five | warsaw

the capital city of Poland; nicknamed the 'Phoenix City' due to the number of times it has been razed and rebuilt throughout history

RAYNA

May 6th, 8:13 (GMT +2)
9 days until it happens

MY THIGHS CRAMP with fatigue as I peer across the courtyard, crouched low, obscured behind a wrought-metal guardrail. It's cool beneath the shade of the balcony I'm squatting on. With my binoculars, I can see right into a window two hundred meters across the sprawling square. Beaming sunlight slants over the charcoal cobblestones below.

The curtains are drawn wide. The glass panes shine crystal-clear. In his hotel room, Jake materializes into view, his broad, golden chest glistening bare from the shower. A strip of black ink swoops along the side of his ribcage, a second small tattoo stamped onto his left shoulder-blade and a third curling across his right bicep. His hair is wet and dark and wild, a pale towel cinched around his tight hips. His stubble is freshly-shaved, shadowing his hard jaw. I watch him lift a cup of coffee to his lips, straining a thick arm over his head to scratch the crown of his spine.

Stupid, fucking, idiotic, bitchy little piece of shit. He's arrogant to the point of carelessness, leaving his drapes open like that, inviting trouble.

Ugh. I wanna sit on that glib, chiselled, gorgeous face til he suffocates. Then I'd neuter him, just for the fun of it.

After he shafted me back in Minsk, something hot and red woke up deep inside my belly, vicious for revenge. He's gonna hate himself. He's gonna rue the first moment he ever heard my name.

Also. How the fuck did he know I'm on my period?

He turns his back to me, the towel falling to the ground. His naked butt is smooth and tan, hips and thighs carved like marble, sculpted finer than Michelangelo could even imagine. A fizzle of traitorous desire hits me in the guts.

Before I can catch a glimpse of what caliber he's packing, he's wandered behind a wall, out of sight, then reappears a couple minutes later fully-clothed in Diesel jeans and a white t-shirt. My inner-voyeur pouts, disappointed. Damn.

My phone chimes with an incoming alert. I click the button on my wireless earpod to accept the call. "Hey, Sam. Got something for me?"

"Mhm. It's juicy. You ready for it?"

"I'm always ready." I keep the lens trained on Jake's window, observing as he sips his coffee and peruses through a hefty stack of loose papers.

Sam clacks away at his keyboard. "It took me some serious coding, alright? I was up all night for you. I hope you appreciate me."

"I will bring you back something very fancy and European."

He purrs, satisfied. "Bujee perfume and some of those French macarons, please. Ooh, or even better, a tall, handsome, tasty European snacc."

I laugh. "I'm not sure uncircumcised dick will make it through customs, but I'll see what I can do."

More typing and clicking. "So, full disclosure. If they find out even half the shady shit I performed to get you this, they'll lock me up for life. And you know what happens to pretty boys like me in prison."

"You're my hero, Masamba Adebayo." Jake is still standing there by his desk, reading through pages and jotting down notes. I drop the binoculars and fish a pocket-sized notebook out of my bag to record anything important Sam has to share.

"You want the technical version, or the simple one?"

"Give me the TLDR."

He inhales a gallon of air before spewing, all in one breath, "All six universal serial buses were plugged into Morgan's laptop yesterday at thirteen-fourty-six local time. He was tapped into a double virtual private network, but I used his device's serial number and after like a gazillion pushes, I finally managed to find a router with an open port so I could access—"

"Jesus, Sam! You do know what TLDR means, right?"

He's rolling those sassy eyes at me, I just know it. "Fine, fine. Three of the USBs were full of junk, two of them had stale intel from like a month ago."

"And the last one?"

"Corrupted and unreadable."

A ball of frustration clogs my mouth. "What? That's it? I thought you said you had something juicy! That's not juicy, that's drier than an unlubed asshol—"

"Hold up, sugarbean. I'm not done."

"You're such a damn tease, you know that?"

He cackles, rich, deep-chested. "Okay, okay, okay. Those USBs I thought were junk? I ran a few more layers of analysis on 'em. Turns out, one of them was wiped just six hours before, but there was still a shadow record of what used to be there."

This man. Always knows how to keep me in suspense. "And?"

"All the files that were on this USB came from a Polish origin-point. I couldn't get any specific details, but the name Dalton was mentioned seventeen times on this stick. And the same date kept showing up on multiple occasions. May fifteenth."

May fifteenth. Nine days away. That's the same date those Russian thugs mentioned yesterday morning in the basement. I twist the dainty, rose-gold chain on my right wrist, an ancient, unconscious habit for when I'm processing something.

"So that's why we're in Poland..." I murmur to myself.

Sam continues, "I know it's not a lot, but that's all we can get without the physical copies. Those pricks over in London are probably scraping for more data as we speak."

"You're amazing," I promise. "I need you guys to comb through surveillance of the entire city. Every convenience store, every bus station, every private camera with a street-view. See if you can get a face-ID on any known mob affiliate from our priority list."

Sam groans. "You know we don't have a warrant for that."

"And since when has that stopped you?"

There's a devious smile worming through his words. "Well. Director Wilson did say we had carte blanche on this case, didn't he? Anything we need to bring that poor girl home, right?"

"Exactly. And you know MI6 isn't playing by the rules, so why should we?"

"MI six. More like MI dicks."

That makes me laugh. I have to clutch my stomach to stay quiet. "MI dicks," I agree.

If I were back in Ottawa, up on the top-floor of HQ, standing in Sam's workspace, this is the part where he'd be leaning on his elbow, voice dimming to a whisper, batting his wispy, dramatic falsies at me. "Okay, tea. Spill. How are you gonna get back at this dickwad for that shit he pulled yesterday?"

He can't see the mischievous smile that curves across my lips. I squint through the magnified eyepiece again. Jake drains the last dregs from his mug and then tugs on a black leather jacket. Target on the move. "Plotting revenge while a defenseless young woman has been kidnapped? That would be juvenile, Sam."

I flip to a dog-eared page in my notebook, where the blue ink smudged from how fast I was scribbling last night before bed. Malware; poison; fake intel; blue balls; bullet to the nuts; stealing all his nice stuff

Too many good options. But why choose?

And anyway, I'm not exactly the 'plotting' type. I work best under pressure, flying by the seat of my pants.

"Mmmmm-hm." Yeah, I wouldn't believe me either.

"Alright, a'yooni, just keep me updated."

Sam lets out a shrill sound like he's fanning himself. "Oh, oh, oh... This man has really got you worked up if the Arabic is coming out..."

"Kol khara. I'm hanging up on you now..."

"Be safe, baby!"

Safe. Ha! As if he doesn't know me at all.

***

Stalking a fellow agent is much, much trickier than stalking a criminal.

Plus, unlike most criminals, this agent knows what I look like. Maybe he has a photo of me on his hit-list. Maybe he's even been fantasizing.

This morning before I started staking out his place, I amped up my disguise. I used foundation to manipulate the shade of my complexion; contour and highlight to alter the angles of my face; brow tint and a spoolie to lift and shape. A wig, fairer and shorter and wavier than my actual hair. He's already seen my American-tourist personna, so I zipped the stars-and-stripes off my backpack and replaced it with a hippy 70s-disco pin. Freckles and a fake beauty-spot completed the look. Even my own mother wouldn't recognize me.

There's an art to being invisible. Safe trailing distance, no looking directly at your target, walking when he stops, stopping when he walks. My costume constantly morphs and changes, elements revealing and concealing themselves. Sunglasses, no sunglasses. A hoodie down one block, bare shoulders up the next. A ponytail for a few minutes, followed by a tight bun, then bouncy ringlets after that. A rotating circuit of hats and headbands and bandanas, chunky jewelry melting into dainty chains.

He has the advantage right now of milking those flash-drives for all they're worth. What do you do when someone knows something you don't? You let them lead the way.

We make it to an affluent, older street. Massive trees, cropped hedges, tall, skinny buildings painted caramel and pistachio and peach. I park myself on a bench across the road, lifting a large book in front of my face. The opal ring on my left hand points towards the action, live-streaming so Sam's team can run some quick research on our location. I watch as Jake climbs onto the porch of a white-shingled home, mashing his thumb against the doorbell.

A short, curvy blonde woman in a sexy sundress opens the door and looks overjoyed to see him. Within seconds, she has her hands all over him, her incredible boobs practically oozing out of her bodice as she squashes against him. My mouth falls open a little. She's kissing him now, slushy, with copious amounts of tongue. One of his big hands grabs a thick slice of her juicy ass. He teases the world's funniest joke into her ear and her laughter yodels all the way into the next neighbourhood. Through my earpiece, I hear Sam gasp.

I'm staring, I can't help it. She kisses him again and giggles, gesturing playfully for him to remain where he is. She vanishes back inside, and two minutes later, she's handing him a heavy, top-secret, dangerous bundle of–

Cake?

What the actual fuck?

Golden and moist and crispy and crumbly... Dammit, it somehow looks even yummier than her.

Does this woman know where Cassidy is being held? Does she have a new lead? Is she a criminal mastermind?

My head is spinning with confusion as I watch Jake and this mystery woman trade another bucket of saliva before whispering their goodbyes and parting ways.

Well, okay then.

I stay where I am for a moment to give Jake a head-start before I follow him.

When I glance back at the house, I notice the buxom blonde is descending her front-steps, carrying another parcel in her long, sparkly-magenta talons. She glides away from her home on a precarious pair of crimson heels, crosses the street, begins walking in this direction. Should I trail her instead? See what she's smuggling? She's going to slip past my bench, join up with the main road. I pretend to be enraptured by my book, avoiding eye-contact.

The clickety-click of her stilettos comes to a screeching halt directly in front of me.

Gingerly, I lower the novel.

She extends her arms towards me with a sensational, hundred-gigawatt smile. "Szarlotka," she tells me. My Polish is mediocre at best, but she explains in a thick, lilting accent, "Polish ebpel pay." Polish apple pie. Wordlessly, I take the saran-wrapped plate from her. It's still warm. Then she passes me my period-pouch that Jake stole yesterday, my apple-cinnamon chapstick and the scented condoms still stuffed inside. "Jakob mówi, że to twój ulubiony smak."

Jake says it's your favourite flavour.

The only colour left in the universe is red. Her shoes gleam.

Fuck, fuck, fuckety-fuck. The motherfucker chipped me with a tracker.

***

Author's Note [October 7th, 2022]:

Jake you lil HOE 😭

How is she gonna get him back 😉

xoxo Ami