by Emilia Finn
“I can’t be your houseguest forever,” he rasps out. “We’re fooling ourselves into thinking that would work.”
“No,” I admit. “The only fool is me. Because you and I both know she’s going to follow you when you run. And you will run. We all know it, because someone wants to fuck you over. They’re not gonna stop until they’re dead, and despite what the arrest warrants say, you’re not a killer. Which means, you’ll run, she’ll follow, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to play catch-up just so I can have a week here, a week there.”
I rub my hand over my face, and groan when I tweak my shoulder in the process. “Her loyalty runs deep, Will.” I meet his eyes. “But her loyalty isn’t with me.”
Quinn
Revelations
“In first,” Lucy coaches. “In second.” She stands beside me in front of the mirrors, and shows me what I’m supposed to do. “In third,” she continues. “In fourth. Chin up, and Soph will chop your legs off if you don’t show me that turnout.”
Snickering under my breath, I fix my feet, and lift just one arm into position.
“Good. Back to first. And second. And third, and f—” She stops with a jump in her voice, and turns just as I catch a dark shadow in my peripherals in the mirrors. I’ve spent the day staring at my feet, and not at the mirrors like I’m supposed to. Her brow furrows. “Uh… this isn’t an open studio, so—”
I turn and gasp at the sight of a man in a dark suit. Dark hair. That perfect five o’clock shadow that stretches down to his Adam’s apple.
My voice catches in my throat, and my heart pounds so fast that my head threatens to turn woozy. “Evan?”
Lucy’s gaze snaps to mine, then back to Evan. “You know him? But…” She frowns. “How?”
“Two primas in one room,” Evan purrs. “It is so good to see you again, Lucy Kincaid.”
“You… but…” She grabs my hand when she can’t figure out what else to do. “You’re that guy… you’re… I don’t understand how you know my name. I saw you at the club once.”
“You saw him at the club?” I spin and meet her eyes. “You know Evan?”
She shakes her head – not a no, but a ‘what the fuck?’ “I don’t know him. But I saw him at Rhino’s one time while I was dancing. He paid well, he asked me to spend a little extra time with him in private.” As in, he wanted to fuck her. “I said no and left the stage. That was the end of it.”
“This is true.” Evan meanders into the room, slowly, quietly, and holds his hands in front of his body. “I asked her for a little time, and she said no.” His eyes rage fire, and burn us both. “She said no. I’m not unhappy to see you here, Little Dancer. But to be frank, I’m here for you, Prima.”
“Me? Uh…” I swallow and try to think. I lied about living with Will; does Evan know? I left town without notice; is Evan pissed? Most of all… Am I dead? “Uh… How’d you know where I was?”
He grins, cold and mean. “I have friends everywhere, Prima.” He continues forward with slow, calculated steps, to stop just three feet in front of us. “You left, Prima. Without even a call to let me know you were okay.”
“I… um…” My voice cracks from nerves. “I had to travel for a little while. My brother—”
“Your brother, the murderer. Yes?”
“No, he’s…” I shake my head and link my fingers with Lucy’s when she begins shaking – from fear? From adrenaline? “No, Mr. McGrady. My brother is innocent. I just had to leave town for a few days, but I was planning on being back by next Friday.”
“You were?” He tilts his head, and lifts a dangerous brow. “I went by your home, Prima. Days ago, because the last time I saw you, you said there was an emergency. You didn’t come back for your next shift.”
“Um… yes. Like I said, my brother and I—”
“And you didn’t respect me enough to call?” he shouts. “You think you can leave my home before I give you permission to go? You think you can leave my club before I allow you to leave?”
“I meant no disrespect, Mr. McGrady.” I try to pull Lucy back, to shield her from my bad choices, but the hand she holds is my left. My bum side. I can hold on, but I can’t do a damn thing with it. “I had an unavoidable family emergency.”
“A family emergency?” His voice takes on a distinct Argentinian accent, and I can almost see the rage that pools in every pore in his body. “What family emergency forbade cellphones, Victoria?”
Lucy startles beside me. “Victoria?”
“My friend is due to have her baby,” I toss out desperately. “She’s overdue, and high-risk, and it’s summer, and the baby is really big, and…” Hooo, shit. I’m a terrible liar. “Um… my friend is having her baby, and she wanted me here for her big moment. My brother is friends with the father of the baby, so we were both needed here.”
“I thought you haven’t seen your brother in four years, Prima?”
My eyes pop wide. “Um…”
“Your friend is having a baby,” he steamrolls over me, “she needs you here, and yet, you stand in a dance studio instead of a hospital suite?”
“Well, she hasn’t had the baby yet,” I hedge. “I, um… I tried sitting with her and staring at her stomach all day long, but she got mad and told me to go do some work.” I gesture to the floor we stand on. “This is my work. You know this about me. You know I teach.”
“I know you’re a filthy fucking liar,” he snarls and takes another step forward. “I know your name isn’t Victoria Quinnton, I know your brother was never away from you, and I know Lucy Kincaid once lost a bet and had to dance to repay it.”
“You took photos of me for Kyle Baker?” Lucy takes a menacing step forward. She’s my opposite; I want to run away, but she barrels forward. “That was you?”
“You could have been my newest reward,” Evan purrs. “You would have looked so beautiful in purple.”
I turn to Lucy in shock, then back to Evan. “What?”
Lucy reaffirms her grip on my wrist and squeezes. Not a single, long squeeze, but a pump, pump, pump that makes my fingertips tingle.
“I don’t understand,” I tell them both – because I damn well don’t! “You know Lucy Kincaid?”
“I wanted to know Lucy Kincaid.” Evan leans forward until his minty breath scorches into my lungs. “I wanted to know her very much, but there was always someone in the way. Her family, her…” He screws up his nose. “Boyfriend. Her friends. But then you came along, and,” he looks me up and down, “nice consolation.”
“Focus,” Lucy growls, somehow knowing I’m on the edge of an explosion. She continues to squeeze my wrist, rhythmic, continuous, until I’m certain if I looked down, my fingers would be a nasty shade of purple.
“Evan?” I look up and meet his eyes. “Why are you here?”
“For you, Prima.”
He dives forward, fast as a snake and yanks my hand from Lucy’s. He replaces her touch, wraps his long, spidery fingers around my wrist, and squeezes. “Did you think you could leave with my jewels? The gown?” He chuckles, low and menacing. “Your life?”
“Why did you dress me up in your wife’s things?” I try to yank my arm from his grasp, but the muscles in my shoulder that are supposed to do that job simply… don’t. “Why was Nate Hardy’s girlfriend wearing the same dress? Why is every woman you ever come in contact with dead?”
“Not all of them.” He makes a noise with his mouth like he’s sucking on his teeth. “I bed virgins, Prima. Only the very best.”
“Nate’s wife was pregnant!” I snap. “Why did you—” I gasp. “That baby was yours?”
“Well…” He glances away with an arrogant grin. “A woman is no longer a virgin if she is with child, is she?”
“So you had her murdered? That’s…” For the first time in my life, I think I may be speechless. “That’s fucking sick. And your wife?”
“With child.” He shrugs it off. “And she,” he nods toward Lucy. “She went to bed with the street u
rchin.”
“No longer a virgin,” she murmurs behind me. “No longer wanted.”
“Every smart businessman has a backup plan, Prima. And we still have you, don’t we? You’re still perfect.”
“You killed Nate,” I whisper, “so you could send Will away and have me?”
“I have killed no man.” He turns his nose up into the air and huffs. “I do not touch men.”
“You had someone on your staff kill Nate, you blamed it on Will, you got rid of Nate’s woman, checked Lucy’s virgin status in your spare time, pretended to help me find Nate’s murderer, and now you want me? All because you think I’m a virgin?”
His dark eyes fire with rage. “Think, Prima? No. I know.”
“You don’t know shit.” I try again to yank my arm from his hold. “I haven’t been a virgin since I was a teenager, you fucking freak. Let go of me. Let go!”
“Put your hands up!”
I jump at a man’s booming voice, and scream when Evan yanks me to his chest and spins me around to face the front doors, where two policemen stand with their guns pointing right at us.
Behind them, Sophia walks in holding a kind of gun I don’t even know the name of, and beside her, Jay carries something similar… but bigger. Both of them have their eyes pressed to the scopes on top.
“Let her go, McGrady.” Soph is no longer wearing a leotard, but jeans and heavy boots. “Let her go, and we’ll let you leave this place without a souvenir bullet sitting inside your heart.”
“To shoot me, you must shoot her first.”
Evan presses something cold and metal against my temple, and for the first time in my life, I choose fantasy. I choose to think of Jamie, of dancing, of fight tournaments, of arguing with Sophia about things I have no right to argue about. I refuse to think of the gun Evan presses to my temple, so I think of the ballet Will took me to when I was ten. I even think of the fight Will and I had when I was eighteen and he discovered I was no longer a virgin.
I think of my date with Jamie last night, only for my heart to constrict when he himself dashes through the door and stops beside the cops.
His uncles.
His face turns ghostly white, his body grows with adrenaline. But he’s the only person in here besides me and Lucy who has no gun. He’s powerless, so all he can do is stand by and watch this go down.
“Luce,” Soph lifts her chin. “Come over here.”
“Soph…” Lucy stands beside me with a white face, and her hands up. “Don’t… please don’t make me—”
“She can go,” Evan says easily. “She is of no use to me.”
“I’m not leaving her,” Lucy says firmly.
“Go!” I scream until my throat turns hoarse. “Go over there, Lucy!”
“I’m not walking away while—”
“Lucy!” Sophia snaps with finality. “Now! Move your ass now, or I’ll take your knees out and remove you.”
“Sophia!”
“Lucy Kincaid!” roars one of the cops – Liv’s dad. “Go. Move. Now.”
“Uncle Oz,” she cries. “I can’t leave. I can’t…” She shakes her head. “I won’t.”
“Put your guns down,” Evan taunts like he truly doesn’t care about the outcome. “Guns down, put them on the floor. Then Prima and I will be leaving.”
“You’re not leaving with her,” Jamie snarls. He takes a step forward, and places himself in no man’s land. “I will walk through your bullets before I let you leave with her.”
“Jamie!” Tears stream over my cheeks and drip off the edge of my jaw. “Stop it.”
His eyes leave Evan’s and come to mine. “It’s the whole point, isn’t it, Q? To be worthy, I must be willing.” His eyes slide back to Evan. “Let her go, and you might live past today.”
“She’s mine,” Evan snarls.
“She’s mine,” Jamie declares. “And you’re not taking her anywhere. Let her go. You see two cops and four guns. But you don’t see the seven sniper dots resting on your forehead right now. You cannot survive this if you hurt her.”
“She’s my wife!” Evan screams so loud that a lance of pain tears through my ear. “She’s mine!”
“Your wife is dead,” Sophia says in a too-calm tone. “At your hand.”
“No she’s not!” Evan cries out. “She’s… she’s…” He squeezes me tight and sends licks of pain racing through my shoulder. “It was an accident.”
“And Nate’s wife?” Jay asks. “That was an accident too?”
“It’s not… if she would have just—”
“Will!” Jamie roars. “No!”
I whip my head to the right expecting to find nothing more than a wall. But instead, I find my big brother, just an arm’s length away.
I know he’s an arm’s length, because his arm is extended, and in his hand, a gold and silver gun.
“Will?”
“Time to go, McGrady.” He pulls the trigger, and snatches Evan’s gun hand with his left hand.
Another round booms in my ear, and behind me, Evan falls to the floor, a splatter of blood coating the smooth dancefloor six feet to my right.
Right where Lucy was standing just a moment ago.
Brick chips lay in the blood, like small islands in a red sea, and then I’m moving again.
The police surge forward, as do Jay and Sophia. Jamie sprints the fastest, he reaches me first, and takes my left hand. Our eyes meet, but Will is already running.
Just like in the dance Lucy, Soph, and I were working on this morning, Jamie pulls me left, and Will tugs me right. I’m the one in the middle, the one being torn in two, but Jamie has my bum arm, and at my first cry of pain, he drops my hand like it’s made of fire.
Will pulls me to a side door – the door he must have come through when everyone else used the entrance from the hall – and dashing out into the sun, he does what he does best. He catches me when I stumble, and he half carries me when I can’t keep up.
Tears blind me, so heavy, so blurring, that I don’t see the SUV in front of me until I literally slam against it.
“In!” Will rips the door open and shoves me in.
I bring a fist up to swipe at my eyes, just the one fist, one arm, because the other is completely wrecked, and when I clear my vision, I look back to the studio to find Jamie and the rest of them.
It’s how it was four years ago: I’m in the passenger seat, and Will is trying to get us out of danger. Jamie and his cop uncle stand at the front of the group, but now, instead of the cop pointing a gun at us, it merely stays by his thigh.
“Come on, come on, come on, come on.” Will slams his foot to the floor so the engine screams – or is that me?
My eyes remain on Jamie’s, my heart not mine anymore. Our wheels finally gain traction, rubber burns until smoke rises and attempts to steal my last glimpse of Jamie Kincaid, then like a slingshot, we shoot forward and race into the street.
“Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.” I drop my head between my knees and breathe until I turn dizzy. “Oh my god, Will. You shot him.”
“I’m a killer now, Bubbles.” Will jerks the car around a tight corner, then straightens out and heads for the road leading out of town. “Self-fulfilling prophecy maybe.”
“You killed him. You killed him. Oh god! Will! You killed Evan McGrady.”
“His finger was on the trigger. He saw Jamie, he realized you were someone else’s, and his finger was on the trigger.”
“You killed someone!” I sit taller and screech. “Will, you just ruined everything. You ruined it all.” I try to turn, to look at him, but my tears blind me. “He admitted to hurting Nate, and those cops heard it all. That was your freedom! It was done. All you had to do was let them arrest him, and this would have been over.”
He shakes his head. “His finger was on the trigger.” Will’s words are too calm, too quiet. “I did the right thing.”
“You just undid everything!” I sob. “We’ve worked so hard to prove your innocence, and then you k
illed someone in front of the cops.” My chest bounces, and my stomach rebels. “Oh my god, Will. It didn’t have to happen like that.”
Grief washes through my blood, and almost cripples me.
“Jamie. It’s gone. It’s done.” I clamp my lips shut when a surge of vomit threatens to spill over. “Oh god. His eyes… it’s like he knew… he knew this was coming.”
I stop and turn to Will. “He knew I would leave.”
Will pushes the SUV harder, faster, and jumps us across the train tracks on the edge of town. We’re near the hospital. Near Jamie’s house.
“He said so just this morning.” Will’s jaw clenches, releases, clenches. “He said he knew you would run with me. He said he knew where your loyalty rested.”
“Where will we go now?” I whimper. “Where will we…”
My words come to a standstill when we pass right by Jamie’s driveway. It’s just a blur, just a single millisecond’s peek into the forever I could have had. But then it’s gone, shrinking in our rearview mirror as Will speeds away until it’s nothing but a memory.
“Lucy and Soph…” I whisper. “Mrs. Kincaid. And the tournament. And the dance class I was supposed to…”
I scrunch my eyes closed, and squeeze fresh tears past my lashes. “It’s all over.”
Epilogue
Jamie
There was once a time in my life when the sun shone too bright, and time raced ahead much too quickly. All I wanted, when I had Quinn in my arms, was for time to slow down. For us to be able to enjoy each minute so it felt like an actual minute, and not the blink of an eye.
When I was eighteen, the word “lifetime” felt unworthy; it felt too short, because although a lifetime, to us, was arguably a very long time, once I was older and realized that our time together was finite, it wouldn’t be nearly enough.
I know I went searching for love. Twice.
I acknowledge my part in this mess, and I have no one but myself to blame for the heartache that cripples me. But damn, you’d think the universe would take it easy on a guy after four long years of yearning for the same woman.