The Origin (24 page)

“I’m found. I’m okay.”

He hesitated before saying, “Do you want me to come over?”

“No, I’m safe for now. I have my gun and my doors are locked. And Alex is here watching the door.”

“What is he doing there?” he demanded, realizing he sounded like a jealous ape. But he was fresh out of word filters and didn’t care.

“Just relax, Daniel,” she said in an even tone. “He is just a friend. Please believe me.”

Just a friend my ass,
he thought, but all at once he felt the pressure of insecurity ease off his chest. “I believe you,” he found himself saying.

“I’m glad,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Goodnight, Daniel. Go to sleep.”

He managed to stumble backward onto the couch before his brain closed up shop, the phone still in his hand.

* * * * *

John
Mathers
looked out across the quiet street to the BMW parked across the street. Inside the Assassin sat, acting as though he wasn’t sitting guard for Olivia King. A half hour had passed since she and her protective friend exited the car that John had easily stowed away in and still he’d not found the courage to exit the car lest he be spotted. He was invisible, hell, even his blood was completely transparent, but the Assassin would surely spot a car door opening on its own accord.

He sat back in the seat, his hand still clutched to his side that the bullet had grazed. He had sat in the back of that car and watched the passing streetlights rendering the contours of Olivia’s face, revealing the torment that he himself had put there. It would have been so easy to take her hostage again, right there and then, and finally finish what he’d been unable to do half an hour earlier. But once more, he couldn’t do it.

He was a villain, he knew that much. But, God, he was such an awful one. Whoever heard of a bad guy saddled with a conscience? He wished he could just act on impulse and damn the consequences, like he’d done when Daniel Johnson had appeared. The utter glee with which he’d pummeled the guy had been alarming, and admittedly, freeing. If he could just hold on to that feeling, he could be a truly effective force.

With some effort he wriggled into the front seat but quickly realized he had absolutely no clue how to hotwire a car. And he’d lost his phone in the van, so he couldn’t even look it up on the internet.

Utterly disgusted with himself, he decided to just exit the car as inconspicuously as possible and hope that the Assassin wasn’t as observant as his reputation suggested.

A few minutes later, he was running down the street towards the underground station, the little burst of adrenaline masking the pain from his side and the biting chill of the New York night. He needed to find someplace warm, to gather his thoughts and assess his physical situation.

A while later, he was creeping down a busy corridor of the Mt. Sinai Hospital ER, working hard at not running into the hurrying staff and the people they were wheeling around. He grabbed some bandages from a passing cart, slid into an elevator and soon discovered a relatively quiet floor. He found an unoccupied patient room and settled in, with the intention of staying the night.

The first place that John visited was the bathroom, and under the blast of warm water, he scrubbed at himself with a washcloth as though he were grating the very skin off his body. Afterward he emerged, feeling raw but still quite transparent. He wiped the steam off the mirror, staring at the empty space that his naked body should have been occupying, and came to the realization that his tattoo on which he’d spent a countless amount of money, time and agony was now gone. The detailed tribute to his brother was no more, like Rap himself. Out of everything that had happened that night, this loss hit him the hardest, and the tears flowed down his once-handsome face, the evidence of his mourning imperceptible even to himself.

Later he emerged from the bathroom, his side firmly bandaged, and headed straight for the telephone. He needed to save the only thing of worth he had left to his name. He dialed his apartment with a nervous hitch in his throat.

“Natasha?” he said into the answering machine. “Are you there?”

Several heartbeats expired before he finally hung up then dialed once more to check his messages. The first and only one was from Natasha. “
Hukarere
Matera
,” she said in the icy tone she reserved for when John had truly wronged her, like the time he’d been caught drunkenly kissing another woman at a party. It had taken a lot of time and groveling, but she’d forgiven him then. Surely she would do so now.

“We are over.”

If he could blanch from the stunning news, he was certain he would have.

“You had me fooled, John. I thought you were one of the good ones. I honestly thought we had a future together. But kidnapping a woman for ransom? What, you thought I wouldn’t find out? The police were here, John! They took me to the police station, they interrogated me for hours, and all I could say was that I didn’t know anything. That I don’t know who you were, after all.”
Her voice trembled, and he knew in his gut that she had been crying.
“I’m going back to California. And please don’t even bother to come looking for me, because I never want to see you again. This is it, John. Bye.”

How appropriate, because you never will see me again,
John thought as he returned the handset to the cradle. If the disappearance of his brother’s tattoo caused him to cry, the loss of Natasha left him frozen and unable to breathe.

He had purposely kept her in the dark about the kidnapping for her own protection, so that she would not be implicated should the plan go awry. She didn’t know about the unjust dismissal from work, about the fact that the woman they had admired at the ballet had been integral in his plan for retribution. Natasha had known absolutely nothing by design.

Mostly, he never told her for fear that she would judge him and see him as the greedy, ambitious man he was. If Natasha had even caught a glimpse of that vile man, she would have said goodbye to him long ago. And so he had endeavored to hide it from her, to mask that small part of himself that was not altogether decent by overcompensating in tenderness, by playing the role of the upstanding man.

It took becoming invisible, but now he was free to unleash the immoral side of him that was screaming for vengeance.

And vengeance he would get. For the loss of his freedom, for the loss of his very appearance, and for the loss of his Natasha.

Olivia awoke the next morning disconcerted and sore. For a moment, she wondered if last night’s events had all been a dream; then it all came rushing back, reminding her of the reason why one side of her face felt aflame and she was aching in various parts of her body.

She rose gingerly and straightened the bed, staring blankly at her embroidered quilt as she caught glimpses of the nightmare she’d had, both in the dream world and in reality.

After automatically performing her stretches, she changed into some jeans and her “bloated day” hooded sweatshirt and tiptoed out into the living room to find Alex quietly asleep on the couch with a blanket over his torso. One arm was thrown over his head and both his feet were hanging over the armrest.

So much for her steadfast sentinel.

Olivia crept closer and caught an unguarded view of Alex, free of pretense and affectations, not all that different from the conscious Alex with his lips that were always ready with a flirty smile.

She started the coffee maker and was rinsing out two mugs when Alex came padding in a few minutes later, wearing a white undershirt, wrinkled pants, and a rumpled smile on his face.

“Morning,” he said with a croak and leaned against the counter as he straightened his clothes. “Must. Have. Coffee.”

Olivia smiled. “I hope you like it strong.”

Alex yawned and scratched his stomach. “I like it any way you can serve it,” he said on flirt auto-pilot. He grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. Yes.”

A tiny smile emerged from her lips despite herself.

“How are you doing? Are you feeling better?” he said, suddenly serious.

She looked into his blue eyes and decided that, yes, she did feel a little better, as if the sunlight streaming through the windows had bleached away most of the lingering stains from the night before. “I’ll be alright.”

He took a deep breath and came closer, his eyes intently surveying the wreckage of her face. With one finger, he gently traced along her jaw, carefully avoiding the new scabs. “You’re still beautiful regardless.”

She broke their eye contact and turned back to the coffee maker. “That doesn’t matter to me.”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he said, obviously flustered. “I meant you’re still the same Mei to me.”

She whirled around to face him. “I’m not so sure I am, Alex. I don’t know how I could stay the same person as before.”

All of a sudden, she found herself being pulled into his embrace.

“Then I look forward to getting to know this new woman. The Mei who knows she can handle anything,” he said into her hair, and she smiled against his shirt, believing in his words just a little bit.

She pulled away when the coffee machine beeped. Her eyes flew to a spot on his chest. “I’m sorry, I got blood on your shirt.” She wet a paper towel and tried to blot out the thin crimson line above his heart.

He inspected the stain and shook his head. “It’s just blood. My dry cleaner will take care of it.” He disengaged the paper towel from her fingers and gently touched it to her lip. “Some Neosporin and you’ll be kissing again in no time.”

With a pained grin, she handed Alex a mug of coffee and they sat together at the carved round table that her mother had had delivered from Indonesia. They sipped their coffee, listening to nothing but the sound of their own thoughts. Olivia relished the little slice of silence, knowing that it would be the only time she’d find any peace that day. For now, being in the warm presence of a comforting friend, someone who believed the best of her, was all she could ever want.

But the moment was all too short as someone rapped on the front door a second later.

“I’ll get it,” Alex said and tiptoed to the door. He bent down slightly to peer through the peephole then said in a booming voice, “Who’s there?”

“My name is Smith. I believe the lady of the house knows me.”

Alex turned to Olivia. “It’s the guy from last night. The one who shot the other guys.”

Olivia made her way to the door, took a peek, and nodded. “What do you need, Smith?”

“I need to have a word with you, please.” For the first time, she noticed his accent, a little British but not quite.

She took a deep breath as she began to unlatch all of the locks.

Alex just looked at her with trepidation, his fingers splayed on the door. “You really trust this guy?” he whispered.

“Not really. But I can handle him.” She opened the door and invited the Smith character inside. In the light of day, she was surprised to see that he was older than she originally thought, probably in his early forties, but tanned and in good shape. His face held a boyish quality, but it was the webbed creases around his bright green eyes that revealed his different age bracket.

Smith opened his mouth, frowned, then turned to Alex. “Your Audi seems to have been broken into. The passenger door was not fully latched this morning.”

She could feel Alex stiffening beside her, wanting to run down to check on his baby but not yet willing to abandon his post.

“Go on,” she said, nudging him in the side. “I’ll be okay. Smith works for my Dad.”

“Are you sure?” he said, eyeing Smith as he inched towards the door. To his credit, he stayed until she reassured him once more.

Once Alex was out of earshot, Olivia turned her full attention back to Smith, who was visually sweeping her apartment.

“What are you doing?” she said, trying to hide the alarm in her voice. Was he casing her place?

“I’m assessing the security of your apartment. If I’m to do my job, I need to have a clear sense of your home’s vulnerabilities. May I?” He walked towards the balcony door. “For example, I’ll need to install an extra lock and maybe a motion detector here.”

Olivia followed him, ready to command him to open the door and jump out should he show any signs of foul play. “Wait a minute, if you’re to do your
job
?”

Smith whipped his head around, his short blond curls bobbing. “You mean your father hasn’t told you?”

“Told me what?” she said, knowing instinctively that she probably would not like the answer.

Smith cursed under his breath then tried to smile at her reassuringly. “Miss King, meet your new bodyguard,” he said with arms outstretched.

“Say what now?” Olivia said with a frown and reached for the phone on the side table.

“I’ll wait outside while you talk to your father,” Smith said and stepped out into the hallway, sure that this was one conversation that would not go well.