by I. A. Dice
“Aren’t they coming in?” I asked, following Spades into the living room.
He shook his head no. “Not if they’re not needed.” He leaned against the couch, looking around the room, avoiding eye-contact. “You just got back?”
I frowned. “Yes. Spit it out. What happened?”
He rubbed his hands, then put them in his pockets, but immediately changed his mind, and crossed his them over his chest.
“I assume you didn’t turn on the TV yet?”
“No.” I looked around for the remote control. “What happened? Some kind of a breakthrough in the investigation?”
I took three steps toward the coffee table, but Spades cut me off. He was silent for a moment, staring into the distance as if trying to gather his thoughts.
“There was an accident,” he began, sounding defeated.
A ringing silence followed before he took a deep breath, and met my gaze, a magnitude of fear and sorrow in his eyes. “Layla is dead.”
It felt as if I jumped headfirst into ice-cold water.
I stood there, eyeing Spades, confident that I misunderstood, or heard him wrong. But the expression on his face said everything I didn’t want to know.
And I stopped feeling in an instant.
There was nothing but a deaf, all-encompassing emptiness. No thoughts, no emotions. I didn’t even feel my body. I was paralyzed, both physically and mentally.
“What?” I spat out, pulling myself from the numbness for just a moment.
“Layla died,” he uttered, and straightened up, taking a firm stance, ready for my outburst. “Her plane crashed half an hour ago.”
I shook my head. “It’s not her,” I said. “It’s not Layla.”
Spades had no idea which plane she was on. She didn’t even use her name! It couldn’t be her. It was a misunderstanding.
“It’s not her,” I repeated. “She flew out on a new passport. Someone wants me to think she’s dead.”
“Stella Meridionali,” Spades cut in. “Southern Star from Latin. A private plane was on its way to New York. Engine failed. They crashed twenty minutes after takeoff.”
“No,” I said sharply. “It’s not Layla. She’s fine. She’s alive.”
Resigned, Spades reached out for the remote control. He turned on the TV, switched to the news channel, and let me watch my whole world collapse around me when Five dead in a private plane crash appeared on the yellow bar.
I watched the flashing lights of ambulances; the fire trucks standing next to the wreck; the police cars and people rushing around. I watched a paramedic fasten a black plastic bag. I watched my fulfilled dream, suddenly, brutally torn out of my hands, and I couldn’t process the facts.
It took me a mere few minutes to break through the first two stages of dying – shock and disbelief. And then the third phase arrived in all its glory, taking control over me – anger.
I told Spades to get the fuck out of my house, and ran upstairs, blinded by fury. I took the gun out of the nightstand and rushed back downstairs, knocking everything on my path, shooting at the walls and screaming as if I escaped a mental institution.
I was blinded by emotions.
What I felt couldn’t compare to anything I lived through before. There were no words to describe it, no words to verbalize it, no way to control it, and no way to weaken it.
Rage sought an escape route out of my body, and I couldn’t focus on anything specific. I didn’t know what was happening and didn’t know how to stop running around the house, destroying everything in my path. I wasn’t sure how long it lasted, or what I did because anger deprived me of rational thinking.
In the end, I fell to my knees in the middle of the living room, entering the fourth phase – despair.
I grabbed my head, wanting to tear my hair out.
Before I met Layla, I wanted power. When she entered my life, I wanted her. When I fell in love with her, I wanted a future with her at my side. Now that I lost her, I lost my way; my goal in life.
And I’d give everything to have her back. Money, respect… every material and immaterial thing. The emptiness in my heart was tearing my soul apart. I couldn’t cope without her.
My imagination tortured me, summoning pictures from a few months, weeks, and days ago. I saw Layla wearing the red dress, with a fierce face and murder in her eyes as she walked through Delta like a confident movie star. That whole evening was coming back to me, Layla’s gestures, smiles, and every time my heart skipped a beat when she looked at me with those big gray eyes.
I remembered the overwhelming desire that washed over me when we kissed for the first time.
I cupped her face and fastened my lips on hers. Adrenaline throbbed in my limbs like the first time I pulled the trigger. There was nothing sweet and tender about this kiss. Not how I imagined it’d be. Not how I wanted her first kiss to be.
The floral scent of her skin, the sweetness of her lips and the quiet sigh that escaped her, stripped my inhibitions. My fingers found long hair while I devoured her mouth with the avidity of a starving lion.
Her hands rested on my torso, the grip she had on my jacket tightened; enough power in her kiss to light up downtown. She waited a long time for this, and the urgency of her mouth battling with mine for dominance magnified my craving.
We stood there, kissing, surrounded by blaring horns and flashing billboard lights, and I couldn’t stop.
I didn’t want to stop.
Scraps of all these best moments were coming back to inflict more pain – her laughter; warm, naked body covered in a mist of sweat; every smile; every “I love you.” I didn’t tell her how much she meant to me and that I’d do anything for her.
There was no resisting the urgency of her lips, the love radiating off of her in almost tangible waves. “I love you,” she whispered, grazing her nose across my cheek.
For the first time in my life, I felt tears on my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them. Instead, I held my head, rocking back and forth like an orphan, painfully aware that the only woman I cared about, the only person who mattered in my fucking life was dead.
Don’t ever leave me again,” I whispered into her mouth before losing any inhibitions I hoped to have. The longing and ache erupted deep inside my structure, and the kiss turned greedy, chaotic.
Layla’s hands rested on my neck as we fought to say with the kiss everything neither of us knew how to say with words.
I broke away first, pressing my forehead to hers, stroking her cheeks with my thumbs. “Never leave me.”
“I promise.”
“You promised,” I whispered. “You promised...”
I missed her more than ever before. I felt pain a hundred times worse than the physical one. I’d rather get a bullet than go through this, whatever it was. Mourning? Agony? Desperation? All at once.
If I hadn’t agreed to send her away she’d still be alive, she’d be safe. I wouldn’t be losing my wits, lying on the living room floor, my heart and soul gone.
I didn’t want to remember, I didn’t want to think, I wanted to turn off and wake up when the pain would go away, but with every passing hour, I understood that there was no walking around this. I had to go straight through if I were to ever come out on the other side.
My attempts at fighting my brain ceased, and my subconscious showed me every moment spent with Layla. I tried to digest it, to accept that she was no longer there.
Morning came and went unnoticed, but by the next evening, I rose from the ground and, feeling nothing at all, I climbed the stairs. I took one step at a time, did everything on autopilot, fulfilling the tasks from memory, not paying any attention to what I was doing. I took a shower, got dressed, and took the phone from the bedside table. I was numb, stiff, empty inside.
I went back downstairs, made myself a cup of quadruple espresso, then sat down at the dining room table and dialed Spades.
The time had come to enter phase five – acceptance.
I sat up abruptly on the bed, drenche
d in sweat. Fear stained my subconscious like a drop of ink in a bowl of water. Half aware that I had just woken up, I ran downstairs and turned on the TV.
The pain I felt in my heart made me think it wasn’t just a dream. I stood in front of the screen, staring at the yellow bar, and all my muscles turned to stone. When fifteen minutes later there was still no mention of a private plane crash I began to relax.
The dream felt so realistic, so tangible it was hard to believe it was, in fact, just a dream.
I dropped the remote control on the couch glancing at my watch. It was four o’clock. Layla was still up in the air with Julij and Anatolij by her side. They weren’t supposed to land in Moscow for two more hours, but it didn’t stop me from trying to call her.
It’s Layla, try again soon, but don’t leave a message. I won’t listen.
A small smile tugged on my lips, and despite it only being a recording, her voice calmed me down.
EIGHTEEN
DANTE
I swore under my breath, looked at my watch for the hundredth time, and dialed Layla’s number once more.
It’s Layla, try again soon, but don’t leave a message. I won’t listen.
The flight schedule on the Moscow’s airport website stated that the plane with Julij, Anatolij, and Layla on board landed twenty-five minutes ago, but none of them switched their phones on yet.
Considering Anatolij’s position, the passport control should’ve taken ten minutes tops, and it wasn’t like they had to wait for their luggage, so the delay was worrying.
It’s Layla, try again soon, but don’t leave a message. I won’t listen.
“Stop it. She’ll call as soon as she can,” Spades said, leaning against the bar in the living room. “Your hands are shaking as if you were drinking for a week.”
“She landed half an hour ago.”
He shook his head and looked at the ceiling as if begging God for patience. “She’ll call. Don’t panic. We have a lot of things to discuss, Nate will be here with Cai and Jackson in a moment. Sending Layla away was supposed to focus your brain on closing the hit, and instead, you’ve got hay here.” He patted the back of my head.
“When I know she arrived and everything is okay, I’ll focus,” I replied, irritated.
“Yeah, right. I’m not saying sending her to Moscow was a bad idea, but there’s no way you’ll focus when she gets there. No, you won’t fucking focus until Julij comes back.” He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall. A line throbbed at his temple, jaw tightened, as he glared at me with a pained look. “He won’t touch her.”
“I know he won’t.”
Spades rolled his eyes when I put the phone back to my ear.
It’s Layla, try again soon, but don’t leave a message. I won’t listen.
Layla’s absence was a challenge on my overworked psyche. The excess of problems I pushed into the background while she was by my side knocked me off my feet when she boarded the plane.
Everything I tried to keep in check surfaced and kept my head occupied. The hit, Anatolij, Julij’s feelings, Chief Jeremy Smith screaming his head off over the phone every time I rang to tell him about another dead hitman, Morte, Johnny, the business that still had to operate in all the chaos.
It was tiring.
And that’s without adding worrying about my girl to the mix.
When she was within my reach I had control over the paralyzing fear that resided in me since I found out about the bounty on her head, but since she left, and more importantly – since waking up from that fucked up dream, I was like a ticking bomb.
There was a lot to do, but in the disarray of my own thoughts, I struggled to find a specific direction; to see a way out of the mayhem.
I couldn’t decide what to do first, where to go, whom to kill, and whom to bribe. I tried to outsmart Morte, not worry about Layla, trust Anatolij that he knew what he was doing hiding her in Moscow. And in all of that, I tried hard to believe that Layla was safer away from me.
I shook my head in an attempt to refocus on the matter at hand and pulled out a packet of cigarettes from my pocket. Spades was right – my hands were shaking as if AA meetings were in my weekly schedule.
“So? What are we doing first? Chasing Morte? Paying the big players a visit? Countering the bounty? What’s the plan?”
Ordering a hit on Morte crossed my mind. Five million would tempt a lot of people, but few would take the risk.
A bird in hand is worth two in the bushes.
Layla was an easy target. The probability of killing her versus Morte was like ten to one, and so ninety percent of the killers would still prefer to look for my girl than chase the ghost that Morte was – always one step ahead.
Under normal circumstances, i.e., if I were just a random guy trying to find and kill Morte, it’d be a mission impossible.
The only thing was – Morte, and I fell from the same apple tree. We both worked under Dino, we were both mentored by Frank. We spent six years side by side.
If anyone could kill the son-of-a-bitch, it was me.
“We get at it from all angles,” I said. “Cover all the bases. Jackson’s looking for Morte, and until he finds him, we’ll be paying off everyone who’s willing to be paid off, and disposing of those who aren’t. Security stays in place. I didn’t make Layla’s relocation such a fucking secret for no reason. The longer the information stays buried, the better.”
“You want to kill Morte? That’s a shitty plan. I mean, it’ll work, no money equals no takers, but it’ll take weeks if not months for all the dare-devils to get the news, and I’m pretty sure you’re not planning on keeping Layla out of Chicago for that long.”
True. Good thing killing the bastard was only plan B in case plan A – forcing Morte to call off the hit, failed.
“What if Morte has a second-in-command?” Spades asked.
“You overthink it.” I butted the cigarettes in the sink and turned to grab a bottle of water from the fridge.
I’ve not had a proper drink for over three weeks. Since the moment I found out about the hit, I refused to numb my mind with alcohol. Layla’s safety depended on my ability to think straight at all times.
“Frank hired Morte because he’s the best, but he also has one major flaw – he’s overconfident. He thinks he’s invincible.”
The alarm clicked once, announcing the arrival of someone, who knew the code to disarm it. A clatter of several pairs of elegant shoes spread across the corridor, and a moment later Nate, Cai, and Jackson appeared in the doorway.
“Where’s Rookie?” I asked.
“He’s taking Jane back to her parents. He didn’t want her here when it gets too hot.”
“It’s not her they’re after,” Jackson smirked.
Nate smacked his head. “Better safe than sorry, jackass. I took Bianca to my mother’s house last night, and Luna flew out to see her brother. We’ve got a shitload to do, and it’ll be better if the girls aren’t here. They won’t get in the way, and we won’t worry.”
I put the phone to my ear, and Spades nudged Cai motioning his chin at me. “You won’t, but he’s nowhere near done overreacting.”
“Hey,” Layla said into my ear.
I exhaled, relieved, ignoring Spades. “Finally.” I stepped out of the kitchen and onto the terrace, sliding the door shut behind me. “You landed forty-five minutes ago, star. What took so long? And how was the flight?”
“It was okay,” she sniffled. “I slept through most of it.”
My palms balled into fists, and I rested my elbows on the railing, hanging my head low, because I knew that thousands of miles away, on the back seat of some Russian car, Layla was leaning her head against the window, tears staining her cheeks.
“You promised not to cry,” I said, the image of her sad face in my head like a punch in the gut.
“I know, I’m sorry. But… Somehow it only just sunk in that I’m here, alone, and you’re so far away.”
I still had trouble
believing that I dared to entrust the safety of everything I held dear to a man I knew next to nothing about. Well, I knew he’d risk his life to protect her. I knew she was as important to him as she was to me, and that was good enough.
“It won’t take long, star.”
A cloud of gray smoke surrounded me when I lit up another cigarette, giving her a moment to regain composure.
“The tax collector was an ass, he didn’t speak English, so I’m not sure what the problem was, but Anatolij took care of it. It took a while, though.” She sounded better. “Do you know how cold it is here? It’s minus seven!”
I chuckled at the irritated tone to her voice. She had this. She was going to be just fine. Not that I had any reason to think otherwise, but I couldn’t help the protectiveness.
“You’ll find a white envelope in your bag. A bank card and pin number are inside. I opened a Swiss account for you, and there’s more than enough there to pay for a few furs to keep you warm.”
“You said I won’t be here long, so I think I’ll manage without wearing dead animals.”
“You won’t stay there any longer than necessary. Ask Julij to call me when he has a moment.”
“I love you,” she said and cut the call before I could respond.
I put the phone in my pocket, throwing the cigarette butt over the railing. Layla was safe in Moscow. And so I could finally focus on the problem at hand. I had a glimpse into what loss tasted like, though the feelings weren’t real and therefore probably weaker than what I’d be going through if Layla really died, but traumatic enough that I had no sense of right and wrong left in me.
NINETEEN
LAYLA
The last thing I expected to find in the basement of a small castle on the outskirts of Moscow was a dance room. Anatolij showed it to me on the fifth day. We sat in one of the three living rooms, chatting about anything that came to mind.
Fire danced in the large fireplace, moonlight seeped inside through the ceiling-high windows, and classical music played in the background to fill in the odd minute of silence.