by Madison Faye
He goes silent, and I let him stew in that for a minute before I clear my throat.
"Governor."
"I'm here," he says quietly, his voice clenched.
"Do we have a deal?"
He goes silent again.
"Governor, I'm happy to bring the phone upstairs with me right now and let you listen to whatever my buddy is doing to—"
"Okay!" he barks.
I grin. Got him.
"I'm putting you on with my accountant. He'll handle the transfer. I hope you die, you piece of shit."
"The feeling is reciprocated, trust me," I spit back. I could say more — tell him where this is all coming from. But that can come later. First, this part has to happen. I have to put aside my own need for revenge to make sure we get this done.
The phone gets passed to a small-voiced little man. I give the account number to the nervous-sounding accountant and then bring up my banking app and watch the screen.
The minutes tick by, and I glance around the room, occasionally waving the gun and watching as they all cower from me. All these people see me as the monster, when they have no idea how much of a monster Governor Dupuis really is.
Suddenly, my phone blips, and I glance down.
Transfer complete.
I want to feel happy, but I can't. Not yet at least. The plan isn't over, and we're not through yet. Hell, we're not through with her, actually. But here I am, one hundred million dollars richer.
That's pretty fucking surreal.
I drop the phone onto the table and grab a bottle of water from the ice bucket on the buffet table, trying to steady my nerves. I glance around the room, smiling thinly at the frightened guests.
"We’ll be out of your hair soon, ladies and gents," I grunt before I turn and head for the stairs. My cock throbs in anticipation of getting back to her, and I wonder if I've got time to take her again before the next phase of our plan.
Either way, there's no going back now. It's time to finish this.
10
Bishop
She's nestled against me, breathing heavily like she's half-asleep. I look down at her, her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted, and my heart swells.
She's everything. And I know one thing: whatever happens next, I'm never giving her up. Fuck the plans, or whatever hell might come chasing us after this night. She's ours now, and no power on Earth, Heaven, or Hell is going to tear this angel away from us.
I brush her hair away from her face and she glances up at me. There's no more fear in her eyes. Just something…shit, I don't even know. Something magnetic.
I want to say something to her, but the door slams open. We both glance up to see Remy standing there, nodding slowly.
"He did it?" I say it half not-believing it'll be true. This was always the one unknown in the plan — whether or not Harold Dupuis would actually pay.
Remy grins. "Transfer just went through to the offshore account."
In another scenario, I'd be jumping around and freaking the fuck out. After all, we just went from scraping by to being worth a collective one-hundred million fucking dollars. But I can't. Not yet, not until we're gone.
…And not until we bring her with us.
"Let's go, baby girl," I murmur, pulling Annabella from the bed.
Remy suddenly yanks her towards him. He kisses her heatedly, drawing everything he can from that kiss, before he pulls away. I turn her back to me and pull her into my chest, doing the same and letting my lips sear against hers.
Now for the fun part.
"Put this on," I growl, pushing the red cloak from her costume into her hands. She blushes, looking down at the flimsy garment.
"But, I'm not wearing anything under—"
"Just put it on, angel," I say quietly, pulling it around her shoulders and tying it as best I can around her. I use my belt to circle it around her waist, and even though it doesn't cover much, I know it'll have to suffice. I hate the idea of parading her past everyone downstairs like this, but again, it's all part of the plan.
Remy and I grab the rest of our gear and yank pants and shirts back on. He looks at me — this brother of mine in everything but blood — and nods.
"It's time."
Annabella's hand is clutched tightly in mine as we storm from the room and jog down the stairs. I'm almost amazed no one's made a break for it yet, even with the threat of there being "more guys outside."
I chuckle to myself. I mean, shit, did any of them seriously believe we had a magical army waiting outside for them? We've set up a few laser-pointers on timers to swing back and forth across the windows, but come the fuck on.
Sheep, the lot of them.
They all gasp and shriek as we come storming back into the midst of them waving guns, especially when they see Annabella — all messy-haired, red-faced, and basically naked as we drag her after us.
"Oh, honey!" An older woman gasps and makes a move towards her, but I turn and brandish my gun and shake my head.
"Son of a bitch."
I turn at Remy's words, and then see what he's staring at. It's Brett — that little shitbag that Annabella arrived with. And there in his hands is Remy's cell phone.
"You left it down here," I hiss, slowly turning to my friend. His eyes blaze fiercely, and he slowly nods.
"Fuck. Must have."
I swear under my breath before I turn and march right up to Brett, my gun raised. He whimpers, cowering to the floor and holding his hands up, like that's going to stop a bullet.
"Please don't!" he shrieks.
"Did you make a call?!" I roar.
He just whimpers, huddling on the floor, and from the smell of it, pissing himself.
"Answer me, motherfucker!"
"Yes!" he screeches. "I used it!"
"Who?"
His eyes dart from me to Remy as he trembles.
"The police," he finally whispers.
Fuck.
I roar as I draw the hammer back on my nine millimeter, but suddenly, there's a soft hand on mine.
"No."
Annabella's soft, gentle voice cuts through the storm inside my head like a lighthouse beacon. It calms me, and slowly clears the red mist from my eyes.
"No killing, please," she says quietly, her eyes big and round as they look up into mine.
I can feel my heart swell up as I lock eyes with her — this gorgeous, incredible girl who's got me tumbling after her.
Slowly, I find myself nodding, the gun lowering in my hands.
"How long?" Remy hisses, marching up to Brett, who whimpers.
"What?"
"How long ago did you call?"
"Five minutes ago."
Remy swears, his eyes darting to mine.
"Basement, now."
We each grab one of Annabella's hands and march for the basement door across the room.
"Wait!" She screams. "Wait, where are you taking me?"
"You're coming with us," I snarl loudly, my hand tightening on hers as I feel her start to pull away.
"What?! No! My father paid you! Let me go! You're through with needing me!"
Remy chuckles as the basement door swings open. "If you think we're done with you, you've got another thing coming, princess."
The whole party cries in terror as we yank her down the steps with us and slam the door shut behind us.
Down here, we go silent, and move faster. We run the rest of the way down the stairs, and bolt for the old coat closet across the basement. It's a furnished space too — gorgeous and rich and elegant, but we pay it no mind as we dart across the Persian rugs and around antique bookshelves and upholstery.
The door to the closet is locked, but the butt of Remy's gun smashes it open. We tear away the coats from the hangers, tossing them aside before we grab Annabella — our prize — and yank her after us.
The wall at the back of the closet is gone, of course. It's been like that for the better part of two weeks, after Remy and I spent almost a full month straight tunneling in
to it from a secret passage under the mansion's old carriage house. It wasn't fucking easy — not in the slop-mud and clay that makes up Louisiana soil. But we did it.
And it's about to pay off, big time,
We each grab one of the battery-powered camping lanterns from the wall and take off down the plywood reinforced tunnel, pulling her after us.
"You— you dug all of this?"
"Every foot of it," I mutter, remembering the backbreaking work and the near cave-ins. But like I said, all worth it.
We get to a bend, and Annabella suddenly shrieks at the three bodies lying across the ground, half-covered by a tarp. There's no time to explain to her the details of our contact in the city morgue. Instead, I shove a pair of jeans and a t-shirt into her hands.
"Put these on. Now."
She does it quickly, yanking her clothes on. I grab her red cape, and as much as I want to save it as a trophy from this night, it's got to stay.
Hell, I'll be able to afford a lot of capes if we pull this off.
Remy and I are yanking on new clothes too when we hear the commotion from back down the tunnel. That would be the cops — right on time.
The two of us kneel over the three corpses — two John Does and one Jane Doe. I silently thank them for their contributions to this plan as we wrap the Jane Doe in Annabella's cape and toss our own clothes around the other two.
It's time.
The commotion in the basement back down the tunnel is getting louder, and we can see flashlights now. Remy and I glance at each other and nod, before we pull Annabella with us and start running down the tunnel away from the bend. We get about forty feet before we stop, and I grab the switch we've planted in the side of the tunnel.
"Cover your ears, sweetheart," I murmur, kissing her head. "And turn away."
I push the switch, and the sound is deafening. Heat and dust and rocks bits come slamming down the tunnel towards us from the cave-in we've orchestrated back where we left the bodies. I know we reinforced the shit out of this tunnel, but I silently pray that this thing holds as the explosion rattles around us.
Slowly, the dust settles, and when it does, we blink and look back towards where we came from.
I grin.
Perfect.
The pile of rubble covering the bend and the bodies blocks the whole tunnel, and I know it'll be hours before they can dig through. But even better? They won't be digging all the way through. They'll find the three of "us" first, buried under the rock, and that'll be it. Sure, the DNA testing later will show they've been had, but by that point?
Well, by then, we'll be on a non-extradition beach starting the rest of our lives.
"Do I even want to know where you found those bodies?" Annabella turns and gives both of us a wrinkled-nose look.
"Probably not," Remy grins with a shrug.
Annabella grins back at us. "You know, I wasn't sure you'd be able to pull this off."
I chuckle, clutching my chest dramatically. "Ouch, baby!"
Annabella giggles as we move towards her. "Oh your poor ego. Want me to kiss it all better?"
"That and so many other things," I growl as I scoop her into my arms. This time, she doesn't scream. And she doesn't try and fight me.
This time, she kisses me hard, like she hasn't been able to in months.
"Damn did I miss you," she breathes into my lips, her arms tight around me as she melts into me. She turns and throws one arm around Remy, bringing him in and kissing him fiercely. "I missed you two so fucking much."
"We're here now," Remy purrs, pulling her tight to him and kissing her slowly. "We're here, and we're never letting you get pulled away from us again."
She bites her lip, her whole face glowing as she burrows into us. She pulls back though and gives me a look as she punches my arm playfully. "You two really laid it on thick back there, you know."
I chuckle. "Too rough for ya?"
"Not for me," she says with a sly grin. "But you knew that."
We do know that. Hell, this little spitfire is the one that taught us to play rough.
"You laid it on pretty thick yourself, sweetheart," Remy says with a laugh. "Shit, girl, you almost had me worried about what Bishop and I were going to do to you when we dragged you away."
"Yeah, looks like those acting classes are paying off," I laugh, teasing her. "You sure you want to give up your theater major?"
"To spend the rest of my life with you two on a beach somewhere away from my horrible family?" She grins, biting her lip before she throws her arms around us and hugs us tight.
"Absolutely."
Like I’ve been saying - everything goes according to plan. We picked the night, the place, and the time. We knew who the people at the party were going to be long before we crashed through the front door. We had the tunnel ready, the decoy bodies set, and the charges primed. Hell, we even knew how long it would take the cops to show up and “corner us in the basement” after Remy very purposefully left his phone downstairs for someone to call them with.
It all went according to plan.
We linger another minute or two, just holding her, and kissing her, and feeling the three of us together again, before we decide it's time to go.
It's time for our new lives.
The rest of the tunnel leads to a forgotten root-cellar under the estate's old carriage house. Once we're out, I toss in the two fragment grenades I've hidden there, collapsing this end of the tunnel too, so no one finds it. From there, it's the low-profile, plain white minivan with the "honor roll student" bumper stickers on it that we use to drive back through town, past the numerous local and state cops driving around like lunatics with their lights going.
We head out of town and take Route 5 to the old private airfield out by the Larch farm. Mike is an old friend from way back who owes us one, and the one-hundred thousand we're going to drop him when we land doesn't exactly hurt things.
The plane is small, but it'll do. After all, it only needs to get us across the Gulf to Cozumel. From there, we'll take the boat we've chartered to a spot where the second chartered boat will pick us up off-shore. From there, it's over to El Salvador, where bribery and forged passports go a lot further. And from there, it's just a short little twenty-three hour flight — with a changeover in Brazil — to Hanoi, Vietnam.
And then the rest of our lives begin. With her, like we'd always intended, before those plans were stolen from us.
But now, we've got what's ours.
The money. Our revenge. And most importantly, the girl.
We've got the love of our lives back, and no one is ever going to take her away again.
11
Annabella
I'll start from the beginning.
Growing up, I always knew I was different. I wanted dirt, not dolls, and skinned knees instead of tea parties. I'd make believe pirates and adventure instead of playing at being a princess.
…That's where their little nickname for me came from, by the way.
I met the two of them down by the creek one day. I was eight, they were eleven, and the three of us got along instantly. They weren't the kind of kids my father had me play with usually. Their parents weren't senators, or industrial tycoons, or rich hedge fund investors. In fact, both of their parents had died when they were young. They lived across the tracks, on the "other" side of town, with one of their grandmothers who was raising them both as her own.
The two of them were fierce, and adventurous, and fun. They were free from the kind of crap I was chained down with, being from the family I was. Yeah, they were older, but they took to me instantly, and were instantly so protective and sweet to me. We played together every chance we got after that — capture the flag, pirates, cowboys and indians, you name it. And our favorite?
Cops and robbers.
They treated me like a princess, even when I stomped my feet and swore I'd never be one. To them, I was their moon and stars, and to me, they were everything I'd always looked for and never found.
We got older, and playing by the creek turned into driving around town, or sneaking into the old amusement park at night, or tossing a football around on the school field when I should have been home being the good little puppet daughter my father wanted me to be as he campaigned for governor.
The two lanky boys from the creek grew up, and boy did they grow. They filled out, and grew muscles, and facial hair, and in ways that started to make me feel tingly more often than not. And slowly, I grew out of my tomboy phase. My hair grew longer. I got curves.
I got new feelings, especially for the two gorgeous, rough boys I hung out with who I wasn't supposed to.
…It wasn't long before it all came crashing together. My first kiss was with the both of them. Well, technically one and then the other right after, but it didn't matter. There was the confusion of falling for both of them, and then both of them falling for me. There was the fear of what it would do to our friendship, or theirs. But it didn't take long before we realized that it was all three of us that worked as one. There was no picking between them, and the two of them were so close that both being with me never turned to jealousy or anger. We lost our virginities together one night, and after that, I knew it was sealed. I was theirs, they were mine, and no one would ever take that away from us.
We were secret at first. But we grew bolder, or maybe more reckless, until the night my father found out.
That was the night there was hell to pay.
He'd almost disowned me, and I think he would have if it not for his re-election campaign. As it was, I had to sign documents — contracts and non-disclosures, and gag orders. I was under contract to be the good girl — the dutiful daughter and the politician's prop on a stage for the cameras. And that was all terrible enough, but my father was a special kind of cruel, and he didn't stop at just forbidding me to see the two boys I'd given my heart to.