by Meli Raine
“After?”
“He thought I was, uh...”
“Why were you in a sex club?” I ask before realizing that's not the main question here.
“Silas brought me there.”
My eyebrows shoot up. I know they're uneven, but I don't care.
“Not–not for that. He was a Dom and–”
I scooch closer, laughing on the inside, relieved by the conversation's turn of events. “Silas was a Dom?”
“On assignment!” She's blushing now.
“Suuuuuure. That's what they all say. 'It's not my fault I'm a Dom in a sex club. I was forced to do it for work.'”
“Lily!” But she's laughing. Hard.
“I was going to lose my job if I didn't put the nipple clamps on her.”
“LILY!” she's practically screaming with giggles.
“How do you get from Silas being a Dom in a sex club to killing Nolan Corning to Monica Bosworth?”
“Oh, Lily. It's such a long story.”
“I was in a fourteen-month coma, Jane. If anyone knows how to be patient, it's me.”
“Look,” she says, suddenly sober, the snap change jarring. “This isn't about Silas or Doms. It's about Romeo.”
“What about him?”
“He was there.”
Chills run up and down my limbs. “In the sex club? Protecting you?”
“He was–I–this is hard to talk about.”
I wait.
She sighs. “I've only told this to Silas. Ever. It's a big leap to talk about it.”
I wait some more.
She sniffs, then swallows, her throat making a dry click. A sip of coffee, and then: “He was in the room when Nolan Corning was about to assault me.”
“Assault?”
“Sexually. Or... something. We'll never know, thank God.”
“Because Romeo stopped it?”
Her silence makes my ears itch, hot and pulsing, begging to be ripped off.
“Because Silas found us. He left me in what he thought was a safe room. He locked me in. Then someone attacked him, hit him from behind and stole the key. Nolan Corning used that key to get into the room. And then Romeo was behind me. Hand on my mouth. He’d come through a secret passage.”
“Rescuing you from Corning?”
“I–I don't know.”
“How can you not know?”
“It was really confusing.”
“Either he was rescuing you or he was working with Corning.”
“Right?”
“Jane, I know I have some minor cognitive delays from the shooting, but none of what you're saying makes sense. Maybe it's me?”
“It's not you. It doesn't make sense.”
“Then... can you explain it again?”
“I was locked in the room. I didn't know Silas had been hit from behind and shoved in a closet, the key stolen. Nolan Corning suddenly came in, using the key. I was hiding behind a curtain, and then Romeo was behind me, hand covering my mouth.”
I hold my breath.
“It's what he said that was–that makes this hard to understand. He said, 'I don’t want what happened with Lily to happen to you, Jane.'”
“He said that?”
She nods.
“You were in the hospital and no one knew if you'd live. His words made no sense.”
“What else?”
“What else what?”
“Did he–did he say anything else?” Romeo didn't kill her. He could have, right there. Right then. Why? Why didn't he kill her?
She shudders. “Yes. He said, 'I’m here. I’m here, sweetheart. I’m here to do my job. Don’t move. It will all be over soon.'”
“That is fucked up.”
“Lily!”
“Am I wrong?”
“No. It's just...”
“Weird to hear me swear?” Everyone has me in a box, don't they? A box from the past.
“Yes.”
“What you just told me is beyond fucked up, Jane. Don't tell me I can't say that.” I frown. “And he's still working for Silas and Drew?”
“He helped us after Silas broke in and killed Corning. So maybe I'm overreacting.”
NO! I want to scream. But I don't. I've already slipped, giving her more than I should have.
“Do you think you're overreacting?”
“I did. I told Silas the story and he listened. He never disbelieved me. But he didn't stop working with Romeo.”
“Does Romeo work on your detail?”
“No. Not after that. And I had him removed from yours after that day I came to visit you in the hospital.”
“WHAT?” I can't help but gasp. Loudly.
Leaning in, she moves so close. We're inches apart. “I could tell you were nervous when he appeared. Felt it. It was like all your skin changed. I told Silas, and Silas had Romeo reassigned to a 'better' position. Made it so it was impossible for Romeo to refuse the job. I figured it was a test. If he insisted on staying on your detail, it would tell me something.”
Tell you what? I want to ask, but if I let those words come out, it feels like I'm writing my own execution order.
“You're afraid of him, Lily. I can feel it. Why? Why are you so afraid of Romeo?”
My mouth opens. My neurons connect, all firing at once, blood pumping hard, my heart begging for release. Connection. Truth.
“I–I–”
Bass. A loud beat. The booming sound of rap fills the air, vibration from a woofer so strong, the sugar container on our table starts to bounce. We both turn to look out the coffee shop's picture window as a tricked-out Honda Accord slowly drives by, windows tinted black, body a lime green that makes me smile.
Until the plate glass window shatters and the rat-a-tat-tat of bullets turns the moment into shards of red, screams and scratches all I know, Jane throwing her body at me as we go down, down, down.
And my face hits the concrete floor.
Chapter 29
Cacophony has its own haunting beauty.
The last time I was face down on a concrete floor, I was unconscious, living in a dark space where time didn't pass. This time, as people scream and gunshots fill the air, the seconds fill with music, the competing noise like a movie’s music score, as if the violence has its own melody.
“LILY!” Jane screams, tugging my ankle. We're far enough away from the front windows that the glass isn't near us. She tips the table over, making the thick stone top form a wall for us. I curl behind it and we're on the floor of our booth, the cocoon barely enough.
I look up as a sound like a pressure cooker exploding forces my attention. The copper espresso machine looks like someone took a bazooka to it.
“HERE!” booms a man's voice, a strange grip seizing my forearm. I turn to find Duff next to me, his appearance a shock. “Get in the back,” he barks, curling his body around us, shoving my ass hard so I move towards the coffee shop's prep area.
I look up and see a mom with a stroller, bent over, freaking out as she tries to pull a baby out, the straps still clicked.
I stop.
I lunge to help her.
Duff brings me down hard and sails over me, pulling the woman to the ground and elegantly grabbing the stroller, tipping it on its side, cushioning the fall with his ribs as the baby screams.
More gunshots rat-a-tat-tat, splintering the coffee counter right behind where the mom and the stroller just were.
A glint of metal, a strong slash of the stroller straps, and suddenly the baby's in Duff's arms, his knife skittering across the debris-covered floor, the mother’s cries impossible to understand. She's blubbering thanks and I would cry, too, except Jane's shoving me from behind, pieces of plastic and wood cutting my arms, my elbows cracking like walnut shells as I move hard and fast.
The baby is screaming, a long, thin wail that sounds like ghosts in a tornado.
Duff turns to the front of the coffee shop, gun in hand. I follow his gaze just in time to see Jake engaging in gunfire with someone, only
his head visible above the window sill.
And then there's no head.
Just red on the broken window.
“God DAMN it,” Duff shouts, taking shots, eyes jumping between the front of the store and us. “Get the fuck OUT!” he shouts at me as Jane gives me one final, hard push and I go flat on my stomach, ribs hurting as she crawls over me, then grabs my hands and drags. My knees scrape against ridges in the concrete, patellas sliding where they shouldn't, the edges of me blurred.
Tires peel hard and horribly, the screams of rubber on asphalt like the baby.
And suddenly, it's dead calm.
All you can hear is crying and breathing.
It lasts forever.
And then the gunshots start again.
Duff is behind me, lifting me, one arm around my waist, hand splayed flat against my belly, pulling pulling pulling as we go out into an alley, the stench of rotten garbage and late-night urine making me retch. A dark sedan is there and Jane crawls in an open window, Duff shoving me in behind her.
We form a human chain of focused escape.
Someone's driving but I don't know who, the three of us a tangled mess of limbs and panic, until I'm on my ass, legs up on the seat and we're peeling out, the car lurching to the left, my head a mass of nerve endings all screaming like that baby back there.
Knowing nothing.
Nothing but the sense of being unsafe.
It's all I am now.
It's all I will ever be.
I want to ask Duff where he came from, why he's here, why people are shooting at me again, why people are shooting at all, but the words don't matter. They get in the way. The need to act, to move, to be in motion, is stronger than the words, so I curl up, curl in, and focus on the bumpy ride out of hell.
“GENTIAN!” Duff's yelling into the phone. “I've got them. Jane and Lily. Where?” He's sweaty, breathing hard, sitting sideways on the seat as Jane moves her legs and looks down at me, a red bruise above her eye, her shirt ripped, the curve of one breast exposed where her bra pokes out.
“The baby,” is all I can say.
“Baby's fine,” Jane replies, reaching for me. But she can't right me. Can't turn me, twist me, make me so I can sit on the seat next to her. Black spots threaten the edges of my vision and I want to give in to them, want to let them take over, want to make this all go away because the baby is screaming back there and Duff is looking at me with eyes that say he thought he'd lost me.
Those eyes are like screams.
I let my eyelids shut. I breathe. I breathe again. And then smooth, strong hands go under my arms, digging into my armpits, and I'm in his lap.
Safe.
Warm.
“Sorry,” he whispers in my ear, my bad ear, the one next to the broken skull pieces that somehow mended enough to make me whole. I want to tell him he never has to apologize, that being so close to him is what I need, but then Jane moves over and Duff slides me off his lap but I won't let go of him, my head on his shoulder, my new long hair pulling at the ends, my hand clinging to his jacket like it's a life preserver.
He lets me.
I breathe again.
And again.
And soon, I forget I'm breathing.
Which means I'm safe.
As safe as I'm ever going to get.
“What was that?” Jane finally asks, looking at him with eyes that say they've been through a lot. There's a strange bond I don't understand, but I can feel it.
“Don't know. Silas has us on alert. Waiting for orders.”
“I want to go to Texas. To the ranch.” She looks at me. “Lily, too. We'll be safer there.”
“Silas said he knew you'd want that, but this might be bigger than that.”
“Mike!” she calls to the front. “Radio? I want to know what the news is saying.”
They're so matter-of-fact. So clipped and professional, like being shot at is just a part of the job. She even knows the name of the driver. I start to shake. Duff holds me, tightening his grip. I need to be warmer. I'm so cold.
The radio comes on.
“...appears to be a gang-related shooting. The coffee shop, Hot Cup of Hope, is on a street not known for gang warfare, but authorities say that increased conflict between rival groups has led to spillover violence in the region. At this time, one shooting victim is confirmed...”
“Jake,” I gasp, remembering the red.
Duff makes a deep sound I can't decipher. It makes his chest vibrate. “Head wound.”
“Damn it,” Jane whispers, pulling her ear forward so she can listen.
“...more on this as the situation evolves.”
And the radio cuts to a fundraising drive.
“...that kind of hard-hitting reporting is exactly what you’ll be supporting when you call our 800 number in the next seventeen minutes…”
A growl comes out of Duff, rumbling and cold, evoking so many emotions in me all at once. “Gang, my ass,” he spits out, looking at his phone. “That was targeted.”
If I look up at him, I know what his expression will say.
I'm the target. Or Jane? Maybe both of us?
His phone rings. I jump and make a screaming sound, the surprise too much for my brittle neurological system. He turns away and murmurs into the phone. Sounds like Silas on the other end.
The radio announcer comes back on.
“We have more news on the gang shooting in...”
My head fills with a buzzing sound.
“...only known gunshot victim is an off-duty police officer named Jakob Reeseman, age thirty-two. Eyewitnesses say he engaged the gunmen as they drove by and opened fire with a weapon witnesses describe as a semi-automatic...”
Duff ends his call and clears his throat. I sit up. I know that sound.
Whatever he's about to say next isn't going to make us happy.
“Gentian has orders.”
“From who?” Jane demands.
He makes a strange, regretful noise. “Well above Gentian.”
“Where are we going?” she insists, but it's like she knows the answer already.
“To see the president. He’s here in California.”
Jane sighs, shoulders curling forward, defeat weighing her down. Or is it bitterness?
“Dear old Dad. Always there in a time of crisis.”
“You're serious?” I gasp, looking at both of them. The coldness when I peel myself off Duff makes me want to cry. “You're not kidding?”
“I never kid about my father.”
“The president of the United States wants to see me? Why?” I insist.
Mike pulls the car into a quiet parking lot near an impound lot, the kind with ten tow trucks and a small hut with a sliding window. It's really seedy and nothing like home. How far have we driven? Where are we? My elbows start to burn, the cuts making me realize how much I've been hurt. All my bones work, though, and I'm not bleeding too much, so I guess this isn't an emergency.
I almost let a hysterical laugh escape.
My criteria for emergency has changed radically these last two years.
“Jane's going with Gentian. I'm taking you separately. Bosworth wants to see her first, then both of you.”
“He really wants to see me? Why?”
Duff shrugs. “Dunno.” His eyes narrow as he examines me. “You need a doctor?”
I shake my head. “Just cuts and bruises.”
Jane's side door opens and before she can say goodbye, Silas has her in his arms, face fierce, jaw tight. “This wasn't supposed to happen,” he says over her shoulder to Duff, who nods.
They leave, Jane waving before getting into a similar dark car. They speed off.
We follow.
And then I get it.
I get it.
This is why I've been protected all along.
Because everything else led up to this.
The end game.
There's so much more I don't see, don't know. Strategy and tactics I can't even know I don'
t know.
And that's the problem. The deadly problem.
I know I know.
But I don't know what I don't know.
That's what will get me killed.
For real.
Chapter 30
It’s not his kindness that draws me to him.
It’s his toughness.
Kindness only goes so far.
Being tough? That takes you to places being kind can’t go.
“Why were you at the coffee shop?” I ask him, the extra space in the backseat almost a tragedy. “Jake was covering us.”
“I was backup.”
“You've been backup before, but always let me know you were there.”
Silence.
I replay my conversation with Jane. We were talking about Romeo. How creeped out she was by how he acted when Nolan Corning was about to hurt her. How he had her in his arms, hand over her mouth. His creepy words.
And how she sensed I didn't like him, either.
Suddenly, we were shot at?
I realize my fears about being bugged weren’t stupid, after all.
“Am I being bugged, Duff? I asked you the other day and never got a straight answer.”
“Why? What were you and Jane talking about?”
“That's not an answer.”
“Neither is yours.”
“You're being cagey.”
“So are you.”
We're at a standoff. I ache for his comfort. Being up against him a few minutes ago was the first time I've been able to take a deep breath since I woke up last year.
It's like my ribs are too close together.
“You remember that spider? In your hospital bed?”
I jolt. Why the hell is he asking me this now?
Our eyes are still locked. I can't. I can't I can't I can't gotta lie can't move can't let my eyes show what I know what I feel what I think.
“Spider?” I say, the word cracking in half as my voice betrays me.
“You do remember,” he says. It's a statement, not a question. A certainty, not a wondering. “I had it tested.”
“Tested?”
“Scraped it off the floor after killing it. Lily, that was a poisonous spider. A violin spider. They don't just randomly find their way into hospital rooms.”
“They're hitchhikers,” I mutter. “From Mexico. Come in on flowers all the time, in shipments.”