by Zoey Parker
“What does that mean?” I asked. If he had something to say, now was as good a time as any to let it out.
“Nothing, Sasha,” he said dismissively. “You can just get a little too involved sometimes with the job is all I meant. What do you know?”
“Look, I found out today that he’s had his men looking for you. I’ve been doing what I can to keep him away from the MC, but they’ve been looking for you anyway, without him there,” I explained. “I think he’s been sneaking away from me at times to talk to them, so there’s no telling what else is going on.”
“Do they know you were working for me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered, and closed my eyes, hoping he wouldn’t ask how they found out.
“Did you tell them?” he asked.
Shit! What was I supposed to say? I ran back over everything that had happened so far, trying to find some other way to answer the question. I couldn’t tell him the truth. If he knew that I had told Cole, I was dead, especially if he found out I had told him after having sex with him.
“No,” I finally said. “Someone called them a few days ago and told them that you had sold some of the stolen heroin.”
“What? How would they have known?” he asked loudly in my ear.
“I don’t know. Don’t ask me, I don’t use the shit, but apparently this guy’s a loyal customer or something. I didn’t go with them. I think they figured it out when the guy described you to them.” I hadn’t talked to Cole about what their guy said. I was just making up the story as I went along, filling in the details just enough to get his suspicion off of me.
“I bet I know who it was, too,” Fang said with a thoughtful tone. He probably did have someone in mind, and knowing him, it was probably the same guy Cole and Dante had gone to talk to.
“You’re probably right. Look, they’ve been careful to make sure I don’t get too much intel, so I can only tell you so much. I don’t know where they think you are, so you might not even be in danger, but they’re on their way somewhere to find you, and I’m pretty sure Cole is going to kill you.”
“Thanks for the heads up, Sasha,” he said, and I heard that fatherly tone I’d been needing to hear from him since this whole thing started.
“No problem, Fang. It’s the least I can do,” I told him.
“It’s more than you realize. Are you safe? Are you okay?” he asked.
I thought about his question. I’d felt safer than ever while I was at Cole’s apartment with him. I felt like there was nothing to worry about, but as I was giving up his plans to Fang, I realized I was probably putting myself in danger.
“I’m safe for now,” I said, “but if they show up wherever they’re going, and you’re not there, Cole is going to know I ratted him out to you. I’m not going to be safe then.”
“No, you won’t be. Let me ask you this, are you ready to come home, Sasha?”
“I am.” I sighed, realizing that no matter how safe or comfortable I felt sleeping against Cole’s magnificent body, I wasn’t truly at home. Under Fang’s protection, and with him looking after me, that was the only time I was truly at home.
“Well, do you want me to send someone to pick you up?” he asked me. As I listened to the way he talked to me, like a father talking to his daughter, I was reminded of all the things he’d done for me over the years. He’d been there for me the way a father would have been. He’d looked after me like I was his own and not just his employee.
Before I could answer, there was something I needed to know.
“Cole thinks you were behind the guys who attacked me in the park the other day,” I said carefully, uncertain on how to approach the topic.
“You were attacked?” he asked. He sounded shocked. “Was that why you weren’t there when I showed up? I didn’t know what had happened to you.”
“Yeah, when I showed up, there were three guys in black suits waiting for me, with another in the car. Only the driver and one other made it out. Cole and a few guys from the MC showed up to handle it. They shot two of them dead, and caught the third one in the leg. The driver never got out of the car,” I told him.
“Damn. I hope you know I would never do anything like that, Sasha, but let him think what he wants. It won’t matter anymore after today. I’m sending someone to pick you up,” he said.
“But I haven’t told you where the apartment building is,” I protested.
“You think I can’t figure out where Cole Masterson lives?” he asked, laughing. “Have you forgotten who I am so quickly, Sasha? Of course I know where you are. I’ll have someone around back in about an hour,” he told me. “Be there.”
The line disconnected.
The knife was planted firmly in Cole’s back now, and in an hour’s time, I knew I was going to give it a pretty good twist by leaving the apartment with Fang.
“What are you doing, Sasha?” I asked myself. The thing was I didn’t know anymore. My loyalty was split between two men.
I grabbed a glass from the cupboard, filled it with ice, and took the whiskey bottle from Cole’s liquor cabinet. I needed a drink to steady my nerves before I sealed my fate with Cole. The whiskey burned all the way down, burning the edge off of my decision. I thought about pouring another glass. I unscrewed the cap and tilted the bottle over.
“No,” I said aloud to the bottle. “One’s enough.”
Something in Fang’s voice hit me. He’d been too calm, too confident in himself. He already knew where I was before I called. He already knew I was okay. He knew why I hadn’t shown up at the park. But there was no way he could have been behind the attack, unless he was the driver. Or, unless he sent those men to get me.
If it hadn’t been Fang, I didn’t know who else it could have been. No one else could have known where I was going and when I would have been there.
I had an hour. If I called Cole to tell him Fang was on to him, I would out myself as a spy, a double agent as Fang had put it. If I didn’t call him, he would find out when he showed up to an empty hideout. At the same time, I would have the opportunity to address my issues with Fang if I didn’t call Cole.
I’d locked myself into place on this job. I left myself no choice but to let Fang give Cole the slip so that I could get to Fang and find out what the fuck was going on. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed Cole had been right about the attack at the park. Fang had led me right to it. He’d probably even sent the guys himself.
My blood was boiling.
I searched Cole’s apartment for a spare gun. I didn’t like guns, and never carried one. I’d never felt the need. My body was usually all I needed to get out of just about any situation. Between the martial arts training Fang had provided and sex, men were pretty helpless against me, but I was talking about going up against Fang now. I needed a weapon besides my fists and ass. He would have expected one, and he wouldn’t fall for the other.
I found a small pistol in one of the kitchen drawers, the first one I opened. It really didn’t surprise me to find one that fast in Cole’s apartment. There were probably guns hidden everywhere. He’d been an underground arms dealer at one point, before Fang took that business from him, so it only made sense that he would have been prepared for any incident.
I checked to make sure the gun was loaded. It wouldn’t have done me any good empty. I shoved it in the waist of my jeans and grabbed my backpack from the bedroom floor. I looked around again before walking out. I knew I was leaving my clothes here, but they were the clothes Cole had purchased for me. They didn’t need to come with me. I didn’t want the constant reminder of what I might have been leaving behind.
I also wasn’t completely convinced that I wasn’t coming back.
I closed the door behind me and took the elevator down to the ground floor. The building was so quiet, it was like everyone knew something I didn’t. I didn’t see another person until I stepped out back.
There was a ratty, homeless-looking man hanging out by the dumpster. I fished out a ten-do
llar bill and handed it to him.
“Thanks,” he said, stuffing it into one of his filthy pockets.
“It’s not free,” I told him. “I need a witness. Hide where you can keep an eye on me. Someone’s coming to get me, and you might have to tell someone later who it was. Think you can do that for me?”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Yeah, I can do that,” he said, and he wandered into the mess of boxes and newspapers on the other side of the dumpster, disappearing into the garbage.
Chapter 15
I waited in the afternoon light with Cole’s whiskey sitting in my stomach and flowing through my veins. Suspicion brewed in the back of my mind. I was suspicious of both of the men in my life, and it was starting to get old already. I looked up and down the alley between the apartment building and the parking garage.
I felt like I should have gone with Cole. I should have forced his hand. It was the only way I knew I could ensure that neither one of them would fuck me over. It would have been a good way to make sure I didn’t screw either one of them over, too.
Of course, I could screw both of them over right now, I thought. I looked around at the buildings surrounding me. Everything was so close right here. I could almost touch the concrete walls of the parking deck from the back door of the apartment building. The next building over stood just as close, leaving enough room for one-way traffic down the alleyways.
I could have taken a page out of my homeless friend’s playbook and just disappeared right then and there. I could have ditched my phone in the dumpster, stopped at the nearest ATM to grab enough cash to get me up the road, and just walked off into the dying light. It wasn’t an idea that occurred to me often, but there were times when I fantasized about ditching my current life and going off to find something new. At times like this, when I was faced with a no-win situation, when I suspected I was going to get screwed either way I went, it just seemed easier to walk away.
It wouldn’t have been hard to keep my head down until I got somewhere safe. Then, thanks to the internet, no one had to know where I was when I transferred the money out of my bank account electronically.
“What are you thinking, Sasha?” I asked myself under my breath. “Thinking about running?” I owed both men for their kindness and their help, but both of them had used me to some extent. Then again, I had used them as well.
My eyes darted back and forth, torn between waiting for Fang’s car and watching out in case I decided to make a run for it.
“If you’re going to run, now’s the time to do it,” the homeless man called out to me.
I jumped at the sound of his scratchy voice. I laughed.
“It’s that obvious, huh?” I asked.
“Yep, but if you’re going to do it, it’s best to stop thinking about it and just go,” he added.
“Is that what you did?” I asked him.
“Not quite. I got booted out of my life,” he told me. “I landed here the hard way, but whenever I want to go now, I just walk. Nothing’s tying me down, lady. You got something tying you down? I mean, besides what you’re thinking about running from?”
I glanced over in his direction, but I couldn’t see him. He was talking to me from his camouflaged hiding place in the boxes and papers. I didn’t know how to answer him. I had one man who wouldn’t let me go very easily. He was my boss and probably thought of himself as my father. The other one thought of me as either his lover or a threat to his business.
Before I could formulate an answer, I heard the car pulling up. It was a shiny black sedan with blacked out windows. It was the same car from the park! The old man had been right. I should have run.
Three men got out. It looked like the same three men from the attack at the park, but I knew two of them had taken shots to the head. Whoever hired them just had a knack for finding guys who fit that particular mold.
I reached for the gun in the waistband of my jeans.
“I wouldn’t do that, Sasha,” one of the men said, approaching me slowly, carefully, with one hand out and the other tucked into his black suit jacket.
I looked around. I could feel myself starting to panic. I looked for an escape route.
For the last five years, I’d been able to get out of any jam I got myself into. I’d been able to steal from every crime boss in the city—and there were many. But in the last couple of weeks, I’d been caught three times now.
“Your boyfriend isn’t going to save you this time,” a second one said.
The third one grabbed my arms.
“Fuck it,” I said under my breath. I was pretty sure Fang had sent these guys this time. I kicked myself for not listening to Cole when he tried to convince me that he’d sent the guys after me at the park.
I shifted my weight and threw Number Three over my shoulder. He landed on his side in front of me, forcing the other two to step aside. They looked down at their fallen comrade and then back at me. Through their dark sunglasses, I could only imagine what their eyes must have looked like, probably just as expressionless as their square jaws and tight lips.
These men were programmed like robots not to show any emotions. They were probably going to take me, but I was going to get some emotion out of them first.
I stepped back and lowered my center of gravity. They were all taller and wider than I was. They had very square bodies with thin, broad shoulders and long arms and legs. They all had black hair cut short and brushed back. They were easy targets, as they hadn’t expected me to fight back.
Number One pulled out his gun, and I quickly disarmed him with a kick to his hand. The gun hit the ground and slid underneath the car. While he stepped back and grabbed his hand, Number Three tried to dive under the car to get the gun, but a couple of kicks to his head left him at least unconscious if not worse.
That was when Number Two grabbed me from behind and found his face slammed against the front driver side window. He backed away, stunned.
That left Number One again. I turned to face him and reached behind my back for my gun—it wasn’t there.
“Looking for this?” Number One asked, holding up the gun.
“How in the hell?” I blurted out.
He shrugged and pointed the gun at me.
“It doesn’t matter, because if you don’t calm down and get in the car, well, I’m sure you can guess what’s going to happen.”
Numbers Two and Three stepped to either side of me.
“Glad to see I didn’t hurt you too much,” I offered condolences to Number Three.
“Better than what we’re going to do to you,” he threatened. He tossed the gun he’d pulled out from under the car to Number One.
I saw my opportunity when Number One looked away to holster his gun. I knew very well that if I wasn’t successful in fighting these assholes off, it could have been my last stand. What they didn’t seem to realize, was that I was pretty sure Fang had sent them. If that were indeed the case, there was only so much they could do before they got in trouble with him. He wouldn’t have accepted my dead body. And anything short of that was fine by me, so it didn’t matter.
Using my skills as a thief in the night, I shoved myself against Number One and grabbed his hand, bringing his arm around in front of me until the gun was aimed at Number Two. His reflexes kicked in, and he squeezed the trigger. Number Two’s chest erupted in a red spray, and he fell back against the car.
Number Three watched his comrade fall to the ground and dove down to his side to help him out, but it was pretty obvious it was too late.
I jerked Number One’s arm down, bending it the wrong way and forcing him to drop the gun. I quickly spun away from him and grabbed the gun. My back against the car, I aimed at One, then at Three.
“I’m leaving,” I told them. “Either one of you tries to stop me, you’re going to be on the ground like your buddy there. Got it?”
One raised his hands up, showing me he was unarmed. Three stayed on the ground with Two, wh
o wasn’t responding to anything, much less to my threat. I started to back away from them, sliding myself along the back of the sedan until I was past the rear bumper.
I had no choice but to run. By taking out one of Fang’s men, there wasn’t a safe place to hide in this town. I had to leave. I had to get the hell out of Dodge, but I froze. I could have turned right then. I could have high-tailed it out of there. I could have run across the alleyway, jumped the low wall of the parking garage, and I could have disappeared into the darkness. But I also knew that turning my back on those two men would have been a deadly mistake.
“Take out your guns,” I told both of them, assuming they both had guns under their coats. I knew Number One did.