Saving Poughkeepsie

by Debra Anastasia

  The moments passed in a blur. He wasn’t sure what he said out loud and what he kept a secret.

  After forcing his eyes to open, he watched Nicholas inject him with still more scopolamine. It’s over. And this is how I go. Ted prayed right then—out loud or internally, he wasn’t sure. Let me keep her safe with my words.

  11

  Normal

  Beckett hung up the phone. Since his merry Christmas vibe was already in the shitter, he’d decided to have a productive day and he now had in place what he thought was a good goddamn situation. The assholes and douchebags were working together fairly well, and even Sevan had been slightly useful, helping Shark identify the men in Rodolfo’s organization who would be most likely to leave, based on his previous dealings with them. The two guards from his trip to the old fart’s compound were now on their way to finding themselves under Beckett’s umbrella. As soon as one had wandered away from his post, the other was ringing Shark’s phone, asking for information.

  Shark and Sevan would continue to recruit and keep tabs on things from the apartment in New York City (with Shark keeping tabs on Sevan most especially), and Beckett hoped soon he’d have quite a reliable stable of men assembled. Then he could move Sevan on to his next job: detailing the trafficking routes he’d once used through Poughkeepsie, so they could be dismantled.

  In addition to being Christmas, today marked one month since Eve was shot—one month since she’d been stuffed into a car with every intention of taking her away from him. Beckett sighed. She and he had been running things or hiding out nearly the whole time they’d been together—healing or causing pain. This past summer had been their first chance for a normal relationship, a normal life, normal problems, and even so, they were definitely the weirdest “normal” couple he could think of. But he wanted that to change. He wanted lots of things to change. His brothers knew the deal and supported him, and Beckett had wanted to talk to Eve’s father to ask his permission for old-fashioned reasons, but the man pretty much hated him.

  Then she came walking through the door, home from her dad’s place, shedding winter clothes along the way. She touched his dimples as he smiled, and he pretended to bite her fingers.

  “Merry Christmas, baby. Can I give you my present yet?” He was nervous. Stupid nervous.

  “I guess.” She sat on the couch. “You know we don’t have to do this kind of shit.”

  “A flowers and candy kind of girl, that’s what I got here.” Beckett walked over and caught her hand, pulling her toward the edge of the couch. “Can I ask you something?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ve thought of a million different ways to ask you, but not knowing how the hell you’ll respond takes the wind out of a guy’s sails.”

  She was beautiful with her skeptical blue eyes. He loved her, he knew that. And maybe this was too soon, but with all the changes he was making, he wanted one more. He took to his knee and glanced up. She looked a little disgusted. His stomach dropped.

  He’d written poems in his head—elaborate ones about her strength, her beauty, how worried he’d been while she was in the hospital. But her less-than-thrilled posture made him jump ahead. He pulled the trigger on his question like it was a gun: “Will you marry me?”

  He slipped his hand in his pocket and hooked his finger on the ring there. He held it out to her, finally connecting with her gaze. She looked about as thrilled as she would have if he were holding a dead bug instead of a two-karat diamond.

  He could only wait. There was no taking this back. It was what it was. Maybe a mistake.

  She pulled her hand free, stood and turned her back on him. Beckett waited forever before interrupting her silence and asking her back, “Well?”

  She turned again, and he was off his knee by the time he saw that her eyes were filled with tears. He put the ring back in his pocket. Answer received. “Okay, I’m going to run out to the gas station and find you a different gift.” He was almost to the door when she stopped him with his name.

  “Come back. Don’t be a dick.” Eve now leaned back into the couch, legs crossed and arms hugging her middle. A complete knot.

  “Listen, I don’t want it to be awkward. Let me go, and we can have the air settle…”

  She shook her head and patted the cushion next to her. “No.”

  He walked over and sat down close to her. “I just thought maybe—”

  She put her finger over his mouth to silence him. “I want to say yes. Okay?”

  He nodded, but slowly because she certainly didn’t sound joyful.

  “I won’t be with anyone else for the rest of my life. If you screw up, I’m going full hermit. But married? Us? Really? I can’t even wear rings, you know that. They get in the way of what we do.”

  He shrugged. “Everybody in my life has their match. I just want you to be mine. It was stupid.”

  Eve gently straddled him. It seemed to take her a while to come up with her words. His beast, this deadly woman, was so out of place talking about her feelings. “When I picture being married, it’s a picket fence. It’s a grocery list and a minivan and a baby.” She exhaled, trying to push the pain in her chest out of her body, he was guessing. “I don’t get to have those things.” She was exasperated.

  He hugged her then, her whole body. Together they stayed until he felt a calm in the center of his soul. This woman.

  “I don’t get those things either,” he told her. “I want ’em, though. I’m so proud of you, of who you are—that you stand anywhere near me. You shouldn’t. I should have been in the grave a decade now. But I want a second to be your guy—like, open doors for you and hold your hand with my ring on it. Even if it’s not supposed to be that way. I want to tell the world and our expectations to fuck off. I want to marry you, Eve. Let the world burn around us.”

  He touched her cheeks, then her lips before putting his big hands around her neck briefly. “Marry me, Eve.” He pulled her sweater over her head, then easily unclasped her bra and slid it off. “Marry me.” Beckett lifted his arms as she took off his shirt. He put his hand in the center of her chest. “We can,” he told her. “We’re the only ones saying we can’t. Marry me.”

  She looked like she wanted to. He shifted under her, pressing his now-erect manhood against her jeans as he dug for the ring in his pocket. After pulling it out and shining it up, he grabbed her hand.

  “I dare you, Eve Hartt. I dare you to marry me.” He held the ring at the tip of her finger, risking a smile at her scared face.

  Her head raced with all the reasons she couldn’t marry him. And the worst reason was one she’d never tell him: marrying someone else was betraying David. Beckett was for certain the love of her life, but David was her first love. Her child’s father. She hated letting go of any part of them, even if was guilt.

  He read her mind. “He’d want you to be happy. You know that.”

  She was ready to run topless out into the street, but when she realized why—just to stop herself from doing what she wanted to do: seek happiness—she stayed put.

  “Nothing’s stopping you except you, killer.”

  Hearing her nickname from his kissable, plump lips was sin. She looked at her finger, the one threatening to make her happy, and she threw all her cares away in a giant waterfall of grief and hope and illicit love for this man.

  “Yes.” She said it once, and he heard her.

  The smile on his face became wider and his eyes lit up. “Put it on then.” He bit his lip even though his grin threatened to break his grasp.

  She’d shot guns, launched rockets, and thrown knives, but this certainly felt like the most dangerous thing she’d ever done with her hands. Eve pushed her finger through the ring and grabbed his face, kissing him while laughing.

  “Beckett Taylor, do you always get what you want?” He kissed her back while he lifted her from the couch.

  “Tonight I do.” She stayed wrapped around him as he walked her up the stairs. Gandhi had to be shooed from the room, and
he lazily complied. Beckett closed their door and set her down on the bed gently.

  “Listen, fiancée, I totally know how we do—with the blood and the biting and all of that. And I plan on it. But tonight, right now, I want you to take what I have to give you without a fight.”

  She pouted and then smiled from where she lay on the bed. She took a second to admire her ring, like a real girl should. It was gorgeous.

  “Do you like it?” he asked, like a real boy would.

  “I love it.” It was so sparkly in the dim light of the bedroom. Beckett shed the rest of his clothing before getting to work on her jeans. She pretended to ignore him, focusing only on her ring.

  He caught her attention when he kissed the inside of her thigh. He slowly made his way up her body, ignoring all the parts she was desperate for him to touch by the time he got to her neck. When his kisses stopped there, she remembered Ryan’s gift.

  She slid the pendant behind her neck, fully intending to take it off and set it aside.

  Beckett moved to her side as he pulled on the chain with his finger. When he was finally was able to see the gold compass, his look went from loving to angry.

  “So I’m not the only asshole giving you jewelry tonight, huh?”

  His jealousy was a ridiculous turn-on. He was so murderous instantly.

  “And you tried to hide it? Is that it?”

  She tensed her jaw. It was easy to defend, but she wanted to test him. Take him too far.

  “Well, he was there at dinner so…”

  Beckett’s eyes went wild. “Really?” His nostrils flared as put both hands on the necklace, yanking it free from her neck.

  “So you had dinner with your father and the guy who’s in love with you on the same day I ask you to marry me?”

  The heat of his anger forced her to squirm. Now she would just make it worse on purpose. “Actually, my father wasn’t there.”

  Beckett tossed the necklace across the room. “That’s fucking fantastic. I’m going to kill him.”

  He was already in his pants and headed out when she stepped in front of the door. She put her ringed hand on his crotch as he looked down his nose at her.

  She licked her teeth. “What was I supposed to do? I was alone, and there was the mistletoe?” She batted her eyes at him.

  He raised his eyebrow, finally cluing in on the fact that she was egging him on. “Did you fuck him?” He stepped forward, dropping his shirt and caging her in his arms against the door.

  She knew how to be sexy, but instead she took it to the next level. “Would that make you angry?”

  His pants were on the floor because of her quick fingers by the time he’d grabbed a handful of her hair. He hissed his answer, “Yes.”

  “Would you say a woman who’s been as careless as I would deserve a punishment?”

  “Did you or didn’t you? Tell me. Now.” When he advanced, she turned and put her hands against the door.

  “You’re going to have to earn that answer, fiancé.” She licked her own shoulder.

  He reached around and inserted two fingers inside her. With his other hand he spanked her firmly on the bottom. He was in her ear again, demanding that she answer his question. Panting, she could barely stand between the pleasure and pain he was so skilled at delivering. Between the spanking and the friction he provided, Eve was near undone when he stopped.

  “Answer me.”

  She turned and faced him. “Do you think anyone could ever do to me what you do? Ever? Like, has that thought crossed your mind?” Serious now, she watched as he fully understood he’d been played.

  “That jewelry really was from him?”

  “Yes. He’s a friend. You’re my love.”

  “You like it when I’m all fired up and jealous?”

  “It’s so fucking sexy I can’t take it.”

  “Maybe I need to remind you who you belong to.”

  She nodded her assent. “Please.”

  Beckett put her against the door by her throat, not enough to deprive her of oxygen, but enough to hold her still as he worked her over. She fought him, but he was true to his promise of punishment. He brought her to the brink time and time again, taking her back to the bed and combining his mouth and hands until she slapped at his head.

  Finally he crawled up her hyper-sensitive body. “You okay?”

  She shook her head. “Can’t finish.”

  “I’ll finish you.” He smirked as he held her down and screwed her senseless.

  He pulled her close when they could finally move. “You almost killed your friend tonight. Can you imagine what that dinner did to him?”

  “That should bother me. But it doesn’t. Look at my pretty ring!” She leaned over and kissed him. “It’s just you, Becky. You know that.”

  “Just make sure he knows that,” Beckett growled.

  Nicholas took off his blue rubber gloves like a surgeon. He’d handled the execution and clean up, and it was thrilling. Every aspect of the process spoke to him, and right now he still had the buzz. The crash would be phenomenal, but he wouldn’t think about that now. Two cases in two months was an escalation—a beautiful symphony.

  He looked over the room one last time. Not a single mark. It was as if Dr. Ted Hartt had never existed. He sighed before carrying the trash bag downstairs to the incinerator for “business papers,” which had been a tax write-off for Rodolfo. Nicholas stood and waited, making sure every bit was consumed by the flames. All the evidence was up in smoke now. Easy. And that’s what made him an artist: the attention to detail. He licked his lips and adjusted his glasses.

  After consulting his expensive watch, Nicholas realized it was time for Rodolfo’s pill. It was also time for the results of his interrogation to come to light.

  When he entered the upstairs study, the old man was already awake, waiting. Rodolfo took his pill and sat back, expectant.

  “Dr. Hartt proved helpful,” Nicholas began. He nodded and sat when Rodolfo extended his good hand toward the empty chair.

  “How so?”

  “I have a name.” Nicholas tried not to fidget. The doctor had been exceptionally tough to break in the end, a contrast to the willingness he’d shown in coming with him originally. The daughter’s talents were latent in this man—not a recessive gene from her mother for sure.

  “Don’t make me force the information out of you, Nicholas. We have an end point here.” Rodolfo’s bottom lip listed to the left.

  “Of course, sir. I chose to medically interrogate the doctor, in keeping with his profession. I find chemicals are better interrogators than I am for some personalities. He provided the name of the fertility specialist we’re looking for, so that is a success. Unfortunately, after a brief Internet search, I found that the woman in question is no longer in the business of reproduction. She married and left her work soon after the extraction of Ms. Hartt’s tissue. So, I’ll need to give this fact-finding mission a more hands-on approach as well.” Nicholas crossed his legs.

  “So where is this ovary?” Rodolfo began to open and close his right hand.

  “That’s my sole focus from this point forward, as the research doctor we’ve discussed will arrive in just a few days to continue his studies stateside. It’ll be no problem.” Nicholas did his best to keep a confident smile on his face.

  “I hate the words, no problem. The universe doesn’t hear the negative qualifier and sends you what you ask for.” Rodolfo’s thick eyes narrowed. “I expected to know exactly the time we’d be ready for fertilization. Now you’re going on a vacation?”

  “I need us both to be realistic in our timeline expectations, sir. Focus on the victory here: the ovary was harvested. The doctor we need to make it useful has agreed to come on board.” Nicholas clenched his hands together. He needed to set Rodolfo on a new path. He was fixated on the actual eggs. “What about the host? Do you have a female host available?” Nicholas asked.

  “That’s not your concern. But yes. I have a stable of females who’ve ha
d health screenings,” Rodolfo said. “I’ll work with the doctor to find the best match.” He paused for a moment, but soon returned to his previous train of thought. “So when will we have these eggs? I want to meet my children. Nine months feels like forever at my age.”

  “I’m leaving right now, sir. I will find Sonia Kore as soon as possible and determine the storage location. By the time the doctor arrives from Belgium, we’ll be prepared to get underway. Will there be anything else?” Nicholas stood. The old man was certainly ruining his buzz, and he was probably doing it on purpose. Rodolfo thought he had the monster under control.

  But Nicholas swallowed a smile. The monster inside him ran the show. Rodolfo just provided the platform. The reason. And without the reason to commit his works of art, well…Nicholas would just be a murderer.

  Rodolfo nodded. “Go. Be quick.”

  Nicholas was really loving this Christmas.

  12

  Pretend Future

  “Right now?” Eve stood in their closet in just a pair of panties.

  “Yes.” Beckett smiled to himself as he pulled a few more things out of his side—casual stuff, easy to wear.

  “And I’m not allowed to pack?”

  The engagement ring looked so odd on her finger. He’d found himself looking at it over and over again while they’d loved, slept, and ate their way through this day after Christmas. It was just so beautiful, making her his.

  “No.” He zipped up his suitcase.

  “There so many reasons we can’t do this. You don’t even know.” She crossed her arms under her breasts.

  Beckett stopped what he was doing to pay some attention to them. She was moaning for him soon enough. He looked at his watch as he picked her up and put her against the wall.

  “We don’t have time for this. The plane is waiting.”

  She convinced him with her lips that the plane would wait, and it was totally okay to have sex in the closet. By the time he was done, half his suits were on the floor, and he had a hanger lodged on his arm. She laughed at him.