by McLean, Jay
After going through the usual routine, I push open the door and lock it behind me, then climb up the stairs toward the hallway that separates all four apartments. Another key, another lock, another door. The lush carpet feels too soft beneath my sneakers, and so I kick them off by the door, my hand against the wall.
I hear her footsteps before I hear her voice. “Hey, Nate,” she says, her tone delicate against my hardened shell. I keep my head down when I turn to her, taking in her bare feet first, then the long tanned legs beneath a pair of short black shorts, tight black top. Her blond hair is down, the ends brushing against her breasts. Blue eyes lock on mine, and she smiles a smile that should warm my insides. “How was work?”
There are no secrets between Ashton and me. At least when it comes to the company. It’s why we work so well. “Same old.”
Chewing on her bottom lip, she nods slowly, her eyes drinking me in. It’s been a while since she’s looked at me this way, and I can’t help the guilt that invades every cell of my body. “Whiskey?” she calls out over her shoulder as she makes her way to the kitchen.
I nod, even though she can’t see me, but I guess she senses my answer because, by the time I’ve caught up with her, she’s got the bottle in one hand, a glass in the other. She pours me the drink while I stand on the other side of the counter, my hip digging into the marble. The chilled glass slides along the counter, swirls of amber jerking up when I catch it in my palm. I down the burning liquid in one swallow, then slide the glass back to her. I watch as her chest rises and falls with every breath, and she pours another glass. This time, she walks around the counter, stopping in front of me to hand me the drink. Once it’s in my grasp, she reaches up, her fingers soft as they swipe across my temple, lacing through my hair. She doesn’t grasp the strands, doesn’t stroke. “You need a haircut, Nate,” she all but whispers.
With the lip of the glass to my mouth, I murmur, my eyes on her, “I’ll get right on that.”
Her lips curve, her teeth showing behind her smile. “We could go downstairs right now…”—to the salon I own, and she runs—”I could take care of it real quick.”
She could take care of me.
I swallow the anxious energy pulsing through my veins and down every drop of liquid lies. Then I take her hand, lead us to the bay window where the world outside can see us clearly. My hands land on her narrow waist, squeezing once, while I lower my head, my mouth to her ear. “Another time, Principessa.” Princess.
Fraud.
I add, “I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.” Then I release her quickly, not bothering to look back when I head for the bedroom.
* * *
Sleep evades me. Thoughts consume me. Too many different scenarios play through my mind, wreaking havoc on my already damaged heart until I’m sitting up in my bed, my eyes wide, a bottle of pills gripped tightly in my grasp. There’s an ache in my chest, an imbalance.
I pick up my phone, hesitate for just a moment before opening the untraceable messaging app. I’ve never done this before… asked him to break our promises. I’ve never had the need, the worry. But it’s there now, eating away at my thoughts one by one until only one word comes to mind: Destruction.
The image of her standing outside that door—it’s too real, too raw, and too fucking convenient.
Bailey was with Parker’s brother that night.
Parker and the Philly PD are after me.
And now Bailey and Parker are two steps away from each other.
I try to push aside the thought, because no. There’s no fucking way she’d do that to me. Unless… I shouldn’t have done it the way I did. I should’ve said goodbye, told her the plan, but I knew...
I knew I wouldn’t be able to go through with it.
I send Tiny a text.
7272: Is she safe?
6590: …
7272: Just tell me.
6590: She told me she didn’t want to see me anymore.
My chest fills with dread.
7272: How long has it been?
I wait for his response, while my shaky hands make quick work of uncapping the bottle of pills and pouring two onto my trembling palm.
6590: Three years.
The pills are hard to swallow… just like all my fears.
8
NATE
I pace the small space of the kitchen while Tiny leans against the counter, his arms crossed, his gaze locked on his feet. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper, not wanting to wake Ashton.
The sun’s just coming up. Tiny’s been here for two hours. These are the first words we’ve spoken. I pour another glass of whiskey, ignoring Tiny’s sigh. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
“Quit evading, Tiny. Why didn’t you say something?” I grind out.
He runs a hand down his face. “Why do you care all of a sudden?”
“What’s going on?” Ashton’s voice is sleepy soft.
Without turning, I tell her, “Go back to bed.”
A moment passes, silence filling the room. “Since when do we keep secrets from each other?” she asks, and I can hear the hurt in her voice.
I keep my gaze locked on Tiny. “Three years, apparently.”
Shaking his head, he grabs the car keys off the counter. “Let’s go for a drive.”
* * *
“We made a deal, Nate,” is the first thing Tiny says once we’re in the car, away from Ashton’s prying ears. “We have to stick to the plan.”
The plan was this: he’d take Bailey to Delaware, to a house I’d bought just for her—far enough from the destruction our actions had caused, but close enough that if anything happened, he’d be able to get to her. From there, he promised to handle everything from her food to her meds to her security.
And the deal he speaks of? After that night, her name would never leave our lips.
It was for the best, he’d pushed, and I’d believed him. He pleaded with me to trust him, and I did. I trusted him with the only thing I let myself love, because the alternative meant losing her—not just from my arms, but from this world. And I love her more than that. More than any of my selfish heart’s desires.
Tiny would go to see her once a week and bring her food and whatever medications she needed to control her diabetes. This went on for a year until, apparently, one day she told him that she didn’t want to see him anymore, that it was too hard for her emotionally. She’d asked about me every time, and every time he’d shut her down. Another part of the deal. During that year, she never left the house. Tiny knows because he had cameras set up throughout the perimeter of the building to make sure she was never in danger. If a car parked too long without anyone going in or out of it, he’d know. If anyone knocked on the door, he’d know. If she left, he would know. But none of those things ever happened. And when he brought it up, she admitted that Pauly’s death still hung over her, clouded her mind, and she was too afraid to leave in case someone recognized her. But more than that, she was worried about what would happen to me if anyone found out I hadn’t offed her like I’d convinced everyone I had.
Knowing she felt that way shatters me.
Breaks me beyond words.
He had no choice, so he agreed to her demands. He’d been paying—out of his own pocket—for someone he trusted to deliver her supplies directly to her house. The guy would leave them on her doorstep at the same time, same day, every week. Eleven a.m., the goods would be there, and at 2:00 p.m., she’d open the door, just slightly, just enough to bring in the items. The next day, 11:00 a.m., she’d leave out any trash from her house, and the same guy would come, collect it, then shoot Tiny a text to let him know everything was copacetic. And that was all Tiny would see of her until the following week when it would happen all over again.
For the first few months after he’d made the promise to her, he’d wanted to go to her more than once, but he knew she wouldn’t answer the door. She’d already stopped answering his calls.
That was almost three
years ago.
Tiny tells me all this while we sit stationary in the car.
I’ve been silent the entire time he’s spoken.
Four years’ worth of explaining.
Four years’ worth of me pretending as if she wasn’t infiltrating my mind.
“Say something, Nate,” he pleads.
I shake my head, my lips pressed tight.
“What the hell happened to make you question it now?”
“I saw her,” I admit.
Tiny’s sigh reverberates through the tight space of the car. “Nate, I feel for you guys; really I do. I know how much she meant to you, but this—you seeing her—it’s in your head. Maybe Benny bringing her up after all these years triggered—”
“Show me,” I cut in, throwing my hand out.
His head drops, his thumb and forefinger going to the bridge of his nose, pinching there. We haven’t slept, and now he’s frustrated. He thinks I’m acting like a lovesick fucking teenager, and I maybe I am, but I can’t shake this feeling. This unease. It’s as if I’m sitting on a ticking bomb, and I’m just waiting for it to explode.
“Show me,” I repeat, my voice hardening.
Tiny shifts to the side and pulls out his phone to open the app that shows the cameras around her place. “I’ve marked every instance when my guy shows up and every time the doors open. Have at it.”
Silently, I go through the recordings one after the other. I check the last time there was activity; nothing seems off. I check a week ago, same thing. A month. Same. A year, same fucking thing. Nothing changes. Then I go back almost three years. It’s all the same. I never see her face, just a curtain of hair as she crouches down and reaches out to pick up her packages. “You haven’t been there since she asked you to stop?”
“Not once,” he says, his head moving from side to side. “I did what she wanted, Boss.”
Nodding slowly, I wet my lips and watch the videos again. A week ago, the sky was gray, dull. Her arms are covered by black sleeves. Two weeks ago, the exact same thing, the only difference is the curtains by the front window are parted slightly. Three weeks, and it’s white sleeves this time, curtains are drawn. Four weeks, the sun’s out, shining right on her doorstep. She squats down, reaches out—her arm…
My breath catches, my eyes zoning in on her arm, her hands, her blank wrist.
I go back to the video from almost three years ago when Tiny started having her packages delivered. Sleeveless, she lowers to pick up the items, her hand reaching out. The sun reflects off the gold bracelet on her wrist. “Fuck,” I whisper.
“What is it? You see something?”
I ignore him and make quick work of skimming through the short clips from the last month, my heart racing, breaths shallow. “Boss?” Tiny leans into me, trying to see what I’m seeing. “What is it?”
I drop the phone on my lap, my vision blurry as I stare out the windshield. “It’s not her.”
“What?”
I face Tiny. “She’s not wearing a bracelet.”
“Maybe she took it off,” he offers.
I shake my head. “It’s not fucking her!” I pick up the phone, show him the video. “Her arm is tanned. How the fuck is she getting a tan when she doesn’t leave the house?”
Tiny’s exhale comes out as a shudder.
“It’s looped, Tiny. These clips are fuckin’ looped. There are seven different ones, and they just keep fuckin’ looping.”
His eyes widen, the tips of his ears going red while rage fills my heart with dread. “I would’ve seen it,” he whispers, his broad chest rising and falling with his staggered breaths. “I would’ve noticed…”
“Well, you didn’t,” I murmur, the knot in my throat making it impossible to breathe. “Take me to her.”
* * *
The ride seems to last forever, and by the time we pull up in the street opposite a house I’d only seen once before, my pulse is racing, hammering against my ribcage… and my regret… my regret is closing my airways. I shut my eyes, my sweaty palms clinging to the leather of the seats, and the only thing I can see—feel—is Bailey… and hickory: the color of my mother’s eyes as she lay dead in my arms.
9
NATE
The last time I held a gun to a girl’s head, it was Bailey’s. It didn’t feel anything like it does now. With her, there was a hesitation. A moment of weakness that would later create a lifetime of it. This girl, though, the one currently on her knees in front of me, her palms pressed together at her chest begging for her life? This girl, I want to ruin.
“Who the fuck are you?” Tiny growls, his eyes moving from the girl to the full length of my pistol. I’d attached the silencer before we got out of the car. I was ready. Determined.
The girl doesn’t answer; she just continues with her high-pitched whine.
I unlock the safety.
“You better start talkin’,” Tiny states. “Clearly, my friend here is in no mood for this shit.”
Bailey didn’t cry. She held her head high, waiting for the moment. Until she sang that song. That’s when I broke.
This girl won’t break me.
She didn’t even hesitate to open the door when we casually knocked. The second we forced our way in and revealed our weapons, she got on her knees, her hands up in surrender.
“Who the fuck are you?!” Tiny shouts now, his patience waning.
I lost mine the moment I realized Tiny had fucked up.
Maybe I should kill him, too.
“I don’t know anything,” the girl finally says, her words a shudder with her cries. “Please, just put the gun away, and I’ll explain everything!”
My jaw works; so does my mind. I finally find my voice. “Where is she?” Deep down, I already know the answer. She’s in an apartment opposite Parker’s living with some guy who wears a suit. She’s safe. For now.
“I don’t know where your girl is.” She wipes at her tear-soaked cheeks, her breaths evening. “I was brought here a couple of years ago and told to collect those packages on the doorstep. That’s it. That’s all I know.”
“Who brought you here?”
“The people I worked for.”
I’m reaching my goddamn limit. “Who the fuck do you work for?”
“I don’t know their names,” she whimpers, her gaze lowering. “Please just put the gun away.”
I tap the pistol against her temple. Not hard, just enough to bring her eyes back to mine. “What did you do for them?”
Her lips press tight, her nostrils flaring with her sharp exhale.
She kind of looks like Bailey.
Like a messed-up version of her if she’d let her shitty fucking life consume her.
There’s a tugging in my chest, but I push it away.
Too weak.
Too soft.
Too fucking vulnerable.
I stretch the tightened muscles in my neck. “I need names.”
“I don’t know,” she grinds out. “They never told me, never let it slip.”
“So what?” Tiny cuts in. “They just asked you to uproot your life and move in here, and you said yes?”
The girl’s throat moves with her swallow. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I snap.
Her eyes lock on mine.
“I was taken.”
My phone rings, and I curse under my breath. Without lowering the pistol, I answer the call, bring the phone to my ear. “What’s up?”
“Nate?” Ashton’s voice is quiet. Too quiet. “There’s a man at the salon looking for you.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“Jesus Christ, Ashton, I don’t have time for this shit.”
She’s silent a beat, and that silence tells me everything. I’ve hurt her. The way I was with her this morning, and now…
She’s the weak one. The most vulnerable person I know. But her life, her past, made her that way. I look back at the girl in front
of me, and that tugging in my chest triples in pain. I lower the gun.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Ashton, but the girl hears it too. Feels it as well. “I’m just in the middle of something important.”
“I understand,” Ashton replies. She doesn’t. She has no idea what’s happening right now. Or how my world has tilted off its axis since I sat in Benny’s office with the crooked cop.
“Nate?”
“Yeah?” I breathe out.
“He says he won’t leave until he speaks to you.”
I grasp at my hair and squeeze my eyes shut. “Tell him I’ll be there tomorrow.”
Tiny’s eyes narrow on mine. He jerks his head in a “what’s up” motion.
It takes a moment for Ashton to answer. “I can’t… I don’t want to tell him that.”
I try to curb my frustration. “Why not?”
“Because I’m scared,” she all but whispers, and I can hear the fear in her voice.
“Ashton, you don’t need—”
“He’s from the FBI.”
10
NATE
I told Tiny to stay with the girl and not let her out of his sight—again—and, with the promise of keeping him in the loop, I took the car. The drive home seemed to go by fast, almost too fast, especially in comparison to the drive there.
Through the salon windows, I search for Ashton and spot her almost immediately. She’s sitting in a small chair beside the counter, a spot usually reserved for one of her apprentices. Ashton works hard, is never not on her feet. She likes to keep busy, so her mind does the same. But right now—going by the way she’s staring off in the distance, a tissue in one hand, her phone in the other, her mind is lost. And then I notice him. The Suit. The same guy who’d been with Bailey outside her apartment.
An unfamiliar emotion hits me in the chest, like a kick in the gut. Envy.