She'd expected it. She'd expected the cartel to threaten her with something they knew was precious to her. Hell! She'd done it many times to other people, on their behalf. However, it didn't make it any less infuriating. Once again, Luke was directly involved in cartel business, and it was all Karla's fault.
"Don't you dare panic Karla." She scolded herself. "This is easy. Kill one man, and you and Dad will be free forever."
Yes. It was that easy.
Karla stepped out of the elevator to the apartment building, and took her time walking to her apartment. The hallway was deserted, as usual. Karla didn't know much about her next door neighbors —she liked keeping to herself— but she did know they were never home. That left the entire floor to herself. On reaching her apartment door, she made to unlock it with the keys, only to find out the door was already ajar.
Without wasting time, Karla brought out a pistol from her handbag, and placed her finger on the trigger. She carefully entered the apartment, careful not to make a sound. She didn't want to alert whoever was inside that she was back. The lights were out, and the apartment was eerily quiet. It didn't look like anyone was home. Still, Karla double checked the rooms one by one, with her hands stretched in front of her, holding the gun, and ever ready to shoot.
As Karla approached her bedroom, she noticed the lights on. Bingo! She had found the intruder. With her back adjacent to the wall beside the wide open doors, she listened. Her ears didn't pick up any sound from within, so she jumped into the room instead.
"Hold it right there!" She screamed, pointing the gun at whoever was in her bedroom.
"Lord Jesus!" A terribly frightened Luke held his arms in the air.
"Dad? What the hell? You scared the shit out me?" Karla brought down the gun, relieved that the intruder was only her father.
"I scared you!? Darling you scared me half to death!"
Karla rolled her eyes. "How did you get in here anyway?"
"I picked the lock."
"Dad! You don't just pick the lock of someone else's home, even if that someone is your daughter who has a job that is very sensitive to these things."
That said, Karla had to get a more sophisticated lock to her apartment. If someone as ordinary as her father could break in... She didn't want to imagine who else could.
"I'm sorry buttercup. I tried to reach you on your phone, but you weren't picking up." Luke apologized.
Karla faintly remembered putting her phone on silent earlier that day, just in case someone tried to call her when she was with Shiva. Thank goodness she had done it. That someone would have been her father.
"Why are you even here?" She asked.
Luke raised the nylon in his left hand. "You forgot to take the pepper soup, so I thought I'd deliver it. But then I saw this."
For the first time, Karla noticed what was in Luke's right hand. Her eyes widened. It was a thin brown file. Beside him, the bottom locker of her cupboard was open. No doubt he'd picked through that lock too.
"It contains detailed information on General Edgar McKing. Edgar McKing was murdered last month by a masked prostitute in a strip club. That was you wasn't it!? You were sent to kill him!" Luke screeched maniacally.
Karla had messed up. Big time. The files in the bottom locker were given to here by Jimmy, whenever she was contracted to end a life, and contained any information she would need to pull it off. According to cartel policy, she was to burn it after every mission, but Karla had secretly kept them locked up. She planned to hand it over to the police as evidence against the cartel, but only in the worst case scenario. Now her father had uncovered two of her deepest secrets —her being an assassin, and the hidden files.
"What is wrong with you!?" Karla yelled at him, not knowing which other approach to take. She snatched the file from his fingers and placed it back in the cupboard. "You break into my apartment and go through my stuff!? Don't you have any self respect!?"
Luke's knees gave way, and he crashed on the floor. He was shocked to his marrow; he couldn't process the new information he'd uncovered. His body, including his eyeballs, shook, as he stared into space.
"It's all my fault." He mumbled. "If I hadn't been so stupid. If I had stopped gambling, none of this would have happened."
What Karla feared was happening. Her father's guilt was taking over. Most of her life she'd avoided asking the question "What if?". What if her mother had never died? What if she'd taken her father's gambling addiction seriously? What if she'd never met Big Ben? It was because she understood, living in the past won't change the future. But she could bet Luke didn't understand that.
"Dad please. I don't blame you so please don't blame yourself."
"I got it." Luke's disturbed eyes lit up. "We should run away."
The suggestion startled Karla. In her early years of the C Cartel, she had contemplated fleeing a lot, but she changed her mind when she witnessed the fate of those who fled the C Cartel. They were marked as traitors, hunted down, tortured, before they were finally beheaded before a congregation of the cartel. It didn't matter where one hid, the cartel would find them, and make an elaborate example of them.
"Running away is not an option." Karla declared.
"Bu... "
"I'm an assassin of the C Cartel and that's that."
Something in the way she said it convinced Luke that his daughter wasn't changing her mind. Her brows were furrowed in a passionate glare, and her lips were tightened. It couldn't be that she enjoyed her job —Karla's dream had been to save lives, not take them— so it had to be that she was afraid of the cartel. He was too, he couldn't blame her. But he had to save his daughter. He had to do something.
"I'm so sorry Karla." Luke said softly. It was all he could do for now —apologize.
"I'll be away for a few weeks. Don't try to contact." Karla said, and walked out of the room.
TEASER: THE AUCTION