Jess
The next morning, I waited sullenly for Thorn to finish his shower. He was singing in there, and if it hadn't been for the phone call the previous night, for the knowledge of what this mission was really about, I might have been soothed by his voice.
But I refused to let myself relax even a little.
That morning, I had tried to slip out of bed and run off, but Thorn had apparently been expecting that, because I wasn't even halfway to the door before he had grabbed me and hauled me over to tie me to one of the chairs. No matter how hard I pulled at the bindings, I couldn't seem to get myself free. So I was stuck there waiting for him, plotting some way to get away from him.
Finally, he got out of the shower and came into the bedroom with nothing but a towel hung precariously around his narrow hips. I couldn't help staring at him, eyeing his tanned and toned chest and that trail of dark hair that ran down from his navel and disappeared beneath the towel. I spent a wild moment imagining what his penis might look like, thinking of how heavy it would be as it rested in my palm, picturing its girth and the way it would curl up towards his stomach when he was aroused…
I could feel a blush spreading across my face, and I could tell that Thorn noticed it, judging by the smirk he gave me. He sat on the edge of the bed, spreading his legs a little — just enough that I imagined I could almost see everything beneath the towel — and leaning towards me.
“Now, Jess,” he said slowly, “just what are we going to do with you?”
I swallowed hard. When he had been talking to Dorian, it had sounded as though he was opposed to killing people — but I couldn't be too sure that he wouldn't kill me to save himself. At this point, I had enough information that I could turn over to the cops that I was definitely a liability. And here in this little, dingy highway motel… Well, it was the perfect setting for a murder.
Who would come looking for me, even? Brent would alert the cops that I was missing, but he thought I was on vacation at the moment anyway, so he wouldn't be concerned for a week or more. And other than that… Well, they'd notice that I was missing around work, but I didn't really have many friends or anything like that who might come looking for me. I didn't really have any identifying features, and if Thorn took my wallet and destroyed my ID cards..
I could feel myself shaking in the seat.
Thorn grinned and nodded a little, clearly following my train of thought. “That's right,” he told me approvingly. “We don't want things to get messy, do we?”
It suddenly occurred to me that he knew where I lived. Even if I got away from him and told the cops and got him sent away to jail, he could send someone after me — someone even more ruthless than him. I bit my lower lip.
“Look,” Thorn said, his voice matter-of-fact. “Once we deliver the packages to Gabi, we're out of this. It's not like we're trying to break into the prison to get them to Katia herself or anything like that. As far as you're aware, Katia has nothing to do with this — we're just delivering a few packages to Gabi Gonzalez, a friend of mine. As soon as that's done, I'll pay you your share — maybe add in a little something extra — and then you're free to go your own way. I'm not inducting you into the Sigma Saints or anything like that; you don't have to be so worried.”
“This can't be legal!” I exclaimed, shaking my head. “Even if we're just delivering gun parts to this … Gabi.”
“No one's ever going to find out anyways,” Thorn scoffed. “What do you think I'm going to do, flag down the nearest policeman and alert him to what we're doing?” He grinned wickedly at me. “Anyway, you said it yourself. You're my business partner now. You're as much a part of this deal as I am. Don't you forget it. If you get me stopped by the police, what do you think I'm going to do? I'm going to pull out that nice little contract that you signed for me...”
“I didn't sign a contract,” I said, momentarily confused.
Thorn raised an eyebrow at me. “Didn't you?” he asked. “Let's see, we have the AirBnB arrangements. And then we have this little thing.” He held up an official-looking sheet of paper that had my office header on it. “This outlines our agreement — that you will travel along with me to help me avoid any suspicion as I deliver a few packages of unspecified contents to another member of the Sigma Saints, here code-named Red Sierra. And look, you were even so kind as to sign down at the bottom.”
I felt my gut churn unpleasantly. They were pre-signed pages that I used for work correspondence; he must have found one of them as he nosed around in my house and saved one or two of them just in case something like this happened.
Maybe I'd miscalculated a bit when I'd thought that he was too brash. He'd clearly thought things through a little more than I'd anticipated.
I swallowed hard, knowing that it'd be difficult to fight against these accusations if he chose to bring that “contract” to the police. I knew everything about the mission, including what was inside the boxes. There was no sign of struggle except for maybe a little bruising to my wrists from struggling against the ties — but there was really every indication that I was part of this, that I had willingly gone along with him. And I knew what would happen to me if I was implicated in this — I'd be going to jail for just as long as Thorn was.
I bit my lip, trying to keep from crying. “Okay,” I said finally, defeat in my voice. “You've got me, all right? I'll go along with the plan. But if I think there are things that need to be changed to make this safer, you have to agree to listen to me, all right? We're partners in this, after all.” My tone was bitter; I still couldn't believe I had gotten myself caught up in something so reckless and stupid. Adventure was one thing, but I'd known that Thorn was dangerous and potentially involved in illegal dealings right from the start.
But it was a little too late for any remorse now. The best thing to do was to go along with him, get this mission done with as soon as possible, and then obliterate any evidence of my involvement in it, even if it meant quitting my job and moving houses just to make sure Thorn and the Sigma Saints could never find me again.
“I had a feeling you'd come around,” Thorn said, a smile on his face. He leaned forward and untied my wrists.