"I thought we were celebrating being richer and cleverer than everyone else!"
—Scott Lynch
LISA
Before the opera started I took my beautiful wife to listen to her symphony, simply titled A Symphony for Jennie. We sat alone in our private box, since the opera house had been closed off to everyone else. The piece started off strong, then it melted into a soft, almost broken tune, and returned with an even stronger closing...just like stages of our life together.
She'd said nothing throughout the piece, but she openly held my hand as we walked out into the gallery. There was to be a pre-opera celebration that was being held for everyone who had their opera tickets, and it soon seemed like it was a who's who of Washington's most powerful in attendance. The entire top level of the building was just one grand ballroom, and it seemed as though Jen and I were the main attraction.
Had I known this would be the case, I would've made sure that our entrance was inconspicuous. I didn't even truly want be here; I'd only wanted some alone time with her. Instead, we had to spend our time faking it all night for these people.
"Ms. Manoban, it's about time you made it to Washington," Senator Andrew Kelly, of Texas stated. He worked with big oil and some other shit he kept mouthing off about.
"I never knew I was wanted here."
"Ms. Manoban, we all know that if it weren't for your generous donations to President Myoi, he wouldn't be in the big office," Senator Jeffrey Boxer, of North Carolina, replied, and I fought the urge the roll my eyes.
"Generous donations? I have no idea what you mean. After all, isn't that the purpose of super PACs?" I winked, and they all laughed as they ate out of the palm of my hand even though I was feeding them shit.
"Well, you should know, if you ever need anything, we can work something out. We know your marijuana businesses are making significant progress, but there's still some red tape to cross to get your ventures off the ground," Senator Kelly stated as his fat chest puffed out.
I raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm not sure if your constituents are in favor of my new business ventures."
Boxer snorted, as he rolled his eyes and looked around the grand ballroom. "You and I both know that the kingmakers are all here. We can pretend that democracy truly means what the people want it to, but it's about survival, about triumph. And no man embodies that as much as you do."
Politicians were a different breed of ruthless, a dirtier kind.
"You're quite correct, Senator, but before I sign my soul away, I should speak with my beautiful wife," I replied and they all laughed once more before turning to the women who were socializing with my wife.
It was petrifying how well she was able to fit in with the Stepford wives of these men; drinking champagne and probably talking about nothing more than how much of their husband's money they could spend.
"May I say, you have an impeccable wife, Ms. Manoban," Senator Kelly added, brownnosing like the scum he was.
No, you may not.
"I am truly lucky."
"The President is awarding you both with honors this Friday, isn't he?" Senator Boxer asked.
"Apparently getting arrested gets you a medal," I joked, and once again they all laughed. No wonder these people had big egos, they all laughed with each other no matter what was being said.
"Oh, do not be so humble, Ms. Manoban," a smooth and older voice spoke out, as the man I hated more than the devil himself stepped forward.
From his salt and pepper hair, to his wrinkled face and proud stance, all of which were wrapped up in a black and white designer suit...I hated everything about him.
"Avian, you've come down from Mount Olympus? How is life among us mere mortals?" Senator Kelly asked and as he gave him a short bow. I had forgotten that to the rest of the world, he was simply known as Avian Doers and not Ivan DeRosa. The web of lies surrounding this man were deeply rooted.
"Amusing as always, Andrew." He smiled and looked to me, as he extended his hand for me to shake. "Ms. Manoban, it is a pleasure to finally meet you."
I shook his hand tightly. "Of course, Mr. Doers. Who would have guessed you would be a fan of the opera."
"It is a great passion of mine," he stated with a glint in his eyes.
"Gentleman, I do hope I'm not interrupting." Jen walked up behind the snake. Even with the smile on her face I could see the fire burning in her eyes as she stared at him.
He turned and allowed her into the circle. "Gentlemen? Mrs. Manoban, you must be mistaken; we do not have a gentle bone within our bodies."
"Ouch, Avian, we're right here. No need to scare the lady," Senator Boxer said as he laughed, not at all understanding the battle that was being played here.
Jen just smiled. "I do not scare easily, Senator. Do you mind if I steal my wife?"
"Actually, Mrs. Manoban, I've been dying to have a dance. May I?" Avian asked.
Jen's eyes shot to my own before she offered her hand. I didn't like this, but she would kill me if I denied her this moment. As if the fiend could read my mind, he turned to me.
"You do not mind, do you, Ms. Manoban? I am aware that this is your anniversary."
Bastard.
"Of course not, I have a lifetime with her. I'm sure I can spare three minutes. But I would watch your feet if I were you, those heels of hers are a killer." I pretended to joke, and I managed to gather a few more laughs from the peanut gallery around me.
"I'm not as bad as she makes me out to be," Jen responded, as she held his hand. I'm not sure if it made me feel better or worse to know that he was actually her grandfather.
"It's a good thing I have lead feet then," Avian stated as he led her out onto the dance floor and I instinctively scanned the room. Of course there were secret service agents everywhere. I wanted to snap his neck right off his body, but there was nothing I could do but watch from the sidelines. If he made one wrong move, I would kill him. I didn't mind going back to jail if it meant that he would be six feet under. But I was sure Jen would kick my ass.
"It seems you have competition," Senator Kelly tried to joke, elbowing me in the arm.
"Not even a little bit," I told them. "I always win gentlemen. Even if it looks like I'm losing, I'm winning."
"And that works how?" They laughed.
If you have to ask, then you don't have the ability to comprehend.
JENNIE
I shivered at his touch, and not in a good way.
"What do you prefer—Avian, Ivan, or Grandfather?" I sneered, as I tried to keep as much space between as possible without looking odd.
He frowned with absolute disgust. "Anything but grandfather. I'm hardly old enough."
"You can dye your hair as much as you please, but you can't hide the wrinkles," I said with a smile so fake it was pitiful.
He laughed. "You're funnier than I thought you'd be. I'm sure that's a trait you got from that imprudent father of yours."
I wanted to drive my heel into his shin, but I knew that it was what he wanted; to rile me up.
"I'm sure your daughter was more humorous than you gave her credit for. But then again, you twisted her mind until she was so unstable, she resorted to kidnapping me for my own protection."
"She was always a little loose in the head. I'm sure your father locking her away for years to care for you didn't help the situation any," he said with no regard.
"My father is already dead, Avian, you can stop trying to kill him," I snapped, wanting more than anything to end him now.
He spun me and when he brought me back, he shook his head. "As long as you're alive, your father's only, beloved child, then he still lives."
"I am as much of his blood as I am yours. You're just too arrogant and cold blooded to get it. I have the mind to kill you where you stand."
"We both know why you won't; because you or I will need to walk away. And when I kill you, there will be nothing that ties it to me, so that I can return to a time when you weren't such a pain in my ass," he said.
He was correct, but he didn't know a fucking thing about me.
"Let's say you do win, and that you do beat Lisa and me, which you won't, what becomes of you then? You'll have no family, nothing. You'll just die."
He laughed and that grin of his drove me mad. "Who needs family when you have the world? You're so weak, so reckless. Scarlet spoke of you as if you were a force to be reckoned with, but I know now she was as foolish as she was insane. Family means nothing. Look around this room, all of them, each and every last one of them holds me in the highest regard. When I die, it will not be at your tiny hands. The world will mourn my passing. People will come from all over to speak of me in ways no family ever could. Unlike you and your mutt of a wife, I rule without getting my hands dirty."
This time I laughed. "Without getting your hands dirty? Really? These people don't know you. You say I'm reckless? The moment we killed Aro, you could have walked away."
"There's a balance little girl," he snapped as his dull, brown eyes sharpened. "We will never get drugs off the streets, but there will not be one family controlling it all. Icarus flew too close to sun and perished, don't make that same mistake. Take your precious family and disappear. I'll even let you keep all your wealth."
"I am a liar, Avian, which means I can spot another liar a mile away. You can take your half-assed deal and shove it up your ass, because even if I were blind, dumb, deaf, and gasping for breath on my deathbed, I'd still tell you to go fuck yourself."
"May I cut in?" Lisa asked coming up from behind me. I let go of Avian as if he had shocked me.
"Please," I said to Lisa, without taking my eyes off Avian. "Oh and by the way, Icarus burned because he flew during the day. He wanted the world to see. We fly in the darkness, where people are afraid to look."
Lisa took my hand and we walked away, leaving him standing there.
"Do you want to leave?" she whispered as she led us away from the doors, I shook my head.
"Not even a little bit, you planned this night and we are going to enjoy it, even with that bastard here. We aren't running, not now, not fucking ever," I muttered.
She nodded and drew in a deep breath. "So much for a happy anniversary."
Squeezing her hand, I said nothing more. I wasn't sure what to say, she'd gone through so much just to make this night special, and it had been nice. In fact, until we saw Avian, I was having a decent time. Not with the women I'd been talking to of course, but with playing cat and mouse with Lisa. Every once in a while, she would look at me and I could feel it. I had to fight the urge to look back at her.
Finding our private box, we sat in a room across the opera house, and from Avian, allowing us to see into his booth.
"You both looked as if you were having a heated conversation," Lisa whispered to me as the lights went down.
"It was nothing useful, he was just trying to fuck with my head."
"Did it work?"
I bit my tongue and leaned into the chair. "He took jabs at my father, and despite our issues, I loved Dong-suk. He made me into what I needed to be and never once held back. Avian is just as responsible for his death as Scarlet was."
"So it worked."
"No. He simply pissed me off."
"You and me both. I don't think it's a coincidence that he knew we were going to this opera tonight."
"Mina?" I asked, as I turned to her but she simply shrugged.
"I'm not sure, I told no one, but it still doesn't sit well with me," she replied as she leaned into her chair as well.
"Did they find Tinker Bell's body?" I'd almost forgotten all about our last agent. Avian may have finally gotten the message.
She nodded. "They found him. My father emailed me. I'm sure Avian knows."
"He looked completely at ease." And that pissed me off even more. He was just sitting there, enjoying my favorite opera as though he had no care in the world.
"I guess we need to turn up the heat," Lisa muttered, as she pulled out her phone. She discreetly snapped a picture before she began typing. "We need to take care of another agent by morning and have someone question why the director of the FBI is watching an opera with Washington's finest when his agents are dropping like flies."
"If there was anything I learned from our talk it's that he cares about his name, his legacy." It was what he lived for. He wanted crowds to speak in his honor. I was going to make sure that there wasn't enough of him to be buried.
We both stilled and Lisa shot me a glance without moving her head as we heard the ever so slight click of the door.
Someone was coming.
"I'm not sure why you enjoy this opera so much," Lisa said in a higher whisper than before, to make it seem as though we had not heard them.
"Of course you don't, you wouldn't know good taste if it smacked you across the face," I replied, as I felt and heard the shift in the pressure of the floor underneath us.
Before either of us could speak, two people dressed in black had rags over our mouth.
Ether.
I held my breath and relaxed.
"Subjects secure," the man said before releasing my face. I felt them drag me out of the room. I couldn't hear Lisa and I didn't dare to look until I felt a change in the lighting.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
My eyes snapped open the moment I heard the door click. I scratched my assailant's arm as I ripped myself away from him. Lisa did the same and once she was free, she took the man into her arms and snapped his neck with ease. The man before me threw a punch much slower than what I would have expected from a trained agent. I punched him square in the jaw not once, but twice, in succession. Kicking him in the knee, I watched him fall as I pulled my gloves off and wrapped it around his neck, pulling as tightly as possible until his body went limp.
"Where the fuck are Chanyeol and Kain?" Lisa snapped, as she wiped the blood from her lip.
I patted the man down and found nothing but a gun.
"They were his men. So much for getting away clean," I muttered.
We both froze when we heard the police sirens outside.
"The motherfucking bastard!" Lisa yelled.
"Lisa, we need to get rid of them now," I snapped. "Avian knew we weren't going to be taken down so easily, he set us up. We need to get rid of them and fast."
To prove my point, the police started pouring in from below like a swarm of bees. I watched as her nose flared and she grabbed an agent by the legs as I did the same.
"Do you know the layout of the opera house?"
"Yes, Jen, I know where every hidden door is to a random opera house in Washington," she barked sarcastically.
I said nothing, there was no point. She was pissed off, and so was I, but one of us needed to be level-headed. I felt my pulse quicken as I pulled the man over the red and gold accented carpet.
"Clear the building, keep everyone calm!" an officer yelled.
We couldn't see them but we knew they were close by.
"Check everywhere for the gunmen!" another yelled behind us.
"Shit!" Gunmen? What gunmen?
"Jen," Lisa nodded over to door.
"It's a closet," I told her.
"We don't have choice," she said as she opened the door and dragged the man in. I followed her in and Lisa closed the door as I pushed their bodies into the corner. Grabbing a few of the coats, I threw them over the bodies.
"Are you armed?" Lisa asked quickly.
Lifting up the skirts of my dress, I showed her the guns strapped to my upper thighs. "When am I not?"
She shook her head and snickered as she pressed her ears against the door. Coming up next to her, I listened as well.
"Your grandfather is a son of a fucking bitch," she whispered.
"Yes, I know, thank you."
"Just saying what we're both thinking—"
I placed my finger on her when I heard the police behind the door.
"They're coming," Lisa said as she reached for her gun but I stopped her, we were not doing this. We were not going to blow all of our hard work in a single moment.
Pushing down the front of my dress, I gave her a better view of my cleavage before lifting up my dress.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Kiss me."
"What—?" I pulled her to me, and hopped up until my legs were wrapped around her waist. She held onto me, and as she ran her hands through my hair just as the door opened.
"Get out, now!" an officer yelled as I unwrapped myself from her, and tried to fix my dress before we exited.
"What's going on?" I gasped, pretending to be frightened.
"Ms. And Mrs. Manoban?" one of the cops asked. "Have you been in this closet long?"
"Yes, Officer, is everything alright? What's going on?" Lisa answered, as she fixed her bow tie. She spoke with an authority that they were familiar with.
The officer stood straighter. "Ms. Manoban, we got reports of shots being fired on the grounds, we will have an officer escort you out."
"Thank you!" I said quickly, as they led us from the hall. I looked back, watching as the closet door closed and the police ran past it.
I shivered at the cold when we made it out into the streets that were crawling with cops and fire trucks.
"Lisa," I whispered, drawing her attention to Avian as he entered his private car. I took pleasure in the slight annoyance on his face before it returned to the cool and collected façade he usually portrayed.
Chanyeol and Kain were both standing beside the car, and I could feel Lisa stiffening in anger. Where the fuck had they been?
"Boss, two men came towards the room with guns. We didn't fire, but they did," Chanyeol said quickly.
"But it was as if they weren't even trying to hit us, they were just firing," Kain added just as quickly.
"That's because they wanted to draw you away!" Lisa snapped, and I pulled her back. "Why didn't you contact us?"
"We tried calling, but the phones had been jammed."
Lisa turned to me. "Son of a bitch."
"Have the clean-up crew here take care of the bodies in the closet upstairs. They're under some coats. I want it done fast," I commanded before we entered the car.
LISA
I lay on the bed with Ethan on my chest. I had my hand on his back and I watched as he breathed in and out slowly as his thumb slid into his mouth. He was the only thing that was keeping me calm right now.
Jen came over and sat on her side of the bed while flipping through the list of agents Myoi had given to us.
"This one, Agent Autumn Smith, she's based in Chicago, she has similar physical attributes as Victoria."
"Do you think Nickhun and Victoria can do it? I want no mistakes." The truth was that I didn't trust either of them to get it done without problems.
"They don't have a choice," she replied already dialing.
Nickhun answered on the first ring.
"And here I thought you'd forgotten about us."
"We have a job for you," Jen stated softly getting off the bed so as to not wake Ethan.
"This sounds serious."
"We have an agent we need you and Victoria to get rid of. I'll have the info sent to you." Jen replied, already sending it through our email.
"You want Victoria and me—"
"To kill the agent, and we don't want any mistakes."
"Jen, whatever it is, I can do it with Hanbin. I don't want to put this type of pressure of Victoria."
"We're under attack, Nickhun, everyone has to step up, including your wife," Jen reminded him.
"How—"
Jen hung up before he could speak again.
"That was rude."
"He'll live."
"If he doesn't fuck up." And he'd better not.