by Paula Cox
And even while I’m falling into this weird, surreal state of dreams, I realize I’m not the only one falling. Because there’s the silhouette on the rooftop next to mine, swaying around like a drunken man, both hands hugging his neck like he’s got a frog trapped in it that he’s about to spit out. Except it’s not a frog he spits out, but a whole clot of blood. Blood as thick as jelly, with a color of rose petals. Blisteringly red blood painting sunsets on the white of the rooftop.
Oren dances around like this a few more seconds while I swim around between dreams, sleep, and wakefulness, between images of white and bursts of red. And just as the last string connecting me to my conscious begins to fray and snap and send me falling, falling, falling into a place I don’t know, I see Oren plunge from the side of the slippery roof. He careens, rocks, and thrashes his way down the rooftop, plummeting like a plane punched out of the sky with a snap and crack of bone and sinew as his body hits the ice below.
Epilogue
I was in the hospital for a long time. With a whole spider web of IVs networking across my body, just like I’d imagined for Palmer and Miles if I trust what the Stitches told me later about it all. Like a damaged little kitten. Or: they had you wrapped up like a half-finished mummy. There were pictures of me all wrapped up and broken apparently, though I never got a chance to see them. Kirill’t know how much I trust my guys outside of watching my ass and making sure I don’t take any more bullets than I have to.
As things turned out, two was the grand total of slugs lifted out of me. One buried pretty good inside my ankle where it was lodged a few centimeters away from my nerves. The doctors showed me some x-rays a little later on and told me I was the luckiest son of a bitch he’d treated. I didn’t know what to do with that, so I assumed it was a compliment and said thanks. They’re good types, these local doctors. They know what to expect when they see our cars coming up and know what forms to fill out and what bribes to take to keep us from drawing too much attention from the pigs. Hence why both Miles and Palmer didn’t have any problems letting themselves get stitched back up after their altercations.
The second bullet was taken out of my left shoulder blade. Two weeks after the surgery, the whole left half of my body was on fire like it’d been dipped in a vat of battery acid. And on top of that, that third shot took out a piece of my left ear. Just the top. Nothing to cry about.
“You put in a request now, he might be able to get you in for a steel leg replacement,” Miles told me when I was awake and back in a functioning state. “I mean, he ought to put in something badass, considering just how much he’s charging you for all this handiwork. You’ll be having to run overtime contracts starting next week at the rate he’s going. Or you would be if you weren’t the luckiest son of a bitch alive.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that thing was, what, a fifth of a fucking centimeter from you suffering severe nerve damage and never being able to walk on that leg again?”
“Not that. What do you mean that I would be having to pay?”
After the first week, when I wasn’t on painkillers anymore and could function like a normal human being again—granted, one who’s just had two slugs of steel cut out of him with a knife—my boys decided to deliver the good news. Maya was safe. Unharmed. A little shaken up the first few days after Oren took her away but who the hell wouldn’t be, being locked up with a guy like that while the walls around you were literally exploding to pieces. And then the bad. About Crash and the kid—Vat I think his name was.
All my boys were there to share it—even the two greenhorns—crowded around my bed like it was my own fucking funeral.
“You all have to look that uncomfortable?” I’d said, feeling pretty damn uncomfortable myself the longer they stood there, saying nothing, checking their watches or their phones, talking a little to each other in low voices.
“Well, what the hell is it?”
Palmer finally decided to come forward and say something, just to keep me from looking like too much of an idiot. “She’s down in the lobby, Q, waiting to come up and see you. We’ll leave you guys alone. Just thought you ought to know something—Theo died this morning.”
They’d told me about this right in the beginning when I asked for the whole rundown on what happened after I shot Oren and passed out. Bolt had been trying to tell me when I was on the second floor, rushing out. I’d thought for certain that Maya was with him. As it turns out, she was just a little ways down the hall, and I didn’t see her.
What had happened, according to Bolt, was that they’d gone through the back lawns like we’d planned and secured the back way for anyone leaving. They’d heard the firing and shouting in the front of the house but held the position some minutes longer, watching the other guardsmen rush up to the front to guard the place against me, Nail, Blondie, and Ash.
That’s when he’d seen her—right through the window above the back porch. A stone’s throw away—Maya, tied to a post and scratching at her knot. Bolt had been keeping a watch out for anyone coming from the side, but it was plenty enough time for Theo to abandon his position and make it up the stairs, Bolt hot on his heels. They got to the room and found Oren with a foot on the stairs to the attic. He turned sharply, fired off two rounds into Theo’s stomach, and disappeared. If Theo had been twenty seconds later, none of it would have happened. But now he was dead. He was dead, and I was going to be the first person Maya saw since he died.
Palmer knew I was nervous and I was happy with him for moving the Stitches out of my room so we’d have a little bit of privacy.
“Just go easy on her for us. And while you’re doing that, go easy on yourself. You sure as hell ain’t a spring chicken, not after having two bullets dug out of your body.”
“Hey, Palmer?”
“Yea, Q?”
“Would it be alright if you shut the hell up? Just for a little while? A few months, maybe?”
He laughed and closed the door. Two minutes. I had just about two minutes to make my hospital gown not so rumpled and to try to smooth down my hair although it’s gotten too long and without water, it’s impossible to fix it down in one position. Whatever. Maya’s seen me worse off than this.
But the thing is, when she comes into the room, I’ve never seen her better. Thinking about her father dying just that morning, and the kidnapping just a few weeks ago and I thought she’d come in all meek, weak, and broken, which wasn’t at all the case.
She dumped her little bouquet of flowers on my chest and pecked me on both cheeks, and sat down in the visitor’s chair. Her hair was gold and shining, and she was wearing this bouncy yellow dress you’d expect on a girl at Eastertime when it was green, sunny, and not in Maine right in the middle of winter.
“Oh, Quinn.” She smiled. “Didn’t they tell you I was coming to see you?”
“They did. Sure.”
“And they couldn’t give you a haircut at least? Are you already done trying to impress me? And your ear! Should I go ahead and assume this is the point in the relationship where everything just goes downhill, and we spend Saturday nights in sweatpants watching reruns of Gossip Girl?”
“Next to taking bullets for you that doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Pft. You can’t call that taking bullets for me. They have to literally be shooting at me for that to happen.”
“So in the future maybe I should just leave you alone?”
“I never said that now, did I?’
“You haven’t said much of anything except for what I should have done.”
“Well, you sure need someone to watch out for you if this is where you end up, making all your own decisions. And your Stitches—honestly I don’t know why you chose that name because it only makes you guys sound like a bunch of, like, deadbeat Harley-riders with gross beards and bad tattoos—they sure aren’t doing you any favors.”
“Aside from saving my life.”
“You just need to watch them, Q. They’re gonna try holding that on
e over your head forever and ever.”
The silk of her dress was the softest thing I’ve ever felt, next to her skin. We had an hour before the doctors came in for their checkup, just to lie there, she in my arms, her cheek against mine. Sharing our breaths.
“I’m sorry about your father. He was a good man, in the end.”
Maya didn’t say anything, but I felt her body tense against mine. It was still so new; too new for her to process. She needed her time, and I would be happy giving it to her. I’d be happy giving her as much time as she needed: her time and mine. There was nowhere neither of us had to be.
“Palmer let me know you’re paying my medical bills.”
“He’s such a tattler. Like I said. New friends.”
“Thank you.”
Then she turned to me and looked at me seriously. Really seriously, for the first time in months. “For what?”
“Saving me.”
“Oh. Well, then consider us even.”
***
Another month of doctors, tests, and physical therapy - working my leg back into daily routines and getting over the fear I’d developed of putting any weight on it. Slowly, steadily, like a wall being built back up after someone’s knocked it apart with a hammer, my body builds back up until I’m at least a little like I was before everything happened.
Maya visited every day I was in the hospital. Sometimes to stay and talk, sometimes to deliver something, sometimes just to run in and deliver the news. About the Family. The staff. Her father’s will. The plans she made to go to Vermont back when she thought she was leaving home for good. Her dream or the dream she’d chosen for herself of becoming a world-famous designer. A little miniature Maya brought to the foot of my hospital bed like a new magazine every day.
And then we get to here. To today. No more hospital beds, hospital foods or hospital TV. No more changing bandages or physical therapy exercise, though I’ve got a prescription to see a local specialist three times a week for another four months. No more middle life. No more old.
Palmer’s dropped off some keys to Ava, which is a crappy old station wagon that’s been in the Clubhouse garage ever since I can remember. No one knows why it’s gotten that name but just try changing its name and you’d spark a riot. The thing is as ugly as a bruise, but it’s got an engine that will probably outlast most of us.
We drive out, Ava and I, for the first time in four months. There’s still snow on the ground, but it’s the ugly mushy stuff you always bet before spring kicks in. And seeing as how I’ve missed most of winter, being holed up inside, I don’t mind getting a last burst of the cold. We’ll have what amounts to a summer, soon enough. I’m not in any special hurry to get there.
I drive carefully, keeping an eye on my leg to make sure it holds steady. After ten minutes I’m pretty self-assured: I turn out onto the highway and speed down, down, until I reach my exit.
We’re still a long way from summer weather so even though this is a Saturday the docks aren’t crowded. Just a few families, milling around and sipping hot chocolate from thermoses and paper cups. I park, get out, and find a bench that isn’t too wet with melted snow where I can rest. Walking without a support equals falling, and since there’s no way I’m going to be seen limping around town with a cane, this is my best option now.
“You know, I’ve lived here my whole life but the only two times I’ve ever come here have been with you.” Maya sits down next to me. Her hair’s tucked into a green hat, and she’s wearing a coat that’s probably worth a quarter of my current income.
“Then you need to get out more. You’ve said so yourself.”
“Getting out.” She lifts one hand, flat, palm-up, and then makes a balance with the other. “And business. And getting a job. And being responsible.” The ‘getting out’ hand goes down like a sinking ship.
“At least you’ve got your priorities straight.”
“That’s just like something somebody clueless with absolutely no idea what it’s like managing a mob man’s estate would say.”
“So you don’t think you’re cut out to be a mob boss?” I put on a frown. “I was getting used to the name ‘Kirill Maya.’ ”
“Then I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to disappoint you.”
“So that’s it then?” I say, more serious. “No more Family? What about the staff and the estate?”
“No more Family. Sold the estate. Pensioned the staff. Not a bad price to pay for your freedom, is it? And no guilt over job loss—most of them turned right around and became Ceallaighs. They’ve got a guy who came down from New York to run it. An old friend of Mattias’s, from the sounds of it.”
I look at her, and she looks back. Really looks at me, with that fierce, penetrating, intense look certain people just have.
“I didn’t think you’d ever do it,” I say. “I thought you’d go around with this monkey on your back for the rest of your life. Congratulations, Maya.”
She takes the hand I’ve put out and gives it two shakes like we’ve just settled our investments. “Thank you. It is a pretty big leap, isn’t it?”
“Especially for a show dog like you.”
“Now, Quinn. You’ve gone and turned something nice into something rude. And for absolutely no reason.”
We turn back to the docks. A trawler is moving out into the bay. The first of the new season. Soon the whole place will be crowded with them, and it’ll be nose to hull. The gates begin to move. They make a churning, low noise and start to lower.
“And you’re still planning on relocating?”
“Soon as everything squared away here. Although to be really honest with you, I still don’t know where. I’d be bored to death in Vermont. And it’s cold! I need to get out of this for a while. Head south. Drive along a beach and have nothing in my face but sun and sea and breeze.”
“Sounds pretty boring to me.”
“I don’t give a damn how it sounds to you. I never asked for your opinion. And with no Family, you’re back to scraping gutters for the scum of the city, Mr. Big Shot. No more service for you.” She gives me a playful punch to my side—not the one with the bullet wound in it. “It’s a shame, really. I could have used you. But you’re too much animal and not enough gentleman. A girl likes having both, and a switch that controls what she has and when.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint. I don’t think I have any switches.”
“Oh, yes you do. You just don’t know where they are. You just haven’t been explored properly yet.” Back to me: her eyes fixed and still yet somehow, moving; slow moving, like a frozen waterfall. And with me trapped inside.
“And I guess I’m supposed to think you’re the one for the job?”
The trawler crawls through the crack in the water. The cameras go up. Fathers tug on the sleeves of their daughters and point to the large ships drifting through.
“Maybe,” she says. “Maybe you ought to consider this my job application. What would you think?”
“You want to know the truth?”
“I always want to know the truth about you, Quinn. You really should know better by now. You’ve tried keeping it from me before and almost got yourself killed.”
“Then, honestly speaking, I’m worried that you’re too much of a pampered pooch to know that if you keep being curious and not careful, you’re gonna be facing a speeding car with no one to yank you back to safety.”
Maya winds her arm back for another playful punch, but I catch it. Her fingers dissolve in mine. Then her lips. Her body. The thump-thump, thump-thump of her heart pounding like mad against my own, screaming out with all its got, and both of us begging for more and more of each other; more and more from this small cold world that’s tried so hard to take us out. And it’ll keep on being that way. I’ve got no delusions. No fantasies. No false promises. I know it, like Maya knows it. There won’t be any rest for us—not until the day our bodies are in the ground. The hitman and the mob boss’s daughter. Two against danger. Two against the wo
rld.
THE END
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More Books by Paula Cox
THE ONLY WAY I COULD ESCAPE WAS WITH HIS BABY IN MY WOMB.
I’ll do whatever it takes to get out of this life.
Leering men who think their measly tips give them a right to touch me?
Hell to the no.
I’m a waitress, not a stripper or worse.
I’m done with this world.
Sick of it.
And I’m taking the first thing smoking to literally anywhere else.
But when a sexy biker on a monster motorcycle pulls up to the cafe, I begin to question how bad I really want a ticket out.