Page 5

CHAPTER 5

JULIAN TAKES A VACATION

Julian

“ Y ou’re late.” My handler, Jason, takes a leisurely sip from a snifter.

We’re meeting in a bar owned by one of our information gatherers. It caters to an elite clientele, and the owner grants our operatives exclusive access whenever we have high-class targets in play.

“I’m always on time,” I respond and walk behind the bar to pour myself a drink.

Most times, the dim lighting and quiet atmosphere would present as intimate; romantic even. Not today. There is a sinister quality, almost a sense of distrust. This is new. For close to thirty years, I haven’t given the organization I work for a reason to doubt me. The one time was when I lost Nadira after telling her to come find me and she never did.

Creative Gifts, the orphanage we were in together before they moved me to one for older teens, said she ran away. I never believed them because she wouldn’t have left without me. After losing the people in my life, she knew how much I needed her. No, she would never have run away on her own.

When the trainers at the new orphanage realized I didn’t eat up their excuses, their next tactic was to concede that someone might have abducted her. She was the prodigy they were most proud of, a MENSA genius. Already undetectable when stealing, she instantly grasped concepts that took most people longer to learn. So, it was understandable that rival organizations heard and wanted her for themselves.

Although believable, I didn’t buy it.

I must have betrayed my skepticism because they switched up again, finally declaring she’d died in an impatient demand for me to move on.

But how could I abandon the little hope I had of one day fulfilling the promises we made?

For years, they tried to make me forget her, going so far as to “find” newspaper articles to corroborate her death. My connection to her, as farfetched as it was, made it impossible for me to believe them then. And although I’ve toed the line over the years, it’s always been due to biding my time. All the covert snooping I’ve done, ended the night she showed up at Say Yes with a different name. As does my show of loyalty to an organization that did its best to make me believe the most important person in my life abandoned me.

Jason observes me as if secretly stripping the lies and deceptions to dig for my truth. After so many years of us working together, he should realize by now that I won’t give shit away, especially anything that would compromise Nadira’s new life.

“Did you have any problems with the hit?” Jason asks.

“Why don’t you spit out what you want to know so I can answer and get on my way?” I have no time for his roundabout way of questioning me today. I need to return to Denver and the plans that have nothing to do with assassinations.

“Our client has access to the same news outlets we do as well as underground sources.”

“And?”

“ And someone else tried to make a move on the emir today. I need to know if you’re compromised.”

He has no idea to what extent. Or that I’ll willingly do so again and again just to be in Nadira’s orbit.

“I slipped in and out. No tail. Satisfied?”

Jason takes forever to respond. In the interminable seconds, we stare at each other to see who’ll blink first. It won’t be me.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

On the surface, his words should reassure me, but they don’t.

“I have another assignment for you.” Jason pulls out a thick envelope from an attaché on the floor beside him.

I shake my head and down the rest of my drink. “Give it to someone else.”

He taps a finger on the envelope while contemplating me. “This is new. Since when do you give up an assignment without knowing the details?”

“Consider it me taking a mental health break. When I’m off hiatus, I’ll check in with you. In the meantime, if I see one of your people spying, know I won’t keep silent.” I walk toward the exit. With my hand extended toward the knob, I pause. “Oh, and I’ll apologize in advance.”

“For what?”

“For killing whoever you send.”

After all these years, the phantom ache I’ve carried from being separated from Nadira is no longer a dull throb that exists to remind me who I’m missing. It hammers at me to get to her, to watch and protect her, and to fulfill the promises we made to each other long ago.

From our two interactions, it’s clear Nadira doesn’t remember me or her past. The amount of willpower I have to harness to stop myself from unloading everything is something I’ve never had to do. On my flight to Denver, I spend the hours researching memory loss. I want her to remember me and everything we were to each other, but all the materials I read suggest the patient not force the process.

I pull up a recent photo of Nadira I took while she slept. Despite the risk of her waking, I covered her naked body to study her. As the seconds passed, I couldn’t resist the lure of lying beside her, and I needed the memory to prove I hadn’t succumbed to a hallucination. I’ve had them in the past after days of refusing to eat and drink in protest when the adults around me refused to give me information about her whereabouts. As an adult, the visions came occasionally. Always vibrant. Always leaving me screaming the name I knew while reaching for her ghostly image.

But now there’s proof. I caress the scar on her cheek, wondering how she acquired it. Some people might find it unsightly, but the mark draws my gaze to her best features. Of the many memories I’ve hugged close while missing her, the ones of her eyes and smile have sustained me through the years. Staring at her in this photo, I can’t help but recall that beneath her closed lids, dark irises shine like onyx whether they glitter with her rage or sparkle with joy, or like at the club, heat with a desire she doesn’t understand. Her cheek glows with health and softness despite the disfigurement. And her lips… The obsession to beat all obsessions. Plump, soft, juicy.

I close my eyes, wishing I tasted her when I had the chance, and knowing I won’t until she trusts me the way she used to. If that means waiting until her memory returns, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything for her.