The Animal Under The Fur Read online

  Instead, my murders have merit. Zing!

  But for real, when I end a person’s life, I’m allowed. I’m ordered. It’s my job. To say I enjoy killing would be a bit dramatic, but I won’t lie—I like what I do. I like solving problems, catching bad guys, and trying to make this planet a better, safer place. If the price of that outcome is ending someone who never deserved to walk this earth in the first place, then that’s the cross I have to bear. Though currently I have no weight on my shoulders.

  Of course some Kill Operatives aren’t like me. In fact, most aren’t. The majority are regular ol’ people, but with stellar skill sets. We train together at SI6, and while they put up a good fight, my kind always win—I always win.

  It’s safer for everyone, actually, if I always win, and yes, I’m working on this with my therapist.

  Ceci begins to hum a tune as she places food into my fridge, and I settle comfortably onto a stool before grabbing a bag of unopened chips from the island. Normally my skin would be crawling to move, act, do something, but thankfully my occupation also helps ease the…emotional build up that occasionally accumulates from being an A+. Let’s just say if I don’t let out my aggression every so often, I’m like a tank of nitrogen near a flame, highly combustible.

  After stuffing a handful of chips into my mouth, Ceci makes a face as I chew. “Want some?” I mumble, tipping the bag toward her.

  “Asks the beast to the human,” she mutters before turning back to her task. Ceci hates anyone who chews with her mouth open, and by doing so now, it’s my subtle way of testing her devotion to me. Considering she hasn’t stormed from the room or torn the bag from my hand, I’m satisfied that I’m still the exception in her life. Grinning, I scoop another handful out.

  While Ceci might have been ignorant to what was going on at the orphanage, she’s no idiot. We couldn’t have grown up together without her becoming aware that I have certain abilities that differ from the average Joe. Maybe not to their full extent, but she knows I can lift a car to change a tire and that I can identify everything she’s eaten that day with a mere whiff of her breath—another trait she absolutely hates. She asked about it when we were younger, but I merely shrugged and said I wasn’t sure why I could do these things, which is true. I don’t know why I was born with these abilities and the rest of humanity wasn’t. And even though I’ve been told numerous times by my superiors that it’s a gift, a small part of me can’t help wondering if it’s the reason I found myself orphaned in the first place. This thought is very short lived though. If my parents didn’t love me enough to work with my difference, then I’m better off not having them in my life.

  All that’s important is that Ceci can handle me—well, what she knows of me at least. She believes I work for a private investigating company, which isn’t too far from the truth. Just replace the word investigating with intelligence, and we’re golden. Because of the stack of NDRs I had to sign upon employment, I was saved from having to explain much further. I also had to sign my consent to have another K-Op kill me if I did.

  Yeah, heavy stuff.

  But Ceci has a wonderful ability to know when not to pry, which is probably the main reason she’s the only person I’ve allowed to get this close. I certainly had no idea I’d be in my twenties procuring a small fortune while taking down bad guys. Especially not when I walked through Bell Buckle’s doors all those years ago. I only remember being scared poopless. Of course I realize now that it was them who should have been fearful, considering I did just kill a dog with my bare hands a week prior.

  But that’s a story for another time.

  Ms. Clarice, our headmistress, used to say I came to them skinnier than a farmer’s toothpick and as wild looking as a hog. They never knew the exact date of my birth, considering I was found abandoned on the street, but assumed I was around Ceci’s age because of my height and build. So they penned in the birthdate of January 1, 1991, on my birth certificate, and that’s what I’ve been going off ever since. I also for some reason didn’t remember my name, so they started calling me Nashville because of the city I was found in, and it stuck. As for my last name, well, as Ms. Clarice was filling out my paperwork, she leaned down and said, “Child, what’s your favorite color?” And for some stupid reason I looked up into Ms. Clarice’s warm dark eyes and said brown. So that’s what I got saddled with, Nashville Brown. Made-up birthday and made-up name. In other words, SI6’s wet dream.

  But if my new name wasn’t bad enough, I was also blessed with loud red hair. Obviously I was picked on immediately. That first week, a day wouldn’t go by where I wasn’t called a ginger or someone would get up the nerve to yell out Nasty Nash, to the pleasure of all the snickering kids in the mess hall. Eventually—okay, maybe only like three days in—the taunting pushed me over the edge, and I went crazy. I bit, scratched, and punched any kid who even looked at me funny, giving them all a proper reason to dislike a redheaded girl. They stopped their taunting after that. I might have even created a good ten-yard personal bubble around myself. Which was fine—most of those kids smelled anyway. But I mean literally they smelled, and not because of my heightened senses. Have you been around children lately? They stink.

  Ceci was the only one who treated me with any kindness and didn’t catch any slack for talking to me, all because of one reason—everyone liked Ceci. She has a voice as soothing as a spring breeze and a face of an angel. Her smooth dark skin, unique gray eyes, and then-unruly brown hair would melt all the caretakers as well as the kids. She has a way of making everyone smile, living off the love of others like it’s her favorite flavored lollipop—can’t get enough.

  “So how was Spain?” Ceci asks as she continues to shuffle around my kitchen. “Man, I am so friggin’ jealous you get to travel so much. If you ever need, like, an assistant or anything…”

  She thinks my trip to Spain was to procure a possible new client, which again, it kind of was. Or rather carry out a client’s order.

  “It was all right.” I put aside the bag of chips and reach for a dishrag to wipe off my hands. “I wasn’t there for very long, and it was mostly work, so didn’t get to see many sites.”

  I’ve been to Spain more times than I can count, but these trips are mostly consumed by work. A vacation is definitely in my immediate future.

  “Still, that’s so cool! Maybe I should’ve gone to college after all,” she jokes.

  Oh yeah…I might have lied to her about college too. For the four years I was “in undergrad,” I was actually occupied with SI6 training, which had started in high school. My after-school “private tutor”? Yeah, foreign language, weapons, and combat classes.

  Before we go much further, I should probably be honest about something. K-Ops—we hardly ever tell the truth.

  Leaning against the counter, Ceci reaches up to put a box of cereal away, letting her shirt ride up, and my eyes zero in on a hideously large bruise on her waist. Her beautiful black skin made purple and splotchy. I’m around the kitchen island, pulling up her shirt faster than she has time to lean back down.

  “What the crap, Ceci!” I take a whiff of her and catch the subtle scent of cigarettes, body odor, and old cologne that only fits with one individual. How did I not notice this before!

  “It’s nothing, Nash, seriously.” She pushes her shirt back down and tries moving out of my iron grip, the sound of her pulse picking up speed filling my ears. “I was being a total klutz and fell.”

  “Really? You fell into a perfect fist print?” I eye her coolly. “Goddammit, Ceci. I’m going to kill Roger. I thought you weren’t seeing that genital wart anymore. Jesus, I’ve only been gone for what? Eight days! What happened?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Please, Nashville! Calm down!”

  “Calm down! I can’t fucking calm down,” I seethe as I pace back and forth. I glance from her waist—now covered, but the bruise no dimmer in my memory—to the refrigerator door back to her waist. I finally settle on the refrigerator door. Honing my rage at the metal
surface, wondering if I can tear it off its hinges. I know I can.

  He is so dead, that piece of filth. I’ve never met this particular beau of hers, but as soon as she started talking about him, something felt off, wrong, like I wouldn’t like him, and I quickly learned why. Glancing back to Ceci, I find tears slipping down her cheeks, and everything in me melts.

  “Goddammit.” I take her in my arms and hold her. “Please just tell me what happened. I promise I won’t blow up again.”

  She starts to shake in my arms, so tiny, the smaller one of the two of us. I always felt like I needed to watch out for her, though all those years in the orphanage she’d been really looking after me. I restrain a snort at how backward that is.

  “I hate when you get like this,” she says between sniffles. “You’re not you anymore.”

  “Of course I’m me.” I grab the box of tissues from the counter.

  “No, you’re this…other you. You get so cold and resolved. You know how I hate when people are angry. You especially,” she finishes in a whisper.

  I look away and play with the extra tissue in my hand.

  “Well, can you blame me for getting pissed? Maybe the years of seeing you taken for granted have taken its toll.”

  She flinches at my words, and I immediately regret saying them. But hell if they aren’t true. Once we both hit high school, I watched helplessly as Ceci would go from one train-wreck relationship to the next. Always trying to find the love she desperately craved. I on the other hand, after seeing her go through heartbreak after heartbreak and asshole after asshole, wanted nothing to do with any romantic relationship. Not that my fluffy personality would have landed me in one. But still, if I learned anything by being left on the street by the people who were supposed to love me unconditionally, it’s that the only person you can really rely on is you. And even that’s pushing it.

  We’re both quiet for a while.

  “I just don’t understand,” I say more gently. “I told you that you could stay with me as long as it takes for you to get back on your feet again. I know it’s hard to find a job right now with the economy and this thing with Roger…” I have to pause, calming the rage that threatens to break free. “I don’t mind helping you with money. I just can’t have you going back to these dirtbags, not while you’re living in my house. I thought you had left all that behind when you moved to Chicago.”

  She ignores my gaze, so I try a different tactic.

  “Listen. I know it’s hard.” I frown. “Us coming from nothing can make us feel like that’s what we deserve, but we don’t, Ceci.” I touch her arm. “You, out of everyone, deserve the world.”

  It takes her a second to respond, and when she does, her voice is small as she struggles to meet my eyes. “I don’t want to take your money, Nash. I feel dirty taking it.”

  “And you feel better getting it the way Roger wants you to?” I say in disgust. “You’re better than that.” I lean against the counter.

  Ceci transforms into her glazed-over look she gets when she’s trying to forget the reason she’s fighting in the first place. It makes my skin crawl, and I realize I need to do what I should have done a month ago.

  “Can you just answer me one thing?” I ask, handing her the extra tissue. She takes it while cautiously meeting my gaze.

  “Okay.”

  “Yes or no, was it Roger?” I know the answer, but I need to hear her say it.

  She stares at me for a moment, and I can tell she’s deliberating if it’s worth trying to lie.

  With me, it never is.

  Letting out a defeated sigh, she says, “Yes.”

  I narrow my eyes infinitesimally, reveling in the familiar shiver of adrenaline that runs up my spine anytime I come to a particular decision.

  “But he apologized, Nash,” she says quickly. “He really did. And he’s never done something like this. I swear. I shouldn’t have said those things to him. I knew he’d get mad, but I said them anyway. I was just so upset with how we left things. You know me. I can be such a bitch sometimes. Please don’t be angry. I can’t stand it when you are. I know it was stupid to go see him, and I promise, I promise, I won’t see him again. Seriously, I won’t.” Ceci twists her hands over and over.

  Ugh. I hate what this man turns her into. Her usual strong, vibrant flame extinguished.

  Forcing a reassuring smile, I take her nervous fingers into mine, calming them. “Yes, Ceci,” I say, holding her gray gaze, “that’s one thing we can both agree on. You most certainly won’t be seeing him again.”

  3

  Carter

  PARIS, FRANCE: 0130 HOURS

  I give the finest bare bottom I’ve laid eyes on, at least in the past forty-eight hours, a little slap as it saunters away.

  “Oh, Benjamin. You are ze devil.” The woman giggles over her shoulder as she makes her way into the bathroom, her blond hair turning to honey under the low candlelight.

  “Mademoiselle, I can assure you, I can be much, much more wicked.” My smile curves to one side as I stretch out on the soft sheets I’ve found myself entangled in tonight. Glancing down, I catch four long scratch marks on my abs and grin further, bringing to mind the manicured nails that caused them.

  I think Paris is my new favorite city.

  Not two minutes into my relaxed state does my phone beep from my jeans hidden somewhere on the floor. Rolling my eyes, I hesitate for a second before retrieving it.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s time.”

  The line goes dead.

  Looking longingly at the closed bathroom door that houses my current favorite naked form, I sigh before quickly redressing and slipping out of the apartment.

  I can’t complain too much. At least they waited until after and not during.

  Leaving my leather jacket open, enjoying the summer night air, I make my way through the small streets of St. Germain toward La Seine River. I wait at the water’s edge, watching couples walk by arm in arm. The city crawls by lazily, tourists mixing with the locals as they mutually take in the twinkling lights of open shops and cafés. The occasional clinking of glasses and pleasant chatter fill the air as a young woman in a black shift dress and heels approaches. She leans beside me against the stone wall that runs the length of the river.

  “Bonsoir,” she says in a smoky voice.

  I incline my head. “Bonsoir.”

  “Do you have a smoke?” she asks in French.

  “Only Gauloises,” I reply in her native language.

  She nods, showing a brief smile of understanding.

  I shield the flame with my hand as I assist her in lighting her cigarette, watching the orange glow from the match dance over her ruby lips.

  “I hear the crowd at La Poison Noir is fine this evening,” she continues in French, blowing a line of smoke from the corner of her mouth.

  We watch a few pedestrians walk by.

  “Is it?”

  “Oui, it has the most extensive wine cellar. If you go, you must have a look.” She takes another drag while glancing at me.

  I take a moment to enjoy her femme-noir beauty of brown perfectly quaffed hair, shapely form, and dangerously full lips. Giving her a playful grin, one that she returns, I decide on a whim to lean over and whisper the name of a nearby hotel.

  Pulling back, her eyes flicker over my body with more interest, and her mouth moves into a deeper smile. Taking one last puff of her cigarette, she drops it, puts it out with the toe of her high heel, and nods ever so slightly.

  Tucking my hands into my jeans pockets, I watch her retreating form, keeping my eyes on a certain voluptuous lower half longer than the rest before I turn, more than pleased, and head toward my destination.

  Yes, Paris is most definitely my favorite city.

  After a nice walk, I come to the brick alley that shares the back door to La Poison Noir. A single bulb rests above a door, shining a yellow spotlight on a suited sumo wrestler of a man standing outside. Seeing me, he flashes the Glock 30 at his w
aist.

  “Can I help you?” he asks gruffly in French.

  I stare at his shaved head and robust build, guessing he’s got about three inches and ninety pounds on me. Piece of cake.

  “As a matter of fact, you can,” I answer in English.

  Immediately he pulls the gun from his holster, but I quickly jab him in the throat and knee him in the genitals, and when he’s falling forward gasping for breath and searching for his manhood, I land a severe elbow to the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.

  I stare at the unmoving mammoth of a man and wonder how the hell I’m going to drag him from this area to hide his body.

  “Real smart thinking, Carter.” I scratch the back of my neck as I search around the barren alley. Settling for filled garbage bags taken out by the kitchen, I pile them on top of him. It’s definitely disrespectful, and he’ll be extremely pissed and smelly when he wakes up, but as the French say, c’est la vie.

  Slowly I open the back door, finding the entrance dark and empty. Taking a step in, I remove my subsonic loaded Smith & Wesson 1911S (also known as Minnie) and attach the suppresser, all the while looking around for the door leading to the cellar. I hear the restaurant patrons’ chatter through the wall to my right and see the kitchen staff zipping about through the two circular windows in the swinging doors to my left. The threshold I’m in seems to be a mudroom, separating the garbage collection area from the kitchen. On the farthest wall is an unassuming black door.

  Bingo.

  Opening it, I find wooden stairs leading down to a cellar and catch the echo of men’s voices coming up. Quietly I descend, pressing against the stone wall, its surface cold and damp even through my jacket. The stench of cigars and liquor reach my nose, and I stop a couple steps above the floor, still hidden in shadow. Filtering through the sound of things shuffling and plastic hitting plastic, I surmise they are indulging in a game of poker—at least four men are in the room.