Forced Assassin Read online

  He braced himself on the desk, hanging his head and closing his eyes. After a few deep breaths, he sat in the chair and leant back, preparing to sort through the muddle his mind had become. He’d have to let her go for her own good. There was no way Huntington would allow him to continue seeing her. The web they weaved would grow more intricate, each tendril stretching to the next, a seemingly faultless vision that was far from the illusion it gave. It might be pretty to look at, but those perfectly formed rectangles each held hidden dangers for Fallan. She’d be walking their delicate strands like a tightrope, trying not to fall through the spaces into oblivion below—Huntington, the hulking spider in the centre, watching her fall and not mourning her as a lost meal.

  She was expendable, and Bishop hated that fact.

  He rose and returned to the bedroom, standing against the doorjamb and watching her sleep. Although she was beautiful to look at, he sensed that beauty extended inside her, a woman who, despite her brash exterior, had a soft centre and so much to give the right man. Much as he wished that right man were him, he had to face the truth. In another time, another place, another damn world, he was that man, but in this one? No. She deserved better than he could give. What woman deserved a life like the one she’d have if he dragged her along with him? How could he live knowing she knew he did horrendous things and expect her to keep those secrets? He’d be giving her a heavy burden to carry, and, because he’d begun to care about her, that wasn’t something he was prepared to do. If you loved someone, you didn’t cause them pain. Yes, he’d be giving her a massive dose of it when it came time for them to part, but time would erase him, and, if it didn’t, it would at least dull the edges of her memories so he wasn’t as stark in her mind and heart. This was how it had to be. She could move on and meet someone else, have a new man to keep her from remembering Bishop.

  The thought of that hurt more than he’d believed possible. Another man touching her, seeing her smile, being with her every day…

  Fuck, it should be me. I want it to be me.

  He readied himself for the last hours in her company by inhaling deeply then exhaling with force. Today had to count. Memories had to be made.

  Ones that would last a lifetime for both of them.

  * * * *

  They spent the day as any other new couple, laughing, talking, telling one another a little of their pasts. Bishop soaked up every word she said, filing it away for later down the line when he had time on his hands between jobs and needed to remember. He wouldn’t be with any other woman, not like this. Yes, he was a realist and knew he’d fuck, but that’s all it would be. No emotions, no sentiment, just a release of sexual tension.

  He studied everything about her. The way she moved. How she raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes before laughter took hold of her. The tilt of her head and narrowing of her eyes when they discussed something painful from their pasts. How she took his hand and everything bad melted away at her touch. Remaining in the basement with her forever was an appealing concept—and, by God, he wished they could do that—but life had other ideas, people had other ideas, and in the end life was governed not by what one wanted but by outside influences.

  Fate was a cruel bitch sometimes.

  By dinnertime, he kept glancing at the clock, torturing himself by counting how many minutes they had left. Minutes looked more plentiful as opposed to hours—gave the illusion that extra time was available. For a few seconds he kidded himself, as she had him stirring the tagliatelle in the pan, that this was how it would always be—they’d cook together after a long day at work, eat at a table with several candles, then snuggle on the sofa watching, but not really watching, some boring crap on TV. Talking, sharing experiences. Being.

  She glanced up at him while stirring her own pot—the carbonara she’d miraculously created out of nowhere—and, shit, his heart literally ached. A void grew in his chest, one hell of a gaping hole that left him breathless and with the urge to lash out. He stifled it, pushed it the fuck away—there was plenty of time ahead to investigate that hole when she was no longer around.

  They ate as though on a first date, him holding out her chair before she sat, serving the food, treating her like the princess she’d become throughout the day. She was hurting too, he could see it, but she was a good actress. Anyone watching—and they weren’t, he’d kept those bastard cameras turned off—would naturally assume she was a happy woman.

  After they’d cleared up, he led her to the sofa and put the TV on, wanting what he’d thought of earlier—a semblance of them being a couple. It worked for a while, the pretending, the make-believe scenario they both wanted but hadn’t voiced, but, after an hour of the TV being on and them ignoring it, talking and holding hands, kissing and losing themselves in one another, the time had come for Bishop to give Fallan a lesson he’d been putting off all day.

  Reality 101.

  If she listened attentively and fully understood everything he had to say, he could give her a pass—an A plus.

  “Fallan, I—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” She bit her lower lip.

  “I know, and I don’t want to say it but I have to.”

  “Fuck.” She traced circles on the back of his hand with her thumb.

  “There are some things you have to know before I take you home.”

  “I don’t want to go home.”

  She pouted, mirroring his feelings exactly.

  “I don’t want to take you home. I want… I wish…” He couldn’t do this to her. Couldn’t say what he really wanted.

  “You wish what? Please, tell me. If you’ve got feelings for me I want to know. It’ll make this easier.”

  Would it, though? He wasn’t so sure about that. Still, if that was what she wanted. He’d discovered today he couldn’t deny her a goddamn thing. “I wish we could stay here. I wish I didn’t have the job I have, even though me having it meant I met you. I wish I could rewind time and change it so you’d just taken a normal weekend break and so had I. That we’d met in the dining room and… But we didn’t. No point in wishing otherwise. Even if we had met like that it would still be a risk having you in my life. Even though you know what my job entails, if we’d met another way I wouldn’t have been able to tell you much. You’d always have wondered what I did that had to be such a secret. It’d have created tension. You’d have been left worrying what I was up to, whether I was really seeing other women when I worked odd hours and fucked off at a moment’s notice. Maybe we wouldn’t have worked…”

  She squeezed his hand and rested her head on his shoulder. “But I do know. And it doesn’t bother me. It should, I realise that, and I know maybe I’m mad or blinded by you enough that what you do doesn’t matter, but, if being with you means knowing you kill people, I’ll deal with it.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “You wouldn’t be asking. I want to.”

  “But I can’t be with you, don’t you understand?”

  She lifted her head and stared at him. “Yes, I understand that Huntington pulls the damn strings, that he’s the one determining what the fuck I do with my life, what you do with yours. Yes, I understand, and it fucking stinks, all right? I’m an adult, I should be able to do whatever the hell I want, and having some government arsehole dictating how I live and stopping me being with the man I lo—like a lot—pisses me the hell off. Why can’t he see I won’t say anything? Why can’t you tell him I’ll keep my mouth shut? I swear to God I will.”

  “Because people always say that until things go wrong.”

  “But we wouldn’t go wrong! I know we wouldn’t.”

  “I know what you’re saying. I feel the same right now, but we’re at the start of something, so of course everything seems all right, of course we’d swear we were going to last forever, but shit happens, life happens, and, if we ever had to part ways, you’d be a massive liability to the government. You could open your mouth, tell the wrong people all the
information you know, and—”

  “But I wouldn’t. I’m not like that!”

  “I have a feeling you’re telling the truth, but Huntington doesn’t see it that way. He has to cover all bases, you see? This is the government we’re talking about, a massive organisation where one wrong word can cause shitloads of trouble. You might not even mean to say anything, but words have a habit of slipping out and—”

  “So you’re saying I can’t be trusted because I might blab something by accident, is that it?”

  The pain in her eyes tore at him. Yes, that’s exactly what he’d said, no getting away from it. “It happens, Fallan. I’m a realist. Much as I’d love to be a dreamer with you, I can’t be.”

  “What if I sign something? Get that Huntington fucker here right now and have me sign for silence. I just want to be with you.” She gripped him tight around the waist and squeezed. “I sound like a bloody whiny female, needy and all that crap, but this is my life, my feelings here. I don’t know how this happened between us, how I feel like this, but I do, and trying to turn it off… It’s going to hurt, damn it!” She jumped up and paced, fists bunched. “Fuck this shit! Where’s the phone? I want to speak to that bastard.”

  “That isn’t a good idea, Fallan.”

  “Neither is us being parted when we don’t want to be.”

  He eyed her, noting her determination to get what she wanted. “You might not hear what you want to hear.”

  “I know that,” she said, flashing him a blazing look, “but I have to know I tried everything. If I don’t, I’ll beat myself up with more regrets than I already have.”

  “All right, but he’ll tell you things…things I should have told you by now.”

  “Then let him tell me. Let him have the burden of having to explain.”

  Gritting his teeth to ward off the wave of emotion rising inside him, Bishop stood and led her to the office. He thought of everything he hadn’t told her and, as he dialled, imagined how Huntington would give the information. Blunt. To the point. Harsh.

  “Yes, Bishop? Are you done with your little talk?”

  “Uh, no. I didn’t get that far yet.”

  “Putting it off, are we?”

  “No, I went to explain the facts but—”

  “Give me that damn phone,” Fallan said. She held out her hand, cheeks red, mouth pursed.

  “Miss Jones would like to hear it from you,” Bishop said, clutching the receiver tight to his ear.

  “Very well. Put her on.”

  Bishop pressed the speakerphone button. “Go ahead.” He nodded at Fallan.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she said to the phone, leaning over it with her hands on the desk. “I mean, I have a situation here I didn’t expect to be in, and now I’m in it I don’t want to get out. I don’t care about the bollocks that got me here, understand? I don’t give a shit what you lot get up to, how you earn your wages. I just want to be able to see Bishop.”

  “I’m afraid that isn’t possible, Miss Jones,” Huntington said.

  “Why the fuck not?” she yelled.

  Huntington cleared his throat. “Do you value your life, Miss Jones?”

  “Of course I bloody do,” she snapped, launching off the desk to pace. “What kind of stupid question is that?” She paused, then said, “Oh, was that a threat?”

  “Yes. If you value your life—and Bishop’s—you’ll return home and keep everything you’ve learned to yourself.”

  “Oh,” she said, some of the bluster gone from her voice. “Are you saying that if I don’t return to my usual life and forget about Bishop he’ll be in danger from the people who employ him? The people who he works to protect? Fucking charming.” She narrowed her eyes and bared her teeth. “Answer me!”

  “Yes, that is correct, Miss Jones.”

  She stared at Bishop, eyes filling, throat bobbing. “Then you have my silence.”

  “I thought I might. You will be watched, Miss Jones. Any contact with Bishop is strictly prohibited. Any information you have learned from this mission is not to be repeated to anyone. If we find out you’ve broken this agreement—”

  “Yes, I understand. I’ll be terminated, or whatever the hell you like to call it to make yourself feel better.”

  “Are you aware about the other women, Miss Jones?”

  “What about them?” She widened her eyes at Bishop and held her hands up in a what-the-fuck gesture.

  “They’re all dead.”

  Bishop watched the colour drain from her face. She staggered towards the chair behind the desk and flopped into it.

  “Why?” she asked quietly.

  “They talked.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yes, quite. So you understand?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Good. Prepare yourself to leave the location.”

  The call was severed, much like Bishop’s tie to Fallan would be in an hour or so.

  He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t bear to see the tears fall, but he heard her sobs.

  The worst sound of his goddamn, shitty little life.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Bishop pulled up outside Fallan’s house. His nerves pinged more than they did when he was on a mission. His heart beat erratically, and he stared across at her in the van’s passenger seat, wishing with everything he had in him that things could be different. They couldn’t—he had to say goodbye—but a few more minutes in her company wouldn’t hurt.

  “You can take the blindfold off now,” he said, failing to keep his voice steady.

  She bent her head then sat still, as though delaying the inevitable. He understood how she felt completely. If she was going through what he was, her heart was being twisted and her emotions had turned sour, scoring her insides, their path reaching her soul with spiteful accuracy. By fuck, this hurt more than he’d imagined, and a lump formed in his throat. Damned if he would cry, though.

  That could come later, after he’d swallowed the last drop from a bottle of whisky.

  She reached up a shaking hand and drew the blindfold off, turning to him with glistening eyes and a downturned, quivering mouth. He wanted to kiss it all away—this horror, this miasma of gut-wrenching feelings that threatened to overwhelm them both—but he had a job to conclude, lives to save. His and Fallan’s.

  “So this is it, then?” she said, the words so quiet they were barely there. “This is how it ends. We say goodbye in a van. I get out, don’t look back, and have to continue with my life as though none of this ever happened.”

  He nodded. “Something like that.”

  “I hate this,” she whispered, one tear spilling, reaching her jaw line then dripping off onto a grey T-shirt from the basement wardrobe.

  “Me too.”

  “And it feels awkward, like I don’t know you. Like we never—”

  “I know. Perhaps it’s better this way. Perhaps we ought to just cut ties quickly and pretend we never met.”

  “Maybe.” She clamped her lips closed, but they quivered some more, and it was clear she was struggling to keep them still.

  “Fallan, I—”

  “It’s okay.” She waved at him dismissively. “Shit happens.” She smoothed down her hair. “Story of my fucking life. I should be used to it by now.” She attempted a wobbly smile but it looked more like a grimace. “Still, I’d rather this than him terminating you. At least we can still dream. I’ll think of you, you’ll think of me, and we’ll get a few smiles out of it. Memories will fade and all that rubbish. Time heals. We’ll move on.”

  “We will.” I don’t want to.

  “So!” she said on an exhale, smiling over-brightly. “Give me that last kiss and I’ll be gone. Mission complete. Secrets are safe.”

  “Not here,” he said. “I have to see you inside.”

  “Ah, make sure nothing weird has been planted in my house, that it? Make sure Waterman or Frankie Lash didn’t leave me any nasty surprises.”

  He nodded. “Better
to be safe than sorry.”

  “Oh, I’m already damn well sorry.” She yanked at the door handle and left the van, her movements jerky, shoulders a rigid, straight line.

  He admired her strength, her determination to see this through with dignity. She closed her door and walked around to his, and waited there on the pavement, a magnolia bush and blackthorn tree behind her. He took in that sight for a moment, her framed by foliage darkened by the night, her face white and pinched, hands by her sides, clenching in and out of fists. She stared through the window at him, and he wondered what was going through her mind. Was she imprinting his image there as he was with her? Was she battling with a lump in her throat so big it almost cut off her air supply? Was she thinking I wish, I wish, I wish…?

  He couldn’t think anymore so got out of the van and locked it, then led the way to her house. An envelope had been wedged between the house and an empty terracotta plant pot, and he stooped to pick it up. Opened it. Read the contents. Reached up to the eaves in the porch overhang and found a set of keys.

  He turned to look at her behind him. “Your locks have been changed.”

  “Okay,” she said, lifting her chin.

  He unlocked the door and went inside, holding one finger to his lips and miming that he wanted her to stand beside the closed door and wait. He switched on the lights as he went, checking every room, behind and under furniture, looking for planted bugs and finding several. He left them in place—they were for her own good.

  Back in the hallway, he said, “To guarantee your silence, your place has been bugged.”

  She stood straighter. “The bugs aren’t needed. I won’t be telling anyone anything.”

  “I know that, but Huntington—”

  “Is a prick who has to be in control of everything.” She sighed. “Yes, I understand why, understand it all, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”