“Keys?” I asked, nodding to the absolutely and obviously wrecked Tahoe.
Jericho handed them to me, and then I was jumping down and heading for our soon-to-be-abandoned vehicle. Taking the Tahoe to the top floor, I tucked the black SUV away in a corner where hopefully no one would notice for at least a few hours. Considering that the car was registered to a Trinity Security shell company, there was no amount of wiping down the interior that would ever cover our tracks. So, I simply left the SUV there and cleaned out the remainder of the gear, then loaded everything into the trunk of the new-to-us Lexus when Jericho arrived.
“Alright,” Jericho said as we went to pull away. “Who the fuck were those people, Ambyr?”
“Guess you could call them my co-workers,” she said. “Mercenary from South Africa named Joergensen, and his team. I’d thought they were in Chicago doing a job, and that’s why I stayed behind to do this one. But, I guess the Agency had other plans.”
“Why?”
“Why?” She sighed, shook her head. “Probably because I told my handler that this was going to be my last job. Guess Management had different thoughts on my retirement plan.”
We were down on the lower level of the parking garage, now, and Jericho was pulling a parking pass from the dashboard as we approached the automatic exit gate. A siren wailed and, seconds later, a police cruiser raced by on the street in front of us.
“Wait,” I said, shifting in my seat to grab my wallet. I handed over some cash to Jericho as I looked back to Ambyr. “Last job? When’d you decide that?”
“This morning,” she said, her smile tight and thin, but her voice as sincere as when she’d first told us her real name. “Last couple days have really made me reconsider some things.”
All I could do was blink as her words settled in. Jericho and Morgan, for their parts, were also silent as we pulled out underneath the rising gate and went to turn onto the street. He headed south, towards the nearest highway on-ramp.
We rode the next few miles in near silence, all mulling over her admission.
Had she meant us?
I mean, shehadsaved my life…
But she’d never even bothered to get our numbers. Had even dodged out the next morning without saying so much as “so long.”
“Alright,” Jericho said as we went to pull onto the freeway. “Say ‘goodnight city,’ everybody. Gonna be a while till we see it again.”
“Goodnight, city,” said Morgan.
“I’m not fucking saying that.”
“You’re no fun, Ambyr. Goodnight, city, everybody.”
“Goddammit, Andrew.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ambyr
Six hands.
Strong, rough, callused, hard, they slid over my naked body. Over my breasts, my midriff, down between my thighs. Fingers, so firm and insistent and sexy, found my clit and moist lips. Next came their hot mouths and tongues. So full, so searching, so teasing as they traveled over my neck, shoulders, nipples, inner thigh.
Long, wonderful strokes of those tongues, too. The tips just tracing, even as their hands gripped and held me in place. Spreading me wider and wider, two of them kissed higher and higher in the darkness, till I could feel their panting breaths on my dripping, begging cu—
“Hey,” Morgan growled through the darkness, waking me up.
Because, yeah.
That had been a dream.
A wonderful one, for sure.
But still, no more than a dream that my mind had retreated into, rather than face the facts of my currently dire situation as Jericho directed the SUV down some shitty highway.
I kept my eyes shut, hoping the darkness would somehow take me.