The Fallen Read Online Free PDF Page A

that she didn’t remember from before. Then she glanced down and saw the large SIG Sauer pistol holstered on his hip. She didn’t remember that from before, either.
    She took a deep breath. ‘What do you want?’
    Robbie smiled again. ‘What makes you think I want anything?’
    ‘Where’s your car?’
    He jerked a thumb in the opposite direction. ‘Parked back that way. Out of sight. You can’t be too careful at night in Jo’burg, you know.’
    Jade knew that all right.
    ‘So, what do you want?’ she asked again, although she already knew the answer, because his arrival at her house in this way and at this time could mean that Robbie wanted only one thing.
    His next words confirmed her suspicions.
    ‘I need your help, babe.’
    Jade stared at him somewhat disbelievingly.
    ‘I can’t help you,’ she said. ‘I don’t do those jobs anymore.’
    Robbie’s lips tightened and he leaned towards her. ‘I thought you might say that. That’s why I came here to ask you in person.’
    ‘The answer’s the same.’
    ‘Bullshit.’
    Jade had a sudden strong feeling he was going to grab her, hurt her, try to use force to make her change her mind. If so, she’d rather be out in the open than trapped inside her car. Outside, there were more options available. She could run. Or she could draw her own gun.
    But he didn’t touch her. When she started to open the car door to get out, he just took his elbows off the window frame and moved aside to give her some room.
    She stood facing him, her weight poised on the balls of her feet, aware that the night was very quiet. Only the soft hum ofher car’s idling engine and the faraway chirp of a cricket disturbed the silence.
    ‘I’m not taking no for an answer,’ he said. ‘You owe me a favour. I saved your arse last year. Have you forgotten already?’
    ‘I haven’t forgotten. I will return the favour. But not now, and not this.’
    His face had darkened. ‘You don’t get to pick and choose. That’s not the way it works. Not according to my code of honour.’
    Jade bit her lip and refrained from passing comment on the hypocrisy of a code of honour that embraced murder for money.
    ‘I’m not letting this go,’ Robbie said. ‘I need you, Jade. There’s nobody else I can rely on, a professional, who can do things the way you do them. Slick.’
    Jade suddenly felt sick. Robbie’s perception of her was not inaccurate. It was based on experience, on jobs that the two of them had done together. She couldn’t erase the past, or her memory of it. She couldn’t remove her ability to aim a gun at another human being and to hold it there unflinching, without hesitation and without remorse, while she pulled the trigger.
    Her mother had killed for money. But Jade wasn’t going to do that. Not ever, and certainly not for Robbie.
    ‘No,’ she said again.
    For just a moment, she saw Robbie’s confident façade dissolve. He stared back at her, and on his face she picked up an expression she had never believed she would see; had never associated with Robbie at all.
    Fear.
    ‘I’m in deep with this one,’ he told her softly. ‘I’m way over my head. I’m asking you a favour, as a friend. It’s … I can only say this job’s too big for me to handle alone. And if I fuck up, I’m history. These people are connected. There’s nowhere in the world it’d be safe to hide.’
    Now Jade’s heart threatened to hammer its way straight through her ribcage.
    ‘Why’d you take it on?’
    Robbie shrugged. ‘The cash. This one’s the big one. The one to retire on. Babe, if you help me, we’ll split it. Fifty-fifty. You’llbe set up for life, I promise you. And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, the people they want taken out are scum. Evil beyond belief. I wouldn’t have said yes to it otherwise. You know me.’
    Jade hesitated. Her mind was spinning with possible scenarios.
    She could help Robbie with this one last job and become rich. Wealthy enough to retire; to