Agent 7. The Shadows: Part I

▪️◼️Chapter Twenty Three◼️▪️

Collateral Damage.

That's what he called me this morning when I first woke. I didn't understand what he meant at the time but as I sit here in the front seat with him, both of us peering out into the darkness in strained silence, the words he spoke to me are finally beginning to make sense.

He's using me to kill Borkov. No matter the cost.

As the hours continue to pass, I've begun to figure him out piece by piece and I've come to the realization he will do whatever it takes to get the job done, even if I get hurt in the process.

I am, by definition, collateral damage in his eyes. A pawn in his game. Nothing more than a piece to be played with. To him I am disposable.

My leg bounces with nerves as I glare out the passenger side window. My legs are bare and I'm dressed scantily in scraps of cloth that can hardly be deemed a dress. I knew I wouldn't like what I would find in the box he had waiting for me, and I was right. The dress I'm wearing is a striking alabaster, that of something a betrothed would wear. It's skin tight and short, hardly covering the entirety of my backside. When I sit, the dress rides up, revealing hints of the provocative lingerie he also forced me to wear. The combination of the racy unmentionables with the barely-there dress, makes everything about this evening that much more loathsome.

We pass through a tunnel of trees that hang over the winding road we are on. The rain has stopped but the ground is still glistening from the lingering droplets that are now magnified by the bright headlights. It's hard to see much beyond the car but I can make out lights from a house off in the distance. It's perched up on a hill surrounded by bleak obscurity, kilometers away from the nearest home.

That must be Mayor Borkov's place.

I glance at my kidnapper.

He senses me staring at him and glances my way. He's wearing an onyx suit jacket and slacks with a white button up underneath capped with a black tie. They are the only things I've ever seen him wear.

Are they the only colors he owns? Black and white? Is it a uniform of sorts? The men at the warehouses wore the same.

His jaw is set, along with his shoulders.

He's calm. Collected.

Unfazed.

His eyes gleam in the incandescent light of the moon, glinting off of the windshield and side windows as they search mine.

I frown. I don't know what I was hoping to see, maybe affliction or trepidation--mirroring my own feelings--but his features are passive. His face is void of all emotion and his thoughts penniless. Even his eyes lack his normal malice. He's currently just a shell of a man, hardened on the outside, and hallow within. Without a word, he looks away from me and back out to the road ahead of us. So I do the same.

We pull up to a large iron gate with a call box on the driver side. Internally I beg him not to roll his window down, to turn around and never look back. I implore him with my thoughts to see that I am not deserving of the things Vladimir put me through nor the things this killer is about to force upon me. But I'm not brave enough to open my mouth and utter the words.

Or maybe I already know what his response will be and it's for the best that I don't push him.

Either way I remain silent, watching. Waiting. With sickening dread growing within me, I sit unmoving as he rolls down his window and reaches out a hand to press one of the keys on the keypad.

The blaring beeping sound makes me wince. A voice cracks through the speaker. "State your business," it says in deep Russian.

"I am delivering a Ms. Lenkov to Mr. Borkov." He says smoothly, in precise русский.