"It's not that simple, unfortunately." She lifts an eyebrow at Terra. "You. Out."
"Camilla," I growl, voice full of warning. "I had one rule."
"Oh relax. I won't hurt her." She lifts one delicate shoulder. "As long as she cooperates, and you follow along like a good boy."
Terra looks at me, fear in her eyes. "Saxon?"
I close my eyes briefly. Let out a breath. "Best if you go with her. The Camilla I knew always kept her word. Just…be calm. Keep your shit in check, okay? Don't piss her off."
"There's just her and the one guy," She whispers. "Can't you, like, do some James Bond shit?"
I shake my head. "He's the one you see. I guarantee you, there's more we can't see. Probably with rifles trained on my fucking forehead. One wrong move and I've got a new hole in my skull."
Camilla gives me the lizard smile again. "You always were a smart boy." Another look at Terra. "I have no reason to hurt you, darling. Come along with me, and we'll compare notes on Saxon. I've got a nice rosé chilling in the car. You're just insurance that Saxon does what I want. He's a tricky one, you see. He might decide to do some, as you put it, James Bond shit." She closes one eye in a sultry wink. "I have excellent hearing."
I squeeze Terra’s hand. "Not a lot of choices here, honey. Discretion really is the better part of valor, and right now, she's got the drop on us. Best to take our chances with Camilla. Find out what she wants and just hope it's not my balls on a silver platter."
"She better not," Terra says. "I happen to like your balls quite a lot. They're pretty."
Camilla laughs, a genuine burst of amusement with a real smile that transforms her, for a moment, into the Camilla I used to know. "He really does have a lovely set of balls, doesn't he?" Camilla snaps her fingers, and a pair of LED headlights flick on. "Come, darling. Time is wasting, and time is money, and I hate wasting money."
Terra slowly climbs out of the car, casually keeping her right hand in her jacket pocket.
Camilla glances at her with a droll eye roll. "Keep the gun, if it makes you feel better."
Terra just shrugs. "Fine, I will."
Camilla, to my surprise, gets behind the wheel of the car herself—a huge, black Cadillac SUV, the latest model. Terra climbs into the passenger seat, and then Camilla reverses.
Camilla's goon gets in beside me. Gestures. "Follow."
I point my gun at him. "I don't think so. Out."
He doesn't move, just stares at me.
"Get the fuck out of my car, now, if you like having two working knees." I thumb back the hammer and angle the barrel at his left kneecap. Hold his eyes, let the ice and the rage boiling in my veins bleed into my eyes.
"Orders are to ride with you."
"I don't give a fuck what your orders are. Fuck off, dickhead."
He still doesn't move, and my patience, such as it ever is, evaporates. BAMBAM. I put a round in each kneecap, and he screams—not that I can hear very well, what with my ears ringing. He's sobbing, screaming. I shove open my door, stomp around the hood, yank open his door, and haul him out, tossing him to the ground.
"Learn to read people, fuckface. Lucky for you I'm a changed man, or those rounds would be in your fuckin' skull." I lodge a kick in his gut, just because I’m pissed off and he's a disposable lackey.
I nudge the door shut with my hip on the way past, get back behind the wheel, and head out after Camilla, who has backed out of the supposedly abandoned warehouse and turned around to face the exit.
She leads the way through Jersey City to the tunnel and Manhattan—a place I do not fucking miss at all. We pull into an alleyway up on the Upper West Side, where she parks and descends gracefully, doing that inherently sexy ass wiggle to tug her skirt hem down, and then, with a smirk at me, makes a show of adjusting her boobs in my direction.
Okay, yes, I watched. And appreciated—seems she got a very unnecessary boob job in the intervening years, or at least a lift or something because I swear they're bigger and perkier than when I was—professionally, under compulsion—stalking her.
But even so, Terra's are better. A fact that I have the opportunity to appreciate because Terra didn't miss Camilla's little show for my benefit. She rolls her eyes at me and does her own comically overdone production of boob-adjustment, jumping and wiggling and shoving, all while making ridiculous faces. I can't help sputtering a laugh at how expertly she's taking the piss out of Camilla—an impressive feat of nonchalance in an otherwise deadly serious situation.
Camilla's left eye twitches—a telltale sign of annoyance.
I swipe my hand at my throat in a "cut it out" gesture.
Terra, instead of cutting it out, doubles down: she yanks the cups of her bustier down and flashes me, shaking her chest at me…and then at Camilla.
