Smuggled Wonder

by Knight, Belle

  But the guy noticed his movement and took a step back. “I am smarter than you think.”

  “Maybe,” Darius said.

  The guy aimed the gun at his head again.

  Darius used his last seconds to control his breathing, to slow it down and wish the universe to provide safety for his parents, for Ashley, for forgiveness for all the times he had acted a coward in his life.

  Chapter 14

  “Wait!” Ashley said. She slammed her boots down one more time and then crouched. Feeling the ground with bare hands, she checked for warmth, for any sign of remaining flares. Satisfied, she stood. “I’m done now.”

  The guy still held a gun to Darius’ head. Ashley went to stand next to Darius as if to emphasize that she was now this guy’s willing prisoner.

  No more trouble.

  At least for right now.

  She knew Darius might not understand, but the hint of fire in a place like this was no joke. Entire local industries could be ravaged and destroyed and not come back for more than a decade if a fire swept through. She couldn’t let that happen on her watch.

  She’d been running for the woods when she saw Darius go after the guy with the cigarette. Just that little flare in the night made her stomach twist with fear. She had walked a fine line, holding back panic at the gun pointed at Darius while she worked fast enough to put out the fire.

  But none of it made sense. Why was Darius a prisoner like her? What parts of his explanations were true?

  He had admitted he had been hired to kill King, and he’d planned to go through with it, but he’d also just been shot, giving support to his claim that he wasn’t working for them.

  There wasn’t time to ask, nor would she dare it with the gun pointed at Darius. Her traitorous heart had lurched at the sight of that gun and panic had filled her boot stomping.

  She hated him.

  She couldn’t lose him like that.

  Headlights saved her from her thoughts. The truck from earlier wound down the narrow lane, its headlights like two searchlights bouncing across the landscape. It crossed over them several times, blinding Ashley. When it finally skidded to a stop, kicking up some sticks and gravel into her face, the guy with the gun motioned them forward. “In the back.”

  Ashley and Darius went without complaint. The driver looked them over on the way but didn’t say a word.

  She thought he was one of the men from earlier. She hoped that meant there couldn’t be more than four. The two in the barn and the two she had seen wandering around inside Janice’s house.

  The metal truck was almost ice cold under her hands and quickly bled the heat from her body through her clothes. She still smelled smoke and her mouth tasted like salt—she knew that was likely more from Darius than from her fire work.

  Darius sat next to her in the truck bed, leaving space between them.

  She felt sadness and anger and—goddamn her body to hell—a desire to feel his hands on her again. She was her own worst enemy and scooted another several inches away from Darius to give her room to think. He stilled, as if she had slapped him, radiating both worry and sadness at the same time. But she couldn’t handle anyone else’s feelings right then except her own.

  The truck started up the path and the guy with the gun sat in the far end of the truck bed, closest to the driver, gun pointed their direction.

  “Where are you taking us?” Ashley said.

  “Shut up,” he said.

  “Oh, you’re that guy again,” Ashley said. “Do you have a name?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Okay, Shut Up. Where are you taking us? You obviously need us for something, otherwise why not kill us back there at the distillery?”

  “Are you saying you wish I had done so?”

  “Ashley,” Darius said, shaking his head.

  But the whole situation was fucked up and if she was going to be killed then what did it matter? And if she wasn’t, then she wanted to know everything.

  “I’m saying tell us what you want,” Ashley said.

  “I can get you money,” Darius said. “I can track down whatever you’re looking for. I can—”

  “Dead now or dead later,” the guy with the gun waved it around. “The only difference is clean up.” The guy in the cab spoke in a foreign language. Gruff words that sounded like a command of some sort. The guy with the gun laughed. “You are lucky. He says kill you now and I am in charge of clean up. So. We will wait.”

  “For what?” Ashley said.

  Instead of answering, the guy with the gun said, “You can call me Boris.” He waved at the driver.

  “But neither of you are Russian,” Ashley said.

  “Call him Stallone,” the Boris wannabe said through the open cab window, chuckling over his joke.

  “Like, Sylvester Stallone?” Ashley said.

  “Yes, exactly,” Boris said. “He has watched all the movies.”

  The drive to Storm Weather farm was short and ended the conversation before Ashley could get herself deeper into trouble.

  Boris and Stallone?

  It was like King and Gandalf. People were fucking weird about names. But Boris seemed in a particularly jovial mood as he motioned them out of the truck and back into the Storm Weather farm barn, where this had all began.

  Stallone followed. He had been the short one in the earlier barn fight. Boris was the tall one. In the barn light is was easy to see the bruises both of them sported from their earlier encounter with her broken broom stick.

  The arsenic container was tilted on its side, empty. The sight sickened her.

  It seemed the whole gang was present. Stallone, Boris, and one other guy. Three in total. She could have sworn there was a fourth member and worried there were even more somewhere who hadn’t shown themselves yet.

  Not that three was a good number.

  She thought maybe she could take on one by herself if she found another stick. That left two for Darius. But then her mind skittered back from that thought. When did she suddenly switch to thinking Darius was on her side after all? He had been shot at, he had a gun pointed at him more often than it had been pointed at her. Maybe she should give him a second chance. He had mentioned his mother being in danger somehow—

  “Darius, it’s so fucking good to see you again.”

  It was the third member of the group. He walked into the barn dressed in well-worn jeans. A thick brown leather belt with a bronzed belt buckle that looked like it could have been a trophy buckle from a rodeo was around his waist. He was older, somewhere in his fifties. A zippered jacket with a rough wool collar ended in work gloves. He wore real cowboy boots and a hat. She dubbed him The American in her mind because he stood in such stark contrast to the others.

  His assumed familiarity with Darius made Ashley’s heart snap shut once again. There was something about The American that scared her more than Boris and Stallone. Those two were just mean. The American seemed—calculating, authentic, serious about doing whatever it took to attain some goal unknown to her.

  A black sort of curtain lay like a veil over her heart and thoughts. She was alone in this barn, more alone than she had ever been in her life, even though she was surrounded by people—one of whom she had recently had sex with.

  Thinking about Darius hurt the worst. She wanted to give up and lie down and never get up again. What was the point of fighting when every time she fought for something, that very same something betrayed her?

  She had been brave, she had been stoic, she had been on her own for years, making do and making dreams that counted on no one but herself. In a matter of hours Darius had somehow forced hope for something more to spring up inside her and now all that remained was devastation and—it seemed like—a imminent violent end.

  “Do I know you?” Darius said.

  Ashley cringed at the farce. “Give up on it, Darius.”

  “She’s right, Darius,” The American said. “You work for me, after all. You should know me.” He smiled. “Confused? I
’m hurt you don’t recognize me, or rather, my company. You should remember them. After all, they hired you to take care of her ram.”

  Ashley caught Darius glancing over at her, as if he was trying to read her reaction. She put on the best poker face she had. It wasn’t hard. There wasn’t room anymore for anything but a sort of deadness. She couldn’t even feel angry or hurt.

  “I’ve done everything you asked. Haven’t I?”

  “Yes, in fact you have.”

  “Then why get in the way this time?” Darius said. “I was taking care of things tonight.”

  Yeah, Ashley thought, he had been taking care of things really well so far. Fucking me and then fucking me over.

  “There has been an unfortunate development. A special shipment our network had promised to protect has, instead, been discovered by little more than a museum volunteer working a late night.” The American shook his head as if in disgust over the simple inferiority of some people. “Unfortunately, federal agencies are now involved.”

  Ashley’s mind attempted to sift through the vague details and events. Network? Museum volunteer? Exactly what had Darius been involved with? Her mind shut those questions down. It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, was big and, for her, likely lethal.

  “That has nothing to do with me,” Darius said. “I covered my tracks all along. I’ve been careful. I—”

  “You know too much,” The American said simply. “That is what things come down to. I and my associates are here to tie up loose ends. You are a loose end.”

  Ashley’s heart skipped at The American’s final sentence. A growing understanding warred with the betrayal she felt inside. It had started as a small whisper and was increasing to a deafening scream.

  Maybe this had been the plan all along.

  Let Darius track down King.

  Use his mother as leverage.

  Make all evidence disappear.

  It made a certain kind of sense, but then again, it put Darius in a positive light. It made his betrayal less malicious and more about protecting his mother.

  What was the truth, and what was her heart trying to rationalize his behavior so that she wasn’t guilty of fucking up her life for a manipulating, abusive jerk? Ashley felt her hardened heart softening, in spite of everything.

  “But my mother—”

  “Will remain alive. For now,” The American said. “As long as she doesn’t make any trouble for us.”

  “She won’t give up on finding out what happened to me,” Darius said, anger in every line of his body.

  “That cannot be permitted,” The American said, inserting a hint of fake sadness into his tone.

  “You blackmailed him by threatening his mother?” Ashley said, needing to be sure this wasn’t all in her head because hope was growing inside her. If she let it out of its cage there would be no reining it in.

  He had said it—this was about saving his mother—but how could she believe the words from his mouth after everything he had been hired to do?

  “Of course,” The American said. “Finding leverage on someone is the best way to ensure they do what needs to be done. This is why it has been difficult to decide what to do with you.”

  Something broke open inside Ashley. Hope was loosed and she changed her evaluation of Darius—again. There was so much more going on here than what she had taken at face value. Her own mixed up history of betrayal and abuse had made her blind to the details of Darius’ situation.

  The American turn his attention onto Ashley and she tried to mask the emotional turmoil going on inside. It didn’t change their situation. Four men with guns were here to tie up loose ends.

  “There doesn’t seem to be any particular leverage in your life that we could find, except for your sheep, that is. Rather pathetic, and not enough.”

  “Fuck you,” Ashley said, without thinking.

  The American raised his hand to strike Ashley across the face. She held herself stoic under his threatened violence.

  Darius stepped between her and The American and her heart beat loudly in her chest. He was beautiful and strong and she didn’t want him to die tonight, no matter what he was really here for.

  “Who are you?” Darius interjected.

  “It doesn’t matter who I am,” The American said. He lowered his fist and tapped his chest several times with his index finger for emphasis. “It matters who I represent, and I represent Mirage. Your employer. So call me Mirage for all I care. It won’t be for very much longer.”

  A fourth man entered the barn. He wore an almost identical outfit to Boris and Stallone.

  “Finally,” The American said. “Are you finished?”

  The fourth guy nodded.

  “Good. I have just gotten tired of them. Shall we get on with it?”

  Chapter 15

  The four men dragged Darius and Ashley out into the cool night air.

  The crickets and frogs continued their riotous night noises, making the darkness anything but silent. The sheep were quiet. Bitterness sat on Darius’ tongue because though it hadn’t been explained, he suspected he knew what would happen next. The night smelled cool and wet and he would have loved to spend it alone with Ashley with a blanket on the ground for round two of their love-making.

  But Mirage could not leave any witnesses. They were tying up loose ends.

  Maybe if he hadn’t shown up tonight at all, maybe it only would have been Ashley’s herd that had to die and they would have tied up his loose end somewhere else. But now that wasn’t possible. When they were done here, they would eventually end up at his family’s ranch, because he knew his mother would not stay silent, not for anyone, not if she thought her son was in danger.

  He thought this had been about stealing semen and protecting DNA lines. And it was, but it was about so much more than that. He’d thought the players involved just some Italian cheese-mongers willing to do violence just over the line of legal to protect their economic interests, but this was something much bigger.

  That complexity was going to swallow up him and Ashley and it didn’t look like there was any way to stop it from happening. Four men with guns. He felt the bleakness of their situation swallow him up. What was the point of fighting anymore? Every step of the way, every choice he made had only brought more harm to those he cared about. He’d gotten to know Ashley for little more than a few hours and soon, because of him, she would be dead.

  What kind of person was he, to bring such destruction to those around him?

  He let the dark feelings overwhelm him.

  “Tie them up.” Stallone and Boris, which were as good of names as any for the two goons, did as instructed. The other guy, from Mirage, gave out directions.

  The American somehow knew Darius, but Darius did not know him other than his voice had sounded familiar. He wasn’t one of the men who had threatened his parents, but could have been one he talked to over a secure phone line once.

  It didn’t matter. Mirage didn’t use names. Not real ones anyway.

  The ropes dug into his wrists as Stallone and Boris tied his hands behind his back. He let them do it and welcomed the pain as a wake up call. The American and the other Mirage guy held guns aimed at Darius and Ashley. His stomach twisted and rage flared as he saw Ashley in danger.

  He could take on one, even two of them. But not four at once, and not with four guns.

  As they tied Ashley up, hands behind her back, they forced the two of them to walk side by side deeper into the ranch acreage.

  “They’re going to kill us,” Ashley said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes,” Darius said simply. His heart had turned to stone and he’d begun to block out emotion and pain. What was the point?

  “You’re giving up.”

  It wasn’t a question either but her words pricked him with their truth and he felt compelled to respond. “Yes. Wouldn’t you?”

  “No,” Ashley said. “Not yet. Not ever.” She looked to the side and he followed her attention. There were
her ram and ewes, together in a paddock close by. “They shouldn’t be together like that. Not yet, but somehow King found a way in. He kept trying. And we’re not dead yet.”

  He didn’t know what her words really meant or why a ram getting himself in with a bunch of ewes had given her hope.

  “I believe you.” Ashley moved closer to him to allow their arms to touch. Electricity sparked his skin and chipped away at the stone that had encased it. “I believe that you came here to kill King because they were going to hurt your mother. I believe you.”

  Hope washed over him again, but that hope was full of pain. She was saying so many things in so few words.

  He thought he had given up, and he had, but her words had filled up that dead space and brought him back from the bleakness. The plain truth was the odds of getting both of them out of this alive was very, very slim.

  But the odds were better if his only goal was to get her out of this alive.

  Chapter 16

  Ashley didn’t know how it was possible but she felt filled with both hope and despair. The muck squished under her boots as she walked next to Darius along the paddock that housed King and the ewes. He looked fierce in there, his spiral horns strong and ferocious. She had stored such hopes in him and thought there was a good chance none of them would come true now, but it did her heart good to settle on the belief in Darius’ good intentions, though it had led him to this dark place next to her.

  King was watching them, on high alert, guarding his harem and exuding an aggressiveness that was plain even in the faint moonlight. He tracked them along the paddock fence. They neared and then passed by a gate in the fencing that she used sometimes to bring in extra feed.

  The American spoke quietly with his three men. “First them, then we let the herd in to feed and drink. Then we leave.”