London Dusk (A Dawn to Dusk Novella) (9 page)

He laughed
. "Darling, call it what you like. I did you a favour."

"
A favour? You call that a
favour?
" I huffed, and shook my head. "You've got to be joking. A hundred people saw me with Darren tonight, and now he's dead in his hotel room. And you call that a favour?"

"
Yes, and now your fingerprints are all over the weapon that killed him, as well as the safe."

He was right. My thoughts went straight to when he asked me to hold his gun
, and I silently berated myself for being so
damn stupid
. Instantly, I no longer cared about the money. I had to get out of there, preferably alive. These people were crazy. And I was in the middle of a nightmare. I should just go straight to the police and tell them everything, and clear my name. Annalise would back me up, I'm sure. And Jax.

But then again
, maybe Annalise wouldn't. Doubt crept into my mind as I processed this. Darren was her businesses client, and the woman hardly knew me. She'd taken me in based on Jax's recommendation… and in all honesty, she didn't know me from a bar of soap. She could, in reality, hold me accountable for his death. I swallowed.

None of this
, no matter which way I looked at it, looked good.

***

The surfer guy moved away from me and joined back in the conversation and I found my opportunity.
I just had to make it through the door to the elevator, or perhaps there was some sort of fire escape on the outside of the building somewhere. I clasped my handbag tightly, making little movement as I lifted the strap up and over my shoulder.

I moved quietly forward
, so that I was sitting on the edge of my seat and kept my eyes firmly on my captives. None of them were paying me a lick of attention. I couldn't have hoped for better. I stood up quickly, moving as fast as I could across the wooden floors in my high heels. If I'd had any bloody common sense during my planning stage, I would have taken them off.

Some
one grabbed me, and I turned slightly, which only allowed them to firm up their grip. It was the glasses guy. Adrenaline thrashed through me, and I pulled away from him, making a dash for the door. I fumbled with the latch, and then found myself wrenched away from it and falling. Everything seemed to go in slow motion as I crashed against the wooden floor, banging my head hard. I tried to roll away from him with all my might.

"
Let me go!" I started screaming at him as he pinned me down. His face was dark with anger. The floorboards were hard against my back, and my wrists hurt like fuck from the force and strength of him.

"
Don't fucking move," he said, his voice steely. He eased off a little, and pulled a small gun from somewhere, and aimed it at my head. My breath hitched and I froze. My lip trembled as I stared down the barrel of the gun. I could feel my heart race as the light glinted off the steel, and all I could see was my life passing before my eyes. My parents. Elsie. Luke. Friends. And my work.

I lifted my eyes to meet the jade ones framed in designer glasses.
His gaze was cold, calculating, methodical. He was really going to kill me – I could read the intent in his eyes. This man on top of me was more than just dangerous. He was lethal. From the way he was looking at me now, I knew that he was a trained killer. There was no air of nervousness about him. He was so calm, collected, and confident. I didn't stand a chance.

And it was only then that
I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wasn't ready to die yet.

"
Chase, no!" My original captor broke the stare between us. "Don't you dare shoot her on my floor!" He hauled the man off me, but I still didn't move. I wanted to, but I couldn't. Fear still had me paralyzed. I had only just started breathing again.

"
What, River? Either she dies, or she agrees to our proposal. It's as simple as that." He pointed down at me, and I automatically flinched. "Look at her! Does she look like she's about to agree to anything we ask right now?"

I would if they agreed to spare my life. I could definitely be persuaded. Right now
, I was in a compromised position, and I was fairly certain I would do anything. I mean, tonight I'd agreed to sleep with someone for money, could whatever they wanted me to do be worse?

The guy
's gun was still aimed at me. "Move, and you die," he said with distain.

I wasn
't moving. I was hardly even breathing. This was the second time I'd had a gun pointed at me tonight, and this time round I was more scared than the last time, but more from the determined look in his eye than anything else.

"
She might actually agree if we just talked to her," the surfer guy said. I flicked my eyes towards him with curiosity. What he said caused the glasses guy to lift his focus from me, and pay attention to him.

"
Yeah," I piped up. "What he said." My voice sounded choked up and raspy. I hated it. I sounded so weak and helpless.

Their glances flickered down
to me, but then rested back on surfer guy, who lowered his phone and snapped an image of my face.

"
How long?" Glasses guy asked.

Surfer guy looked at his phone intently
. "Searching. Shouldn't be long."

"
What's not long?" I asked. I couldn't help myself. I knew I really wasn't in the position to be demanding answers, but I was fumbling, and I had nothing to lose.

None of them spoke until the surfer dude smiled and pressed his screen a couple of times.
"McKenna Carmichael. Date of birth, first February 1983. Organ Donor. No infringements on her license." He tapped a few more times. "Majored in History at Oxford University. Oh, with honours, congrats," he said, eyebrows raised. "Parents deceased."

The glasses guy nudged me with his foot
. "So. McKenna." I stared right back at him, and noticed his hard gaze had softened. He lowered his gun. Without the weapon pointed at my head, he now seemed a tad more approachable. "Would you like to come and do a job with us?"

"
A job," I responded. I didn't know what sort of proposition this was, and I was buggered if I was going to talk about a job offer while lying on the floor. "If you could be so kind as to help me up, then perhaps we can talk about it." My voice was laced with sarcasm, but right now I didn't care. This felt like a way out of my own demise.

They instantly hauled me up off the floor
. "Thanks," I said quietly as I brushed myself off, and readjusted my dress. Annalise was going to kill me if she ever saw this dress again. It had scuff marks on it, and I could see water stains on the fabric from getting drenched in the shower earlier. I grimaced.

They were all watching me with curiosity
, and I was once again beginning to feel very self-conscious. I cleared my throat, snapping them out of their trance. What the hell was up with these three?

"
Come on, McKenna," my original captor said, gently guiding me back towards the seating area. "Have a seat, and we can talk." Once I was comfortable, he asked, "Would you like anything to drink?"

"
How very civilised," I muttered. He looked down at me with amusement. I cleared my throat. "Er… yes please. Anything will do." The other two had sat down side by side on the sofa opposite me, the surfer guy looked very relaxed, and the other one looking frustrated. They were so completely out of place with each other.

A drink was handed to me. I looked down at the clear liquid over ice in the chic crystal tumbler. A slice of lemon was floating in it. I sniffed the drink before I took a sip.
Tonic. I took a sip, and found that a good measure of gin had been added as well.

"
McKenna, my name is River," my original captor said as he sat down in the chair beside me. "This is Chase," he said, hand extended to the good looking glasses guy. "And this is our tech-engineer, Gabe." He gestured towards the surfer. "I should probably apologise to you, first off, for not enlightening you to who we are. And secondly, for scaring you." He threw Chase a disapproving glance. "Now I know that you need money right now. It was kind of obvious when we were in the hotel room."

I sighed. I didn
't know what to make of this lot. I had started the day hung-over with no option but to become a high class escort to pay Luke out. Now I was sitting with the men who had killed my client, once again discussing how I needed cash. I took a sip of my gin and tonic, and slowly nodded. "I'm kind of in a pickle," I admitted, biting my lip. "You killing my client kind of fucked up my plan."

River cleared his throat
. "Ah, yes. Darren. Well… like you, we were trying to make money. Darren was a target. He wasn't a nice person, so you shouldn't get too teary about it." He sat back, and laced his light brown hands together and studied me for a moment. "You should probably know that we are professional contractors. Darren was part of a job for us. But more to the point we have a job booked over in Mexico, and we need someone to come with us. Preferably you. You fit the profile we've been looking for."

"
Let me guess… It involves killing," I said, a little too shakily.

Gabe laughed
. "No, actually, not this one."

"
We have a number of different roles, and not all of them involve killing someone. A lot of the time, it's intelligence gathering."

"
So now you're spies as well, are you?" My mind jumped to the James Bond stories which I had always loved, but somehow this bunch didn't exactly fit into that box. Okay, maybe River and Chase did, but Gabe? Definitely not.

Chase rolled his eyes
, and sighed. "Yes, some of the time. We make money from taking a few people out when the price is right, and we also make money from infiltrating organisations and gathering intelligence. That's where you come in, if you're willing."

River leaned forward
, his eyes trained directly on me. "We'll pay you four hundred thousand pounds if you accompany us to Mexico and help us do this job."

My breath caught in my throat. I looked down at the floor. And then I looked out the window towards the London sky. That was a lot of money.
A huge amount. An amount that I really needed. I pursed my lips together. If I had that money, I could almost pay Luke out for half the house and all the other additional costs that he'd dreamed up, and all it would take was this one small job. I swallowed. First prostitution, and now this. What the hell was wrong with me?

"
Of course, this would be an all-expenses paid round trip. We just need to have you distract someone over there. Go on a few dates with him, entertain him a little if you like, while we work in the background to get the information we need."

My heart had begun to race.
The money I had taken from Darren would help pay for Elsie's care until I had done the job. This was my ticket out to pay Luke off. "Entertain? How? Would I have to sleep with him?"

River shrugged
. "In our line of work, we do what we must to get the job done." He drained the remainder of his glass. "Sometimes it means sleeping with people we don't want to. But I think you'll be perfect for this role." He turned to Chase. "Don't you think?"

Chase eyed me critically and slowly nodded
with an audible sigh. "Yes. With a bit of work, I think she'll do."

"
Wait. What?" I didn't know what to think, but that statement was erring on the edge of insult. "A little work? What the hell does that mean?"

Chase smiled
. "It means, darling, that you need some work done before we can let you loose in Mexico. First of all, your hair needs to be cut a lot shorter so you can wear wigs comfortably. Secondly." He leaned closer to me, staring into my eyes. "Yes, secondly, I think we should get you laser eye surgery. How bad are they?"

I swallowed
, staring back at him. The cheek of him. I huffed, thinking about the expense of all this, but then I let it go. I had wanted laser surgery for a long time, but just never bothered to investigate it. "Bad enough for me to wear glasses or lenses permanently."

He nodded thoughtfully
. "I thought so. You'll also need to get tanned up, and of course your wardrobe outfitted. Once all that has happened, we'll have another look at you."

"
I haven't even agreed to anything yet," I snapped. I took a sip of my gin and tonic and pondered the proposal. They all sat there expectantly waiting for me to say something. As strange as this all was, they seemed to be quite certain that I would say yes. "So just to clarify, there won't be any killing. This is only information gathering, and you want me to be a nice little distraction for someone over there?"

"
Yes," Gabe answered, his eyes smiling in amusement. "And Chase wants to give you a makeover."

"
And either I do this, or you could kill me or pin Darren's murder on me." I looked pointedly at River as Gabe burst out laughing.

"
Naturally, we would prefer you to join us."

"
Of course you would," I commented. I realised that I had power with these guys. They wanted me for something, and that gave me room to negotiate. "If I do this, I'm not paying for this new wardrobe, or any of the surgery, or anything like that. This will be a free trip for me, with a pay day at the end of it."

"
In a nutshell, yes," River answered, a slow smile spreading across his features. He gave a knowing glance to both Chase and Gabe, who both smiled back at him.