Page 83 of Power Term

“You ready?” Tank’s gruff voice is barely audible with the whistling wind in the background.

“Hi, baby. I miss you too.” Warm metal presses into my spine as I relax against the SUV like I don’t have a care in the world. For this plan to work no one can know I have eyes tracking my every breath from blocks away.

“Laying it on thick, aren’t you?” he grumbles. Using my shoulder, I hold the phone to my ear as I dig into the front pocket of my jeans and slide the half-gone cigarette pack and lighter out. “Thought you were quitting?”

My lips spread around the butt between them as I light the end. Only after a couple deep inhales do I respond. “Soon.” Closing my eyes, I rest my head back against the rear window.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand tall as a sensation of foreboding washes over me.

“Don’t do anything stupid.” The line goes dead in my ear, but I don’t drop the phone. Instead I continue to talk into it like there’s still someone on the line.

“Yes, of course, we can do that position again tonight, baby. Yeah, you screaming my name was music to my ears too.” Okay, maybe this is a little thick, but Tank and Smith didn’t tell me I couldn’t exaggerate a little while playing prey. “In fact, later I want you to recite the oath while I—”

The distinct click of a slide engaging catches my ear, cutting off my next words. I peek one eye open, the late morning sun bright as it pours through the open gaps of the parking garage. A shadow moves to my right. Peeling the other eye open, I flick the spent cigarette to the cement and extinguish the glowing ember with the heel of my shoe.

I shove the phone into my back pocket and frantically scan the row of luxury cars. Somewhere in the distance, the clink of a bottle rolling down the slope of the ramp cuts through the stiff silence.

“Hello?” I say to no one as I scan the parking garage again. My face drops as my hands connect with the soft cotton of the T-shirt instead of the hard grip of my gun. The gun that’s in the center console four feet away. “Fuck,” I mutter.

A familiar figure steps from the recessed shadows cast by a thick support column.

My eyes narrow at the gun casually hanging at his side.

“What are you doing here?” I snag another cigarette, hands slightly shaking, taking three attempts to light the end before I’m successful. Little does this fucker know it’s adrenaline and not fear that’s causing the tremor. Adrenaline, blood lust, the need to murder… yeah, we’re going with adrenaline.

“Cut the damn act,” Ponder chides. “You know I was behind it all. You and those dumbasses have been tracking me—unsuccessfully, I might add.”

“What’s your plan now? Kill me, then go after her again?”

He leans his head one way and then the other like he’s considering the options. “She was a job. Which I completed by delivering her unharmed and helping keep her… compliant.”

“Until Whit changed tactics on you.” I release a billow of smoke and cock my head to the side. At least that’s what Randi thinks. She clearly remembers him being against forcing himself on her, and that’s why he left without finishing the job. “Who would’ve thought someone like you has standards.”

He purses his lips. “I’m a killer, not a rapist. Then the fucker went and crossed me by taking you. You did me a favor killing him that night, saved me the trouble.”

“You kill all your clients?”

“Just ones who have the potential to double-cross me or who actually do. The latter don’t live long.”

“And Rosen?”

The man huffs, using the barrel of the gun to scratch an itch along his scalp. “He was as weak as they come. That wasn’t the first time he ordered a hit for someone else. I fucking hate middlemen.” The loathing in his hard tone lays truth to the statement.

“So what now? You plan to kill me, then her, and then escape to….” I wave a hand in front of me, indicating for him to finish the statement.

“Just you.”

Both my brows rise up my forehead. “The other client with a hit on the president won’t be happy about that, will they? I didn’t figure you as the type of sociopath who’d go back on his commitments.”

The roar of a car engine fills the garage. We both tense as a white compact car from the level above rounds the corner, its tires squealing as it takes the tight turn. Ponder slips the hand with the gun behind his back and nods to the driver as he passes. If anyone were to see us, they’d think we were simply neighbors having a nice chat in the garage.

“You’re personal. All the contracts on that bitch are voided considering most are incarcerated or dead. So now it’s just you and me.” He frowns at my empty hands. “I was hoping for more of a fight, but I have a plane to catch.”

My pulse races as he slides the hand with the gun forward and raises it, pointing the end of the barrel right between my eyes. Sweat beads and drips along my forehead, catching in the dark scruff I was too lazy to shave off this morning.

A sharp whizzing noise zaps through the air milliseconds before Ponder’s head explodes. Blood, brain matter, and bits of skull spray along the cement and splatter the windows and trunks of nearby cars. I watch as his body crumples in slow motion.

A warm breeze wafts through the wide open-air gap between the cement barrier and the next level. I let out a sharp whistle and stroll toward the dead assassin. Stopping just outside the growing puddle of blood, I toss the spent cigarette into it, watching as the sticky liquid quickly douses the ember and the filter absorbs all it can until it’s as red as the ground.

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