Toxic

by Nicole Blanchard

  As luck would have it, Marie appears before I can descend the stairs.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she asks.

  I give a passing thought to lying to her, but I swear the woman can read minds. “I’m going to find Gracin,” I say matter-of-factly. “I don’t care if you’re ninety, if you try to stop me, I will knock you on your ass.”

  She harrumphs and crosses her arms across her chest. “It’s your funeral,” she says.

  When I’m reasonably sure she won’t follow, I increase my speed as I try to retrace my steps to the control room Gracin showed me. If I can just get to one of the vehicles and get away from his house, I’ll figure out a way to track him. There has to be GPS of some sort, if not tied to his cell phone, then certainly in the car itself. Not that I have any earthly idea how to do something like that, but I’m not helpless. I can figure it out.

  When I reach the security room, the same two bodyguards who were there the day before look up at me simultaneously.

  “Where is he keeping Desmond?” I ask without preamble. “And don’t fuck with me right now.”

  They share a glance. “Mr. Kingsley informed us—”

  “I don’t give a damn about what Mr. Kingsley said. Either you tell me where he went or I will find a way to get to him myself.” I pull the gun from my waistband, and point it at the guy on the left. “Now, either one of you starts talking or I start shooting things.”

  Ten minutes later, I pull the truck out of its parking space. There should be some remorse for threatening them, but there isn’t. I punch in the address the guards provided and consider Gracin’s words from the night before. I’m not powerless. I can take care of myself. I’ve killed a man, wounded others, and evaded the police. I’m sure according to the United States government, I’m a criminal and a fugitive. No better than what I considered Gracin when we first met. Then it makes me wonder if I was ever the good person in this story. Maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m the goddamned villain.

  Sal, it turns out, isn’t far away. He keeps a house on the California-Mexico border for when he deals with his Mexican contacts and the cartel for drug shipments. According to Gracin, they hadn’t had business dealings for a long time, so that’s why it took him a long time to track him down. I don’t care as long as I make him pay for what he took from me.

  The house, which only takes about forty-five minutes to get to, is a sprawling contemporary monstrosity. The type of place that screams wealth and privilege. Well, it would, if the front lawn didn’t look like a gangland massacre. There are dead bodies everywhere. The guardhouse blocking the driveway is smoking, and the front gate has been mowed down.

  Call me crazy, but the sight makes my heart go pitter-pat, and my girly parts light up like the Fourth of July. Being the person on the other side of Gracin’s homicidal rage may be scary, but being the reason why he’s seeking revenge makes my twisted little insides melt just a little bit. I pull up the drive, taking care not to run over any of the bodies before pulling to a stop beside Gracin’s SUV.

  With my gun gripped between my hands, I crouch down and survey the front of the house for movement. Finding none, I slink along the cars toward the front door. I don’t hear anything inside, and for a moment, I think I got here too late, but then the shouting begins.

  I hear Gracin’s voice and one that sounds like Sal’s. Fury burns hot in my belly and cancels out any of the fear I may have had. The front door is wide open, and I peer through, allowing my eyes to adjust to the dim interior.

  A gun to my temple stops me from taking even a single step inside.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Gracin says as his body comes up behind me.

  “What the hell do you think?” I hiss back, completely aware of the gun he’s pressing into my kidney. “You can drop the gun, you know.”

  “Didn’t I tell you to stay at the house?”

  “Since when do I fucking listen to you?” I return hotly. “You knew I didn’t want to be left behind again!”

  The gun drops, and he forces me around a corner into an alcove off the main hallway. “I thought after last night you’d understand why I can’t have you here.”

  “I don’t give a damn about what you want, Gracin,” I say. “Did you really think sex would change that?”

  There’s a scuffling sound down the hall, and we both turn at the same time.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” he says against my hair. “Do you have your gun?” I hold it up and give a scathing look, which causes him to chuckle. Guess I hadn’t hidden it after all. “Good girl.”

  Despite my irritation, I smile back at him.

  “Stay behind me,” he says, “and for god’s sake, don’t do anything stupid. I didn’t work this whole time to keep you safe just for you to get yourself killed.”

  We’re edging around the corner and back into the empty hallway when Sal’s voice calls out. “Might as well get this over with now, King. It isn’t like you to drag it out.”

  Gracin stills in front of me before resuming our trek down the hall. When he doesn’t answer, Sal continues, “Fine, have it your way. I was going to negotiate with you, but if you’re going to be unreasonable, we’ll have to settle matters some other way.”

  I highly doubt what Sal has in mind for us has anything to do with negotiations. If he had the balls to torture one woman just to get to Gracin so he could mete out retribution for his son, there wouldn't be anything stopping him from killing us both the moment he lays eyes on us. Our only chance is to get to him first. Then no one will be after Gracin, and I can finally move on from everything. From Vic, from what they did to me. I don’t know if that means moving on with Gracin or without him, but I guess that’s something we’ll both have to figure out when our lives aren’t also on the line.

  We turn a corner that leads to an open living area. Sal waits there with two other men—the same two nameless ones who were there that night with Danny. The devil himself is also there, and based on the vicious expression on his face, I’m surprised he doesn’t growl the moment he sets eyes on us.

  My finger twitches on the side of the trigger, but I force myself to stay calm when I meet Danny’s murderous gaze.

  “Sal,” Gracin says as he steps down. His casual, loose limb stride belies the concentration he levels on Sal.

  “King. I’m sorry we had to meet again under such circumstances.”

  “No you’re not,” Gracin says.

  Sal shrugs and smiles, unrepentant, and then turns his attention to me. “And this lovely lady. We meet again. I have to tell you, King. This one is special. It isn’t every day someone survives Danny and lives to tell about it.”

  “What do you want, Sal?” Gracin asks; his tone makes it evident he has no patience for Sal’s prevaricating.

  “I want you dead,” he says bluntly. He turns and meets my eyes. “And I’m willing to offer your cute little girlfriend her freedom to start over if she does the deed for me.”

  I don’t let my expression betray anything. “That’s a nice offer,” I begin, “but it doesn’t cover what I want from you.”

  Sal raises a brow, and his lips twitch. “What exactly is that?”

  Danny freezes, and I turn to him with a vicious smile on my face. “Him,” I say with a nod in his direction. “Dead.”

  Sal considers for a moment, and Danny, who doesn’t miss the pause, comes to life with a roar. Gracin jumps in front of me, and the next thing I know, the sound of a gunshot fills the room.

  I watch Gracin jerk with the force of the bullet and then fall to the floor, lifeless.

  Everything stops.

  My breathing.

  My heartbeat.

  My world . . .

  Everything.

  Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Just hold on for a few more minutes.

  “You son of a bitch,” I grind out through clenched teeth as my gun trains on Danny. The single brain cell between his ears must tell him to be scared becaus
e his face drains of all color.

  “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you, cara mia?” Sal croons.

  I can’t tell from my vantage point if the blood coming from Gracin’s body is from a fatal shot or just a flesh wound, but I don’t dare take my eyes off Danny for fear that I may be next.

  “What do you want?”

  Sal crosses the room as Danny and his friends keep their guns trained on me. “What do I want?” he says as he takes out a decanter of whiskey and pours himself a healthy measure. “I have what I want. The King is dead, or he will be soon. He died knowing his woman was in my hands, her fate to be determined by me. He died knowing how I felt when he murdered my son. Children are everything to me, to my family. King’s employers knew that. He was supposed to be off limits.” Spit flies from his mouth. “King should have known better.”

  “If he didn’t know it then, he knows it now, you asshole,” I shout.

  “Spare me the theatrics,” Sal says with the wave of a hand.

  Danny takes a step closer. “I’ll take care of her for you, boss.”

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” I say to him, spit flying. Danny’s agitated expression is too animated. Too nervous just under the surface. “Wait. You didn’t tell him, did you?”

  Sal takes another drink and sets the glass down on the bar. “Tell me what?”

  “She’s fuckin’ crazy, boss,” Danny interrupts. “Delusional. She’d have to be to be a whore for King. Who can sleep with a psycho like that without medication?”

  Sal stops him with a raised hand. To me, he says, “Tell me what?”

  I lift my chin. “I was eight weeks pregnant with King’s baby when your guys picked me up.” I look at Danny with all the loathing and hate I can muster. “I wasn’t pregnant anymore when they were through with me.”

  My words fall like stones to the bottom of a lake, the ripples shifting and affecting everything in their wake. Danny’s head drops, and he turns to Sal with his hands held up in defense.

  “I didn’t know,” he says miserably.

  Sal’s rage billows across his face, turning it a florid red. “You fucking idiot,” he says. “If you weren’t family, I’d put a bullet in your head myself. We don't murder children.”

  “Let me save you the trouble,” Gracin rasps from the floor, making all eyes in the room swing to him just as a second shot thunders through the air around us.

  A red circle blooms right over Danny’s left eye, his legs fold under his dead weight, and he falls to the floor, landing with a thud. The next two shots take down the thugs on either side of Danny before I’ve even processed the first.

  Sal bellows in fury, and like I had all those months ago, I react instinctually to protect the one man I can’t seem to live without. The gun fires with the barest of pressure on the trigger, and Sal flies backward and lands with a crash on the couch.

  After a few seconds of stunned silence while we both process what the fuck just happened, Gracin looks up at me. “I got hurt again.”

  I surprise us both by flying at him and punching him in the jaw. “What the fuck were you thinking you psychotic, suicidal asshole? Did you think you were being heroic jumping in front of a bullet? Did you think I’d be grateful watching you die right in front of my eyes?”

  He drops back down to the ground and covers his face with his uninjured arm. “If you’re going to yell, can you do it a bit more quietly? My head is pounding like a son of a bitch. I think I nose dived into the tile.”

  “You better be glad you’re hurt. If you weren’t, I would rip your balls off with my bare hands.”

  “I think I’ve been a bad influence on you,” he says, smiling even though he’s nearly ghost white beneath his tan. “You’re far more violent now than you were when we first met.”

  “I wonder why?”

  Before we do anything else, I inspect the wound on his shoulder. Thankful it isn’t life threatening, I tear a strip off my shirt and wrap it around his upper arm, taking pleasure in his pained grunts as I do.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” I say when I finish and the bloom of fear and anger passes. “I thought you were going to die.”

  “There was a time when you would have been happy about that.”

  I let the comment pass because the numbness of adrenaline that had been pushing me all day fades into shock. I came far, far too close to losing him.

  He tips up my chin. “Hey. You didn’t. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Ignoring the bodies on the floor around us, I crouch down to help lift him into a sitting position. When he’s able, I heft his weight up and help shoulder him to the door.

  Instead of going down that rabbit hole of a conversation, I change the subject. “What are we going to do about this mess?” Are there going to be more mob bosses and henchmen after us in the morning?”

  Gracin blows out a breath as we limp our way back to the vehicles. I don’t need to hold him. He injured his arm, not his legs, but I can’t quite seem to make myself let him go. I need to hold him to keep myself from shaking.

  “They probably won’t ever stop. I don’t exactly make friends in my line of work.”

  “Good to know. Are we going to take my car or yours?” I ask as we reach them.

  He looks at me with an expression that’s a mixture of exasperation and confusion. “That’s all you have to say about it?”

  “We’ll deal with it tomorrow,” I say simply. “Now which car?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t care. I’ll have some of my guys get the other when they come back for cleanup.”

  “You have guys who do—never mind,” I say, waving my arms. “I don’t want to know.”

  The house looks different when we pull up. Not that I’m surprised. I’ve never driven to Gracin’s house willingly, and when he brought me here, it was the middle of the night, and I was unconscious.

  I offered to drive because he's wounded, but he wasn’t hearing any of it. Blood still seeps from the bandages, and I sigh as he gets out of the car with a grunt.

  He doesn’t object when I lead him to the bathroom on the first floor, which is where I’ve taken to having medical supplies stocked for just this reason.

  “Sit,” I tell him, and he eases himself onto the closed lid of the toilet.

  “Getting into a habit,” he says and looks up at me, his eyes partially lidded with pain and a touch of humor. He’d said something similar when I had to bandage his wounds while he was at Blackthorne.

  Tenderness blooms inside me like a lone flower taking root in the cracked surface of neglected concrete. To cover it, I lower my face to help him remove his shirt, taking care to maneuver it around his shoulder. The wound doesn’t look bad. He should count himself lucky he didn’t do more damage.

  After I gather my supplies, I brush my hands through his hair just because I need to touch him for my own reassurance and he leans into my palm.

  “Someone has to look after you,” I say finally.

  “Are you offering?” he asks.

  I don’t answer because I don’t know. I’m quiet as I finish applying the new bandage, and the silence grows so overwhelming that I’m afraid to break it.

  He must see it on my face because he opens his mouth to speak and then closes it when he decides better. His jaw ticks with indecision, and he gives himself a shake.

  “Come to me when you figure it out,” he says and then pauses to kiss my forehead, the single most affectionate gesture he’s ever expressed, and it nearly cracks me in two.

  I suppose it’s progress that he doesn’t lock me inside my room, and then I almost laugh. For a moment, I have to fight a smile. How is it that a cage with Gracin is appealing? Maybe because within these walls, I found freedom, even if it was at the hands of my captor.

  I clean up the mess and stow the supplies as my mind works through my options.

  Gracin isn’t a good man. He’d be the first to tell me. He’s ruthless, bloodthirsty, and lawless. He lives by no
one else’s rules but his own, and he doesn’t apologize for it.

  I can picture my life without him. It’s a beautiful one. I’d get a new identity, one that doesn’t have a warrant out for their arrest, and I’d eventually settle down with a man, get a house, a dog, and have a couple of kids. It was the life I wanted when I met Vic. The life I thought we’d have together.

  Now . . . now I can’t imagine a life that doesn’t have Gracin in it. The lows are low, but the highs, the rush he gives me each time I see him? There is no comparison.

  I spin around to find him and nearly run right into him. “I thought you were giving me space,” I say, stunned.

  His hands fist at his sides, his chest is stained with blood, and his face is already darkening with bruises. “I changed my mind,” he says.

  My teeth bite into the soft flesh of my cheek. “You did?”

  He takes a measured step forward. “Yes.”

  “And what did you decide?”

  Gracin steps close enough that he can lift my chin with a finger. His expression is serious, and even though he can barely open one eye, his gaze is solemn. “I decided I was right when I locked you here so you couldn’t get away and get yourself into trouble.” I bristle a little, but he places a finger over my lips. “I wanted you here so I could make sure you were safe. Seeing you in the warehouse like that . . . it isn’t something I’ll ever forget. I realized when you came running into the room, and Danny turned the gun on you that I didn’t want to spend another day that didn’t have you in it. Letting you leave would be doing just that, so I’ll chain your ass to the bed if I must to keep you in my life.”

  “And if I said I still wanted to leave, you wouldn’t let me go?”

  “No,” he says with vicious finality. “No, I wouldn’t.”

  He pauses to take my lips. I taste the metallic burst of blood from his split lip, but underneath . . . underneath there’s the intoxicating flavor of him and I sigh, stepping forward to press against him more completely.