Chapter 09: At What Price?

“Hey, hey, good, you’re back!” Kasper said as Alexa stepped in the front door. She dropped a couple of grocery bags to the counter and started over towards him, smiling at the way he was eagerly waving her over. “Come here I wanna show you something.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I think I may have found a way to get the cash we need right here and now.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. We use blackmail.”

“Blackmail?”

“Exactly. It’s perfect.  We can get the money we need to get our asses to Dubai or wherever you want to go.”

“Who’s the target?” she asked, skimming through the folder on his desk, smiling when a familiar face appeared in a set of photographs. “You found him? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I knew you’d approve. And it’s the perfect play!” Kasper said, pushing the pictures to the side to show her the plan in its entirety. “He still thinks he’s off the grid so he’ll never see it coming. One big job and BOOM! We’re done, out! The bad guys who started this get fingered and we’re in the clear. It’s perfect! It can’t go wrong.”

“No, no, I just don’t know about that. I don’t want to blackmail someone for money, K! That was the exact fucking thing that started this whole mess in the first place.”

“No, the assholes from WET started this thing. Your conscience seeing some risqué pictures of an up and coming governor started this thing. But this, this can END it, A, we can be done. Don’t you want that?”

“You’re seriously asking me that? All I want is for this to be over so we can have some semblance of a normal life but, not like this. These guys are the ones that blackmail and manipulate innocent people for their own personal gain. We’re supposed to be better.”

“Why? What exactly makes us better, Alexa? You kill people for a living and I help. Sure, we were both dealt a bad hand but, how does that give us the right to be judge, jury and executioner of all of these people?”

“That’s different.”

“Why? Because what we’re doing is just? Face it, A. We talk a big game but really, we’re no better than a couple of run-of-the-mill psychopaths murdering any and everyone who gets in our way. We need this.”

“Not at the risk of winding up where we started. There has to be another way.”

“Well I’m sorry, there isn’t. I’ve gone over every possible scenario and they all end up with us either behind bars or dead.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“And that’s your choice. But if you want to get out of this fucking country like we’ve planned, then THIS is the only way.” Alexa sighed and dropped onto the edge of the bed behind her. “Come on, A, I know you’re feeling a certain way about this because of the whole good versus evil thing, but, at some point you have to decide. Do you want to live without fear of retribution or do you want to keep looking over your shoulder every day?” Kasper sighed and stood from his seat, slowly kneeling in front of Alexa. “Ok look, I can see you don’t want any part of this, and I get it. It’s not how you operate. So I’ll do it.”

“Do what?”

“I’ll plan the mission and execute it on my own. You don’t have to get your hands dirty.”

“No. There’s no way I’m letting you do this on your own. Like it or not we’re partners. I’ll let you call the shots on this one but, I’ll be there to watch your back,” Alexa sighed and fell back on the bed. “What do we have to do?”

A slow-forming smile spread on Kasper’s lips as he stood and placed his hands in his pockets. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

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