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“I haven’t yet figured out which of the six politicians it is, or if it’s all,” he tells me.

“And what are the stakes?”

“Five million dollars to bring her in alive.”

I hang up without another word. If Seven takes offence to this, he hasn’t let it show in all the years he’s worked for me.

“Seven dedicated his life to being a hitman,” I tell her. “Damn good one, too. Seven is the number of people he killed before he turned back to God. He no longer does that for a living, but he still has contacts on the dark web, which is where he got his intel from. Someone wants you dead, and six zeros with a five preceding them gives people a lot of incentive to hunt you down, Ariadne. A hell of a lot of incentive.”

She shakes, a spasm overtaking her body; the moisture in her eyes is evidence that she understands the severity of the situation. If it wasn’t for Seven’s vigilance, we may never have known about the contract, and this could have so easily gone south.

“But he said they want me alive,” she protests.

“Loosely translated – they want your death to be long and torturous. That’s the only reason they want you alive. You need to understand the danger to you, Ariadne. I can take you back home. I can leave you to fend for yourself. But you have no idea what you’re up against.”

“Who?” She whispers. “Why?”

But I think she already knows the answers to her own questions, so I don’t reply to them.

“I brought you here because I can only protect you where I am.”

23

ARIADNE

An overwhelming ball of fire showers me, starting at my head and moving down to my knees. Everything shakes, and no matter how rigidly I sit, all the neurons in my brain are firing off erratically. I can’t believe this is fucking happening. To me.

Caleph is still talking, but I don’t hear a thing he says as I stand, a heaviness weighing on my head. My body sways, a slow dance I might do if I were drunk, then I collapse to the ground.

I fall in and out of consciousness as I hang upside down off someone’s back. I’m being carried somewhere, and for a minute, a sudden rush of panic flows through me as I wonder where I am. My head bounces off his back, my hair like a fanned-out halo slapping through the air.

The next time I come to, I’m lying on a bed, and I can hear the beep, beep, beep of a monitor. Voices speak in hushed tones, and my head feels like it’s weighted down with iron. I’ve never known such pain. And yet, I’ve never known such peace.

My hands are clammy, and I feel a sharp stabbing pain in the back of my hand that stings like a bitch.

“Where am I?” I ask, as my eyes flutter against the pain coursing through my whole being.

A hand passes across my forehead before Caleph’s face comes into focus, leaning over me with a cloth against my temple. When he removes the cloth, he purses his lips tight and rubs a hand against the back of his head. This I have come to realize in the little time I have spent with him, is a nervous tic. Though I don’t know that a man of his caliber has anything to be nervous about.

“Caleph?”

My voice is barely a croak as I look for answers. He looks at me uncertainly, before he looks behind him and someone else enters the frame. It’s a short middle-aged man with prematurely white hair and spectacles. He looks like a doctor.

“Your blood pressure dropped dramatically, and you’re badly dehydrated. You’ll have to leave the IV drip in your hand for a couple of hours. If it’s all the same to you…” he turns and looks at Caleph, “I’d rather stay and monitor her for that time. She doesn’t look like she’s in a good way.”

Caleph nods his agreement. I feel the heaviness in my hand as I try to lift it, then let it drop to the bed again and allow my eyes to flutter and close. I’m so exhausted, I think I just want to sleep and never wake again.

* * *

The doctor is gonewhen I wake again, but Caleph is sitting spreadeagled in a nearby chair, his hands cushioned behind his head as he watches me. His whole body seems to come to life as my eyes open and he rises and comes to my side.

“How long… have I been asleep?” I ask, which is a stupid question, because I wouldn’t even want to get back the time I’ve lost.

“Sixteen hours.”

“That long?”

He doesn’t reply as he concentrates his stormy eyes on me. After a long silence, he chooses to pick up where we left off before I fainted.