CHAPTER 295: CHAPTER - 295

Chapter - 295

"You’ve earned it... Nadia."

The line went dead.

Rick looked at Sharon. She was standing with her hand over her mouth, her face pale, her eyes wide with a dawning, horrified comprehension.

"Rick..." she whispered. "It can’t be. She’s the hostage. We saw the video..."

"A pre-recorded video of a very good actress," Rick said, tossing the phone onto the bed. "We’ve been played. From the second my father ’found’ her on the side of the road."

Before Sharon could even respond, the motel room door, which was secured with a chain and a deadbolt, was suddenly, violently, ripped clean off its hinges. It flew across the room, smashing into the wall where Rick had been standing a second before.

Standing in the ruined doorway, silhouetted against the dark parking lot, was not a woman in a suit.

It was ’Jemimah’.

But it wasn’t Jemimah. The soft, confused, gentle woman was gone. In her place was a figure of cold, coiled rage. Her hair was pulled back in a severe, practical ponytail. She was wearing a black, tactical catsuit, and in her hands, held with perfect, professional stillness, was a submachine gun.

She looked at the trashed room, at the laptop on the bed, at the blood on Sharon’s clothes, and then her eyes, as cold and hard as polished steel, landed on Rick.

"Don’t," she said, her voice flat, emotionless, and utterly terrifying, "ever call me that."

For a long, frozen ten seconds, nobody moved. The only sound in the tiny, disgusting motel room was the faint drip... drip... of the shower Sharon had just left, and the low, angry hum of the neon sign outside.

Rick and Sharon were a tableau of the damned. Both were still damp, covered in a mixture of their own sweat, shower water, and the drying, flaking blood of two dead men. Sharon had her pistol half-raised, her face a pale mask of dawning, horrified comprehension. Rick, his new stolen Rolex gleaming under the flickering motel light, stood perfectly still.

In the ruined doorway, framed by shattered wood and plaster, stood Jemimah.

Except, it wasn’t Jemimah. The soft, confused, gentle woman who had sobbed over a stranger’s suicide note was gone. She was a ghost, a fiction. In her place stood ’Raven’. Her hair was pulled back in a severe, practical ponytail. She wore a skin-tight, black, tactical catsuit that looked like it was made of shadows, and in her hands, she held a compact H&K submachine gun, its muzzle aimed with perfect, professional stillness at the center of Rick’s chest.

She was not alone. Flanking her in the doorway were two more men, dressed in the same matte-black tactical gear as the Sparrows, their faces obscured by balaclavas, their own weapons raised.

Sharon, a cop to the last, was the first to react. Her voice was a hoarse, trembling croak. "Nadia... Jemimah... whoever you are... drop the weapon! Put it down, now!"

Nadia didn’t even flicker her gaze. She was a statue of cold, coiled rage, and her eyes, as flat and dead as polished steel, were locked exclusively on Rick. She completely and totally ignored the cop, as if she were a piece of annoying, talking furniture.

Rick, ever the pragmatist, broke the silence. He didn’t raise his hands. He just let out a slow, tired sigh and leaned casually against the wall, as if this were a minor inconvenience.

"So, ’Raven,’" he said, his voice maddeningly calm. "That’s a little dramatic, isn’t it? A bit... on the nose? All the black, the big guns, the silent brooding. I have to be honest, I preferred ’Jemimah’. She was sweeter. More... accommodating."

A muscle in Nadia’s jaw twitched. That was the only sign she’d even heard him. "Shut up, Rick," she said. Her voice was the one he’d heard on the phone. Cold, smooth, and utterly devoid of emotion. "Give me the laptop."

Rick didn’t move. He just tilted his head, a small, curious smirk playing on his lips. He was stalling, and they both knew it. "You know, the con was perfect," he said, as if they were just two professionals comparing notes. "The ’amnesiac victim’ found on the side of the road... my father, the lonely, grieving old man, was the perfect patsy. You just needed a safe house, didn’t you? A place to hide while the heat from the Croft job died down."

Nadia’s grip on the SMG tightened, her knuckles going white. Her men, seeing her tension, shifted, their muzzles tracking Rick’s every tiny movement.

"But the heat didn’t die down," Rick continued, his voice conversational, as if he were explaining a complex joke. "Sparrow—the musician, you remember him? The one who’s currently a bloody smear in the container you rented?—he was right. The Crofts’ people were watching you. You were trapped. You couldn’t go for the laptop yourself; they’d have been all over you. So, you needed a new tool."

He tapped his own chest. "Me. You faked the kidnapping video. You ’sacrificed’ your own men—Sparrow One and Two, who I’m guessing were just some low-level Croft muscle you’d managed to flip—all to light a fire under my ass. You sent me on a suicide mission to test me, and to get me to do your dirty work. All to get this." He pointed his chin at the black laptop sitting on the motel bed, looking ridiculously innocent in the midst of the chaos.

"Rick, what are you..." Sharon started, her mind spinning, trying to catch up.

Nadia finally spoke, her voice bored and annoyed, though her eyes were still fixed on Rick, burning with a cold fire. "She’s slow, isn’t she?" she said, finally acknowledging the other person in the room. "I’ll make it simple for the cop, since you seem to have figured it all out anyway."

She confirmed his entire deduction with a cold, impatient nod. "Marnus Warner hired me. He wanted leverage on the Croft family. We found the weak link: Julian. The little prick likes to be dominated. He likes it rough. He thought he was hiring an escort for an ’artistic photo shoot’."

A small, cruel, dead smile touched her lips. "He didn’t realize I was the one who was going to really dominate him. He thought he was in charge. He learned better. We tied him up, took the pictures, and I showed him what real dominance looked like. He cried. A lot. It was... pathetic."

"But the laptop was the real prize," Rick finished for her.

"The laptop was the only prize," she corrected. "We just didn’t anticipate Julian’s father would move so fast. He sent his ’cleaners’—the Sparrows—almost immediately. I had to disappear. Your father’s car was just... a lucky break. A perfect place to hide in plain sight."

Rick pushed himself off the wall, a new, almost playful light in his eyes. He was still stalling, still pushing, still trying to find a crack in her armor. "So, what about the musician? Crimson Sparrow. Your little ’idiot-proof’ clue. Was he part of the plan, too?"

For the first time, Nadia’s cold mask flickered. A micro-expression of pure, venomous annoyance. "Sparrow?" she scoffed, the word a curse. "He was a pathetic, lovesick fool. A useful idiot. I gave him a taste once, and he thought it was a feast. He was my baggage handler, nothing more. He was completely, utterly irrelevant."

"Was," Rick said, his smile fading. "You’re right. He’s not irrelevant anymore. He’s dead. I beat him until he gave up the code, and then your old partners, Sparrow One and Two, put a bullet in his head. He’s lying in a puddle of his own blood at the shipyard right now."

There it was. Not sadness. Not grief. Just a flash of pure, unadulterated rage. Her knuckles were bone-white on the SMG. He had broken her toy. He had ruined her asset.

"He was a tool," she hissed. "You break a tool, you buy a new one. It doesn’t matter."

"Doesn’t it?" Rick said softly.

"Enough!" Nadia roared. The sudden explosion of sound made Sharon jump. "Enough games, Rick! The laptop. Now. I don’t have time for this."

"Or what?" Rick asked, taking a single, casual step toward the bed. "You’ll shoot me? You just went to all this trouble to ’test’ me. You said yourself I’m ’efficient’. You don’t want to waste a good asset, do you? Maybe I’m your new partner. I’m a hell of a lot better than the last three."

This was the final straw. He was stalling, he was mocking her, and he was, infuriatingly, right. He was better. And he knew it.

Nadia’s cold composure finally, definitively, cracked. "You think you’re in charge?" she snarled, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "You think this is a negotiation? You’re not an asset. You’re not a partner. You’re just the help."

She gestured with her chin to the two tactical men behind her. "Move. Take the laptop. If he so much as blinks..." Her eyes flicked to Sharon, who was frozen, her pistol still half-raised. "...shoot the cop first. Then shoot him in the legs. I want to have a... ’conversation’... with him later."

The two men raised their weapons, moving in perfect, practiced unison. They stepped past Nadia, into the room. Sharon raised her pistol, but she was outgunned, outmatched, and her hands were shaking. Rick tensed, his eyes darting to the lamp, to the door, to the window, calculating his odds. It was a no-win scenario.

The men took one step...

"Well, well, well..."

"Nadia Darling."

"You are having all the fun without me?"