Page 43 of Deception

“I’ll handle this myself, shall I?” Standing, I start inside, heading straight to the service elevator that leads directly to the penthouse suite.

Anton follows behind me, the maid jogging to keep up beside him. She’s nervous the entire way up; her trembling breaths fill the confined space around us. Pulling back into a corner, she watches us enter the suite.

It takes all of two seconds in the space to realise that something is off, and even before I open the door to her room, I feel the emptiness that her absence has left in its wake. The air is thin and void.

Red is gone.

16

LUCY

The breeze picks up the faster I run through the streets of a small Turkish town. The market is teeming with civilians, families enjoying their evening and tourists zipping in and out of shops and restaurants. Wrapping the headscarf tighter around my neck, I tie it into a loose knot beneath my chin to stop it from blustering off.

“Sorry,” I yell back at a local screaming at me. My shoulder throbs from the impact that almost took us both out, and all I can do is yell back again, “So sorry.”

The maxi dress Elif put me in does nothing but get in the way as I try to weave in and out of the crowd and leap over every dog and its mate that’s walking the streets. With the mosque that Elif told me to look out for in sight, I dip into the side street that she said I should follow down to the other side of the seafront.

Pulling my rucksack tighter on my shoulders with one hand, I feel for the gun holstered into the garter on my thigh. My foot pulses in the confines of my trainers that are slightly too snug for comfort. Still, I keep running until I reach the end of the quiet side street and flag down one of the tuk-tuk tour carts driving past.

“I need to get to Silifke,” I tell him after dragging in a deep breath to steady my beating heart.

“Silifke?” he laughs back, shaking his head.

“I’ll pay you double.”

That gets his attention, staunching his laughter as he narrows his eyes at me. “It’s double to leave town.”

“I’ll pay quadruple…four timesthe going rate.” Jumping into the cart, I pull my backpack off my shoulders and take out some of the cash that Elif put in there.

I know it’s not enough to pay him, but I have a gun. The sight of which will make him shit himself.

“You get this now and the rest once you get me there.”

The bastard looks down at my hand with a sneer as he takes the cash and counts it.

“No, not even enough for tour of Akdeniz. Get out.”

“I’ve got more,” I lie, watching our surroundings for any sudden movements or commotion.

Tomasz knows I’m gone; I can feel it in my bones. I can feel him hunting me just the way he did that night in the woods with his dogs. My ears prick at every high-pitched noise, as though they’re listening out for his whistle.

“Get out!”

Reaching into the backpack, I take the second wad of cash. It’s slimmer than the first, but I’m hoping that producing it will get him to move. “Here. Take it.”

“I don’t want it. You get out.”

Fuck it!It was always going to end with me pulling my gun out on him, anyway.

“Oh shit!” he cries, throwing me the cash I gave him and raising his hands in the air when he sees the weapon.

“Go or I’ll put a hole in your head.” Nodding down at the wedding ring on his hand and the photo stuck to the corner of his windshield, I add, “You’ll never see your wife and kids again.”

I barely finish before he turns and navigates us through the backstreets towards the main road leading out of the town.

“Don’t stop,” I snap at him when he slows at a set of traffic lights.

The surroundings are quiet. Too quiet. My spine tingles with the same ominous feeling I had the night I walked out of my parents’ house to meet my handler. The night that brought me here. Pulling my rucksack back on, I edge closer to my escape when a blacked-out sedan rolls to a stop on one side of the tuk-tuk.

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