It had been 20 years since they’d seen each other, and neither knew what to say. David and David Junior, or DJ as his family affectionately called him sat and stared at each other. Each intensely studying the features that they had only seen in the mirror up until this point. They both seemed to be astonished by how much they resemble the other. The younger man had been trying kid this his whole life, but did his best to dismiss it. Even when presented with pictures to prove it, he still shrugged off the comparisons like a running back breaking a tackle. But now, face to face, he couldn’t deny the fact that he was basically staring into a mirror. The older man had spent the last 2 decades in Jefferson City Correctional Facility for manslaughter. And while the crime was committed in self defense, his public defender still pushed him to take a plea deal. “It’s better than the life sentence I would’ve caught for the weight in my trunk.” That’s the way he justified it at the time, and that same thought had brought him a sense of peace over the past 7,254 days. But here he was, just a few months shy of parole, staring at his doppelganger across a steel table.

“Hey Junior,” the elder David said, a slight smile spread across his face, “How you been?” DJ sat there and stared back at his father, stonefaced. “Don’t call me that.”

David let out a light sigh. “Your name is David Williams, Junior, son. Why wouldn’t I call you that?” DJ leaned forward on the table and said, “Because you’ve never been a father to me. You don’t deserve to call me Junior.”

The elder David softly nodded his head, contemplating how to react to his son’s blatant disrespect. “That’s fine. So how have you been DJ?” DJ’s face softened a bit and he gave his father a recap on his life. As David listened, the pain in missing his only son growing up slowly crept onto his face. Once DJ was done, David immediately apologized for his absence. “It’s nothing. You were a street nigga doing street nigga shit,” DJ replied. David shook his head, dismissing the character assassination that was just laid at his feet. “That’s not what is was, son.” DJ leaned by in his plastic chair. “Set me straight then.”

David took a deep breath and began to tell his son the story of his life, and the night that ultimately landed him in prison. David had been a straight A student all through school. He even went to college on a football scholarship. But midway through his sophomore year, he severely injured his hip and was never able to play again. Despite that, he still managed to finish earning his bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education. Finding a job after college was struggle of epic proportions. School districts seemed to be reluctant to hire a 6’5” black man to stand in front of a class full of elementary school students. Eventually, David found work in a warehouse. And while he and DJ’s mother, David’s now ex-wife, were able to make ends meet, things quickly changed when she got pregnant with Diana, DJ’s older sister. David was barely able to provide for his wife and newborn daughter with his paycheck from the warehouse. That’s when he was approached by a childhood friend named Antonio. At first, he was just supposed to provide security for Antonio’s meetings with his connect and rivals and he would more than enough money to take care of his family. But when Diana got sick, David needed to earn more. That’s when he started slanging.

For a while, the money was good. Actually, it was better than good. It was great. David was able to pay for his daughter’s medical bills and provide his family with a comfortable lifestyle. But when his wife became pregnant again, David was faced with a difficult choice: continue to work at the warehouse or hit the streets full-time. Antonio offered David a “promotion” of sorts. He became Antonio’s #2. He would be in charge of distributing product to the street-level pushers. But one night, David’s entire world came crashing down. On his way to the store to get formula for his newborn son, a couple of guys from a rival crew ran up on David in the grocery store parking lot and tried to rob him. Afraid of what Antonio might do to his family if he lost the product that was in his trunk, David fought them off with all his might. The brawl ended with one guy dead and another in intensive care. David quickly hopped in his car and sped home. He got there just in time to kiss his baby boy before the police arrived to arrest him.

“So you see son, it was never my intent to leave you.” Tears were rolling down David’s cheeks. Across the table, DJ had began to tear up as well. “I’m so sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do to support you guys.” David reached out for his son, and DJ reached back. The 2 stood up and embraced each other for the first time ever. One of the guards came over and tapped David on the shoulder, letting him know that their behavior was not acceptable. “Sorry, its my first time seeing my son since he was a baby.” The guard nodded and told them to both sit back down.

Once they were back in their respective seats, David asked his son if there was anything else going on in his life. DJ wiped the tears from his eyes, then smiled at his father. He was currently attending the University of Missouri (his father’s alma mater) on a football scholarship. There were even some rumors that he could be drafted by an NFL team after the season. With the biggest grin imaginable, David leaned back in his chair and exclaimed, “That’s my boy!”

He prayed that she didn’t call him up to the front of the class. Their eyes locked and he just knew she was going to call his name. He sunk down in his chair and tried to hide behind his textbook. She scanned the room before continuing her lecture. He let out a heavy sigh of relief and went back to his real work, drawing. That’s how he escaped the monotony that had become AP English. While she rattled on about Chaucer, Dickens, Dumas and the rest, he created entire worlds in his sketchbook. Sometimes he even used her lectures as inspiration, like the time he drew a picture of William Shakespeare riding a fire breathing dragon while the class discussed Romeo and Juliet. He was bright back to reality by the bell ringing, so he quickly packed up his belongings and scurried out of the classroom.

The next morning, he walked into class and told himself that he was going to pay attention. In his heart, he knew it was wrong to daydream and draw in the middle of class. He took a seat at his desk and sat up straight in his chair. But just as she got into a long monologue from A Tale of Two Cities, his mind began to wander. He furiously shook his he’d and retrained his focus on his teacher’s words. He tried his hardest to visualize the scene she was reading. Before he knew it, he was sketching his vision on a piece of notebook paper. And that’s when it happened. “Mr. Williams,” she beckoned from the front of the class, “Would you like to share your thoughts on the selection?”

Hearing his name being called instantly snatched him back to the real world. He sat up straight and looked around, slightly bewildered by what was happening. He looked up at his teacher, who was staring directly back at him. He slowly rose from his seat and started to walk towards the front of the room. “And please bring whatever it is you’ve been working on for the last few minutes,” she added. The knot in his throat was the size of an old Buick. He reached back and grabbed the notebook from his desk and continued his death march towards the front.

When he arrived, she reached out for his notebook. Hesitantly, he handed it to her and waited for her response. She studied the paper for what seemed like forever. Finally, she handed it back to him ad said, “Please share with the class what you’ve been doing.” He looked at her and just blinked, unsure of how to proceed. Sensing his confusion, she stood up, grabbed a dry erase marker and handed it to him. “Please reproduce your work on the board behind you,” she clarified. By now, he was sweating bullets. He sat the notebook down on the desk, removed the cap from the marker and began to draw.

When he was done, he turned to face his fellow classmates. The looks on their faces ranged from astonished to inspired. “You’re a incredible artist,” she chimed in, “Do you think you could do this for me with every reading selection for the rest of the semester?” He meekly nodded his head before returning to his seat.

Fifteen minutes ago, I was good. Now, I can’t get my hands to stop shaking. My heart is beating a million miles an hour. My stomach feels queasy. I’m sweating like I just ran a marathon. “Why did you make me do that,” I screamed, “Why?!” That’s when the tears began to stream down my cheeks. I stood there shaking like a leaf, looking at the result of my actions. My crew grabbed me and stuffed me into the backseat of an SUV and sped off. That’s when I began to sob uncontrollably.

He had been my best friend my whole damn life. Hell, we were closer than friends. We were brothers. Everywhere one of us went, the other was right behind. That’s how we ended up here. We didn’t come from the best neighborhood. Statistically speaking, there were but so many ways to make it out: sports, music, or some sort of illegal activity. And while we were good at both of the former, we chose the latter as our escape route.

We started out selling dime bags for this wanna be big time nigga from our neighborhood when we were 13. Even back then, I think had a sense for how this story would go, how things would eventually end. I was unsure about the whole thing. My big cousin had gotten his brains blown out by his homeboy just the year before. And while the police told the family they suspected that it was a robbery gone bad, we knew what had really happened. I had told myself that I wouldn’t go down that same path. But there I was, accepting a package from a flashy nigga that I didn’t respect in the least bit.

As we grew up, so did our business. We had gone from selling dimes on the corner to moving major weight for these Colombian cats we met through some mutual friends. Nobody suspected that 2 honor roll students from the projects were building the largest drug empire the city had ever seen. And we loved that. Nobody saw us coming. Not even that flashy nigga from back in the day when I stuck a knife in his jugular after I caught wind that he was gonna turn state’s evidence against us. I ain’t gonna lie, it felt good to knock his punk ass off. I would’ve done that just for the hell of it.

As the SUV sped through the city, I slowly began to regain my composure. I found myself staring out the window, wondering what life would’ve been like had we chosen a different path. I saw myself in college, working a regular job in corporate America, getting married, having a couple kids. Up until that point, nothing about a normal life intrigued me. I loved the thrill that came with what we did. But in that moment, after the events of that night, I craved normalcy.

A few minutes later, we pulled into the warehouse that served as our base of operations. I slowly got out of the SUV as the rest of my crew went about business as usual. I stood for a moment and watched what was going on around me. I had never paid this much attention, but now it was like my eyes were opened for the first time. And everything I saw disgusted me. In that very instant, I knew I had to find a way out. I rushed to my office and locked the door. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do or where I was going, but I had to come up with a plan quick.

I poked my head out the office door and quickly scanned the room then called my lieutenant over. He asked what was going on. I told him that I was gonna disappear for a while. His expression quickly soured. I reassured him that everything would be fine, I just needed to get away for a little bit. He told that I should let the rest of the crew know. Reluctantly, I agreed and walked out of the office. Once I had everyone’s attention, I let them know of my intentions to “take a break” for the foreseeable future. Everyone nodded and went back to whatever they were doing.

I grabbed the keys to my BMW 530i and headed outside. The cool night air passed over me and the events of the night fully set in. I had killed my best friend less than an hour ago. Hell, I still had the gun tucked in my waistband. I pulled the Glock out of the small of my back and examined it. Then I pressed it to my temple and squeezed the trigger.

As the rooster outside her window crowed for the second time, Samantha’s eyes shot open. She quietly slid out of her single bed and stared out of the small window in her cell at Abbaye Notre-Dame de Bonne-Espérance, the Nineteenth century French monastery she had been calling home for the last six weeks. Just like everyone other morning she woke up in this small dorm room, she couldn’t help but wonder what one of these women could’ve possibly done to end up on her radar. “Your job isn’t to understand, Sam,” she reminded herself as she stared at the sun rising over the French countryside, “Your job is simply to execute.” When she wasn’t pretending to be a nun in order to accomplish her mission, Samantha was a member of a clandestine organization she knew simply as The Syndicate. In the six years she had been in their employ since graduating from Columbia with her Master’s Degree in International Affairs, she had become one of The Syndicate’s best agents.

She took a seat on her bed and quickly pulled out the small tablet that another Syndicate agent had managed to smuggle into the monastery the day before. She took a moment and scanned through the information about her assignment. The target’s name was Jeneane Devereaux, although she now went by the name of Sister Mary Elise. “She’s gotta be every bit of sixty years old,” Samantha said to herself as she continued to read. Every bad deed that the elderly Ms. Devereaux had committed in her life scrolled past Samantha’s eyes. When she got to the end of the dossier, there was one note: either dispose of the body or make it look like an accident. Sam returned the tablet to its hiding place under her pillow and pulled out the small leather bag that contained her gear. She strapped her twin push daggers around her left thigh, the holster for her Ruger LCP and matching silencer around her right. “Better to be safe than sorry,” she remarked to herself as she got dressed in her habit then headed out the door.

Sam quietly made her way down the hallway of the monastery dormitory, through the cloister and into the scriptorium. As the other nuns filed in behind her, Sam quickly made her way to her assigned desk. While the others were deeply concentrating on their studies, Samantha quickly scanned the room for her target. “She’s got to be in here,” she said to herself, “Every morning begins in this room.” At that very moment, Sam was approached by Sister Celeste, a kindly older woman in a wheelchair. In what could only be described as flawless French, Sam quietly asked if she could borrow a pencil. A sincere, sweet smile pushed up the corners of the old nun’s face as she nodded and retrieved a pencil from her desk. While Sam pretended to wait, she caught a glimpse of her target out of the corner of her eye. The woman entered the room as meek and quiet as a church mouse and took a seat at her desk. Sam shot a warm smile at Celeste in thanks for the pencil and went about the business of pretending to study her bible.

An hour later, Sam and the rest of the nuns made their way into the small auditorium for the morning fellowship service. As everyone mingled about, Sam scanned the crowd for her target. Alas, she was unable to pick Jeneane Devereaux out of the throng of habits surrounding her. A few minutes later, the nuns formed a single file line and proceeded to the chapel for the morning’s prayer service. Sam took another quick scan of the room before finding her place in line. The procession of nuns quickly shuffled through the cloister and into the chapel in almost dead silence, as most things were done at Abbaye Notre-Dame de Bonne-Espérance. Samantha took a seat in one of the short pews on the left side of the chapel and waited for the abbot to begin the service.

Once the morning’s prayer service had concluded, Samantha and the rest of the nuns once again formed a single file line and proceeded to the refectory to prepare breakfast. As she followed the sister in front of her, an odd feeling came over Sam. Her mind went into overdrive to try and figure out what it was she was feeling. Just as she reached the door to the kitchen, it hit her. The feeling was dread. “No matter what this woman might have done in the past,” Sam said to herself, “She’s obviously trying to turn her life around now.” She walked into the pantry and gathered the ingredients she needed to make biscuits. “Who am I to kill her,” Sam continued, “Unless her being here is just a front.” The timeline of Ms. Devereaux’s atrocities quickly replayed in Sam’s mind. She had just blown up a free clinic in Liberia less than nine months ago. Prior to that, she tried to cause a critical meltdown in Reactor One at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant. Suddenly, that uneasy feeling was gone. Sam softly shook her head and refocused on the task of making biscuits for breakfast.

Once breakfast was served, Sam quickly scanned the refectory for her target. Just as before, Jeneane was nowhere to be seen. Samantha quietly shuffled back into the kitchen to continue her search. Alas, there was no sign of the woman. Sam slipped out the side door and sprinted through the cloister towards the dorm. That’s when she caught a glimpse of Ms. Devereaux exiting the courtyard. Samantha stealthily followed her out of the courtyard and to the small barn known as the House of Biscay. Before entering into the building, Sam reached under her habit, pulled out the Ruger strapped to her right thigh and attached the silencer. Like a cat stalking its prey, Sam sneakily crept through the large wooden door. Just as she did, something in the air caught a glimmer of sunlight. Before she could fully process what it could be, Sam’s instincts and training kicked in as she expertly ducked.

Sam looked back to see a small throwing knife stuck in the frame of the door behind her. “And that confirms my suspicions about you, my dear,” Jeneane said as she removed her veil and coif. Her shoulder length, salt-and-pepper hair fell down and perfectly framed her slender, alabaster face. “So who has sent you here to find me,” she continued, her French accent almost made her English unbearable, “You can’t be from Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure; they don’t employ votre genre.” Sam stood back up and slid her hands inside her sleeves as Madame Devereaux’s insult slammed into her ears. “By my kind, do you mean black people or women,” she retorted. Jeneane chuckled. “So the chienne noire does speak French,” she replied, her tone dripping with conceit, “Well that only leaves us two choices: you’re either MI6 or CIA.” Sam remembered what the dossier said, so she started to inch closer. “Don’t move another centimeter, my dear,” Jeneane said as she retrieved another dagger from the sheath on her waist, “I would hate for one of the good sisters here to have to clean up your blood.” Sam stopped in her tracks. “So which one is it,” Jeneane inquired, “I’d like to know if I need to book a flight to London or Virginia.” In one smooth motion, Sam pulled the pistol out of her sleeve and fired a single shot that penetrated Jeneane’s frontal lobe right between her eyebrows. “God bless America,” she replied in a deadpan tone.

Samantha hurriedly made her way back towards the kitchen. By now, the nuns would be wrapping up breakfast and her absence would be noticed. As she scurried along, she couldn’t help but shake her head at what just happened. “How the hell did she know who I was,” she asked herself over and over again. Yet no matter how many times she repeated the query, no answer revealed itself. She returned to the refectory just in time to help clean up. Sam made quick work of her domestic duties in the kitchen then sped off to her room. Once she was alone in her small cell, Sam quickly took off her habit then grabbed her bag from underneath the bed. She removed the daggers from her left thigh and the small pistol from her right and placed them in her bag. She retrieved the tablet from under her pillow and opened up the secure messaging app. Her nimble fingers expeditiously typed the message she wanted to convey. After hitting send, she sat there and anxiously awaited a reply.

More than an hour passed before the small tablet vibrated to notify Sam that she had a message. She quickly opened the messaging app and read the reply. Her superiors at The Syndicate had no idea how Sam’s cover could have been potentially blown, but they reassured her that they would send in a cleaning squad to dispose of the body and any evidence. She was also advised to leave the convent as soon as possible. Sam stashed the tablet back under her pillow and went about carrying out her daily duties. Throughout the day, something just didn’t sit right with Sam. She was almost positive she hadn’t done anything over the last six weeks that would’ve given away her true identity. “If I had, Jeneane would’ve acted sooner, right?” she thought over and over to herself as swept the refectory after lunch.

After dinner, Sam quickly made her way to her dorm room to retrieve her bag. Once she had it, she quietly headed back to the House of Biscay. She slowly pulled open the heavy wooden door as she looked around to make sure no one had followed her. Once inside, she scanned the room for any trace of her encounter with Madame Devereaux. As expected, you couldn’t tell anyone had been in there, let alone died. Sam stuck her head out the door and quickly scanned the area one more time. Once she was satisfied that she was in the clear, she stripped out of her habit then reached into her bag for her clothes. Once she was dressed, she slipped her arms through the straps of the duffle bag and crept back out the door. After surveying the area one more time, Sam darted across the large field adjacent to the House of Biscay and disappeared into the tree line.

A few days later, after making her way from one countryside village to the next in an effort to cover her tracks, Sam woke up in the penthouse suite at the Four Seasons in Paris. Although she was wide awake and could hear the hotel room’s telephone ringing, Sam refused to budge from her underneath the Egyptian cotton sheets on the plush king-sized bed. “This is the first time in almost 2 months that I’ve been able to sleep in a real bed,” she thought to herself, “And I plan on enjoying every second of it.” Her flight back to the United States wasn’t scheduled to leave for another 2 days, so Sam saw this time as a mini-vacation of sorts. The first one she had had since being recruited by Ms. Stone on graduation day. Eventually, the phone stopped ringing but Samantha was unable to go back to sleep. She sat up in the middle of the bed and stared out the sliding glass door at the Parisian skyline. After a few moments, she scrambled out the bed and made her way into the marble bathroom.

After a nice, long bath, Sam wrapped herself in one of the oversized terry cloth bath towels and walked out onto the terrace. The view from the penthouse was breathtaking. As she leaned against the railing, staring at the Eiffel Tower off in the distance, Sam began to imagine what her life could’ve been like if she hadn’t gone to work for The Syndicate. She fantasized about a home in the suburbs with a husband and kids, family vacations, romantic getaways and being passionately kissed by her imaginary love in the middle of the City of Light. Those daydreams were quickly chased away by the sound of the hotel room’s telephone ringing again, dragging her back to reality. Begrudgingly, Sam walked back into the hotel suite and answered the call. The sophisticated voice of an older British woman greeted her. “How did things go in Échourgnac, my dear?” Sam let out a heavy sigh before answering the question posed by her boss, Judith Stone.

Once the debriefing was done, Sam hung up the phone and made her way back to the bedroom. But before she could climb into the king-sized bed, there was a knock at the door. “I can’t win for losing,” Sam groaned. She reached into her duffle bag and grabbed a pair of yoga pants and a tank top. As she got dressed, the knocking at the door grew louder. “Just a minute,” she screamed. Once she was clothed, Sam half-jogged towards the door to the penthouse suite. But before she could get there, the door exploded in a hail of automatic gunfire. Without taking time to process what was happening, Sam’s training and instincts kicked in. She deftly dropped to the ground and rolled back in the direction she had come from. She retrieved her daggers and Ruger from the duffle bag at the foot of the bed, then quickly crawled underneath the bed. She quietly watched as 2 large men dressed in black walked through the room, obviously looking for her.

One of the thugs walked through the hotel suite while the other stood in the doorway of the bedroom. Sam waited until she could barely hear the first man’s footsteps, then fired two shots that tore through his accomplice’s right shin. The man slammed into the floor with a deafening thud and let out a bloodcurdling scream. In that moment, he and Sam made eye contact. But before he could alert his comrade of her location, she fired another shot that found its home in her target’s left eye socket.

The first man sprinted back to the bedroom to find his partner lying in a growing pool of his own blood. He frantically looked around the room for Sam to no avail. From her hiding place, Sam held her breath and prayed he didn’t think to look under the bed. Instead, he reloaded the AR-15 in his hands and unloaded the magazine into the king-sized bed in front of him. Luckily, the pillowtop mattress was thick enough to stop the bullets from tearing through Sam underneath. As the man fumbled to reload the assault rifle again, Sam mustered every ounce of strength in her slender frame to flip the bed in the thug’s direction. The flying furniture distracted the man just enough for Sam to land a swift low kick to his left knee that turned his legs into jelly and sent him crashing to the floor. As he slowly made his way back onto his feet, the man let out a chuckle. “I was hoping you would put up a fight,” his heavy French accent was almost unbearable. Just as the man was about to stand up, his right hand viciously connected with Sam’s midsection and quickly tuned her lungs into deflated balloons.

As Sam staggered back from the haymaker to the gut, the man wrapped one of his giant hands around her neck and threw her across the room like a rag doll. Still dazed and trying to catch her breath, Sam scrambled to get back on her feet. “No time to rest,” she said to herself. The thug charged at her like a raging bull. As soon as he was within reach, he wrapped his massive arms around Sam and slammed her into the wall behind her. Once again, the oxygen in her lungs raced out her body as she meekly tried to fight her way out of his crushing bear hug. After what felt like an eternity, he let her go and she crumbled at his feet. He stood over, an air of confidence beamed across his face. Sam knelt below him, nearly lifeless, gasping for a breath. He went to deliver a devastating kick to her rib cage. But before he could connect, Sam grabbed a large shard of the broken glass beneath her and rammed it into the apex of his thighs. The makeshift blade ripped through his perineum, causing the thug to let out a high pitched scream as he collapsed to the floor. As he laid there, bleeding and writhing in pain, Sam retrieved her Ruger from the other side of the room. Her assailant looked up at her from his place on the floor. They made eye contact and he silently begged for his life. Sam fired one shot into his forehead and two into his chest.

Sam quickly refocused on her surroundings. Obviously, someone in the hotel had heard the gunfire and alerted the police by now. She hastily gathered her belongings and headed for the door. Before she exited the room, she peeked her head out into the hallway. Two groups of police officers were approaching from either end of the hallway. Sam darted back into through the room, towards the balcony. She frantically looked around as she tried to devise an escape route. Without thinking, she climbed over the railing and shuffled along the ledge to next room. She peeked through the window and saw an officer searching for something. Sam made her way back to the balcony and gently lowered herself to the floor below. Luckily, that room was unoccupied.

Sam pulled her Ruger out of its holster and used the handle to break the window. As she climbed through, her cell phone rang. She retrieved the iPhone from her bag and answered the call. A muffled voice said, “Your employer has burned you. Get out of the country now!” Before she could reply, the stranger hung up. Being burned is the worst thing that can happen to someone in Sam’s profession, and she never in a million years would suspect her bosses of casting her away in such a manner. A sudden rush of emotion crashed down on Sam’s slender frame and sent her to the floor in a hurry. As she laid there in the fetal position, Sam’s subconscious couldn’t help but torture her with thoughts of all that she gave up for this life of international espionage. The more she thought about her sacrifices, the deeper she sank into the proverbial pit of despair. After what felt like hours, Sam regained her composure. “This is no time to feel sorry for yourself,” she mumbled as she clamored back to her feet.

After taking a quick mental and physical inventory, Sam sneaked over to the hotel room’s door. She pressed her ear to it and intently listened for any sounds of traffic in the hallway. Once she was convinced there was no movement on the other side of the door, she cracked it open and peered out into the hallway. It was completely empty, except for the police officer standing by the elevator. Sam took a moment to weigh her options. She could try to sneak past the officer or she could subdue him. “Just make sure you don’t do any real damage,” she reminded herself as she exited the room and approached the elevator bank.

Just as she was about to push the elevator call button, the officer stopped her. He quickly rattled off a handful of instructions in French. And while Sam understood every word he said perfectly, she did her best to pretend that she had no idea what he was saying. Her rouse clearly worked because a look of complete exasperation came across the cop’s face. He let out a heavy sigh that said exactly how he felt about tourists that didn’t speak his native tongue. “You shouldn’t be here, mademoiselle,” he said slowly and loudly. Sam took the insult to her intelligence with a grain of salt. The officer ushered her towards the stairwell and Sam purposely butchered saying thank you in return.

Sam quickly made her way down to the ground floor. Before stepping out into the lobby, she poked her head out and surveyed the area. As expected, the main lobby was filled with officers in either full riot gear or bulletproof vests. Sam scanned the room further and noticed that a couple of men in plain black suits were conferring with whom she suspected was the officer in charge. “Shit! The Company is here,” she exclaimed under her breath. At that moment, Sam remembered a side exit to the lobby. She quickly averted her eyes in its direction and noticed that it was unguarded. Without making a sound, she smoothly crept across the lobby to the side door and disappeared into the busy Paris streets.

The smooth motion of the freighter pulling into dock gently woke Sam up. She had spent the last few days stowed away in a storage container with the belongings of a Saudi prince. She climbed out of the driver’s seat of the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport she had been using as a bed and snuck over to the container’s massive steel doors. With her ear pressed to the door, she could faintly hear a conversation between two members of the boat’s crew.

After a few moments, the conversation faded which led Sam to believe they walked off. She took a moment to gather her thoughts and belongings. That’s when she heard a knock on the door. Without thinking, Sam drew her Ruger from its holster and chambered the first round. “No need to be alarmed, my dear,” a swarmy British accent said from the other side, “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have fed you during our journey.” Sam let out a sigh of relief and put the semi-automatic pistol back in its rightful place. The container door swung open and a tall, slim man dressed in all denim entered. Sam quickly ran to him and they embraced. “How in the bloody hell did you get yourself into such a mess?” he asked. Sam meekly shrugged as she tried to find the answer to Johnathan Stone, the older brother of her employer’s question. She told him everything she thought was important about her mission in France, she even told him about the phone call she received after the shootout in her hotel room. “That’s ridiculous,” he scoffed, “Judith absolutely adores you!”

Sam wasn’t sure what to believe. In her time with The Syndicate, her and Judith had become extremely close. But how else could her mission have gone so sideways so fast? That random, anonymous phone call kept replaying in Sam’s head, torturing her subconscious into near submission. She tried her best to shake free of it, refocus on the task at hand. Johnathan poked his head out of the container to see if the coast was clear. Once he was sure they were alone, he and Sam sneaked out of the container and headed towards the crew quarters. He directed her into an empty cabin and told her to wait for him. A few moments later, he returned with a change of clothes: a pair of jeans, a heavy denim shirt, a black baseball cap and a bright orange puffy vest. Sam quickly pulled her hair back into a ponytail before getting dressed. “I wasn’t sure what size shoe you wore my dear, but I borrowed these from smallest man on my crew.” He handed her a pair of well-worn Timberland boots. She sat down on the bunk and slid her feet into the boots. “They’ll do,” she replied, hopping to her feet. They made their way topside before blending in with the rest of the crew as the disembarked from the freighter. Once their feet were on solid ground, Sam and Johnathan briskly walked down a narrow alleyway in between warehouses. “This is the end of the line for me, my dear,” Johnathan sighed as they reached the exit gate for the shipyard. “I do hope you get all this unfortunate business sorted out.” They hugged one more time and parted ways.

It was easy for Sam to blend in with the Brooklyn foot traffic in guise as a merchant seaman. But for some reason, she still felt uneasy. Like it was too easy. She told herself that the feeling was just paranoia and chalked it up to her nerves being on edge after the events in Paris. Still, she pulled the baseball cap a little further down over her face as she made her way towards Marcy Houses. “If anybody can help me figure out my next move, it’s Larry,” she told herself as she kept walking. When she arrived at the masssive housing complex, a sense of ease washed over Sam. She knew there was no way that the trouble she was in could find her here. And if it did, she’d be more than ready. She entered into the building that her cousin Larry lived in and quickly made her way up to the fifth floor. Before she could even knock on the door to his apartment, it swung open.

“Ah my dear, I was hoping you’d show up here,” hissed Jean-Claude Devereaux from his seat on the couch, “Please come in.” A large thug dressed in all black snatched Sam into the apartment and planted her in a chair. Sam quickly surveyed the apartment. “Looking for someone? I hope he’s not someone of importance to you.” The venom in his words was almost too much for Sam. She gritted her teeth as she tried to contemplate her next move. “Don’t worry my dear, your cousin is alive and well,” Jean-Claude continued as one of his henchmen shoved Larry into the room, “How long he stays that way is completely up to you.” Through clenched teeth, Sam asked the Frenchman what he wanted. He replied with one word: renseignements. “Information about what,” she asked. He pulled out a picture of Jeneane Devereaux and and placed it on the coffee table in front of her. “How did my beloved sister come to meet her maker at the hands of a… woman like you?” The implied insult landed with all the subtlety of a Mike Tyson uppercut. “It wasn’t personal,” Sam replied, “I was just doing my job.”

Jean-Claude closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his short, silver hair. “And who exactly is your employer?” Sam let out a heavy sigh. It was becoming evident to her that there was no way she or Larry were gonna make it out of this situation in one piece. Their only hope was if she could buy a little time, hopefully get Jean-Claude and his men focused on something besides killing her. “My employer would really hate for me to blow such a well cultivated NOC on the account of a target’s brother asking.” Jean-Claude became visibly enraged. “Those connards pompeux in Langley will pay for their transgressions!”

He hopped up from his seat on the couch and paced around the apartment. He made his way over to Larry and delivered a vicious knee to the the unsuspecting man’s stomach. Larry doubled over in pain as Jean-Claude reached back and landed a stinging elbow to the back of his head that sent Larry crashing to the floor. “Don’t worry my dear, your cousin is going to live to see another day.” He retrieved a pistol from inside his jacket. “The same can’t be said for you though,” he continued as he pointed the gun at her. Sam closed her eyes and braced herself for the shot. Instead, she felt a piece of fabric slip over her face. “Let’s take a trip to Virginia first.”

One of Devereaux’s goons snatched Sam out of her seat and shoved her back out into the hallway. Just then, a group of Larry’s friends came walking down the hallway. “Yo my nigga, what the fuck is going on?!” Devereaux’s thugs didn’t know how to respond, they just shook their heads. “Why the fuck y’all coming out my man’s apartment?! Why y’all got a bag on her head?!” One of the henchmen started to raise the sub-machine gun under his arm, but Larry’s friends beat him to the punch. “Real talk, you crackers better get the fuck outta here now!” Jean-Claude stepped into the hallway to try to de-escalate the situation. “Gentlemen, if you’d be so kind, me and my associates will make our exit with our friend here,” he said as he grabbed Sam by the arm. “Nah B, she’s staying here. Y’all get the fuck out.” Jean-Claude paused for a moment, calculating the odds of making it out of the housing project in tact if he tried to force the issue. “As you wish,” he acquiesced and nodded for his men to leave Sam behind. “The guns too, bitch. We ain’t stupid.” Jean-Claude gave another nod and his men handed over their weapons. Then they quickly made their way down the hall and out of the building. “Craig, you and Jay go make sure them crackers don’t get lost in Marcy.” The two nodded and went in the same direction as Devereaux and his men. Sam snatched the black hood off of her head and found herself staring into the face of Rahsaan, her high school sweetheart. “I thought that was you,” he said, “I can spot you from a mile away.” They embraced each other for what felt like an eternity.