Killing Game (16 page)

“Last night. Did you kiss her?”

Cain closed his eyes and pictured Lily in his arms, his feelings for her coming back full force and causing him to ache inside.

“Not really.” He found himself answering Russ.

“Do you wish you had?” Russ’s voice was questioning, and Cain didn’t even need to think about what he’d asked before answering him.

“Every second since I left her,” he sighed.

“
You thinking
about her?”

“Constantly.”

“Sounds like love, man. I hope you crazy kids work it out.”

“Go silent.” Cain pulled the earpiece out and thought about what Russ had said.

Whenever he thought about her, he ached inside. Was that what love was, or was that guilt? Staring down at the case in front of him, he narrowed his eyes and hoped to God that Russ didn’t miss his target. He couldn’t face killing tonight, not with the feeling of her holding him tightly so fresh in his mind.

Unbuckling the case, he shut his emotions down as he ran his fingers over the lid and pulled it open. Kneeling in front of it, he slipped his black gloves on and let his fingertips trail over the cold hard steel of his Barrett Light Fifty. Pulling it out piece-by-piece, he started setting it up, the memory of the first time he’d used it in the field coming back to him.

It had been a rooftop job, overlooking Central Park in broad daylight. The target had been a stockbroker, middle-aged, fat and responsible for losing his company millions of dollars.
A slow target to start Cain off with his new toy.
The shot that had killed him had travelled over half a mile with pinpoint accuracy, killing the man as he exercised.

Back then Cain had reveled in the power of this new machine, its speed and precision. Now the sight of it sickened him.

Positioning it near the window, he calculated whether he would have enough time to dismantle it before he was discovered. He stared at the street below him and frowned. If Russ missed then he was running a risk of being caught in this position. Worst-case scenario, he would take the shot and dump the gun.

Loading eight rounds into the ten round
clip
, he leaned back against the tattered bed, frowning as the last bullet clicked into place and then running his fingers down the clip before placing it down on the floor beside him. Pulling a cigarette out of his packet, he fumbled in his pockets for his lighter and then realized he was missing it.

“Lily...” Cain sighed and closed his eyes, trying to shut out the sight of the weapons around him as the images of her flooded his mind.

* * *

Lily lit the candles on the table and then flicked the Zippo shut. She stared at it for a few seconds before slipping it back into her pocket.

Sarah returned from disposing of the remains of their Chinese food and sat back down on the sofa next to her.

“So, is he your boyfriend?” Sarah took a sip of her coke.

Lily stared at the candles blankly, her thoughts a million miles away with Cain.

“No.”

“But you’d like him to be?”

“Yeah.”
Lily sighed and moved her eyes to meet her sister’s.

Sarah smiled and looked around the apartment. Lily looked there too. It was tiny compared to their father’s home in Los Angeles, it was tiny compared to the little house that
her
and Sarah had lived in with their mother, but somehow it seemed more like a home than any of them.

“Bet it’s really expensive here,” Sarah said, looking back at her.

Lily looked awkward. “I wouldn’t know, not yet.”

“Huh?”

“Cain paid the deposit and first month’s rent. He found me this place,” she said quietly, her eyes falling to rest on the couch and her thoughts replaying sitting there with him the night before.

“Uh huh... kept woman are we?”

“No, Sarah. He only helped me because I asked him to. I didn’t want to end up in some run down motel somewhere.”

“He must really like you.” Sarah’s voice was quiet. “I wish I had someone like Cain.”

“What makes you say that?” Lily’s heart hammered against her chest. Her mind desperately tried to dismiss anything her sister was going to say in case her heart got the idea Cain really loved her.

“He protects you, sets you up with a job and a place to live, tells you he won’t let anyone hurt you... you must be blind, Lily. I don’t even know the guy and I can tell he must have feelings for you.”

“I’m not blind, Sarah.” Lily frowned at the way her heart was pounding harder, her body warming through from her sister’s observation. “I know he likes me, but there’s so much I don’t know about him. Sometimes I feel like he’s holding things back, hiding them from me. I’m not seeing the complete picture that is Cain.”

Her look turned pensive, her thoughts weighing her down as she mulled over everything she’d said.

“Maybe he’s protecting you from himself... or something... maybe he’s got some dark secret and he’s scared that you’ll hate him if you found it out.” Sarah giggled mischievously when Lily’s eyes grew wider and wider. “Ooh! Maybe he killed the guy in the alley.”

“Sarah!” Lily frowned for real this time and folded her arms across her chest. “That is so not funny.”

Sarah gave her a sheepish look and her tone turned low and cautious. “What if he did, Lily? Would it change how you feel about him?”

Lily toyed with her can of Coke as she thought about it. It was stupid to even be considering the possibility, but she decided to go along with her sister’s weird ideas about Cain.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so... Sarah, stop putting stupid thoughts into my head.” She curled up on the couch and pouted as her little sister giggled at her.

“Sorry. He sounds too sweet to be a killer anyway... he’s just a black clad hunk of mystery.”

Lily smiled and shook her head.

“Yeah.”
She sighed and turned her head to look out the window at the fading afternoon light.
“A real mystery.”

Her thoughts turned to wondering what Cain was doing, and she pictured him down a bar in Boston, a bourbon held firmly in his hand as he talked to the guy she’d seen him with last night.

* * *

Cain lined his sights up and blinked rapidly to clear his vision. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was nearing the time of the hit. He slipped his earpiece back in and rolled his shoulders to loosen up, trying to ease the tension in his body.

“Five minutes,” he whispered into the piece.

“I’m good to go,” Russ replied.

Cain hoped he was telling the truth. This was only the fifth time that Russ had been lead man with him and each time he’d grown cockier to the extent that it now irritated him.

Pride leads to a fall. He couldn’t help thinking it as he tapped his trigger finger against his gun, waiting patiently for the five minutes to while away.

He hated having to work with others. Being alone on a job meant he could do things his way without worrying about anyone else. He didn’t have to baby sit someone less experienced. He swore his boss was trying to lure him into screwing up. Every time a client demanded that their expenditure was worth two people working the contract, he always paired him with Russ.

Flexing his fingers, he took a deep breath and looked into the gun’s sight. It was trained on the hotel doors.

“Visual,” came a quiet voice over his earpiece.

“Don’t fuck up,” Cain growled back at him and tried to push the lingering thoughts of Lily out of his head.

“No, sir!”
Russ laughed.

Cain cringed.

Always too confident.

“Good to go.” The voice in his ear caused Cain to look down into the street. A large black limousine had pulled up precisely on time.

Cain knew the driver. His signal would give him the all clear to get the hell out of Boston and back to New York. He wished he was on his way already. As the bodyguards stepped out of the car, he tried to keep his focus on the mark. He was a grey haired man in his mid-sixties who was about to be killed by his jealous ex-wife.

Next thing Cain knew one of the bodyguards was slumping to the floor.

Instinct told him everything he needed to know. Russ had rushed the shot and missed.

The sound of his heartbeat accelerating filled Cain’s ears.

His breathing came faster as he reacted automatically.

“For fucks sake,” he growled and took a deep breath.

“I’ll finish it.” Russ sounded panicked.

He knew that Russ was more than useless now. He’d be too shaken up to do the job and a second shot from the same vicinity would make it too easy for people to pin-point where the killer was.

“Fucking go, I’ll take care of it.”

Sucking a deep breath in sharply, he aimed at the two below him—his mark and the remaining bodyguard. The world seemed to move in slow motion. They were starting towards the hotel doors, the Kevlar vest wearing bodyguard crowding the old man in an attempt to protect him.

Cain steadied the gun and aimed at the back of the bodyguard, closing his eyes for a second as his finger squeezed the trigger.

“Forgive me, Lily,” he whispered and opened his eyes as he took the shot.

The gun recoiled slightly and he watched through the sight as the bullet ripped through the bodyguard’s armor and into the target he was protecting. He watched them both fall to the ground, and his world seemed to fall with them, all color draining from it as it turned hard, cold and grey again. Leaning back, he breathed deep, slow breaths to calm
himself
as he watched the people in the street crowding the scene and saw the driver turn the target’s body over, motioning a cross over his heart.

Cain frowned on seeing the signal and then heaved a long sigh. Looking down at his hands, he chuckled slightly on seeing them trembling, his heart aching over what he’d done.

He swallowed hard as he stared blankly at the gun and lost track of time, his mind emptying of thought as he felt his body grow numb.

The sound of police sirens and Russ muttering something over his earpiece brought him back to the world.

Grabbing everything that he could and leaving the gun behind, Cain dove out of the door. He ran to the window at the end of the hall, climbing out onto the fire escape and pounded hard down the metal stairs. His mind replayed the night he’d met Lily and it made his head spin as he felt like throwing up.

Hitting the asphalt hard, he slung his bag over his shoulder and removed his earpiece, shoving it into his pocket as he walked down the alleyway and out of the vicinity of the hit.

Cain frowned hard as he walked on autopilot, his feet leading him back to the place where the rental car was parked.

He needed to get away.

Had to get back to New York.

Back to Lily.

Cain watched from the shadows as Lily moved from table to table, scribbling down the orders of the few straggling patrons. There were still a couple of hours until closing but it looked as though it had been a slow night. The stage lights had been switched off already and half the waitresses had either gone home or were in the back. There was only Lily and three other girls left working the tables.

He frowned as one of the men patted Lily’s backside and she turned sharply to face him, her expression hard as she scowled.

Enough was enough. He wasn’t going to let this go on any longer.

Slipping through the shadows, he moved silently across the room and disappeared into the back before Lily had a chance to see him.

Lily heaved a long sigh as she finally sat down for a break at the bar. She hated nights like these, not enough people to keep her busy and keep her away from the guys that were clearly ordering drinks just to get a chance to feel her up. Glancing down at her watch, she wondered if Cain would be back soon. He’d promised that he’d come straight to the club to see her, but there was no sign of him showing up yet.

She couldn’t wait to see his face when she told him about Sarah being over to stay.

“Hey, you’re the girl Cain’s chasing, aren’t you?” A slim redheaded woman sat down next to Lily and gave her a wide smile.

“Chasing?” Lily frowned questioningly as she looked at the girl dressed in leather next to her. She didn’t recognize her as a regular at the club.

“Come on, sweetie. I’ve seen him around you. Dogs are less protective of bitches in heat than he is with you.” The thin, pale girl beamed at her.

“I’m sorry, you are?” Lily looked at the girl, slightly unnerved by the way she was looking back at her.

“Name’s Sherry.”

“You know Cain?”

“I work with him, in a manner of speaking.” Sherry smiled mischievously.

It sent a shiver through Lily.

“And what is it you do?” she said, unable to bring herself to trust or believe anything this girl had to say. There was something about her that set Lily’s nerves alight. She shuffled away slightly as the girl leaned toward her.

“Well, it isn’t landscape gardening.” She beamed.

“Um... okay.” Lily resisted the temptation to arch a brow at her bizarre statement and cast a glance around her, looking for a possible avenue of escape—never anyone ordering when she needed them.

“We work in the same field, but we’re in competition with each other most of the time.” Sherry flagged the bartender down and smiled at Lily again.

“So, it’s like sales or something?” she said idly as she kept her eyes fixed on anything but the girl, silently wishing that she would either go away or someone would give her a reason to leave the stool.

“You could say he works some pretty big
contracts
and I’d do anything to ensure he doesn’t
hit
his latest
target
.” Sherry ran her fingers down Lily’s hair.

Lily swallowed noisily as she edged further away, giving the girl a disgusted look as her hand came to rest on her shoulder and she felt her fingers lightly stroking her skin. “Okay.
Um...
I have to... should get back to work... nice, um... meeting you.”