Page 71 of The Company

Harper huffs out a breath and starts shaking her head. “You sure do ask a lot of why questions. I mean, for someone who was taught to shut his face and do what he’s told. And that answer is God’s honest truth. So now it’s my turn. Why was that guy back there someone who should be dead?”

I give Harper a quick glance, then deflect the question for a few more seconds as I swerve to miss a tortoise crossing the highway. Her bare feet are propped up on the dash and she’s leaning back against the door so she can get a straight view of me. “One of my recent jobs, that’s all.”

“So what did he do? To deserve an assassination by you?”

“I have no clue, it was just an order.”

“But you failed. So…”

“I thought he was dead,” I growl at her. “I didn’t fail. Something else happened.”

“Oh.” She sighs, and then mutters, “OK,” at me, tiring of my evasive answers quickly, and for that I’m grateful. I’m not in the mood to talk about what I’ve been doing the past two years.

“So how come you haven’t killed Merc?” Sasha, that little faker, asks from the back.

“Why would I kill Merc?”

“You killed all the rest. So how come not Merc?”

I scowl at her in the rear view.

“You killed all the other what?” Harper asks now.

Fuck.

“Assassins.” Sasha again. “He’s supposed to be the only one left besides Merc. So I’m just curious, why Merc? Because he’s not a nice guy. He’s not a good guy. He’s not a Company guy either. He’s nasty and mean and since I knew all those other assassins you took out, even if it was just casually, I just don’t get it.”

I say nothing. Because this is yet another puzzle piece that requires some thinking. How the fuck does this kid know so much about my business? And who the fuck is setting me up? And if Sasha and I are actually working for the same person, that’s one thing. But I’m not getting the impression that’s the case. In fact, all my previous loyalties are coming into question at the moment. Who do I trust? Whose plan is this?

“There’s more, you know,” Sasha continues in the wake of my silence.

“More what?” I laugh out the words in an attempt to feign amusement.

“More assassins. More than you know of. Lots more.”

I am not amused. “I don’t want to talk about it, OK? Just a couple more hours and we’ll be in Palm Springs. Until then, shut the fuck up.”

“James,” Harper says in a calm voice. “It’s better if we all know what’s going on.”

“The Smurf back there is the only one who knows what’s going on, why not ask her.”

“He’s crazy,” Sasha says as Harper turns back to her. “They’re all crazy. You had to have seen them growing up, right? Even if it was just briefly, you had to have seen them. It’s not easy to miss the fact that you have to be psychotic to do a job like this.”

“Sasha, I’m not gonna say it again. Shut the fuck up. I’m not the crazy one here, OK?” I look over at Harper and she’s got that look in her eyes again. That same look she had back in Huntington when she was trying to figure out if she was my target. And she has no fucking right. No fucking right. “I’m not the one who just jumped off the roof of a moving vehicle to tackle a dirt bike. I’m not the one who just snapped a man’s neck like it was nothing. I’m not the one who’s been living in the middle of nowhere for three months. You two”—I point to Harper and then jerk my thumb in the direction of the back seat—“you fucking girls are the crazy ones.”

“Hmmm,” is all Harper says.

Sasha keeps her mouth shut for once.

And that’s how they leave it. With me being a dick.

I try to forget about the question and just drive. I don’t want to fight with Harper. She’s the only fucking reason I’m doing any of this. Fighting with her defeats every objective I have. I just want to get out of this goddamned sun, close the curtains, make everything dark, and—

“I think I know why he didn’t kill Merc.”

“Why?” Harper asks quickly, turning around to see Sasha.

“Because Merc is gonna kill him.”