‘I’m here to see Sasha.’
‘She’s in her office.’ The girl flicked her platinum blonde hair and gestured to the door down the creepy looking passageway lined with colourful doors. Fantastic, she thought.
With more confidence than she felt, Jaz strode towards Sasha’s door. As she passed a bright pink door she heard a giggle and it caused her steps to falter. She should be relieved that’s all she’d heard. Quickly she lunged out the last steps and knocked on Sasha’s door.
‘Come in.’
A woman in her sixties sat behind a desk, glasses sliding down her nose, and she was dressed in a nice suit outfit. Not at all what Jaz had imagined.
‘Hi Sasha,’ said Jaz, shutting the door before she spoke again. ‘I was sent to pick up a message as my friend couldn’t make it,’ she said. She watched as Sasha’s eyes went to her hand, spotting the ‘sign’ Ryan had told her to make with her thumb and little finger. With a nod her eyes went back to Jaz.
She opened her top drawer and pulled out a small wallet, one that you would hold a few cards in, and left her chair to come to Jaz’s side.
‘You’re new, I see,’ said Sasha, handing over the wallet. Jaz put the ‘message’ into her purse while trying to keep her shaking at bay. ‘If you ever decide to change professions I could keep you very busy here.’
Jaz smiled weakly. ‘I prefer what I’m doing, thanks.’
Sasha pushed up her glasses, her manicured eyebrows disappearing behind the frames. ‘Give my best to him, won’t you.’ Then she sighed as if she’d just had a spoonful of chocolate mousse. She shuddered and licked her lips. ‘He’s just divine.’
Jaz nodded but couldn’t find her voice as she launched herself at the door. Sasha followed her out. It was nearly over.
She had to endure the creepy walk back, her ears scared to hear anything. The front desk was soon in reach.
‘Hey, who’s this?’ A deep voice that sent shivers up Jaz’s spine. Jaz turned to see a well-dressed man coming out of the closest door by the front counter. ‘Sasha, have you been holding out on me?’
His green eyes leered and she instantly didn’t trust him. But she could tell he had money, and a wife.
‘No Michael, she is way out of your league.’
Michael stepped closer to Jaz, reaching out his hand to touch the skin on her arm. Jaz held herself firm, she couldn’t give the game away. What if this guy was a spy for the bad side? Or worse, he’d want her for other things. Sasha glanced at Jaz and flicked her eyes to the door.
‘Michael, have you come to settle?’ Sasha drew his attention and Jaz didn’t wait to be told twice. She left without saying a word. Sliding through the green door, she walked slowly to the corner. Once around it she fled to the safety of the taxi. Stay calm, keep your act up until you’re a block away in the taxi. Jaz strung Ryan’s words through her mind to keep her going.
‘Back to Ramblers, please,’ she told the taxi guy who put his paper on the passenger seat.
It was a twenty-minute ride back to the club and halfway there Jaz couldn’t keep her purse closed any longer. She was dying to see what was inside the small wallet. She pulled it out, fought with her conscience a bit more, then carefully unfolded the paper.
Oh my God, she thought, putting her hand to her heart. It felt like it would explode from her chest.
She let out a rush of air, a whole lungful that she’d been holding.
The message was typed out in code.
Jaz had never felt so glad to see a bunch of numbers in her life. Part of her had been worried it would say ‘your mission is to go and kill so and so’. She was scared of glimpsing Ryan’s future command to kill. At least this way she couldn’t be killed over something she didn’t understand. As her heart rate went back to normal, Jaz folded the paper and put it back. She sank back into the seat and closed her eyes.
By the time she got back to the nightclub it had a queue out the front. The bouncer letting people in was Peter, the one Ryan was talking to earlier. Feeling a little game after her big mission, she walked right up to him. ‘Hey, Peter right?’
He smiled, nodded and waved her straight through. No ID check, no waiting in line. Jaz felt like royalty.
She got out the small wallet with the message and held it tightly in her hand. She had already worked out how she would transfer it to Ryan. The club was pumping with loud music and Jaz found it hard to walk through the crowd in her shoes. But they did give her extra height and she could see Ryan by the edge of the dancing crowd looking stern. Her heart fluttered from all the adrenaline. She had made it back to him.