by K. A. Tucker
And I wait. For four hours, ignoring the cold, surrounded by nothing but desert and rocks and the high-pitched barks of coyotes circling their kill, until I’m sure that no one is on alert, waiting for me.
And then I move in, slithering beneath the truck and behind the tires to lie in wait.
The sky is beginning to lighten when I finally hear movement inside the trailer. Footfalls. Someone rolling out of bed.
My heart begins to race as it always does, as adrenaline kicks in, hoping that everything goes according to plan. It’s so easy for these things to derail, especially when there’s more than one person involved.
Moments later, the door swings open with a loud creak and bang. I’m careful to hide behind the wheel as I watch Mario step out, his nose still puffy and slightly discolored. His gaze drifts over the wide expanse of land. Someone else would think he’s simply taking in the terrain, but I know better.
He rounds the corner with a stretch and then pulls his sweatpants down to take his morning piss, his back to me.
That’s when I roll out, gun aimed, silencer on.
And close the distance silently, like I’ve been trained to do so well.
He deserves this. For all those girls he raped.
And to keep Ivy safe.
He deserves it because otherwise he’s going to get away with it. And maybe do it again.
I wait until he turns around, until our eyes lock, but it’s not long enough for him to react.
And just like that, in seconds, half of my problem is gone, and Ned’s killer has been punished.
Ricky, still asleep in his bed, is a quick finish, too.
That’s usually what my job is—hours, even days of preparation, seconds of execution.
And then I get to the real work, setting the stage for the cops.
FORTY-SEVEN
IVY
“Why couldn’t we take the truck again?”
“Carl needed it,” Bobby yells over his shoulder.
I glower at the back of his head as his Harley turns down Dakota’s street. I’d like to punch him in the ribs, but I want to make it home alive, so I keep my hands where they are, with my kit sandwiched between the two of us. I refused to leave it behind. “What exactly did Sebastian say?” I’m still pissed that Bobby didn’t wake me up when the phone rang. He says he tried, and I snarled at him and burrowed farther into the grimy leather couch in response, but I think he’s bullshitting me. He also let me sleep in—something I only do after shooting half a bottle of cheap whiskey to keep my idle mind distracted.
“That he’d meet you at home.”
My stomach does a nervous flip. I still have no idea what I’m going to say to him when I see him.
That I know he’s been lying to me about everything?
Turns out I don’t have to figure it out just yet. There is no navy Acura in the driveway. Bobby pulls in behind my car and I hop off the back of his bike, glad to have two boots on the ground. Dakota waits in the doorway with a smile and a coffee for me.
I think it’s for me, only Bobby is trailing me in and she’s smiling at him, too.
He’s a sucker if he thinks that’s going anywhere. “You owe me a new phone, by the way.”
“Take it up with your guy,” he grumbles, already dismissing me, his attention glued to my friend in her loose, flowing dress.
I roll my eyes. “Has Sebastian been around?”
Dakota shakes her head. “No. Sorry.”
I grab a glass of water and Advil and duck into my room, glad for the privacy, something I haven’t had since yesterday morning. Locking the bathroom doors, I take an extra-long shower, until I’m sure that I’ve missed whatever live show might be going on next door.
And then I curl up in my bed and wait for Sebastian to come home to me.
FORTY-EIGHT
SEBASTIAN
She looks so small, so fragile, so beautiful, her black hair splayed across the white pillows like streaks of paint, the evening’s light soft across her sleeping body, wrapped in a blue towel.
I want to savor this peace—her peace—for a while longer, because I honestly don’t know how Ivy’s going to react to the truth. I’d like to think she’ll take it in stride, like she’s taken everything so far. But I have to prepare myself for the reality that she may be done with me after this.
And the idea of that scares the hell out of me.
So I simply stand there and watch her sleep, until she must sense me because her eyes flutter open and she sits up with a start.
My stomach twists into knots.
“Sebastian.” She reaches out with a hand, beckoning me. “You’re okay.”
“I am.” For now.
Her eyes rove over me and then freeze and jump to meet mine, as if silently reprimanding herself for her thoughts. I feel the sudden switch in temperature, as she goes from concern to anger and hurt. It’s damn near icy, and it makes me shiver. “You’re not a bodyguard, are you?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t just happen to hear about my work from your friend Mike, did you?”
I sigh. “No.”
She grits her teeth. “And you know who killed my uncle.”
She’s pretty much figured everything out on her own as it is. At least that will make this slightly easier. I won’t feel like I’m slapping her across the face as I deliver each truth to replace my lies.
“I told you not to make me ask.”
I reconciled myself to telling her everything on the long drive here. If this is ever going to work, she needs to know. And if she doesn’t want anything to do with me after she knows . . .
My stomach clenches at the thought.
I take a seat on the edge of the bed, but I don’t dare reach out to touch her. “That day I walked into your shop for the first time?”
“Yeah,” she says with wariness.
“I was there for a videotape.” I meet her gaze. “And maybe to kill you.”
FORTY-NINE
IVY
I’ve never felt so many different emotions for one person over the course of an evening.
It quickly began with the overwhelming urge to vomit, as Sebastian described, in great detail, how he followed me, studied me and, after searching Ned’s house top to bottom for this video, decided to befriend me.
I flew straight for my case, tearing out the foam inset to run my fingers over the interior. Feeling the sticky residue left by the duct tape that Sebastian says held that damned video in place.
I can’t believe Ned would put it there for me to find.
I can’t believe Ned tried to blackmail someone to get out of his financial hole.
He got himself killed because of it.
He almost got me killed because of it, although I still can’t believe he ever thought it would come to this point.
I don’t know what to do with this reality yet. I can’t ever tell Ian. He’ll go back to hating his father all over again, and I don’t want him to feel that way toward Ned.
And then Sebastian went on to explain how his assignment was done, but how he didn’t want to leave, both because he wasn’t sure that I would be safe and because he just didn’t want to leave me. Because he had grown attached to me. I fought against the swell in my chest. I’m still fighting against it, because it’s not right.
It can’t be right.
At least all his strange, guarded behavior now makes sense.
Turns out I did need a bodyguard.
Only Sebastian isn’t a bodyguard.
“So, what exactly do you call yourself?”
“I don’t call myself anything.” His deep, cool voice fills the darkness in the room. “I just do my job.”
I peer down at those hands. Hands that have been all over my body so many times. Hands that have made me so happy.
Hands that have ended lives, and not just as a soldier at war.
As a calculated hunter.
“And that job is to kill people?”
“
Sometimes. Yes.” I feel his eyes on my face. They’ve been there this entire conversation, weighing my every reaction, my every word. “Only when it’s necessary. And only when killing them saves lives.”
“Why kill Ned, then?”
He hesitates. “I didn’t kill your uncle, Ivy.”
“But you know who did. You knew all along and you lied to me.”
“It was safer for you not to know.”
Because the guy was following us. I shudder. At the club. At the store, the day Sebastian “walked into a wall” and cut his lip. In Ned’s house. No wonder Sebastian was sitting by the window with a gun. No wonder his gaze was always on everything around us. No wonder he wouldn’t let me out of his sight.
My throat grows thick with a sizable knot. “And now?”
“Now . . . they got what they deserved. Both for what they did to Royce and your uncle, and for the things they’ve done to others. They won’t be a problem for you.”
I turn to look at him. “Did you . . .” I let my voice drift. Do I even want to know? Is knowing this safe for me, given who he is, what he is? “Don’t answer that.” Maybe they did deserve it. I don’t even know how to begin wrapping my head around that.
The only thing I’m sure of right now is that when Sebastian strolled into Black Rabbit and settled that deep, dark gaze on me, he knew that there was a chance he’d have to kill me.
And he still charmed me with his smile and his looks. Made me care about him.
How can I possibly ever forgive that? How can I trust him again?
I can’t.
My eyes start burning. “I need you to leave.”
“Ivy, I—”
“Get out.” I pull my covers tight around me, hoping for comfort that I know I won’t get.
Easing off the bed, Sebastian moves for the door. “Everything I’ve told you tonight—”
“Don’t tell a soul or you’ll have to kill me, right? Something along those lines?” My voice is hollow.
Sadness fills his eyes as he stares long and hard at me. “That’ll never happen.” He slips out quietly.
I manage to hold the tears until the door clicks shut.
“Why don’t you just call him?” Dakota says through a sip of coffee.
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Liar.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
“Use mine.”
“I don’t have his number.”
His number is in the phone that’s smashed on a San Francisco street somewhere. That’s probably a good thing right now. It’s been five days since I sent him away, and I miss him. I shouldn’t miss him. I should hate him. I should be terrified of him. But I’m not, because I’ve only ever felt safer with him.
I sigh. “Everything’s fucked-up right now.”
“Really? That’s not how I see it. Your house is fixed and ready to be painted. You’re going to stay in San Francisco and run your own tattoo shop. You have an amazing roommate who adores you, and you have a gorgeous, nice guy who’s crazy about you.” She grins. “Sounds pretty perfect to me.”
“I think you’ve forgotten a few details . . .” I haven’t divulged anything about Sebastian to her. I’m no idiot. That kind of information goes to my grave. Hopefully it’s a long time before I find my way into it.
Either way, Dakota knows that something monumentally bad has happened over the last few days. She’s wiped away enough of my tears to figure that out.
“Not the important ones.”
I spear her with a glare while I munch on one of her baked squares, secretly hoping it’s loaded with hash so I can shed this melancholy for a few hours. I’ve become the girl I can’t stand, and I couldn’t be bothered to do anything to change that.
I’m brokenhearted over a guy and yet completely miserable without him.
“Hey, D! Where do you keep the sweetener?” Bobby hollers from the kitchen.
I groan, my head falling back. “Why him?”
She giggles. “Why not?” To him she says, “The cupboard next to the fridge.”
“You realize he’s a criminal, right?”
She winks. “I like to walk on the wild side sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Dakota is the wild side.
She reaches over and pats my knee. “Cheer up. I don’t like seeing you so despondent. It’s concerning.”
“I’m just very . . . confused and conflicted. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.”
She purses her lips. “Forget about how you’re supposed to feel and focus on how you do feel.”
I feel . . . like I want to see Sebastian again, so badly. “But what if how I do feel is wrong? What if it’s a bad idea?”
“Does it hurt anybody?”
I frown. “Well, no. I don’t think so.” Except maybe me, and my heart.
She shrugs. “Then I don’t see how it’s wrong, or a bad idea. Besides, you’re not usually the type of girl to worry about those kinds of things. Why start now?”
Bobby saunters into the greenhouse in nothing but jeans.
I avert my gaze with a sigh. “This house is getting way too small, too fast.”
“You sure didn’t seem to mind when you had your guy here.”
I climb out of my seat, both to free it up for him and to get dressed for a day of painting at the house, so we can get it on the market. And then I have to decide what I want to do about Black Rabbit.
And here I thought I had decided already . . .
“Yeah, well.” I slap his protruding belly. “The view was slightly different.”
“D likes this view.”
“That’s right, I do,” she says with a playful voice.
“As much as the view of Sebastian in the shower, D?” I throw over my shoulder.
“What the hell were you doin’ in the shower with him!” Bobby says, his voice suddenly full of irritation.
“It was nothing,” Dakota says in a placating voice. “Ivy’s just trying to get under your skin. She’s good at that.”
The doorbell rings, and I’m distracted from listening to Bobby’s irate answer.
Detective Fields and two officers are standing on the doorstep. He heaves a visible sigh of relief. To the cops, he nods, and one of them radios in to dispatch, something about the witness being located. “I’ve been trying to call you.”
“I lost my phone.”
He hesitates. “I have an update on your uncle’s case. Can I come in?”
“No!” Bobby yells, his footfalls hard and fast as he storms up behind me to barricade the door. “It’s a nice day out. You should talk right here.” He gives me a knowing look, and I immediately get his meaning.
Dakota’s little grow-op.
“It is a nice day.” I grab Dakota’s sweater off a hook and pull it on to ward off the cold, and step onto the curb, shutting the door behind me. “What’s up?”
Fields frowns at me—I think he assumes I’m the one sleeping with Bobby—but he doesn’t push it. “The two men who we suspect of involvement in your uncle’s murder were found yesterday in Nevada. Dead.”
I take a deep, shaky breath. No, I guess they won’t be a problem for me anymore. “How?” That sounds like the right next question to ask. Plus, I want to know how Sebastian did it. Was it quick and clean? Cruel and morbid? Will it make any difference to me?
“The investigators over there are suggesting that it’s murder-suicide, cut-and-dried. We’ll know more after the autopsy reports, though.”
I close my eyes. Quick and clean, at least. Like I’d expect from Sebastian. Do I care? Do I feel bad for them?
I think back to that night, to the fear they inflicted on me, to the pain they inflicted on my uncle. To the fact that they shot two people—would have shot me, too, had they known I was there—all to cover their asses for other horrible, unspeakable crimes they committed. Sebastian didn’t give me too many details, but he gave me enough.
I don’t feel bad that they’re dead.
Does that make me evil?
“So . . . what does that mean for my uncle’s case?” I ask, pushing that worry aside.
“Well, that’s the thing. There was some evidence found along with the bodies. A phone with a video of your uncle and the other victim, Dylan Royce. It’s”—he frowns—“of interest to a lot of important people. There are likely answers to motive in it, but it’s going to take some time to figure that out.”
I’m guessing that’s the very video that Sebastian was here to recover. He did say he was going to make sure the truth came out. That none of this should ever have happened. That he wanted to make things right.
Did he plant it?
“Okay. Well, thanks for letting me know.”
I watch Fields and the cops leave in two cars. Curtains rustle and doors close as curious neighbors go back to their daily grind, the excitement over for the meantime. With a sigh, I turn to go inside, when I spot the black Ford F-150 pickup parked just down the street. A single figure sits behind the wheel.
My heart skips a few beats.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I march toward it.
FIFTY
SEBASTIAN
I sit up straight as she approaches my truck, her arms hugging her body to ward off the chill. She comes around the passenger side and throws the door open.
Our eyes meet, and I have no idea what to expect.
Is she going to tell me to go to hell for good?
That I’m about to go to jail because she set that detective after me?
“Recent upgrade?” Her gaze skates over the interior of my new truck. She’s not wearing any makeup. She looks like she hasn’t slept. I know I haven’t. For days.
“Something like that.”
She climbs in, needing the step to make it. “Could you have found something bigger?”
I clench my fists to keep from reaching out and grabbing her, pulling her close to me. “I was actually looking at a Hummer. But decided against it.” I’m out of a job, so even though I have enough money to last me awhile, it won’t last forever. As it is, this is a rental. I’m not ready to commit just yet.