Sloane

SLOANE

Assassins, Book Four

by V. J. Chambers

When Sloane Drake learns her best friend Leigh has
gone missing in Boston, she expects the worst. She and the rest of
the ex-assassins go after Leigh to discover her whereabouts. No
one’s seen her, not even Axel Whitman, the arrogant rich boy who
used to be Leigh’s best friend.

Sloane has always stuck to the shadows. She’s not
flashy, she doesn’t take charge, and no one notices her. But when
everyone else disappears as well, she’s left on her own. She’s got
to find where the others have been taken, and she’s got to rescue
them.

Axel wants to help. He’s a careless playboy who owns
a burlesque gentleman’s club and usually spends his nights snorting
cocaine or screwing anything in a skirt. Helping Sloane is
dangerous and exciting, and he can’t get enough of it. Furthermore,
he can’t get enough of Sloane herself.

Sloane knows that Axel is getting in the way of her
mission. He distracts her with trivialities when she should be
focusing on freeing her friends. But being with Axel makes her feel
like she’s been pulled from the shadows into the light. She’s never
been so… noticed.

**Recommended for mature readers due to explicit
sexual situations, coarse language, and violence.**

SLOANE
© copyright 2014 by V. J. Chambers
http://vjchambers.com
Punk Rawk Books

Smashwords Edition

Please do not copy or post this book in its entirety
or in parts anywhere. You may, however, share the entire book with
a friend by forwarding the entire file to them. (And I won’t get
mad.)

SLOANE

Assassins, Book Four

by V. J. Chambers

CHAPTER ONE

“Have you heard from Leigh?” Griffin pushed his way
into my house, his eyebrows drawn together.

“Um, hey, Griffin,” I said, backing away from the
door.

His clothes were rumpled and there were dark circles
under his eyes. “Have you talked to her?”

“Are you okay?”

“Sloane.” He gave me an exasperated look. “When was
the last time you talked to Leigh?”

I thought about it. “Maybe a few days ago. Is
something wrong?”

He rubbed the top of his head. “Shit.”

I bit my lip. “Griffin, is something going on? I
thought Leigh was in Boston.” She’d gotten a call from some lawyers
working on her father’s estate or something, and she had to go to
Boston to tie up some financial loose ends.

“She is,” he said. “But she’s not answering her
phone. I haven’t talked to her since the day she left, and that was
two days ago.”

That wasn’t like Leigh. I started to feel
worried.

“Can you, um, call her?” he said.

“Sure, I guess so,” I said. “But I don’t see why that
would make any difference if she’s not picking up her phone.” I was
already thinking the worst. Maybe it was my training as an
assassin, or maybe it was because the last few years had been
peppered with danger, with people like Jolene French and Derek Rolf
trying to kill the people I cared about. Whatever the case, I was
fairly sure that something bad had happened to Leigh. I made a
mental catalog of the weapons and ammunition in our arsenal. We
didn’t have a lot. Mostly the stuff we kept around these days were
for recreational trips to the shooting range. Still, I thought we
had enough, if push came to shove, and, if need be, we could be
ready to go.

Griffin’s shoulders slumped. “We sort of had an
argument.”

Oh. I made a sympathetic face.

“She ran off mad, and I was mad too. And so I didn’t
even try to call her until yesterday, and then…”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Hey, why don’t you
come into the kitchen, sit down, and have a beer. I’ll try and call
Leigh, okay?”

He hesitated, and then he nodded.

I went into the kitchen, and he followed me. Our
kitchen—well,
my
kitchen, actually—was a combination kitchen
and dining room. It was equipped with a breakfast bar and a dining
room table in the corner. I was still having trouble thinking of
the house as mine, even though my brother Silas, who used to live
here with me, had been in Austin, Texas with his girlfriend Christa
for nine months.

I went to the refrigerator to grab two beers.

Griffin was already settling down at the table. “It
was a stupid fight, but she got really pissed off.”

I set down the beer and a bottle opener in front of
him. At one point in time, our fridge was always stocked with
homebrews, but Silas had made them, and he wasn’t around anymore.
That meant we had to settle for stuff like Magic Hat. “I thought
you guys were in a good place. I thought you were trying to get
pregnant.”

Griffin popped the cap off of his beer. “Yeah, so did
I.”

I took the opener to open my beer. “So, you’re not,
then?”

He sighed.

I sat down next to him. Honestly, even though Leigh
was probably my best friend, she and I hadn’t been spending as much
time together as we used to. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that
part of the reason was because it kind of grossed me out when she
talked about egg white cervical mucus—which was apparently one of
the sure ways to know that you were fertile. Yuck.

I was twenty-three years old. My best friend was
married and trying to get pregnant. And my brother—who’d always
been what I called a manwhore—had fallen hard for Griffin’s younger
sister Christa. So hard that he’d uprooted himself across the
country to live close to her. I was single. I’d never really had an
actual “relationship,” not one that had lasted longer than a few
weeks, and I didn’t feel like I had anything in common with all the
people in my life. They were all happy and together. I was alone
and miserable.

Griffin shook his head. “I pushed too hard.”

“For what?”

“For us to have a baby.” He took a swig of beer. “I
don’t think she ever wanted to do it at all.”

“Is that what you fought about?”

He nodded.

I drank some beer too. “I don’t know, Griffin. I
think she wanted it. It was all she talked about for the past few
months. I know way more about trying to conceive than I ever wanted
to know.”

“She said she was only doing it for me, and that
she’s terrified of being pregnant, and that I’m an asshole for
pressuring her about it.” He rubbed his face. “I didn’t know I
was
pressuring her. I thought she wanted it too.”

“She did,” I said. “She does.”

Griffin wouldn’t look at me.

I touched his shoulder again. “Hey, I’m serious. She
seemed really excited about it the last time I talked to her.”

He snorted. “You sure?”

“Well, she talked about it a lot, anyway.” And I’d
done my best to tune her out, because I couldn’t handle it.
Whenever Leigh talked about having a baby, all I thought about was
how I was sure I was going to spend my life alone. I’d pushed her
away. I hadn’t really listened to her. I felt ashamed.

“I shouldn’t be talking about this, anyway,” said
Griffin. “I shouldn’t be spreading our private stuff all over the
place.”

“Hey,” I said. “It’s me. You can tell me anything, I
swear.”

He was quiet.

“Let me try to call her,” I said.

“Thanks.”

I pulled out my phone and dialed Leigh.

He stared up at me.

We both listened as it rang on her end.

And rang.

And rang.

Voicemail.

Griffin covered his eyes with his hand.

I hung up and texted her.
Hey hows Boston? Check
in so we know ur okay.

Griffin slugged his beer.

I set down my phone. “Um, so how bad of an argument
was it?”

“Bad.”

“But she’s not mad at
me
, right? I mean, she
should answer when I call.”

He took a shaky breath.

I looked from the phone to my beer. “When Christa and
Silas went missing last year—”

“You think something happened to her?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But she’d usually call,
wouldn’t she? Even if she’s mad, she wouldn’t let you worry. I
guess you’ve left her voicemails?”

“Only hundreds,” he said. “And texts. I even tried to
call the hotel where she’s staying. They connected me to her room,
but no one picked up.”

“Well,” I said. “She could be busy, right?”

“Or mad,” he said.

“But… she could be in trouble.”

He grimaced. “That’s what I’m afraid of. She was
supposed to meet a lawyer to take care of stuff for her father’s
estate. So I called them.”

My eyes widened. “She didn’t show up?”

“She did,” said Griffin. “But they took care of
everything the first day that she was there. I don’t even know what
else she was supposed to be doing, but I don’t see why it’s taking
two days.”

I bit my lip. “Maybe banks or something…”

“Why isn’t she answering her phone?”

I took a deep breath. “We need to go to Boston.”

“You think so? Because I was thinking that, but then
I was thinking maybe I was being crazy. What if she just hates me,
and she’s trying to leave me or something?”

“Well, then she should have told you that.” I got up
from the table. “Besides, Leigh would never leave you.”

“You don’t know that. Things have been rocky for us
in the past. We’ve both run off on the other person before. Once,
she disappeared for months.”

“Well, you knew where she was.”

Griffin got up from the table too. His expression was
agonized. “Yeah, but when I ran off on her a couple years ago? I
didn’t tell her where I was going. And I didn’t pick up the phone
when she called.”

I twisted my hands together. “That was when she had
the abortion, right?”

He looked at the floor.

“Okay,” I said. “Well, you were an asshole. That
doesn’t give her an excuse to be an asshole too.”

He let out an unsteady laugh.

“No, we’re going to Boston. We’re going to find
her.”

“You don’t have to come,” said Griffin. “I mean, what
about classes? Finals are in a couple of weeks, aren’t they?”

“I had to make up my finals two years ago when we
were on the run from Marcel,” I said. “It all worked out. This is
more important.”

“What if she’s just pissed at me?”

“What if she’s not?”

Griffin shut his eyes.

“Should we call Silas? If she’s in trouble, we could
use all the help we can get.” Griffin, Silas and I had all been
trained to be assassins by Op Wraith, a shadow wing of an arms
corporation called Dewhurst-McFarland. We’d all been injected with
a special serum that made us practically indestructible. Even
though Leigh had been given the serum as well, that didn’t mean she
couldn’t be in danger. And having Silas, one more unkillable super
soldier, on our side was never a bad thing.

“Who could be after her?” said Griffin. “We killed
Marcel and his goons. Her dad’s dead. Jolene French is too.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “You untied
French.”

“She was unconscious,” he said. “The whole building
blew up two minutes later. She didn’t have time to get away.”

I nodded. He was right. He was probably right.
Griffin and Leigh had destroyed Op Wraith. A year later, we’d
destroyed the remnants—psychologist Jolene French and Frank Thorn,
both of whom had been in charge at Op Wraith. “Yeah, she couldn’t
have gotten away.” I picked up my beer and took a drink. “Okay,
then, no Silas. But I’m coming with you. If it turns out that she’s
mad at you, I’ll come home. But if she’s in danger, you’re going to
need me.”

Griffin gave me a hesitant smile. “Thanks, Sloane.
Thanks so much.”

* * *

Leigh’s hotel room hadn’t been cleaned. The
do-not-disturb sign had been on the door when we’d arrived, which
meant the maid hadn’t been inside. Between the two of us, though,
we hadn’t had any trouble jimmying open the hotel door. Assassins
training was good for some things, even if it was only checking up
on your wife when she was pissed at you.

But deep down, I didn’t believe that was the case. If
Leigh wasn’t answering her phone, then something was wrong. She
wouldn’t disappear on us, not like this.

The bed was unmade, covers askew. Leigh’s suitcase
was sitting on it, open. A pair of jeans and a few stray socks were
strewn across the bed. One of her bras was dangling out of the
suitcase.

Griffin and I took that in.

“No sign of a struggle,” he said.

He was right. Nothing was broken. Nothing was
overturned. I went over to the bed and began picking up her clothes
and the covers, looking under sheets. I wasn’t sure exactly what I
was looking for. Spatters of blood?

I swallowed.