by Mazzy King
I dress quickly as she throws some clothes into a duffel bag. She hesitates, a sweater bunched in her hands.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I just…I wonder when I’ll be back here,” she says in a low voice.
“Shouldn’t be more than a day or two,” I tell her. I run my hand through her hair. “This is just a precaution.”
She faces me, and for a long moment, we lock gazes. I feel like I can see straight to the bottom of her soul through those pale gray-blue eyes. I can see her unasked questions. I can see how much she wants to trust me.
I can see her heart.
When she has her things together, I open her apartment door and glance up and down the hall. Serena told me there was an exit stairwell down the hall that we could take to avoid the elevators. She lives on the seventh floor, so it’s not going to be quick, but it’s better than getting caught in an elevator.
I grab her hand and pull her after me, and we rush down all seven floors. By the time we get to the bottom we’re both breathing hard. I give her a second to catch her breath, then tug her along through the lobby.
We make it outside and we’re almost to my car when the first shots ring out.
They’re coming from behind us, across the street. Three blond guys emerge from a black car, each holding guns—Uzis.
“Fuck!” I growl, and shove Serena to the ground behind a car parked at the curb as I draw my own gun. “Serena—your phone. The last number I dialed—call it. Tell the guy who answers I need him now.”
I don’t wait for an answer and pop up, then fire three shots in quick succession. I only have the bullets that are in the clip in my gun, and that’s it. I need Rhys yesterday.
I dip behind the car again, and Serena has the phone to her ear, the hand holding it shaking violently, but to my shock, her voice is steady.
“Um…hello? I’m…a friend of Dominic’s, and he asked me to call you and tell you we’re getting shot at. He needs you…like, right fucking now!” She listens for a beat and hangs up.
“What’d he say?” I breathe.
“He’s—he’s on the way.”
I jump up again and let off a few more shots. One of them shoots back, and the car windows above our heads explode.
She smacks a hand over her mouth to contain a scream as I cover her with my own body.
This…is bad. I’m down to six bullets, and those assholes have three submachine guns between them.
The likelihood I’m walking away from this is…low.
But it doesn’t have to be for her.
I fish my keys out of my pocket and shove them into her hand. “I’m going to lay down some cover fire for you. When I do, I want you to run as fast as you can to my car around the corner, and then I want you to drive to your sister’s house and stay there. Do you understand?”
“I’m not going to leave you!” she gasps.
“You have to.” I gently take her chin and look her in the eye. “This is my fault you’re even here right now—so get out of here.”
“No,” she whispers, touching my cheek. More bullets pelt the car and we both wince and cringe.
No cop ever takes the oath and expects to die. We expect to go home. But we also know that if we’re required to lay down our lives and make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good of an innocent life…we will. Without hesitation.
I press my mouth to Serena’s. She kisses me back with enough fervor to make me forget, for just a moment, where we are. Where I am.
If it’s my last kiss, it’s better than I could ever have hoped for.
“I love you,” I whisper against her mouth. It feels natural, coming out of me like that. And I don’t need a response. I won’t let her waste those precious moments of her escape on me. But…I just need her to know. That if I had to spend my last moments with anyone, I’m so deeply grateful it was her. It could only be her. And it would only ever be her, if things could be different.
“Dominic,” she says, and her voice trembles, then breaks.
“On three,” I say, closing my eyes as she grips my neck. I gently pull her hands away from me. “One.”
She gulps, her eyes bright and glistening.
Another rat-tat-tat slams into the car. Smoke starts boiling out of the hood.
I raise up to a knee. “Two.”
Tears leaking from her eyes, she props herself onto her hands and knees in a runner’s crouch. I can practically feel the tension in her muscles, ready to spring.
I take a shooter’s position over the hood, my finger squeezing back on the trigger. I look over at her, catching her beautiful, sad eyes one last time.
My heart breaks a little. “Three,” I whisper, and it’s more like a caress.
Her face crumples, but she springs up like a gazelle as I open fire and tears off, her heels kicking up high to her butt. She’s as fast as their bullets as they hit the car over and over.
I fire back, hardly aware I’m screaming, hardly aware of the wail of sirens in the distance.
I spare a glance over my shoulder, just an instant, just in time to see her lithe body vanish like a shadow around the corner.
The relief that washes through me is so, so sweet, I hardly feel the pain when a bullet rips through the meat of my flank.
All I care about is that Serena got away.
She got away.
8
Serena
One month later
I mix a whiskey concoction for a young college-student-type at the end of the wooden bar. This place, simply called Dregs, is a far cry from Triple 6. It’s a cool, laid-back tavern that prides itself on gourmet small bites and craft cocktails—heavy emphasis on the craft, which I really appreciate. I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been working here for the past three weeks, ever since the…incident.
The incident that took the love of my life away from me hours after I met him.
I don’t know what brought Dom and me together that night. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was the universe’s idea of a cruel joke—to show me my person, and then take him away from me.
Either way, the next day after I ran to safety with his car, the newspaper published a story that identified the three blond Swedish brothers as being part of a local heroin ring who were apprehended, and a fourth unidentified man who perished in the intense gunfight that SWAT apparently came and broke up. There was no mention of another guy—Rhys—who showed up. Who knows if he ever did, or if he got killed, too.
I learned you don’t have to know someone for a long time to fall for them, nor do you have to know someone for a long time to be totally devastated by their death.
The problem is, I don’t know anything else about him. I tried calling the number for that guy, Rhys, a couple hours after I split, and there was no answer and no reply to my voicemail. There was no answer for days afterward, and then finally, I got an AI voice telling me the number I dialed was no longer in service.
Dominic’s car yields no real information—surprisingly clean for anyone, and the registration isn’t even inside. I have no one to get in contact with, no way of knowing what happened after I left…nothing.
His car is parked in my apartment’s garage. I’m in the process of finding a new place to live. I just don’t want to be in that building anymore. It holds too many intense, frightening memories…and beautiful ones that hurt too much to revisit.
It’s insane how one night can totally transform your life.
To say I’ve been struggling these past few weeks is an understatement, but I have to move on. Dominic sacrificed his life so I could. So, I have to.
College Boy pushes his empty glass away from him, holds up a twenty-dollar bill toward me, sets it down, and leaves with a nod of thanks. I nod back, collect my tip after cashing out the drink, and start cleaning up his area.
The bell over the door jingles. One thing I’ve learned about Dregs is that people come and go from open to close. There’s a steady rush all day, probably because the food is as g
ood as the drinks, and both are superb.
It’s probably two of my regulars. There’s a couple older guys who come in late afternoon most days of the week, sit at the bar, watch the news, and snipe at each other. They’re of different political parties, and one night it even came to blows before the bar owner broke it up, but they always come in together and leave together like they’re the best of friends.
They’re fun, but they’re both a lot of work. I sigh, mentally preparing myself for a long night with them.
“What can I get you?” I say without turning around, swiping at the glossy wooden counter with a fresh, damp rag.
There’s a pause, then a familiar voice says, “Ice-cold Corona, please. Lime in the neck.”
There’s no way…
I drop my rag and turn around slowly.
And he’s there.
Dominic.
It feels like my entire body comes to a halt. I can’t move. I can’t think.
We stare at each other for a long moment. He looks…different. He’s cleanshaven. It makes him look younger, almost…boyish.
Finally, I find my voice. The first thing that comes out of my mouth is, “So this guy walks into a bar…”
I have no idea why I said that, but it makes him smile. “He heard about the beautiful bartender,” he replies.
I make no move toward him. “You’re dead.”
“Well, not at the moment.”
“I mean, the papers said you were dead…”
Dominic shakes his head. His thick black hair, longish on top and short on the sides, has a stylish, tousled look to it, and he’s wearing a simple black shirt, black leather jacket, and jeans. He looks better than I remembered.
He comes to my side of the bar and leans on his elbows. “The papers will print or not print certain details, depending on what we tell them. They’re pretty cooperative with us.”
My mouth goes dry. “Us…?”
He glances around. “Can we go someplace private and talk?”
I find the owner in his office and tell him something important has come up. He doesn’t question me, one, because he’s a nice person, and two, because he can probably sense something is off based on my expression.
“Take the rest of the night,” he says, rising. “I’ll get Jeff to come in, okay?”
I’m pretty sure I thank him before I leave.
Dominic’s outside, waiting for me—by his car. His car.
“How did—” I start.
He holds up a hand, and opens the passenger door. “I’m going to explain everything, I promise. Get in.”
We head to his place. He lives in a high-rise not far from Dregs. It’s a place I’ve passed a thousand times and never gave a second look, and he was there the whole time.
I don’t ask any questions about why we’re going there. I don’t say anything else about the car. I might be in shock.
His apartment is tidy—to a fault. I’ve never seen a man’s place this clean. The furniture is minimal—a small, round glass table on one side, close to the kitchen, and an L-shaped couch, a black oval coffee table in front of it, a black wooden entertainment system, and a flat-screen TV on the wall. That’s pretty much it—except for a few frames on the wall. One catches my eye. It’s a certificate dated a year ago.
It says, In Recognition of Ridge City Police Department’s Exemplary Service to Protect and Improve the Community Under the Extraordinary Leadership of Dominic Black, Vice Detective.
A cop.
I halt in my tracks, and by the time I’ve finished reading the words three more times and turn to stare at him, he’s leaning against the wall, arms folded, watching me closely.
This revelation is the thing I need to jolt me out of my stupor. “A cop?”
He ticks his chin at the certificate. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
I remember how the thought had flitted across my mind that night, when I’d heard him talking that Rhys guy, asking for backup. It had seemed so ridiculous then. But now…it makes perfect sense.
He pushes away from the wall and extends a hand toward me, tentatively, like I’m a wild animal. I stare at his hand, not sure whether I should take it or smack it away.
After a few seconds, I reach out and allow him to close his hand around mine.
“Come sit,” he says softly, and leads me over to the couch. We sit, and he laces his fingers with mine, holding them on his lap.
His warmth and nearness awaken something in me I’d shoved deep down over the past month. The shock of his “death” sent me reeling in a way I couldn’t understand, couldn’t deal with or accept, so I buried it. It was only at night, while I teetered on the edge of consciousness, about to swan-dive into sleep, that I remembered.
I love you.
I never got to say it back.
“Serena?” he says in that same soft tone.
I lift my gaze from our hands to his eyes. His brow is creased and his eyes flick all over my face, reading me.
“I thought you were dead,” I say finally. “Dead. I was—I was a fucking wreck, Dominic.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and I believe him. He places his other hand over our clasped ones. “I was undercover when I met you. In order to protect my identity, the department fed a story to the press that I was just some random guy. They never named me.”
“I know, but who else could the fourth guy be?” I press. “And when I left, things were—things were bad.”
“They got a little crazy,” he says, and he doesn’t have to tell me that’s putting it fucking mildly.
I have so many questions, and no clue where to start. “Did—did that Rhys guy ever show up?”
One side of Dominic’s mouth turns up, and it nearly takes my breath away. How did I miss how beautiful he was that night? He’d had a close-cropped scruffy beard that night, but now that he’s shaved, I see how…beautiful he really is.
“Oh yeah. He showed up. With a cavalry. Saved my ass. He’s SWAT, by the way.”
“Backup,” I murmur.
“That’s right.” He pauses. “I can just start explaining things to you, if you want—but I want you to ask your questions.”
“Why now?” I tighten my jaw as my voice wobbles. I’m not going to cry. I’m fucking not. “Why did you pop up today?”
“Because I finally got the clearance,” he replies. “I had to get off the streets while we cleaned things up. Those brothers got away that night, so we had to track each of them down, and I’ve been on the inside, working almost around the clock to squeeze every bit of information I can out of them.”
“Literally?”
He smirks, allows a long pause, then continues. “We’ve got them all off the street and we have teams closing in on their bosses. It’s finally safe for me to be out in public again. You’re my first stop.”
It makes sense. From a logical perspective, it answers everything. But I think back to those first nights of agony, the deep-tearing, unfathomable emotional pain that ripped me apart. Then the numbness. All of that suffering—for nothing. It’s a strange feeling—joy and anger and sadness and disbelief and confusion all wrapped into one messy package.
“I—hurt,” I murmur, hardly aware I’m speaking. “Thinking you were dead. It hurt so fucking much.”
Genuine hurt of his own flashes across his face as he leans toward me. “Serena,” he says, his voice low and steady. “I will never be able to tell you how sorry I am for that. I hate that I had to be away from you this last month, with you thinking I was dead. I’m here now, though. I’m here and I’m fine and I had to see you.” He lifts a hand to brush a lock of hair away from my face, and his fingertips slide down my cheeks. Tingles explode along my skin in their wake.
“Can I be in your arms now?” I whisper.
9
Serena
He doesn’t answer, not with words. Instead, he releases my hand, reaches out, and scoops me into his arms. He swings me around so I’m straddling his lap and fac
ing him, and wraps his arms tight around me. Our foreheads touch.
“Thank God, I thought you’d never ask,” he breathes. “Let me make it all up to you. Please—all the pain you felt. I swear to God, I will never let you feel another ounce of it. I’ll take all of it away, and all you’ll know is happiness and peace when you’re with me.”
I love you…
“And…love?” I ask, lightly touching his face as if he’ll break apart. I can’t meet his gaze, so I stare at his mouth instead. “What you told me…that night.”
There’s a beat of silence, and I immediately regret it. “Sorry. That was too much.”
“Look at me.”
The commanding tone of his voice catches me off guard. I look him in the eye. He reaches up to cradle my head, his face deadly serious.
“There were a lot of things that shouldn’t have happened that night,” he says. “A lot of things that went against every aspect of my training. Things that were…wrong. Including what happened between us. It shouldn’t have happened.”
Oh my God. The blood drains from my face. He…regrets what happened between us?
“But I thank God it did,” he finishes in a whisper. “I’m so fucking grateful those things that shouldn’t have happened, happened. And Serena—I didn’t think I was going to make it out that night. I didn’t think I was going to see you again. So I had to tell you the truth. My truth.”
I love you.
“You…meant it?”
“I meant it,” he says gravely. “I still mean it. I love you, Serena. I know it’s crazy. I know it’s fast. It doesn’t make sense. I know all those things, I don’t give a fuck. You’re mine. And, if you still want me…I’m yours. All yours. Only yours.”
I draw in one shuddering breath before I crash my mouth to his. He grips me, one arm across my back at my waist, the other buried in my hair, and returns my kiss with every ounce of his feelings. Eventually, the kisses slow and deepen, and I melt in his arms against his chest.
His tongue strokes mine, and I go liquid between my thighs. I grind on his lap against his rapidly hardening cock.