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There’s movement in the adjacent room.
My chest seizes. Time slows. I don’t know how, but I have to stop this.
“Pity. I’d really preferred to handle it while he was sleeping.”
More movement.
I don’t say anything. He has a way of knowing how to hit where it counts. I’m aware of what happens next, and even though this will be my first, I’ve heard what comes after.
“Chin-up, baby doll.” He places his ear to the door. I look on as he steps back, rolls his neck, loosens up. He speaks in code, and what he means is there will always be another target. “It was just a job. You know how it goes.”
He’s wrong, and I suspect he knows it. Acting will only take you so far. You can’t be good at this without feeling something. I do my best. Which explains why someone’s about to die. It won’t surprise me when I’m next.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I stand and walk over to it to get a closer look at the gash in my head. Look at you. Look at what you’ve become. I see someone who is supposed to be me, but isn’t. I’m unrecognizable. Almost. The eyes hold a lot you don’t want them to. At least I look like I feel. Dark. Angry. Full of rage. Scared to death. How could you let this happen? What kind of person justifies killing a man?
I tussle my hair and then turn on my heel and go to Adam. I stop when I’m just close enough that he can feel my breath on his skin. “One week,” I say taking his tie between my fingers. I deftly twist it around my hand and ball it into a fist. I pull him toward the sofa. He doesn’t budge. “I’m not into sluts.” He takes my hand in his and he squeezes. Hard. Easily, he removes his tie from my grip. He’s going to kill me. “If you couldn’t succeed with him, what makes you think I’d want sloppy seconds?”
I swallow hard. We both know there’s nothing more to be said. Seduction got me into this. It won’t get me out. It’s suddenly clear—if I want to win, I’ll have to play the game his way.
He steps toward the door. I sink to the sofa and reach for my phone. Adam isn’t even threatened by it. That’s just how in my place they have me. “While I take care of business, get yourself together.”
I meet his eye. What he’s really saying is what I already know: this isn’t the end, just another beginning. Eventually, it won’t be an intended target that will be so easily disposed of. Eventually, it will be me. One misstep, one wrong word, the allure gone, it doesn’t matter the indiscretion. There are no illusions on which direction things are headed. I’ve messed up by coming here.
This is what happens when you give away your freedom.
I send Elliot a text. Run. I know three little characters may very well get me killed. But I can’t let this happen. Fix this. My mind races. They will kill you. I can’t help it. He’s going to die and it’s going to be your fault.
My hands shake as I send a second text. Run now. Six characters thrust me toward certain death. Nine all together, and I am a traitor. They will find his phone. They will read the text. How stupid of you, risking your life. What will become of Matthew? He’ll grow up without a mother. He’ll grow up hating you. For what? For a long shot? And then, as Adam grips the door, he pauses, but only briefly. He seems to have read my mind. He shakes his head before offering one last glance in my direction. He shrugs like it’s nothing, like it was always nothing. “Sometimes you win. Sometimes you don’t.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Elliot
The moment Adam Morford crosses into my hotel room with the intent to kill me, chaos ensues. “Hands up, FBI!” men shout in unison. I watch as they take him to the ground. His face is expressionless.
My phone buzzes a second time. The screen lights up. Vanessa is telling me to run.
If only it weren’t too late for that. My phone is confiscated, lest I do something stupid. I’m placed in handcuffs and hauled into the bedroom. It’s unnecessary, given that this has all been orchestrated. If only it too were a part of the act.
But when you make shady deals, sometimes you get caught. Suddenly, it became against them. If I didn’t help the Feds, life as I knew it was essentially over. They had a whole host of charges against me, charges that amounted to upward of forty years. I wouldn’t have left prison alive.
This way I’ll serve a little time in a comfy setting— “Club Fed,” as they call it—and then be on my way, at least to the extent that is possible when you’ve done what I’ve done, which is to say when you’ve outed the kind of people I’ve outed, you don’t get to live outside of witness protection.
They don’t let me see Vanessa before she is hau
led out. I hadn’t figured they would. There’s a small part of me that feels bad for not warning her. But she’s a smart girl. She seems like the type to know how to work a system. She’ll figure it out.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Vanessa
My name is not Vanessa. It’s Bethany. And my parents did not willingly let me go with Sean Bolton. He convinced me to run away with him when I was fifteen. He found me on Instalook, promised me the moon, and the rest was history. I knew I could never go back to my old life. I knew what the church would do to me and my family if I ever told the truth. They fixed me, they brainwashed me, changed my appearance, until even I couldn’t recognize myself.
And the truth was, I didn’t want to go back. But I never wanted any of this either. I know I wasn’t the only girl this happened to within the church. It just wasn’t something that was spoken of, and whatever thing most of the girls had been running from was something they didn’t want to return to. It’s hard to understand freedom if you’ve never really had it, and it’s hard to understand there are varying degrees of terrible things in this world, unless you’ve really walked a mile in someone’s shoes.
“I realize you’re scared, Miss Bolton,” the agent tells me.
I do my best to cover myself.
