The jet-black exterior of the plane is a stark contrast to the warm interior. The sand-colored floors gleam, and the reflection of my shoes makes me feel like I’m standing in a clear pool of water. I step forward into the cabin and take it all in.
The entrance leads to a sitting area complete with two sets of padded leather flight chairs on each side of a small meeting table. But off to my right, down the slim corridor, there is another room separated by pocket doors. All the walls are a warm ochre color, and the trim is a highly polished yellow-toned burl wood. My fingertips reach out to touch it as I take another step forward. So smooth.
Jax gives me slight encouragement at the small of my back again, turning me to the right, towards the partitioned part of the cabin. “We’re going to skip the meeting room and have drinks in the lounge, Essie,” he says to the nearest flight attendant. She’s dressed like a waiter, with black wool pants, a crisp white shirt, and a black apron that falls below her waist.
“Of course, sir,” she says as she helps me out of my coat and folds it across her arm. Jax takes his coat off and places it over mine. “Do you know what you want? Or would you like a drink menu?”
I tune out his response and start walking, eager to see what awaits me. I feel like I’m stepping into a new world. I’ve been on my share of private planes and I book first-class tickets when I need to fly commercial. But Ford never had access to a plane like this.
This is luxury, pure and simple.
“Here, Sasha,” Jax says with a gentle prod that tells me to walk faster. “We’re dining on board in the back.”
The second room is much more informal, but still elegant. The butter-colored sofa stretches along one side of the fuselage, coming to a slight curve at the far end of the cabin, just enough to form a semi-circular dining area. There is a small table with enough room for two people to eat comfortably, set with china and silverware that sparkles under the subdued light.
I take a seat on the long side of the couch while Jax settles on to the curved portion. The leather is so smooth, I want to pet it.
“Pretty nice, huh?” Jax says, watching me take in the decor. There’s art on the wall. I’ve never seen art on the wall of a private plane before.
“Wow. I feel like there’s a world of hidden rich people and I’ve just been invited into the club.”
“Like a secret, huh?”
I look at Jax and he gives me a wink. It unsettles me, even though it came with a smile. “Something like that,” I reply back, looking down at my hands.
What the hell am I doing? Getting involved with something better left alone, is the reply in my head.
“Doesn’t your father have a private jet?”
“We don’t own one,” I say with an edge to my voice, “if that’s what you’re asking. We use them. The studio he works for has them and they fly us places. But we don’t get movie-star treatment.”
“That surprises me,” Jax says. And then Essie is there, placing drinks in front of us. “Thank you, Essie,” he tells her, all charm and at ease. Like this is his world and he’s comfortable in it. “I mean,” he continues, his gaze redirected to me, “Ford Aston is very wealthy. Was born that way. He looks like the kind of man who likes the finer things in life.”
“He does,” I say back, the hair on the back of my neck rising. “Finer things being trained protection dogs worth as much as a well-bred racehorse, old comfortable houses in neighborhoods that have easy access to art museums and parks, private schools, and the finest food. But he’s not pretentious. He doesn’t flaunt his wealth. And he has never lived off his inheritance. He’s a working man.”
“Hmmm,” Jax says, taking a sip of his whiskey.
I look at my drink, a pink concoction in a martini glass with a cherry on the bottom. It’s pretentious. “I like beer.”
“Oh, it’s not a beer night, Sasha. Beer is for light conversation with friends while chatting at a local bar or in someone’s living room. This is a celebration. And that’s a Cosmo. Essie makes them a little on the weak side, so I’m not trying to get you drunk.”
“Only I can get me drunk, Agent Jax. You have no hope of using such a simple trick to catch me off guard.”
“You’re right.” His voice rumbles out of his chest, a hum that makes my stomach flip. “And besides, I’m not trying to catch you off guard. I’m trying to get you to lower it willingly.”
“I’m not impressed by money, so you could give me the taxi cab version of this night and it would still turn out the same.”
“I didn’t imagine you would be,” he says with a light-hearted chuckle. “You have so much of it yourself. Hidden away in all those secret accounts. You keep banks in the Caymans afloat with your checking account balance alone.”
I’m not surprised that he knows I have money. But the fact that he knows where it’s located makes my stomach churn. So I say nothing.
“We know what you did when you and your friends ended the Company a decade ago.”
“Is that so?” I play along. “You’re very good then. Because I’m not even sure what we did. Maybe you should enlighten me?”
He takes another sip of his Scotch and sets his glass down. The ice clinks as the door to the plane is closed and we are sealed up inside. For better or worse, I’m playing his game. I’m just not sure what the game is yet.
My family. My Nick. My past. He wants access to all of it. But he knows a lot already, so where is this going?
“Tell me, Sasha Cherlin—”
“Aston,” I correct him, and then self-consciously pick up my martini and take a sip. He’s right. It’s not very strong. So I take a longer sip because I could use a little courage right now.
“Sorry, Miss Aston. Tell me something about you that’s real.”
“What do you mean? I’m real. Everything about me is real. I live in Kansas, I go to school, I love dinosaurs. You know more real things about me than most. So what more do you possibly want?”
He’s shaking his head. “Mmmm, no. Those aren’t the real parts I’m interested in. I’ll be blunt then. We only have an hour on this trip. One hour to get a little insight into who you really are. Because once we get to the manor, I might not get a moment alone with you for a while. This might be the only date I get. So forget about Nick, and Ford, and your dinosaurs, and all the tragic things that happened to you as a child. And tell me something real about you now.”
I fold my hands in my lap and lift up my chin. “I’m not a sharing kind of girl, Agent Jax. I’m a—”
“Very tightly buttoned-up kind of girl. I know. See, that’s the part I hate about you.”
“Excuse me?”
“The part I hate, Miss Aston, is the way you partition your life into neat little packages. Did Ford Aston teach you that? Did his personality overpower yours back when you were a teenager? Did he—”
“How fucking dare you?” The words blurt out before I can stop them. “Do not,” I seethe, “talk about my father like you know him.”
“Why not? I do know him.”
“You do not know him. I have been his daughter for ten years and I have barely scratched the surface of what makes that man tick. We are very close, we have very close friends, and no one—”
“Ever gets inside that little team you grew up with. Is that it? They circled the wagons around you back when you were a teenager and pulled you into that life.”
“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”
“Everyone needs friends, Sasha. But they are his friends. Where are your friends?”
“I have friends. James and Harper are my friends. Merc is my friend.”
“Assassins?” Jax laughs heartily now. “Are you telling me your closest friends are all assassins? James Fenici and Harper Tate are your friends? That psycho Merc, he’s your friend? I sincerely hope not. Because that means you chose them. And all this time I gave you the benefit of the doubt because I thought they were family. Family is family. You can’t change that. But friends you choose. So tell me, what fantasy life do you live in where you choose murderers as friends?”
“I’m a murderer too,” I growl. “And you better keep that in mind tonight.”
“As am I, killer. As am I.”
The plane accelerates on the runway and I brace myself for takeoff, grabbing my drink to prevent it from spilling as Jax does the same. The engine roar is too loud to talk, so I bow my head and try to check my anger. What is he playing at? Is he trying to make me react? Does he want to force me into a demonstration of how dangerous I am? Is he looking for a fight?
“I’ll start then,” Jax says once the plane evens out a few minutes later. He takes another sip of the Scotch in his glass and then sets it down. I mimic him, for lack of something better to occupy my time and hands. “I’ll give you something real about me first. An example.”
I roll my eyes and sigh, placing my hands back into my lap. I’m tired of him already. If I had a watch, I’d check it to let him know how much he’s boring me right now.
“I grew up in Brooklyn. Well, not exactly.” The initial half-truth grabs my attention even though I want to tune him out. “I bounced. You know that term, I think. Living here and there. Never having a real home. I was a foster kid. But one day, when I was twelve years old, I bounced into the home of Special Agent Max Barlow.” Jax pauses for a moment. His eyes glaze over a little as he looks up towards the ceiling, like he’s lost in a memory. “His house was big, but old. Not fancy,” he says with a small smile. “The kind of house that says it’s been lived in for a while. But not neglected. You know that kind of house, Sasha?”
I nod before I even realize I’m doing it.
“The furniture was nice, but worn. The leather couches all had butt indents in them. Like people had been sitting there comfortably for generations. He was the seventh generation to live in that house. Ever since his forefathers immigrated to America in the mid-eighteen hundreds. They built it over and over again, adding to it as the family grew and thrived in their new country. More generations were born, and with each one they grew a little more prosperous or a little less. But they always had that home. A place to gather and be with one another. But Max was the only child of his generation. And when his wife died after only two years of marriage and no children, he started to take in foster kids to fill the house back up.”
I’m struck silent by this honest recollection of his history. I don’t spend much time on the East Coast, but forming a picture of this house—standing and expanding as life comes and goes, a monument to the temporary nature of the human lifespan—I can see it in my head. I picture brown brick, a solid concrete front porch filled with children and neighbors. Holidays and dinners.
“Did you have a home like that, Sasha?”
I nod, once again before I realize I’m doing it. “My grandparents’ ranch. My father’s family raised cattle in northern Wyoming. They had a huge place. Thousands of acres. They ranched that land for over a hundred years.”
“And the Company blew it up.”
I look Jax in the eye and make a decision. I need this man to understand what it is I’m doing here with him. I need him to know who and what I am before he tries something he will regret. Something that will make me react on instinct.
And because he told me something real, I decide to reciprocate. “I had just turned thirteen. Lost my father less than a month before on Christmas Eve. I went from little girl to child assassin in the span of a few weeks. I killed four men the night they came. I was waiting for them.” I let out a long sigh. “Looking back, I was always waiting for them.”
“It must’ve been devastating.”
“It wasn’t, though. I mean…” I look down at my hands in my lap. The way I said it sounds so cold. “I mean, it was. Losing my father was the worst. I cried for weeks. But Ford came—” I have to stop and collect myself for a minute. I will not cry in front of this stranger. I refuse to let him break down the walls I’ve been building brick by brick for a decade. “I had met Ford the day before and he came to see me on Christmas Day. And he helped me.” I look Jax in the eyes, in control again. “So when they came to kill me a second time, they got my grandparents. I didn’t have enough training to save them. Just myself. I got out of the house by jumping out the second-story window into a snow drift and hid in the hills with a rifle. I got three of them from a distance. And the last one thought he’d get away, but I was in the back of his pickup as he drove off and I shot him in the head through the cab window.”
He doesn’t flinch. Even James flinched when I told him this story. “It must’ve rocked your world to kill at such a young age.”
I shake my head. “No. It made me hard and calculating. The window shattered and bits of glass, and blood, and bone got stuck in my hair. And I refused to wash it for days as I waited for Merc to come find me. I wanted all that debris to remind me of the stakes. Of the harsh reality I was living in. It felt good, Jax. It made me feel powerful. And you can think I’m sick all you want for naming that psycho they call Merc as a true friend. But he is. And if that makes me sick, then I’m sick, I guess. My love for him took root when he picked me up on the hills outside my family ranch and took me in. Promised to make it right for me. And then I met James. And we went and found Harper. And the rest is history, isn’t it? We crippled a global organization. Set them back years. They haven’t yet fully recovered from that blow. But they will, Jax. They will recover. They are too big to take out all at once. So those assassins you look at with contempt are the people who would die for me when that happens. I’m sure you have a story to tell about your childhood, Jax. Everyone has one. But no one on this planet can understand my past except those three people. I won’t help you get them, if that’s what you’re after. I won’t help you get Nick, either.”
“Because he was your promise?”
I raise an eyebrow at that. “If you think you know what that term means, then you are a Company kid. And if you’re a Company kid, you had better tell me now, or you will wake up with my knife slashing your throat.”
He doesn’t shoot me one of those disarming smiles or chuckle under his breath, like I’m so cute. He nods like a professional doing business. “I’m not a Company kid, Sasha. But I know a few. And that’s why I’m taking you to see your aunt before I let the FBI know I have you.”
“I’m going to make this very clear, Special Agent Jax Barlow. You have no idea what it means to be a Company kid. None. I don’t care how many people you talk to, you can never, ever understand what it means unless you go through it. I barely know the horror of that title, and I grew up in that world. I’ve seen things, experienced things—things you can’t even begin to imagine. So if you ever say it so casually again, I will end this association. And just so we’re both on the same page, a Company assassin does that one way.”
“You’ll kill me?” he asks, as serious as I am. “For uttering words?”
“They aren’t words. They’re threats. You think you know me?” I stare hard at him as he tries to ease back by taking another sip of his drink. “You want Sasha Cherlin? You want that child killer back as a means to your end? Well, you’ve got her full attention. You have no idea how ruthless I can be, and if you cross me, I will not hesitate and I will not miss.”
He sets his glass down with a clink of ice and leans back in his seat, trying to feign relaxation. “Well, Miss Aston, thank you for your honesty. Point taken. And now that we both agree who you were, maybe we can try to figure out who you actually are.”