Prescott nods.
"I can personally guarantee that no such evidence will ever reach them. Of course, I have every intention of you returning. I merely want you to know the risks. But I assure you, Miss Robinson, this is no suicide mission. I believe in your success and your return to us as a conquering hero."
Prescott smiles again, and there's something about it I just don't like. A feral quality to it. A fakeness.
But then, he is a spy. Most of the CIA spooks I've met are like that. A little too charming, a little too manipulative by nature. It's like they can't help it.
"You can take a day to think on it," he tells me.
"I don't need it. I'm in."
The restaurant has dining on the balcony. Prescott requests a table outside. The sun seems to irritate him, so I'm not sure why he did it. He spends most of lunch shading his pink scalp with the leaf of a nearby elephant ear plant.
Footsteps behind me catch my attention.
"This is your new father," Prescott tells me.
The man approaching us wears a white suit and has a hard face split by a thick, gray mustache. A man who's seen and done terrible things. If I didn't know he was the head of a crime syndicate already, I'd have guessed it from looking at him.
"Carl Zedona, also known as the Butcher of Brooklyn. We own him." Prescott says it in a whisper, so Zedona doesn't hear as he walks up. "Enough evidence to put him away for a hundred life times. And now he works for us. With his instruction, and of course his presence, you'll easily pass for Luna when you meet the Nightshade clan. With Carl here on your side, presenting you to them, it won't ever occur to them to doubt your identity."
Zedona stops and looks me over, his gaze traveling up and down my body. I know what he's looking for, so I stand up and puff out my chest, and glare at him like I'd like to kill him.
The exact look I've seen on Luna Zedona's face a dozen times during my briefings. I've practiced it in the mirror often enough.
Zedona nods. A look of deep sadness fills his eyes, and for a moment, he's not a killer anymore, but a man who has lost a child. And now he's forced to look at a mirror image of his daughter. He's supposed to teach me in every way to look and act like her. I see, etched in his face now, it'll be torture for him.
"It's true, she looks very much like my darling, Luna," Zedona says. "Except in the eyes, where she shows too much kindness. Listen to me, girl. In our world, there's no kindness. Only weakness. Luna was a diamond of the mafia, a brutal woman. The kind who could not be told no. The kind a man would be proud to tame. But you?"
Zedona shakes his head.
"You'd be happy to be taken on a date to Olive Garden."
He sits, looking disgusted.
And yes, I would be happy to be taken to Olive Garden by the right guy. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Besides, they have bottomless breadsticks. Maybe when you're the Butcher of Brooklyn they don't tell you about the breadsticks.
"When you're there, you're family," I tell Zedona, gravely.
Zedona narrows his eyes at me, but says nothing.
Prescott clears his throat.
"That's enough of that," he chides us both. "Zedona, you concede that Lola is close enough in appearance to pass easily for your daughter? Aside from the kindness in her eyes?"
"I do," Zedona says.
He keeps looking away, or at Prescott . He can't stand for his gaze to rest on me for even a moment. I see in his eyes that it's hurting him just being near me.A father who has lost his daughter. I remember suddenly that my own father and mother might losemeif I'm not careful.
Or even if Iam.
There's no sure safety for me on this assignment. Any moment could be my last. And then my own parents would go through what Zedona is going through right now. It makes me wish I'd called them instead of being a coward and letting Homeland handle it. Someone's secretary had to call them and relay that I'd be on assignment and unavailable.
I'm told my father was furious. Big surprise.
Then they would've tried to call. But it doesn't matter because my phone is gone, along with anything that could ID me.
That could literally be the last my parents hear from me. I know Prescott told me not to contact them again after this gets started, but I need to do something. A note perhaps, or a short letter. Something to explain
"We'll have new identification on its way to you," Prescott tells me. "And you'll begin your training with Olivia immediately at the hotel."
"Olivia?"
"My youngest daughter," Zedona says, and then he adds, sarcastically, "Your new sister."
Olivia Zedona is a dark haired,dark eyed beauty. She's shorter than me and has a slimmer build. She's dressed impeccably, in grungy New York style. The kind of chic look that's hard to hit without knowing fashion in and out.
If I tried to do it, I'd look homeless. But somehow on Olivia, the eclectic pieces she's chosen look cute, and even sexy.
A red beret sits a top of her head, and she wears a long, baggy white sweater woven with fat yarn. It's almost a blanket. Tights hug her toned buns and weathered-looking gray boots sag at her knees, somehow making her legs look longer, and drawing the eye right up her thighs.
The sweater is just long enough to not cover her tush.
Before he leaves us alone, Prescott gives one final note.
"Play nice with each other," he warns, and then he leaves the room, but not before his eyes comb over Olivia, taking her in.
I don't blame him. There's something raw and feminine and powerful about her. She's the kind of girl men want and can't have.
She looks at my black pantsuit and comfortable shoes with an air of intense judgment.
"This isn't how I always dress," I say, a little defensively. "I mean, I have to chase people for work sometimes, so the shoes have to be practical."
Olivia turns to her father, who stands at the door.
"Leave."
She turns back, not waiting for the command to be obeyed. Like sheknowshe'll do it.
And he does. The Butcher of Brooklyn, who looks like a major scary guy you don't want to fuck with, just leaves because this tiny woman told him to.
"Did you hear my tone?" she asks.
"Yeah, like you expected him to obey you. It...would take some getting used to for me to talk like that to people. I was raised to be polite."
"You were raised to do what you were told," Olivia says, drily. "And my tone was fuck off. I said 'Leave', but what I really meant to say was 'Fuck off'. You understand?"
"I-I think so."
Fear swells within me. Can I really do this? I'm going to be walking into a world of people like this -- No, people evenworse. The Raidh. A millennia old monster mafia family, with incredible powers. Royalty, in their own realms. They probably make Olivia and her father look like the Glee Club.
Which I was also a member of at Harvard. Not that I'm telling Olivia that.
"Take off your clothes," she says.
"Excuse me?"
Olivia sighs heavily.
"I know my sister's body better than anyone -- well, in most ways. I need to make sure you meet expectations."
Heat flushes across my skin. I'm pale, so when I blush it's the worst. You can see it from a mile away. But I do what she says. This is a mission, and I'm a professional.
And we're both girls. So it's cool, right?
As I slowly take off my jacket and slacks, I notice an intense feeling in my gut. A heat pouring through me.
A prickling between my legs running down my thighs.