by Eden Rose
“Your dog is fucking funny. I swear, we could make a shit ton of money off of this four legged kid.”
Chloe throws her head back and laughs loud and then snorts which causes her to laugh harder. “Breathe, baby. Breathe!” I tease her and she only laughs harder.
“You should have seen him as a puppy. He was constantly getting into everything and this one time he ran into the wall. He scared the shit out of me when he did it! I thought he broke his neck but he jumps up and then barks!” She’s laughing so hard that she can barely catch her breath and it’s the greatest noise I have ever heard.
I start laughing at her when she snorts again and then lead her back to the apartment. “Are you ready to go to bed? You need some sleep and I want to kiss you all over your body before we do.”
“Don’t have to ask me twice!”
We walk up the stairs and then she pulls out her key to open the door. Once inside, I notice that there is a mess. Chloe has always been a neat person so to see the mess, and know that it was tidy earlier, makes me suspicious.
“Stay here,” I order her and examine the carnage.
Of course she doesn’t listen to me and walks up behind me. I can hear her clicking off the safety of her gun and it pisses me off that she does. What, she doesn’t trust me? What the fuck is up with that? I shake it off before I throttle her into next week.
“We locked the door, right?” I asked even though I know I checked it before we left.
“Yeah.”
Her couch is tipped over and all of the papers that were in a pile on the table are scattered throughout the living room. “Keep Steve on the leash,” I tell her as I hand her the handle to it and walk towards the bedroom.
She yells behind me and then holds her stomach. I run back out to the living room to see her holding a note. “Baby, let me see the note,” I say gently and hold my hand out for it.
Chloe hands it over to me gently and then collapses on the floor. I rush over to her in order to catch her before she falls to the floor. My hands barely reach under her head before she falls and I hold her tightly. I crumble to the floor as well, and lay her head on my legs and brush her hair out of her eyes. She’s crying hard and I feel like the biggest ass in the world. There is not a damn thing I can do to stop those tears and it’s the worst feeling in the world.
“Please, baby. Oh god, please. Don’t do that. It kills me,” I beg her and bend my body in half to kiss her. My lips caress her forehead I can feel the sweat from her freakout on my lips.
Chloe:
It’s only a matter of time before you bite off more than you can chew. We are onto you and your FBI boyfriend isn’t going to save you. It’s time for you to bow out gracefully before it’s too late. Get out now before you can’t. These people are not going to take the betrayal as gracefully as I will. And they sure as hell aren’t going to let you live. Your betrayal is going to get every single person in your life killed and it’s going to be too late for you to save them. Do you really want more deaths on your head? Each person that we kill will be because of you and the mistakes that you made. Your brother isn’t going to save you and Grant Brandon isn’t going to either. It’s too late for you but do you want the others to suffer because of you? Let me just say that they won’t be walking out as easily.
Get out now.
Signed:
Your Savior
Grant- Then
How many times do I have to fuck up before I get it through my head? A lot more than I’m allotted.
Seeing Chloe’s face as she tells me that it’s over, that’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I fucking broke everything. It was all my fault and now there is nothing that I can do besides sit and take it.
When the officers took me in the back of the police car, I knew that things were going to end for me. Criminals sit back here and now I’m sitting in their seats all because I couldn’t let her go.
God damn it.
When we get to the police station, they help me out and lead me into an interrogation room. This is probably the worst feeling I have ever felt. “This is not necessary-” I begin but they shove me in the room and close the door.
I got to see Chloe’s little bump and I didn’t even get to feel it. I didn’t get to feel our babies in her stomach and I won’t ever get to feel it. I know that what I need to do is let her go. But, how do you let the one person you have loved forever leave you?
When you can tell me how this is going to get easier, I will believe you. Right now, I feel as if my chest has been ripped apart by fucking wolves.
“Your captain is on the phone,” the female cop says as she thrusts the phone in my face.
“Hi-”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“Uh-”
“No! That is not how this works. You shut the fuck up while I’m talking to you. You say nothing. You have fucked with an investigation and now my agents are in danger because you decided to go behind my back. How could you fucking do this?”
“I’m-”
“What the fuck did I say? These are rhetorical questions, you dumb ass.” I don’t say anything and let him continue. “Good boy. You have learned. This is what you are going to do. You are going to leave Delacruz and her new partner alone. And then you are going to get your sorry ass back here, and march to the unemployment office. You are finished. Do you understand me? You are fucking done.”
In my mind I’m thinking about how I can go and get Chloe. She shouldn’t be in this and now everything is fucked up. It’s completely fucked.
“Stay away from them. Do you hear me? If you mess with the investigation even more, I will file criminal charges. I’m not joking.”
He hangs up on me and I set the phone down.
The female cop comes back and picks up her phone. “Ouch. I hope she was worth it. You are free to go.”
Howard- Then
I fight the urge to crumple the note and to burn it. I can feel Chloe shaking like a leaf on my legs and I know this is the first time that I have ever seen her this scared. Chloe is a fucking badass and this is going to ruin her confidence. The stress from this is going to make her lose our babies and I’m fucking scared that I’m going to lose her too.
“I can’t lose you, baby. I need you to calm down,” I coo to her and brush her hair off her cheeks. It’s not an easy feat because the hair is stuck from her tears.
Steve barks and then runs towards the bedroom. The leash breaks out of her hand and she screams. “No! Get my dog!” Chloe yells out and I gently place her head down on the floor.
I jump off of the floor to get Steve but he has already ran into the bedroom barking hysterically. He’s barking so loud and obnoxiously that I know he’s caught onto a scent. “Steve! Come!” I command and he stops right before going into the closet but then continues on. “No! Fuck! Steve!” I yell and when my hand is about to grab the leash handle, he’s run past me and I look at the closet.
All of the shit that she’s been hiding is strewn all over the floor. There’s her FBI badge on the floor but it’s shattered. Someone must have stepped on it in order to bust it like that. What the fuck? Her FBI jacket is cut up on the floor and I walk out of the closet to see her underwear drawer on the ground.
“What’s going on?” I hear her delicate voice and turn to see her standing there. She reaches down and grabs her drawer off the ground and then begins to pick up everything, but then stops and drops it. “Fuck!” She yells and then goes to the bathroom.
“What are you doing?” I ask and walk up behind her. Then I see her grabbing shopping bags and putting on gloves. “Looks like we both dropped the ball.”
Once we have everything bagged up, she calls James. I can hear him yelling through the phone and then she hands it to me. “He wants to talk to you.”
“This is Ho-”
“I know who the the fuck you are. What I want to know is why you are playing house with Delacruz instead of doing your fucking job!” He yells
into the line and I wince. I’m not stupid and know that there’s nothing I can say to help diffuse the situation and I take it. “Brandon already lost his job. Do you want to join him?”
“No, sir.”
“Quit fucking around with my agent and do your fucking job or you are out on your ass too. This is completely your fault. If you wouldn’t have been thinking with your dick, none of this would have happened.”
Before I could say anything, he hung up on me and I take the phone away from my ear.
Chloe- Then
We bag up everything and then he holds my hair as I throw up in the toilet. All of the nerves from the day have come back and affected me more than I care to admit.
Once I have emptied my body of all nutrients, I fold into his arms. “I’m sorry, Howard,” I whisper and he holds me closer.
“There is nothing to be sorry for. Baby, I wouldn’t leave you alone for anything. I love you,” he holds me closer to him.
The words are at the tip of my tongue and I want to say them to him but I can’t. “How can you with everything-”
He cuts me off by speaking above me. “I knew what it was like to be with an agent before we even got together. I knew that it was a full time job from the beginning. I love you,” he says forcefully.
“I, uh…”
Howard lifts me off the floor and takes me to my bed. “Soon, you won’t be able to do that. Soon, I’m going to be too fat. You know that, right?”
He shrugs me off and sets me down gently. “Never. I’m never letting you go. This is it, Chloe. You are it for me.”
Once I’m lying on my pillows, he slides over my body and holds me close. “There is nowhere else I would rather be than with you. I’m telling you that because it’s true. I. Love. You.”
The more he tells me he loves me, the more the words want to fall out of my mouth but I can’t. I can’t say them and it’s killing me. I can feel it starting to wear on him but I can’t do it. I can’t do it to him.
“What am I going to do about tomorrow?”
He kisses my cheek and holds me tighter. “The same thing you do every day. Even though this day sucks, you are here to do a job. But I want you to check in with me every time we are apart. If you feel as if you are being threatened, I need you to let me know. Immediately. Promise me?”
“I promise.”
We lay there quietly and I rub my nails up and down his hand that is resting over my stomach. It could have been minutes or hours, but I feel the need to say something before I can fall asleep. “You know how I feel about you, right?”
“Yeah, I know. When you trust me enough to tell me what I already know, that will be the happiest moment of my life. Now get some sleep. My babies need sleep.”
He squeezes my bump and then leans down and kisses it. “Daddy loves you, babies. Get some sleep.” After he kisses my belly button, he travels up my torso and then kisses the shit out of me. His lips caress mine and then gently coax them open. Before long, I’m a quivering mess.
Right before he makes love to me, he tells me again. “I love you.”
In the moment, I knew I made the right choice. Howard is it for me.
*
The next day, the warehouse is in full swing and everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off. “What’s happening?” I ask Howard as I lock the door to my car.
We drove separately again in case one of has to leave at a different time. Plus, it makes it easier to keep up with appearances if we are in different cars.
Before we left my apartment, Howard told me again that he loved me and couldn’t wait for us to get out of this whole shit mess. I felt bad because I knew how much he wanted to be the provider, but this is something that I’m going to have to see through to the end.
Dom walks past me and I reach my hand out and grab his arm. When he turns to look at me, I say: “Chto proiskhodit?” Here’s hoping that I asked what was going on and not what color his underwear is.
“That man, the other ovne wfith you. He stole one girl!”
Holy shit. “Are you svure?” I ask and stroll with purpose to the storage area.
“Who saw him do it?” Howard asks.
Fuck. If Barry really took that girl, then he’s a dead man. He’s going to get fucking slaughtered if caught. There is no saving my brother. Even though he’s fucked up so many times, he’s still my brother. I want to believe he didn’t do something this stupid, but I have a feeling that he did.
Vlad walks from the back and puts his hands on my shoulders and I know that Howard has tensed up. But right now is not the time for a pissing contest. “You find him or you are dead. I will fucking gut you.”
Before I can respond, he has walked away from me and I’m left with the realization of something. Vlad is not from Russia. He could be Russian but his accent was gone. He sounded very much like a mid-westerner like myself.
And then it clicked. He was the man that threatened me.
I tilt my head to the side at Howard for him to follow me. Once we have walked out of the storage area and out of the warehouse, I drag him down the street. By the time that we are about three building lengths away from the industrial building, he stops me and tugs his hand out of my grasp. I didn’t even realize I had my nails wedged into his skin until I saw the blood that was simmering to get out.
“What is going on, baby?”
Seconds before I answer him, I look around to make sure that we are alone. I don’t trust anyone and I’m not dropping my accent for anything. “He threatened me the other day. He’s the reason why I left the warehouse and then went home before Grant and Barry showed up.”
I don’t even get a chance to have the last word fall from my lips as he drags me across to his body and he kisses my forehead repeatedly. “What are you talking about, baby? Someone threatened you?”
“Yes. Told me everything that was said in the letter but I didn’t get a look at him. I didn’t know who it was until just now. He’s not Russian.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” he growls and then kisses my lips with vengeance. “Nothing is going to happen to you. I will fucking die before someone touches a hair on that head.”
I wiggle out in order to look at him and then when I do, I see his face is hard as stone. He means exactly what he says and it’s scaring the hell out of me. “No. Don’t say stuff like that. Howard, nothing is going to happen to me. I’m bulletproof.”
“I wish I could believe you. By the grace of someone high in the world, I got you and I’m not going to let you go. For nothing. Do you understand me?”
I nod and then kiss his lips again. Our lips pillow each other and massage the other’s all the while we are touching each other with our hands. I wish I could tell him I love him right now.
He must have sensed that I want to say it because he says: “I love you, my sweetness.”
Howard- THen
By the time we get back to the warehouse, my dick is pressing against my slacks. Chloe’s lips look swollen and red from me kissing them and I love it. She’s fucking perfect and now that she’s pregnant, her curves are getting softer. But she’s still the most beautiful woman in the world.
“We need to find Barry,” she whispers and I nod. I know we do, but he’s probably long gone. “Don’t say that! He can’t. He’s on parole!”
“The fuck?” Did I say all of that loud? I didn’t mean to. Great. That was something that I didn’t want to say out loud to her.
“You did.”
We spend hours scouring the internet to see if he had left a clue and he didn’t. Barry was smart to leave with Emily when he did but what he doesn’t understand, is the blowback that will happen when the inevitable happens. Either he stays gone or he and Emily are going to die.
Chloe- The Day Before
The squealing of the tires is what woke me this morning. I was in a peaceful dream where I was taking care of my new babies and minding my own business when I heard the tires. They were so loud th
at I jumped straight out of bed and ran to the window. However, from here I couldn’t see anything.
Realizing that I’m just going crazy, I drop the blinds and look at Steve who is doing his potty dance. “Do you need to go potty, you psycho?” His response was to bark at me and march towards the door. “All right, hold on.”
I walk over to my nightstand and slip my phone into my pant pocket and then grab my .45 that is lying on top of my phone. Slipping that in the waistband, I walk out of my room and over to my dog who is waiting for me at the door. I grab his leash and walk out the door.