E S C A P E

“What is this?”

Aylin held out her phone, screen open to her latest bank statement. Saul had been her family's accountant for decades, and a deposit of $20,000 was not a mistake.

Without responding, the man slid a single item across his mahogany desk: a small notebook, bound with smooth, jet black Italian leather.

“That's all?”

“Look, I just deliver the checks. Your father doesn't pay me to ask questions.”

The book sneered up at her, taunting the brunette. Her jaw clenched.

“Right.” She had to pry the word from behind her teeth, carelessly swiping the book into her bag.

~*~

The clock on her nightstand flashed 4:00 AM, a familiar "No Caller I.D." notification lighting up her phone.

“C?” she asked into the night.

“Hey." A wave of relief rolled over her at the sound of her brother's voice. “Where are you?”

“Home, the sun's not even up yet.”

“Are you alone?”

“Am I ever not?”

Such a comment usually earned a laugh. When it didn't, Aylin stiffened, grip tightening on the phone. “Calder, how are the magpies?” It was their family's code for asking if someone had died in the line of duty; they had only used it once, and the ensuing moments haunted her still.

“Fine.” Her shoulders relaxed. “Stevie is leaving for America tonight. Her flight should land in Seattle at nine your time, can you pick her up?”

“Sure, I don't have work until two, but what is she doing here?” It was strange for Stevie's mission to be overseas. Surely their cousins in the south could handle it.

“Did you receive a letter?” He didn't wait for her response, “With the paper torn from a book?”

“No, but… ” Her brows drew together, information piecing itself together. The notebook had remained at the bottom of her bag, forgotten beneath various papers. “Saul gave me a notebook on Monday.” Retrieving the object in question, she switched on a light.

It took little more than a few seconds to recognize that a page was missing. “Calder…”

“The Ducanes know where you are.” Her eyes found a message scrawled at the bottom of the page: Enjoy the money, see you soon. There was a smudged signature, leaving legible only the letter ‘D'.

It had been seven years since Aylin had met Felicity Ducane. They met during Aylin's first extended mission, a six-month stint where she took out successful lawyer Natanaël Jacquard. Jacquard was a drug lord by night whose greatest offense was backstabbing his partner Cédric Chuquet. Monsieur Chuquet saw fit to hire an assassin, and Aylin's father deemed it the perfect opportunity to test his prodigy daughter's skills. Two months of isolation allowed Aylin to perfect her French and become Jacquard's secretary, Alizée Barreau. The position placed her close enough to know his every move yet far enough to not be suspected of his murder, leaving his assistant, poor sweet Fiona, to take the fall.

There were three major families in the hit world, known as the Big Three. The Glades, headed by Evonne and Rich Glade; the Ducanes of France, upheld by Victor Ducane; and the Vallises, led by Icarus Vallis. The latter family, though they didn't put out hits themselves, contributed financially to the other two.

What the Glade family had in numbers, the Ducanes had in connections. When it became known that Fiona Latoure was truly Felicity Ducane, Aylin's plan of calculated sabotage backfired. Felicity threatened that one day her connections would come to exact revenge on her. The Glades had hoped that, with Aylin's resignation from the business and relocation to America, Felicity's promise might not come to fruition.

“They're coming.”

The phone slipped from her hand, falling to the tile floor with a resounding crash. Long arms wrapped around even longer legs and pulled until the brunette was in a fetal position. Soundless tears trickled from her eyes, slowly at first and then forming a steady stream. There was no escape.

~*~

“I've looked over everything. There's no trace of where this letter came from. What if—”

“Look harder, Calder,” Stevie snarled, turning on her heel and stalking across the room to face her brother. Emmett and Brock looked up, the former prepared to restrain the sleep-deprived woman. “Aylin would never give up on one of us.” She saw the twelve-year-old who had sprinted into her room terrified after seeing a spider disappear behind her mirror. Stevie had comforted her, stroking her tangled mass of curls and calling for their eldest sister, Ava.

She remembered the twenty-year-old who held her in the living room of their shared apartment when the call came through about Ava's death. Aylin's body trembled but there was no sound, the only noise filling the room Stevie's sobs.

She cleared her throat. “Now, get me to the airport, so I can save our sister.”

~*~

Bags in hand, the older Glade raked her eyes over Aylin's prized Corvette. “So that's what you did with the money mum and dad sent you.”

“No, unlike some people, I saved the money I made over the years,” Aylin smirked from behind her grey hoodie; a valiant attempt at remaining inconspicuous.

“Some of us preferred to spend our money on better clothes.”

“Where'd they go?”

Stevie's jaw dropped, and Aylin narrowly ducked a clutch that went whizzing past her head. It had been three years since they had been in the same room and she missed their banter.

With the bags crammed into the backseat, Aylin was first to break their comfortable silence.

“How did they reach you?” Her eyes remained trained on the road, deftly maneuvering about a slow-moving sedan.

“We received a note.” Stevie's discomfort, though subtle, wasn't lost on her sister.

Lithe fingers flexed around the leather wheel. "What did it say?”

“‘We’re coming. Wherever she is, she won't be there for long'.”

“How specific.” Aylin deadpanned.

“I missed that sense of humor,” Stevie replied around a laugh, shaking her head as she fought back tears.

The Ducanes were infamous for their mental tricks. They destroyed their targets through emotional warfare, waiting until they had gone insane for the kill.

~*~

"I see you, you know." Aylin's gaze remained fixed on the counter while she waited for the barista to complete her drink. "At the gym, you run like you're escaping something."

"Maybe I am," she finally looked up. Warm pools of brown met her stare, curiosity swimming in the depths. Under normal circumstances, Aylin might have humored her friend's inquiries.

They regarded one another for a couple of beats until Eva finally yielded. “How long's your sister in town for?”

“However long I feel hospitable.”

~*~

The sound of the door closing startled Stevie, and the rushed “talk later,” didn’t go unnoticed as she hastily pocketed her phone.

“What was that about?”

“Brock hacked Felicity's phone, gaining access to her bank account,” Stevie explained, taking careful steps towards her. “She chartered a jet and hired an undisclosed private service.”

Aylin's resolve cracked. “She found someone to pull a hit.” Emerald eyes grew timid as they flicked around the room in search of an invisible threat.

Swallowing her fears Aylin was right, Stevie placed a firm hand on her shoulder, using the other to tilt her sister's chin up to meet her eyes. “Aylin.” When she didn't receive a response, Stevie repeated herself.

“What?” She could barely focus her gaze, looking beyond the woman before her.

“I said you should invite your friend over."

“No, she's busy, and she'll ask too many–“

Before she could react, Stevie was swiping her phone from her pocket, gracefully dancing out of the way of the brunette's halfhearted swat. “See? Your reflexes are slow. You need a distraction.” Her fingers made quick work of the keyboard. "Thank me later.”

Aylin finally managed to focus, voice firm. “Stevie, you know what this means.”

“Aylin—“

“They know I’m here.”

Stevie sighed, tugging a hand through her hair. “How? Aylin, you've been so careful.” She started towards the guest bedroom, but didn't disappear behind the door without adding, “They can't know.”

~*~

Her heart thrummed in her chest, assaulting her ribcage with a ferocity Aylin knew would result in at least a pulverized sternum.

“Not bad, kid,” Emmett teased, ruffling his sister's hair playfully. “For a child.”

Ava's laughter floated into the back seat. “Don't take it personally, Ay, he's just insecure because you're already better than him.”

Aylin's condition deteriorated over the following weeks. Unrecognizable as the assassin she once was, she flinched at the slightest of sounds, at constant battle with herself. The gym, once her reprieve, had become nearly unbearable.

A hand on her shoulder was enough to send the high-strung woman into a panic, and instinctively she grabbed the offending limb, twisting her body and forcing the stranger into the wall of lockers beside her. Hard.

Once she registered who she'd caught, Aylin's eyes narrowed to slits at the person who wasn't a stranger after all. "What do you want?" she spat, exhaustion melding with anger to form a lethal combination. "Why can't you leave me alone?"

Felicity's eyes had widened to the size of saucers, mouth hung open to assist her lungs in pulling in the oxygen Aylin's force had knocked out. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Her answer received a push to her wrist, the former assassin having it at the perfect angle to snap. "Funny, I don't believe you."

“I. Don’t. Know," the girl's words were weaker now, her voice crackling with the impending arrival of tears.

Fevered eyes stared back into petrified ones, and then came the creeping realization that she was telling the truth. Her features began to morph, melting away from the soft curves of her rival's face to reveal the hard lines of Eva's. Aylin's meticulous gaze flicked from the pale, limp arms to the trembling pink lips, before landing on the warm brown orbs that screamed in terror.

Horrified, Aylin's grip loosened and she took several steps backward, appalled. "I'm so sorry," she whispered the words, laced with shame and resignation. A sob wracked her body, and when timid arms wound around her shoulders, she didn't fight them.

~*~

Eva rested comfortably with her head in Aylin's lap as the two laid on the couch in her uncharacteristically full living room. Stevie looked between the television and her sister, a soft smile on her lips. Aylin had been through more than her share in the past three months; it was a relief to finally see her at peace.

A knock on the door interrupted the calm.

Aylin stiffened as Stevie's hand slid toward the knife she knew rested within the inner pocket of her jacket. "Who else knows you live here?" she asked.

"My boss, but I'm not due in for another five hours."

Eva stirred then, pushing herself upright, and Aylin did her best to keep her voice smooth, far from betraying the panic growing in her tense frame. "I need you to go to my room." Another knock. "Now."

"Why? What's happening?"

Stevie leapt into action, peering through all the windows the room provided. "Aylin, there are vans in the back alley—“

A gunshot interrupted her words, leaving a fresh indent in the door and prompting Eva to rise from the couch.

"Eva, you need to go!” her panic no longer concealed as the banging got louder, desperation seeping through.

Eva raised a hand to her ear, touching the black earpiece Aylin had disregarded as a pair of earbuds. "I've got it, guys," she murmured, brown eyes holding an unfamiliar steeliness as they met perplexed green ones. The banging stopped, and Aylin felt a lump grow in her throat, Stevie falling still near the door as she saw Eva’s wrist.

Her sleeve had fallen back to reveal a delicate silver bracelet with two dangling charms: “E D.”

“My sister expected you to at least try and escape,” Eva said around a sigh, stalking towards her target. “What a waste of $20,000.”