyone, anywhere in the world?” A humorless laugh left him. “Why do you suppose he did that, Sambo, unless he wanted me to find you, and kill you?”
What the actual fuck?
Sambo looked from Chad to me, me to Chad, as if hoping I’d save him. “But Rafail…Jhay. He’ll kill—”
“My father is subdued and you’re a fucking fool,” Chad said. “A fool to think Rafail would’ve kept his promise and keep Jhay alive. And an even bigger fool to think Org would let you live after you double-crossed him. Org was only giving me the brunt end to make shit difficult for me because I killed the love of his life, Isabel. He’s making me earn the love of my life through pain.”
Fucking Org.
Shoulders slumping forward, Sambo sighed, resigned.
“Now how you die, slowly or quickly, depends entirely upon Ayra,” Chad went on as Ayra emerged from the front. “She literally just begged me for this. And with what she had to put up with from my maddening, bisexual girlfriend over there, I feel I owe your death to her.”
Chad lowered his gun. “But I also wouldn’t feel good if I didn’t do this…” Swifter than any of us could register, Chad seized Sambo’s right arm, twisted it back and up, and—crackkk—a pointy, jagged bone jutted out from the back of Sambo’s elbow. Arm broken.
Ow!
The big sonuvabitch shouted his pain, his face contorted into a venous, ugly mask. “MOTHERFUCKER!!”
“That’s for touching what’s mine,” Chad told him.
“Fuck you!” Sambo cried, trying to gain control of his broken arm and failing completely. It was a gruesome sight.
Ayra pressed her gun to the back of Sambo’s head and ordered, “Up, up, big boy.”
Sambo grunted with an expression on his face that read “bitch, I can take you out with one finger”. But Chad warned, “She has a team of half a dozen armed men waiting outside, Sambo. It’s over.”
At that, Sambo stood up and did as Ayra commanded, escorting him off the jet.
Then it was just us. Me and Chad. Quietness and air.
Removing his pilot’s hat, he tossed it on the seat across the aisle, then sat down where Sambo had just been, resting his gun between us on the table, the muzzle pointing to me.
Minutes passed and all we did was stare at each other. For weeks I thought this man was dead, and here he was, live and in the flesh, sitting right in front of me, hot and sexy and murderous as ever.
“You’re alive,” I whispered, breaking the silence.
His returning tone was cold and unfriendly. “Did you fuck him?”
“No.”
In a flash, the gun was off the table and in his hand, pointed straight at my mouth. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Jhay.”
“It’s not a lie.”
His free hand balled up and thumped down on the table, seeming as if he would go mad just at the thought of “no” not being the truth. “Why are you lying to me? Why? I watched you for a whole week with him. You were content with him. Because you were fucking him.” His hand shook slightly, like he was barely holding it together. “I fucking told you it was me or no one, Jhay.”
“A whole week?” I said, incredulous. “You knew where I was for a whole week and you never tried to save me?”
“You never tried to escape.”
“Because I thought you were dead!” I yelled at the gun pointing at me. “I never fucked him!”
“Because you think I’m dead you just let him take you and own you without a fight?”
“Yes!” I hissed, getting really, really pissed off. “Just like you made me believe you were doing with your father!”
Chad bit his lip, chewed it, chomped it, hand still shaking, eyes on mine. Then slowly, unhurriedly, he set the gun back down on the table. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t risk getting you hurt, and I couldn’t deal with Sambo and Rafail at the same time. So I chose to fry the bigger fish first. I just never knew Org had planned to fuck me around.”
Hot, stinging tears sprang to my eyes. For nearly a month I’d suppressed my grief, and now I couldn’t believe the man I was so madly in love with was sitting right across from me. Living, breathing, still hating me.
He reached out across the table and took my hands in his. “Hey, don’t break now. You’ve been doing well so far. Not a tear. Don’t break. I’m here, baby. Right here.”
With a nod, I beat back the tears, sniffling. “What happened with Rafail?”
Chad filled me in on everything. On how he’d planned it all from the get-go, but things got a little screwed when Rafail showed up at Ricardo’s place a day early. On how Org showed up and helped him with Rafail’s men, then shockingly revealed that he wanted Chad to be the inheritor of his seat in The Organization.
“But the gavel is yours, Jhay,” Chad said, “It belongs to you.”
I laughed, thinking he was messing around. “Ridiculous. Me? Lead The Organization?” I guffawed now. “I wouldn’t know the first thing to do with so much power in my hands. I’m unqualified, Chad. It won’t work. Not to mention The Organization is pure evil.”
“The Organization does not work on qualifications. I told you, high seats are inherited. Once your predecessor steps down or dies, you have to claim your seat. And you have to learn your role and do what is expected of you. You only have two options if you’re an inheritor: you assume your role, or you die. The Organization, they wear both the white hat, and the red horns. They play God but they also dirty dance with the Devil.”
“But I’m not the inheritor of the gavel anymore, Chad. You are.”
He just stared.
I sat back in my seat, mulling this craziness over. After a few quiet minutes, I asked him, “Why do you want me to take the gavel so badly?”
Letting go of my hands, he rubbed his eyes. “My father said something to me in Portola Valley: ‘Make new rules. Get rid of the ugly. Save the world from people like me’. Although this came from the most depraved man I’ve ever known, it’s unquestionably something good, Jhay. Something good coming from something really, really bad.”
“So why don’t you lead and make new rules?”
“Because I don’t trust that I can do it,” he said bluntly. “I’m not good, in any way, and I don’t want that kind of power to turn me into something worse.”
“And me?”
“You’re more humane than I am.”
I wasn’t sure about all that. But I was sure I could never be like Rafail or Org. I could play God more, and dance less with the devil. I could end the kidnappings, and stealing innocent lives.
With all that power, there was much I could change and make The Organization for the better, more like The Altrus. But holy wow, being the Pinnacle scared the bejesus out of me. Would all those members from around the world, representing their country, listen to some impulsive, hot-headed amateur?
As if hearing my thoughts, Chad took hold of my hands again. “You will get used to all the power. You will learn to control it and not let it get to your head. You will rule wisely. You will be an excellent leader. You will get your respect without working for it. You will be light, but will be stark darkness when crossed. You will have mercy, but you will not hesitate to order the kill when it is essential. You will be loved. You will be feared. You will be the best Pinnacle they’ve ever seen. You will be The Organization.”
My heart thudded in my chest, intimidated by the mere idea… “How are you so sure of this?”
Piercing those confident dark eyes into my timid green ones, Chad gave me a half-saint, half-satanic grin. “Because I will be right there next to you.”