Page 21 of Clean Hack
By the noise in the background, I could tell that she was down working in the bar. She’d gotten too restless from just sitting around and waiting that she ended up taking a part-time job at a locals’ bar there. She also rented the space above the bar and was, and I say this loosely, living there. There wasn’t much to the place and I knew she hadn’t really bought anything to make it lookhomey. And I knew for a fact that she slept on a cheap mattress that she had tossed on the floor.
“Oh, right,” I said in an almost ditsy laugh. “Sorry. But do you see him? He’s huge!” I had no idea why I was whisper-yelling now.
I was so shocked that someone had actually shown up that I wasn’t really paying attention to the screen. I was like an excited kid on Christmas, ripping through the wrapping paper but not realizing what I had in my hands until someone said something about it.
She came up with a sarcastic remark about how she couldn’t tell because he looked small on her screen. Which, I bet he did because she had been looking at the feed on her phone. So the guy probably looked more like a giant ant than the overgrown, hulking beast that I could tell he was. Oh, and hairy on top of that. I hadn’t seen what the guy looked like because the hair on top of his head hung over his face and looked dirty. And the glimpses of his front that I’d barely gotten, showed me that there was a huge, unkempt beard that hid a lot, too.
I think I made a noise as I tried to place the familiar feeling I was struck with.
“Do you know him?” I asked still in a bit of a lost daze.
“I’m pretty sure I don’t.” Her tone was pretty flat and I could tell that there was no recognition there. Not that I thought there would be.
I tried to brush off whatever was shaking me deep to my core. I ended the conversation with her as smoothly as possible, but I could tell that she’d caught onto whatever the hell was going on with me.
I watched as the big lug of a man shuffled around the cabin. His posture was slumped and defeated. Almost like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and no longer gave a fuck if he held it up any anymore.
He turned to the side and then it hit me. I gasped as I realized who I was looking at. Then I felt his sadness overtake my own heart.
Tank.
Shit!
Shit, fuck, God motherfucking dammit!
This was her target.
Tank. The man from Moon Hill that had just lost his son. By the hands of the man that I was out to get. Tank was Nadya’s next target. She was there to kill him.
I started to freak out and knew there wasn’t anything I could really do. I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and tried to slow my breathing.
Fucking Burke.
I couldn’t believe he hadn’t warned me about any of this. I was mad, though I knew I really didn’t have the right to be. He needed to fucking call me back. Now!
The lines were blurring. The ones that were between Nadya and me. The ones that tethered me to these people that didn’t even know me. And maybe worst of all, the ones that held me to Clean. My world was slowly tilting upside down. Or maybe it had been for years only now I was just realizing it.
It was driving me crazy. I needed to know who Nadya took the contract from, but I couldn’t come out and ask her. It became harder and harder each time I talked to her. I started to pull back and I think she noticed. I watched the cabin and what was going on with Tank, probably just as much as she did, but I didn’t let onto that fact.
Days turned into weeks and she still hadn’t made her move. I don’t know why, but part of me felt like I could relax a little at that fact. I could sense that there was something there every time I talked to her. I questioned why she hadn’t taken him out, but at the same time, I pretty much knew why in the back of my mind. Then I called her out on it and when she didn’t have an answer for me, I knew. I fucking knew—even if she didn’t. I just had to sit back and pray that it would all work out the way it was supposed to and that she wouldn’t end up taking that shot. Sure, I may have tossed in a few things here and there to maybe set her mind on the right path. But I had a feeling I wouldn’t have been able to make her walk it if there wasn’t really something there to begin with.
Then it happened, I pushed. I asked. The question slipping from my lips when I had meant to hold it in. We didn’t cross that line. I didn’t know much about her jobs and I never asked for details on who she took a contract from. However, there was something nagging at me in the back of my mind. Like I already knew the answer but didn’t want it to be true. But there was no going back now that the question was out there, hanging thick in the air as the seconds ticked on. And then she finally told me who’d she’d taken the job from after a long pause.
Savage.
I shouldn’t have been shocked but I was. Of course, the man would take out a hit on one of the random clubs he’d been pressuring. And of course, he’d do it in the most sneaky way possible. Sending someone where they would least expect it.
The moment she said his name I gasped. There was no way she didn’t hear it, too. I couldn’t hold any kind of conversation after that and so I pretty much made up a vague excuse about having to go. She wasn’t an idiot and so, I knew I wasn’t fooling her in the slightest.
