Page 39 of Collateral Claim
“Ouch,” she says. “What are they paying you, Doc?”
If I say it’s free, I’m complicit. If I name a price, it shows I can be bought. I return to the patient on the table, press the scalpel against his skin, and slice.
Chapter 17
A woman of her word
Endo
My brother learned the art of trade from my father, and my father learned it from his father, and so on, dating back to pirate days, when large orders for traded goods, such as stolen ships or gold, were written by hand on paper.
A man, or a woman, as was the case with my great-great-aunt, can’t be expected to memorize more than a few items. The orders always required the initials of both parties. Back then, people were less reluctant to leave a paper trail, but nowadays they’re more paranoid. Regardless, everyone doing business with us knows what to expect. They must initial the order.
We safeguard the paper and offer a personal guarantee that we are the only ones who will ever see it. We’ve kept that promise for centuries. I’m not about to change that. In this business, if your word means nothing, you won’t secure high-paying contracts, certainly not ones sanctioned by various governments behind closed doors.
Which might be the case here with Daniel’s god-forsaken shipment, which Cass micromanaged. It appears that Cass negotiated with a man known as Vodan, whose initials are likely on the handwritten order I found in Cass’s stash.
However, the same cargo seemed to have been promised to at least two other buyers, and the men I met with last night were the ones who were supposed to get it. I went to meet them to let them know I’ll fulfill the order in a month’s time. They didn’t care for the delay, and I don’t blame them. The man I spoke with reached for a gun, and the rest unfolded in two minutes flat.
Marquis took a bullet meant for me.
I pick it up from the metal bowl Scarlett left it in.
This bullet came from the weapon of a crew I recognize, and I can take an educated guess as to which of our friends or enemies hired them. There are five worldwide organizations that could hire this particular private army, three of which I consider frenemies. Only one of them would dare fire at me at such close range and in such a tight space where there was no possibility that I could survive: the private army hired by my half brother, Declan and Connor’s father.
He’s never attempted to assassinate me before, certainly not by using people I could recognize. This tells me he’s desperate to end me. That’s not news, but I’d love to know why now.
He’s connected with the cargo Cass never delivered. It must’ve been very valuable to him. He could be facing pressure from someone he can’t outmaneuver. With Cass missing, he saw an opportunity to get rid of Cass and me. I don’t know which but all of it makes me think he’s already killed my brother.
I pocket the bullet and check my watch.
It’s a little after five in the morning, and Marquis is sleeping. He’s pale and looks dead as a doornail, but the heart lines on the monitor next to him tell me he’s alive. Next to him, Scarlett’s supposed to be monitoring the machines, but she’s slumped inthe chair with the back of her head leaning against the wall and her mouth wide open, breathing heavily as she also sleeps like the dead.
Her legs are wide open, and I stand between them and watch her sleep.
Again.
Ever since the first night I walked into her bedroom at her house and found her by the window, then moved her into the bed, I’ve been visiting her in the early hours of the morning, around this time. She sleeps deeply, like a little bear, and I find that it somehow brings me peace when I watch her.
I’m unsure why, and I don’t question it or care to consider why I’m doing this. I like it. and so I do it. Until I remember that she’s my enemy’s daughter. Then I walk away.
But tonight is different. She saved the life of one of my own people. A man who took a bullet for me. She didn’t want to do it, which makes me wonder if she would have walked away. If I didn’t press her to perform the surgery, would she have walked away from a wounded man, leaving him to die?
Maybe.
Scarlett is difficult to pin down. Fairly unpredictable. Maybe that’s why I hate that she brings me peace. Sometimes even joy. Maybe it’s because I hate having to look at her in Marquis’s room that I pick her up and carry her upstairs into our late doctor’s apartment, which we’ve since converted into free room and board for medical staff who want to stay in town and work here.
I lay her in the bed and cover her with a blanket.
Then I stand there, staring at her. Again.
Chapter 18
Surprise! You work here
Scarlett
I wake up disoriented, in a place I don’t recognize. Off-white walls, off-white furniture and bedsheets. The room reminds me of a hotel room. Small desk. Notepad. Pen. Lamp. A door leading into the bathroom.
