Cary

by Jessica Gadziala

  “You’ll help us?” I asked, my voice tight as I absentmindedly became aware of Dezi offering the dog some cheese from his tamale. Like we weren’t in the middle of the most important meeting of my life.

  “Yeah, guess I will. But if the word gets out, I did it for selfish reasons, yeah? Can’t let it get around that I’m some sort of good guy,” he said, shooting me a smirk.

  “Heaven forbid anyone knows you aren’t a monster,” Andi said, shaking her head at him.

  “If you think I’m not, mama, that’s you looking through rose-colored glasses,” A said, moving toward his kitchen table and sitting down, waving a hand out. “So, what do you want to know?”

  “Everything that would help me take the fucker out,” Cary said, moving over toward the table, pulling me with him.

  “You know the insides of the place, yeah?” A asked, looking at me. “Figure that’s how you managed to get away.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I studied everything for a long time.”

  “So you got that covered. What I can offer is the structure of his organization, the major players, how you can get in and out of the country without someone sniffing you out. Can maybe even hook you up with someone down there so you have someplace safe to stay.”

  It almost seemed too good to be true.

  But the next thing I knew, A had papers spread over the top of the table with really intricate drawings he’d come up with on the spot. There were notes in the margins—names of people, addresses, passwords to use so those people would know A sent Cary.

  By the time everyone stood up again, it all seemed so, well, foolproof. So… possible.

  And I finally, truly started to believe that there was a future for me without fear, without having to look over my shoulder, without worries that someone might drag me back to my own personal hell again.

  “Thank you,” I said to A after Cary said his own thanks. “Really. Thank you.”

  “Just sorry I couldn’t help sooner, mama. Men who do shit like that…”

  “Deserve to get their throats ripped out,” I finished for him.

  “Exactly,” he said, eyes twinkling at the idea, giving me a hint of the monster Andi said he wasn’t but he clearly could be. “That one,” he said, voice low, jerking his chin toward Cary who was talking to Niro in low voices. “He treat you right?”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding.

  “He don’t, you know where to find me,” A said before turning around and disappearing out the back door, whistling for his dogs.

  “Jesus Christ, Dezi, you can’t steal his fucking dog,” Niro snapped as we started down the front path and we all became aware of the dog still happily draped over Dezi’s arm.

  “I want him,” Dezi said, shrugging.

  “Her,” Andi piped in.

  “For fuck’s sake. I want his car over there but you don’t see me stealing the goddamn thing.”

  “She likes me,” Dezi insisted. And, to be fair, that dog looked up at him with her heart in her eyes.

  “What do you want? You gave her table scraps within moments of meeting her.”

  “Handle this,” Niro said, sighing, as he looked at his woman.

  “Hey, Andres!” Andi called, walking toward the side of the house to meet the man when he appeared, and having a short conversation with him before he disappeared again, and she made her way back toward us.

  “He said he stole it out of someone’s backyard because it was left out in the yard when the family left town for vacation,” Andi said, angry for the little thing, as, I think, we all were. “And she doesn’t get along with most of his dogs. He said you can keep her if you treat her right. And, Dezi,” Andi said, eyes serious, “he will be checking. As will I.”

  “Listen to these fools,” Dezi said, hiking the dog up on his chest, and the dog immediately started licking at his beard. “Thinking I’d treat my girl as anything other than a princess. She’s not a baby cow,” he said, glancing over at me, “but I think the chicks will dig her too.”

  “Especially if you get her a cute puppy cut,” Andi agreed. “You need to bring her in to see me this week, okay?”

  “She’s gonna stab things in your butt,” Dezi told the dog. “Won’t even buy you dinner first or nothing.”

  “And you need to get her supplies at the pet store. Savea has little pamphlets when you walk in the door. Grab the So, you just got a puppy… one. It lists literally everything you need for a dog. Then get all of it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Dezi agreed. “You hear that? We’ll get you all the treats.”

  “Dezi,” Andi snapped, using a teacher voice at him. “She can not eat like you eat. She’s little. Treats are an occasional thing, not an all the time thing.”

  “Don’t listen to her and her mean words,” Dezi cooed at the dog as he climbed into the back of the SUV. “I know what you need,” he said as he closed the door.

  “You need to keep an eye on that dog,” Andi demanded, looking at Niro. “She won’t be able to walk, she’ll get so tubby.”

  I could hear Niro promising to do just that as he led her over toward his bike.

  “Ready?” Cary asked, opening the door behind me.

  “I feel a little off-kilter,” I admitted. “That just all went so seamlessly.”

  “Guess Andi, Niro, Fallon, and Danny were right about A,” Cary said, slamming my door, then getting in his side. “But don’t get it confused, he is absolutely a terrifying guy. And no one fully knows where his loyalties lie in this town. It’s not like with the Mallick or the Grassi Family.”

  “Don’t get too friendly with the nice, cartel leader. Got it,” I said, letting out a laugh when Cary playfully tugged a bit of my hair.

  It was a couple hours later, after we both supervised Dezi in the pet store because Andi sent Cary a frantic text to make sure he got the right things, not just food, Cary and I both dropped down onto the bed fully clothed, exhausted more mentally and emotionally than physically.

  “What do you think about a gray for the living room?” I asked. “Not all the way up. I was thinking maybe like board and batten? The whole wall would make it too dark, I think.”

  “Whatever you want, love,” Cary said, slipping an arm under my head.

  “But I want… I want you to feel comfortable here too,” I said. Because it was as close to the whole truth as I was willing to get.

  That I wanted him around.

  That I could see a future with him.

  That I wanted him to see himself in the apartment too.

  Under me, Cary’s arm curled, pulling me up and onto his chest so he could lean down to press a kiss to the top of my head.

  “I like gray,” he said as his arm gave me a tight squeeze.

  Unfortunately, the gray would only be up for a few days before it needed to be changed.

  On the account of all the blood.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Abigail

  The apartment was really coming together.

  It had been three days since the meeting with A. Too soon for Cary or his friends to work out a concrete plan, but long enough that things were starting to get in motion.

  That was a fact that had this permanent knot in my stomach. Which I tried to ignore by throwing myself into sprucing up our new home.

  See, the problem was, spackling and sanding and washing and painting, it was all long, tedious work. Work that didn’t really require a whole lot of brainpower. So my mind wandered as I worked, imagining Cary and Dezi and whoever else they might bring along, going down to Raúl’s neck of the woods, of them possibly trusting the wrong people, or making the wrong move.

  What then?

  They all died?

  Because of me?

  And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, then Raúl would know that Henchmen had been a part of the assassination attempt. They would come up to Navesink Bank, then wipe out the whole club.

  All those lives lost.

  For little old me.

  All th
e wives and children left to mourn.

  Because I hadn’t just kept running, because I’d gotten them and their families involved in my mess.

  “I’m no expert,” a voice said from my side. “But I don’t think you’re supposed to water down the paint,” he added, making me aware that a couple helpless tears had fallen down my cheeks.

  It wasn’t Cary or even Dezi.

  This was a new guard for me.

  Seth, he’d been introduced as.

  If I flipped through my little mental Rolodex, he was one of the Legacy members. The one who could shoot really well. Like his father.

  “Sorry,” I said, shaking my head.

  “I’m supposed to get an apology when a girl cries in front of me? I gotta tell all my cousins they owe me then.”

  “Yeah,” another voice said. “Do that. But give me a heads up first, so I can film them whopping your ass.”

  That was Finn, another Legacy. If I had the family tree straight, he was the brother of Fallon, the current president, and son of the former president, Reign.

  They’d shown up as a pair since it was the one day that both Cary and Dezi were needed at the club.

  “Ha-ha,” Seth said, shaking his head. “You’re just pissy because you’re thinking about all those women you’ve left tearfully unsatisfied after taking them home.”

  “As much as I would love to see you two go a couple rounds,” Louana, the new prospect, someone who’d been dragged along for manual labor because—apparently—that was part of the prospecting process, said as she stood up from lining the window in painters’ tape, “the walls are wet, and I don’t think Abigail wants your ugly mugs pressed into the final product.”

  Seth’s hand flew to his chest, mock hurt, as Finn let out a laugh.

  “You talk a lot of shit for someone who is beneath us in rank,” Finn said.

  “Oh, what are you going to do? Tell Brooks on me?” she asked, smirking at them.

  “Maybe we could tell Valen that we caught you peeking in on him when he was in the shower,” Seth said, clearly trying to be teasing, but overstepping a line.

  Because Louana went from laid-back and playful to dark and scary in a single blink.

  “Listen here, you fuck,” she said, charging at Seth, and grabbing the front of his shirt. “My dad might be retired from the family business, but make no mistake. He taught me the skills. I know where the tools are. And nobody would find a single strand of your fucking DNA. Remember that when you think about telling lies about me.”

  Seth’s hands raised. “Was just fucking with you, Louie,” he said, shrugging. “That’s what we do around here.”

  “I hate being called that,” Louana said, releasing him, and making her way back toward the window.

  “Well, we can’t call you Lou. We have an aunt with that name already. And Ana doesn’t seem to fit you.”

  “How about just using my name?”

  “It doesn’t have a, you know, biker ring to it,” Seth insisted.

  “Right. Because ‘Seth’ is such a hardcore name. Or ‘Finn’ for that matter. There’s a guy in the club that goes by the name Virgin for fuck’s sake.”

  “It’s his street name. Because he doesn’t give a fuck. Maybe that’s what you need. A street name,” Seth mused.

  “Or, what was it that I heard Valen call you?” Finn asked, and I could tell from the way Louana was stiffening that Finn really needed to shut the hell up. But, of course, he didn’t. “Lulu, I think it was.”

  “Call me that again and you’ll be eating through a straw,” Louana said, dropping the tape, then making her way to the door. “I’m going to get coffee,” she declared before disappearing.

  “Might want to ease up,” Seth said, looking contrite. “She’s a fucking lunatic. You’re gonna wake up on fire some night.”

  Finn must have agreed with that assessment because he quieted down for the next hour or so while we all worked on our respective projects.

  I’d insisted several times that they didn’t have to work, but they’d been just as insistent that they’d be too bored just sitting around and watching me work. And, honestly, I was thankful for the hands. Because painting board and batten was even more tedious than painting a plain wall.

  And by the time all our arms had started to feel like Jell-O, the whole main living space had a fresh coat of paint on it.

  It was starting to feel just a little bit more like home than a vacant apartment.

  “That’s probably the couch,” I said, shooting them all a guilty look because the delivery company had been very clear. They would only bring the couch into the living space if it was on the first level. If it wasn’t, they would drop it on the curb. I figured it would be me, Cary, and Dezi who would be doing it, so I hadn’t felt bad about it at the time.

  But I barely knew these three.

  It was asking a lot to have them help me bring a couch up a pretty steep set of stairs.

  “You owe us pizza for this,” Seth forewarned as he rolled his neck as he made his way toward the door.

  “Done,” I agreed. I’d been planning on that anyway.

  I followed behind the guys as we went down the stairs, figuring that Louana would have already seen them since she went downstairs to take a phone call.

  And it was all just so… normal.

  A moving van.

  With a door that started to open as soon as we got near it.

  It wasn’t until I saw Louana stiffen out of the corner of my eye that I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  “Run!” she yelled.

  But it was too late.

  Because the truck door lifted.

  And arms reached out to grab me, yanking me forward before Seth and Finn even had a chance to draw their weapons.

  Then there was the heart-stopping sound of gunshots ringing out, and it was impossible for me to tell if Finn and Seth scrambled and dropped low because they were hiding from bullets, or because they’d been hit.

  The truck lurched into drive as the hands grabbed me tighter, making it impossible to breathe, let alone try to get away.

  But as we moved forward, I saw that Louana had taken the opportunity to reach for her own gun.

  Her arms were raised, but lowered when she saw she couldn’t shoot the guy holding me without risking shooting me, so she aimed toward the tire as she started to run to try to keep up.

  I watched in horrified helplessness as the man holding me released one arm to raise his gun, aim, and shoot.

  She fell to the pavement, hit.

  Where, I had no idea.

  If she was even still alive was up in the air.

  A scream bubbled up and escaped me, but was muffled by the sound of the back door of the truck slamming shut, blanketing us in complete and utter darkness.

  Fear was a live wire sparking through my system, making me feel overly aware of every inch of me, the way the man’s hands were gripping me, the lines of his body behind me, the way the hair on my arms and neck were standing on edge.

  Because even if Seth, Finn, and Louana were alive, and they could get in touch with Cary, it would be too late.

  It was too late.

  They’d found me.

  He’d found me.

  And my worst nightmare was about to come true.

  The man behind me squeezed me tighter, past the point of pressure, and becoming acutely painful.

  He leaned down low near my ear and hissed at me in Spanish.

  I almost wished I hadn’t picked up a good chunk of the language over the years. Some part of me thought it would be better if I didn’t understand what he was saying.

  “What? You think you can leave him? No one can leave him. You’re his. Forever. But, maybe forever won’t be as long for you anymore,” he added, making my stomach twist.

  Because I got the distinct feeling that he was right about that.

  Raúl had never been a man with any sort of control over his anger.

  As soo
n as he got his hands on me again, all I would know was the most brutal kind of pain imaginable before oblivion. Which, honestly, would likely be welcome. There was only so much a human being could endure. Raúl would get off trying to figure out where that line was, teeter on it for a while, then plunge me over it.

  I’d known a lot of pain in my life. Mostly at his hands. I knew the feeling of dread well. And the sort of resigned acceptance of knowing there was nothing I could do but endure it.

  Somehow, though, everything felt worse now, intensified.

  I guess because, while I’d been with Raúl, that was all I knew. It became, to an extent, normal for me. He’d shrunk the world so much that it was all there was for me. Him. And his whims.

  Now, though, I’d managed to experience the world. I’d gotten to know security and peace and joy and kindness. I’d learned what friendship meant.

  And, what’s more, I’d experienced what it was supposed to be like between a man and a woman. I’d become acquainted with male hands that offered me something other than pain, ones that gave me pure, undiluted bliss, in fact.

  I’d felt safe and comfortable in masculine arms.

  Yet here I was, trapped in them once again, as far from safe and comfortable as you could get.

  Maybe if I’d never gone to Cary, if I’d never begged for his help, if he hadn’t been so gracious as to offer it, this wouldn’t feel as hopeless, as intolerable as it did right then.

  It had been selfish of me to go to him, to wrap him and his people up in this.

  If I hadn’t done that, he and his friends would all be going on with their lives like nothing had happened. Because nothing would have.

  For them, anyway.

  And maybe if I’d gone with the original plan—to run and keep running until I was so far away that no one could find me—I wouldn’t be on my way back to Raúl.

  Did I really want that, though?

  To sacrifice everything I’d gotten to experience with Cary?

  No.

  I knew the answer without even considering it for a second.

  Absolutely not.

  The short time I’d gotten to spend with Cary was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’d never felt more myself, more free, or more cared for than I did when I was around him.