However it went, that night was the end of the Cleaners.
Quite possibly my last night on earth. I’d been living on borrowed time, anyway, and was actually, strangely, thankful for it. The things I’d experienced left scars and nightmares, but others were magical.
Warped and tangled, I wasn’t the same person. I’d come to terms with my new identity and the loss of the old me.
I would kill, more blood to stain my hands, but in the end I hoped to still be standing beside the man I foolishly loved.
Sick and twisted. Broken and wrong. I wasn’t a good person anymore.
I’d lived in the psychology of evil, had it rub off on me. Surrounded by monsters, I’d become one. Not like them, but a demented version of myself.
Killing was still difficult, but reservations of killing for self-preservation were gone.
I’d said it before—I’d do anything to survive. And I would do what was necessary to ensure that at the end of the night, we were the ones still standing.
I went over the bag and the contents. There were five pistols with eleven fully loaded magazines. All were Glocks, ensuring they all matched up. Three knives, multiple holsters, along with a few unusual weapons, like the icepick, rounded out the assortment.
One duffel that sat on the bed contained the explosives Six had rigged up. I didn’t know what all was in the concoction, but I did know there would be no evidence left when it went off.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he pulled his bulletproof vest over my head.
“Just in case.”
“No! This is for you,” I said as I yanked at it, trying to pull it off.
He grabbed my hands, and I stared into his eyes in confusion.
“You need this more than me.”
“Why?”
“Because this is the only way I’m going to be able to protect you in there.”
Tears welled in my eyes.
Protect me? They were foreign words, and even more foreign coming from him.
I ripped it off and shoved it back at him, tears stinging my eyes. “I’m collateral damage. What does it matter if I get killed?”
His jaw ticked and he threw the vest back over my head. Fingers wrapped around my chin, lifting my gaze to his. It was electric, furious and pained.
“Nobody is going to kill you but me.”
“Why?” I asked, my voice breaking.
His lips ghosted across mine. “Because you’re mine. Remember, I say when and where. Only me.”
A shuddering breath left him as he pulled back, his jaw ticking as he stepped back to the bed.
Mine.
Mine.
His…
I was his and nobody else’s.
After months of being with him, I’d fallen in love with him. Maybe, just maybe, he’d fallen in love with me too.
After all, he did say he could love and had loved.
Was it too much to hope for that Six loving me would save me? Or had my badgering questions already answered that with a resounding no?
When it came to the job, the Cleaners were absolute. I was an anomaly. A wild card that would be eradicated when I was no longer of use.
He said that was how it had to be, but was it too much to wish for to have a few more years trapped at his side?
I tossed on a T-shirt over the vest to conceal it and added my jacket on top. Between the two, the vest was barely noticeable.
“Here,” Six said, catching my attention as he grabbed hold of the vest and twirled me around.
There was a strange sensation as he stuffed something in my waistband. Before I could reach back, he began filling my pockets as well.
“What’s all this?” I asked when I finally got to reach around.
Cool metal grazed my fingers as I traced the item. Barrel, grip, and trigger—one of his Glocks.
“You’re giving me a gun?” I asked. He’d never given me one until the fight was on.
“Yes.”
First the vest, then a gun and pockets loaded with magazines? He was suiting me up, preparing me to defend my life.
A life he was going to take.
It had taken days to figure out where they were hiding, but in the end, it wasn’t that hard. One and Nine weren’t so much as hiding as they were chilling. They believed they were four Cleaners down with only two to go, celebrating their power.
Cocky.
Conceited.
My hands shook, and I drew in a deep breath to try and get them to stop. Nervous didn’t cover how I felt walking into the lion’s den. I was an average woman. I wasn’t a Cleaner, but side by side I stood next to one as some strange form of equal. Not behind him, shielded by him—next to him. In the front.
There were two men standing outside the building, which seemed odd for Cleaners to have a need for guards. Then again, maybe they weren’t guards, but fodder. A human alarm system made of bloodied, dead bodies.
Two shots from Six’s silenced barrel and they slumped to the ground.
There were no cameras that we could see, and as we approached, Six stopped in his tracks.
“Shit.”
“What?” I asked, freezing on the spot.
“They’re agents.”
“What does that mean?”