Operation Swift Mercy (22 page)

She saw the fear in the
man’s
eyes moments before Nikkos gave a brief flip of his hand and one of the body guards fired his gun at the
man’s
head.

Mercy stared at the scene in horror…she felt frozen to the spot as she tried to comprehend what she’d just witnessed. Still holding the phone up and recording, she fought off the wave of nausea that threatened, pulling away from the window and staggering away to dry heave as the shock wore off and her body reacted.

Oh my God, they killed someone.
She tried to clear her mind. What the hell was she going to do? She needed to get away. She needed to leave before they found her and killed her too.

T
rying to contain the frightened tears that were falling, she somehow managed to find her way back to her vehicle. With shaking fingers she started the car and drove away from the industrial area of town. She wanted to pull over and think, but she was too terrified that she’d been seen and they’d know what she’d
witnessed
, so she kept driving, all the while not recalling a single minute of the drive and where she was going.

As she passed by a shopping centre, she pulled into a parking spot and finally allowed herself a moment to rest. She needed to call the police. She glanced down at the phone on the seat beside her and felt her heart beat at a frantic pace. She had the whole murder on tape.

With trembling fingers she called triple zero and told the operator she’d just witnessed a man being shot. She gave the rough address of the
warehouse
, since she didn’t know the exact one, but when the operator asked her to hold the line and answer some more questions she panicked. She didn’t want her name recorded anywhere—
what if Nikkos somehow found out?
Disconnecting the call
she dropped
the phone back on the seat beside her and resumed panicking.
What if they’d traced the call? Could they do that? Oh my God, what if they thought she had something to do with it? It’s alright—you have the evidence on tape…as long as you have that—you’re safe.

She couldn’t risk losing it. There was no way Nikkos would suspect her of being there tonight, but she wasn’t sure she could manage to act as though nothing had happened and he was a smart man—he’d soon pick up on her fear and maybe piece things togethe
r. She had to hide the evidence, but where?

As she usually did when she was nervous or agitated, her hand went to her necklace and she began sliding the locket back and forth along the chain at her throat. Think damn it! She willed herself to find a solution. The phone would be too risky to hide—and she needed it, she could email the video, but she didn’t have a secure email account—he didn’t like her hiding things from him. But if she took the memory chip out of the phone…then she would only need to find a place to hide a tiny microchip no bigger than
the nail on her
pinkie. T
hen it hit her, she looked down at the locket in her hand and immediately brightened.

Walking into bank, she withdrew the funds from her personal bank account,
and then
went to the post office. Once she’d mailed the locket and cash, discreetly wrapped and quickly stuffed inside the post pack, she headed back to the house.

Her first thoughts were to run as far and fast as she could, but then her brain kicked in. If she disappeared like that—Nikkos would be on to her immediately. There was a fundraiser event on tonight and she would be expected to go. She’d act like nothing had happened, and then first thing tomorrow she’d pack her belongings and leave the house for good.

Grateful to find that Nikkos was not home, Mercy sank to the end of the bed and took a deep calming breath. She needed to go through with the
charity
benefit tonight
.

With the proof that Nikkos was indeed involved in this horrible scheme staring back at her on the screen of her smart phone, she could no longer deny to herself that there was a logical explanation.

She had to leave. She couldn’t possibly stay now. There was no way she could continue to ignore the fact that this warped attachment to Nikkos had been unwinding at a steady rate for the last few months
.
Lately he’d become distant and angry. He’d become rough and demanding in bed—to the point that he’d scared her. She could even now acknowledge that she suspected he had another lover.

He often left the house for days at a time. Two days earlier she’d asked him where he went and received a backhand across the face for her trouble. She’d been ready to leave then and there but an hour or so later, a diamond bracelet had been delivered to her and a card professing his deepest sorrow for his behaviour. She’d accepted his apology that evening, but it had changed things and Mercy felt the unmistakable stirrings of unrest raising its head inside her. She’d been on her way to find Nik
kos
to demand the truth—to see if there was anything left to salvage
between them
when she’d overheard the conversation that had sounded the death keel to their relationship.

She’d heard him leave to go out yet again, and made a decision there and then. She was leaving. There was no way she could live with a man who was involved with whatever the hell he was mixed up in, and she would not allow him to hit her when she questioned him. Somewhere between downstairs and her bedroom Mercy grew a backbone and a conscience.

She’d been burying her head to the extent of this man’s criminal activity for the last three years, but enough was enough. She was leaving him, but she would do her best to make things right before she left. Maybe it was to ease her guilty conscience a little over turning a blind eye to her suspicions, maybe it was just an act
of defiance
against what she could now see was a controlling and dangerous man, it didn’t matter why she felt compelled to do it
. S
he just knew it had to be done.

****

Willow reached out and switched off the recorder
once Mercy stopped talking
and a long silence followed and Mercy fidgeted anxiously, running her chain back and forth along the chain.

“Do you still have the video of this?” Willow asked.

Mercy unclasped the locket and dropped the mini SD card into Willows hand, and watched as she did the same thing Tate had done the day back in the bar, switching cards in phone. She watched the footage Mercy had recorded and then glanced at her across the top of her phone after it finished. “Do you know what you have here?”

“A murder caught on video?”

“You, my dear, have what we call a scoop! Already from this alone, it implicated the immigration
minister, and several high ranking officials. Between the conversation you overheard Nikkos talking about and this shooting—I’m willing to bet this is just the tip of the iceberg—this thing is going to be huge,” Willow said gaping at her.

“So you can help?”

“We’re going to nail this son
-
of
-
a
-
bitch
and
all his mates,” she promised.

“Firstly, we’re saving this evidence. I’d imagine the boys have already done so since they’ve watched it, but I’m going to go and send it to a few places for sa
f
e keeping, but we have to sit on this for a while—keep it quiet because we have to make sure we have everyone involved. Once word gets out there’s implicating evidence around they’ll all jump ship like the rats they are
,
and we’ll lose them. We need to present all the evidence and
start investigating immediately.
I’ll be right back,” she said.

Mercy leaned back in the chair and let out a shaky breath.

Chapter
Eighteen

Chase arrived, driving the jeep Tu
pper had driven them in earlier and Mercy was glad to see him. Her little trip down memory lane had exhausted her.

They didn’t speak on the drive back to the cabin. Mercy opened her mouth a few times to speak, but decided she really wasn’t sure exactly what to say to him. He wasn’t pouting, it was more like she’d hurt his feelings and that was a lot harder to ignore than just a case of a male in a snit.

He’d been busy in the hour or so she’d been with Willow. A small table sat on the front porch with two place settings, complete with crystal wine glasses.

“Wow, this looks lovely,” she said with a small smile.

“I’m sorry about before,” he said, his expression serious, intent on setting things straight.

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dismiss you—I know you were trying to look out for me, but I guess what Willow said struck a bit of a chord in me. I don’t want to be this weak, pathetic…
thing
anymore. I don’t want to ever be that controlled by another person ever again. It took me a while to understand how I could be groomed into such a stupid position in the first place—but I do now. I let my past and my insecurities rule my life. Nikkos used that to keep me indebted to him—to keep me needing him.” She’d had plenty of time to figure this out over the last few days. She wasn’t excusing herself, but she did see now, with the luxury of distance, just how he’s played on all her fears to keep her so docile and
obedient
. He’d become like a father figure to her—someone she needed to please. Just one smile or small word of
encouragement had
been all she needed to feel good about herself. She craved his approval in everything she did—and he
’d
used that to
his advantage for whatever peculiar reasons he had in doing so
.

“I would never try and control you, Mercy. And I’m nothing like your scum bag of an ex,” he added irritably.

“No, you’re not. I didn’t mean that you were controlling…just that by trying to shelter me from everything isn’t making me stand on my own two feet. I need to take back my life—I let him have it for too long.”

“Protective is what I do—it’s the way I’ve been trained to be. I can’t just stand by and watch if someone could be hurt.”

“I know,”
she said placing a hand on his arm “And I’m very lucky you were there to look out for me. But now that I’m safe, I need to be making some of the decisions
, and you need to let me.”

He went quiet for a while and Mercy bit the inside of her lip as she waited to see if he would stay upset at her or they’d move on. The buzz of the oven timer finally ended the standoff and Chase gave a weary nod of his head before moving off. “Fine, we’ll do it your way…unless it gets dangerous and then all bets are off, lady.”

She didn’t bother agreeing, she didn’t feel like acknowledging there could be more danger on the horizon—it didn’t seem possible while they were standing here in a little piece of heaven on earth…but something inside warned her he could be right—Nikkos was not a man who would give up one of his possessions easily, and he certainly wasn’t about to risk his freedom. He would not be stopping until she was dead.

****

Chase
watched
Mercy for a few minutes
once she fell asleep, hearing her
breathing become regular, indicating
she‘d
fallen to sleep. When he stayed here, he always kept the shutters open, letting in the sound of the ocean outside and allowing a cool breeze to flow over him. Tonight, the moon was exceptionally bright and it fell across her hair on the pillow, making
it
shine and glimmer
as though
she were some ethereal
-like
being.
Christ she was beautiful,
he thought and his chest ached with an emotion he’d never experienced before.

Not for the first time he shook his head at whatever strange forces had put them in the same place that day. He wasn’t sure he actually believed in
fate and all that spiritual, new age mumbo jumbo, but he had to admit whatever it was
;
chance, luck or just plain coincidence, it was pretty damn amazing. He could have been in Brisbane, gone to the wedding and then left the country never having laid eyes on this woman…but for that small twist of fate that somehow led them to cross paths, he wouldn’t be standing here going weak at the knees with the love he felt for this small woman in his bed.

He had too much on his mind to sleep and didn’t want to risk waking her up with all his tossing and turning so he decided to get up and sit outside for a while. On his way through the kitchen,
he grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and
stepped out onto the porch, taking a seat and
letting
his thoughts drift across the dark ocean before him. He wanted more than anything to go and slid
e
into bed next to her
, but she’d been through some pretty trying times over the last few days and he
knew she needed
to catch up
on sleep
. He wasn’t sure he could trust himself not
to wake her,
trailing kisses down the length of her body, licking and nuzzling, exploring every square inch of her, before
sinking deep inside her where he
longed to be
. H
e snarled out a silent warning to knock it off,
as he squirmed uncomfortably
and as though in punishment, was left to
deal with a nasty case of
hard
onitis.