THE GHOST OF 10 YEARS AGO
10 Years Ago
It all started one night with a phone call at 1:55 A.M. The chiming and buzzing sound on Mandy's bedside table made her eyes snap wide open, fully awake in seconds. She didn't move from her spot on the bed, wrapped up in Adrian's arms as the man slept peacefully beside her, head buried deep in the back of her neck. Mandy's phone was loud and it buzzed like an earthquake, but Adrian slept like a log. The world could be ending and he still wouldn't wake up. She envied that aspect of him, sleeping without any worry.
She would've ignored the call, go back to sleep and answer the next morning, but the point was that it was in the middle of the night, telling her that it probably couldn't wait until then. So carefully and quietly, she took her lover's hand that was situated on her waist and unraveled it from her body. The feeling of fleeting warmth made Mandy's whole body long to just fall back asleep beside him. Oh, how she craved his warmth.
Grabbing her phone from off the table, Mandy glared down at the number on the screen. She was right on the dot with that. It was Viggo calling her, and it was that thought that sent shivers down her spine like ants all over her skin.
Mandy cast an anxious glance down to Adrian's face. He was quite a rugged and handsome man. He had semi-long black hair that was just long enough to run your fingers through and a pair of washed-out gray eyes that looked like a growing storm. A storm she would've happily let herself be swept up into. He also had scruff on his face that's been growing for about a week now. Mandy's been pestering him to shave but she feared that he might've grown attached to the shadow on his chin.
Mandy glided her hand across his peacefully sound face, tracing upwards towards his hair that felt like silk through her fingers. She frowned to herself and ominously glanced down at the still ringing phone in her hand. "The hell does Viggo want?" she said in a soft whisper. Mandy got up from her comfy bed and headed out the door to the downstairs living room.
The living room always had a dark modern feel to it, so it was hard to navigate whenever it was nighttime. Mandy fiddled around for the lamplight for a bit before almost knocking into the very thing she needed to find. She turned the small knob on the light and let the soft glow illuminate the room, finally giving her the opportunity to sit down on the gray couch that wrapped around the living room. Out of habit, she reached across to the coffee table in front of her and felt the leather holster of a gun underneath it. It was her back-up gun that's been there forever. It quickly reminded her that she needed to clean it sometime soon since it's been a while.
"Viggo?" Mandy answered in a sleepy voice. "Do you know what time it is right now?" She wasn't quite sure of the time herself and had to look at a clock that was across the room. "It's almost 2:00 in the morning. What do you want?"
"I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour, Mandy, but something came up...and I don't think it can wait," Viggo said.
Mandy cocked a brow and began to feel her heart speed up a bit. "Okay...? What's wrong?" She didn't like where this was heading. Something was wrong. She could just tell by his tone of voice. Viggo was good at keeping it together but she knew he was angry about something...something she might know of.
"Do you remember...I gave you a contract to kill a certain man. It was a 1 million dollar contract to kill the leader of the Romanov family."
Mandy hunched over and started to feel her hands tremble. She felt a pit began to grow in her stomach as this sickening feeling washes over her, setting every single nerve in her body on fire. "Yeah," Mandy said through her teeth. She tried to calm down and convince herself that he didn't know, but why would he call in the middle of the night and suddenly bring this topic up? "What about it? I took it and decided against it later on."
"You know damn well that you can't withdraw from a contract once you take it," Viggo growled out his words and Mandy's heart stopped dead in her chest. "I made and printed out a goddamn piece of paper for you to sign and read over. Don't play games with me, Mandy. I know about you and Adrian."
It was a hard blow right into her chest and Mandy actually had to pull the phone away to gasp for air. In the split second of silence, she went over all the possibilities of how Viggo could have figured it out. What gave it away? Was someone watching them? "Viggo..." Viggo cut her off before she could even say anything.
"I'm calling you because I'm just trying to figure out...why you would do something like this."
"Listen to me for a moment. Viggo, please." Once again, he didn't listen, letting out a big sigh that completely made her shrink down into herself.
"I'm sorry, Mandy." His voice softened but not in the way she wished. He wasn't just angry. He was frustrated too. "I really am. But I went over all this with you when you accepted the contract. I wanted Adrian Romanov dead." She heard his voice harden up.
Mandy dropped her head into her hands and did everything in her power to stop the trembling. "I know that already." She wasn't strong enough to make her voice stop cracking though. "I did read the contract that you give me-"
"Than why are you fucking him if you already knew?! I don't want an answer, Mandy! I want results." he shouted, causing Mandy to flinch. "So you need to make this right. You're the one who fucked up, so you need to get your shit together and work the damn job that YOU accepted."
Her chest felt tight and she swept her hands through her hair, pulling at it until it began to hurt. Mandy had to put the phone down on the table and had the volume on high so she could hear. Tears were already falling from her glassy brown eyes and her heart was about broken and in shambles, as Viggo continued.
"I didn't want to do this to you, Mandy. I really didn't. You have been a great help to me for as long as I can remember, but this...this I can't overlook. You either do it yourself or someone else will."
Mandy snatched her phone back up. "Viggo-" He had already hung up, dropping this mountain size burden right onto her shoulders, not caring at all that it was crushing her into oblivion, a place she would never be able to come back from again.
Her phone fell from her hand and clattered against the carpet. She began gasping like there wasn't enough oxygen in the air and the world twirled out of her control. She couldn't see and she couldn't breathe. She couldn't move and she couldn't think. All her functions were failing and Mandy swore she was going to pass out when...a voice made everything stop still.
"Babe?" Adrian's voice was deep and smooth. His voice was the calmness of a storm, the eye of the hurricane, the hurricane being...what he was about to walk into. He inched around the corner into the living room and saw Mandy hunched over on the couch and silence. He also noticed that her hand was under the table, gripping something in her palm. "Mandy?" He spoke calmly and took one last step before seeing Mandy's hand snap up, brandishing her revolver in her hand and pointing the loaded weapon right at him. Adrian's eyes went wide and he immediately put his hands up, not frightened but extremely confused since Mandy was trembling. It was supposed to be the other way around. "Mandy put the gun down. You're shaking so I know you don't want to do this." His voice never lost its calmness. It wasn't angry, nor was it scared.
Why would he be scared of the woman he loved?
Mandy's own voice was shaking just as much as her hand was. Tears fell down from her puffy red eyes, confused and frightened by her own actions. "I...I don't Adrian..." She shook her head and closed her eyes tightly before opening them again, tears continued to fall, breathing erratic. "I really, really...don't wanna. Oh, God..."
This was it. This was the moment she made herself come too. Pull the trigger and the whole dream would be over...the beautiful...most wonderful dream she had ever let herself slip into. Mandy didn't want to pull the trigger, and looking into Adrian's calm and smothering misty eyes didn't help. So strong and deep...reminding her an awful lot like John Wick.
John was the same man Mandy only wished loved her...just as much as she adored him.
She had to do it. She was ordered to do it, but in the end...of course, she would've never been able to pull the trigger on him.
Mandy used her free hand and covered her eyes, lowering her gun and clenching ahold of her throbbing chest. It burned her with this sorrow that was as deep as Mariana Trench, knowing that this act of betrayal will torture her for the rest of her life. "Adri-"
BANG!
Mandy looked up just as Blood filled her glassy eyes. It was all she truly could see in the fraction of a second it happened. She watched as the light faded from Adrian's eyes, that still haven't grasped what had just happened, before slowly sinking to the back of his head. His body doubled over on the ground and blood poured out from the bullet hole in the side of his head, running off the carpet and seeping under Mandy's toes. Her whole body cringed with the warm sensation she never wished she figured out.
Mandy would've imagined that the panic would've set in that very instant...but nothing happened.
She would expect her chest to tighten that very moment...but nothing happened.
The silence wasn't void to her though and her own heart was still beating as erratically as it was when she was talking on the phone with Viggo only a short while ago.
Mandy's lips parted very slightly and a sharp gasp escaped her lips. Breathless and cold, all the color drained from not just her body but the world as well. A gray world that was so emotionless and cold that it would burn to even touch the slightest thing. Mandy couldn't even feel the blood at the bottom of her feet anymore and she was sure that the revolver in her hand had finally frozen and became one with her skin.
There was a crashing sound behind her but Mandy still didn't rip her eyes away as armed men swarmed her home. They had guns in their hands, wore black suits with masks over their faces. She could see at the corner of her eyes that they were Viggo's men.
They killed Adrian D. Romonov...right in front of the woman who couldn't save herself from loving him.
It was like she was cursed, cursed to never be able to hold anything, watching as time floated by, seconds after years. Never again will he smile at her. Never again will he hug her. Never again will he understand just how important he was to her, and never again will he utter the most important words that could ever be said to her.
"I love you...with all my heart, and forever!"
It finally hit...and oh, did it hit her hard. Reality flooded back into her mind and it was nothing but a trainwreck. She couldn't breathe for the longest second and the world was starting to become blurry with tears. Mandy gasped loudly and slapped her hand over her mouth, feeling her knees finally give out and falling.
"Target is down." a voice said, a man carrying a gun that hovered over Adrian's still-warm body. "I repeat. Target has been eliminated. Adrian Romanov is confirmed...dead."
Mandy snapped her head up when all the sound faded to an annoying buzzing in her ears, like TV static. Her eyes sharpened like daggers and very slowly, she turned her head side to side to see how many men were in her house and how many of them were in range. There were four in her living room and two going upstairs. Another four in her kitchen and perhaps at least five outside, judging by the flashlights shining through the darkness.
"15...people." Her voice was dangerously low, stunningly low like the devil himself had spoken in her place. Mandy looked down at the gun in her hand and muttered under her breath. "Six bullets..."
The man in front of her sighed. "What are you muttering, you crazy bitc-" He looked up and his eye reflected the barrel of a fully-loaded revolver, a flash of pure white light emitting from it the moment Mandy finally pulled the trigger.
Mandy sobbed very softly to herself but no one could see the tears fall. She had hunched over so far in her chair that her forehead was pressed into her lap.
"Mandy? Mandy!" John called out for her repeatedly to get her attention but it's like she didn't hear his voice anymore. He fought a bit more against his restraints but they kept him in place so he wouldn't do anything.
Viggo's deep laugh escaped throughout the empty room and his loud claps made Mandy flinched. "Rose Red...what a fucking coward and a damn traitor." His Russian words were venomous, hissing out and scorching Mandy's skin with every word he spoke, knowing full well that he was breaking her down to this pitiful state of despair. "What's really been on my mind though for the past 10 years...was why you didn't want revenge. You're helping John...so why not get your own?" He waited for her to say something but she didn't. She didn't even lift her head. Viggo's jaw tightened and he shot up from his chair and grabbed a fist-full of Mandy's brown hair and forced her to look. "Look at me!"
"Viggo!" John's voice was almost as hateful as Viggo's was. He would've got up but his men kept a firm grasp on his shoulders, keeping him glued to the chair, forced to watched as Viggo broke down Mandy piece by piece while loving every moment of it. "Just leave her alone!" he howled out and felt his voice vibrate throughout his whole body.
Mandy's big brown eyes were puffy and red, stained with tears that haven't been used in over 10 years. She waited till the silence filled the room once more before making her voice known...the reason she didn't want revenge. "It's because I just...couldn't stand this lifestyle anymore. I ran away from everything because I wanted to forget. Forget about this life. Forget about Adrian, Marcus, and...John. I didn't want revenge, Viggo. I just wanted to forget and pretend it never happened."
In the past, Mandy came to this ground-shaking realization that...if you use your fingers and count the people in your life that care about you...and you have fingers left over, then there is something terribly wrong with your life.
John hadn't noticed until now and maybe even Viggo...but there was truly nothing left of his partner, the woman that he thought he knew. It was like he was staring at a ghost of her former self...and he cursed himself for not noticing until now. 10 years ago, when Mandy showed up in his house unannounced, he never realized that it was basically a silent cry for help.
He should've seen and helped her.
He should've got more answers from her.
He should've stopped her from leaving.
He should've noticed...so much more.
"Viggo..." John's voice suddenly got hauntingly low when he spoke up.
Viggo released Mandy's hair and backed away, pulling his coat back over his shoulders. "Yeah?"
John had to bite down on his lips for a moment to compose his words. He glanced over at Mandy and saw her lifeless eyes staring back at him, confused and scared. "When Mandy disappeared and when Helen died, I lost everything. Until that dog arrived on my doorstep. A final gift from my wife. At that moment I received some semblance of hope...and I truly believed it when I was able to see my best friend again. I didn't have to grieve unalone." His eyes clouded like a gathering storm, thunder rolling in the form of burning rage. "But your family and your son...took that from us..."
Viggo rolled his eyes and looked away. "Oh, come on..."
"Stole that from us! Killed that from us! People keep saying if I'm back or if Mandy is back and I haven't really had an answer. But for me...yeah, I'm thinking I'm back! So you can either hand over your son..." John used every ounce of his strength and finally stood up from that chair just as his voice rose. "Or you can die screaming alongside him!" His world was flushed red before a plastic bag was suddenly pulled tight across his face. He briefly heard Mandy screaming before it was abruptly cut off. John couldn't breathe and felt the air becoming thinner and thinner as the world began to slip away. He was still able to hear everything though. The front door opening and closing, Mandy's struggling gasps of air from being suffocated by a plastic bag.
There was this sudden loud gunshot though that struck the window and killed one of the guys holding him down. At last! He could breathe! John felt Mandy kick in one of the legs of his chair and snapping it, causing him to topple over. He ripped the plastic bag off his head and looked immediately at Mandy. She had already broken free and was swinging her own chair around and slam it into the back of one of Viggo's men.
"Fuck!" Mandy bit on down on her tongue and slipped her thin wrists right through her zip ties to free herself. "John?"
"Go after Viggo!" he shouted and tangled himself against one of Viggo's men. "Mandy, go!"
Mandy hesitated at first and made sure John had that guy on the floor before making a break for the back door. She snatched up a nearby shotgun and bust through to the outside and its threatening rays of daylight. She knew she had to cut Viggo off so she ducked quickly into the back alleyway and ran around the building till she saw the gate leading back to the streets. She could hear the unmistakable sound of the black SUV speeding down the road. Breaking open the gate and casually walking out into the street, she saw the car and its desperate attempt to leave the area. Mandy pulled up her shotgun and just unloaded repeatedly into the speeding car until it lost control. She ducked away to the side and let it ram right into a parked car beside her.
"Viggo!" she screeched like a horrid banshee. "Get the fuck out here right now!"
Viggo opened the door slowly and held up his hands. "Cool it, cool it, cool it." He looked and met Mandy's eyes, burning with rage instead of drowning in anguish. "Mandy."
Mandy moved her gun to the side and let out a blast, causing him to jump. "Where is he!"
Viggo continued to hold his hands up and pray that Mandy was serious about not caring about her own revenge. If anything, he was positive she cared more about John's then her own. "Shit!"
Rose Red remained unshaken.
"I have your word that if I tell you where he is, you'll let me walk away?" It was a stretch, yeah, but it was one he was willing to take.
Mandy cocked her head to the side. "Pull the contract and I'll consider it. Now tell me where your son is, you Russian rattlesnake bastard."
Viggo bit down on his lips but gave in. "Done. He's kept in a safe house. Brooklyn. 434 Wallace Place. They know you two are coming."
Mandy rolled her eyes and began to walk away. "Hell if I care."
Author's Note:
This was not planned. I was planning on writing this chapter next week. Starting tomorrow. But I got WAY too into the chapter to stop. I freaking finished it in two days, more or less. Please tell me what you think! I wanted to give you this chapter as fast as I could!
But since I'm already off schedule, I might end up doing another Mandy chapter probably on the 17th and 18th.
I do hope you enjoyed this chapter because I had a hell of a good time writing it. But...you know. Beauty in the eyes of the beholder. Tell me if you liked it! Oh, and I hope this answered anyone's questions about Mandy's own revenge and why she didn't go after Viggo's ass 10 years ago.