by S. Massery
My father wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t kind and gentle. He was iron ore, forged from the bowels of the city. He was rough, and my mother was soft. My stepmother was closer to him: a tool to file me into the proper shape.
And god, did I love them.
I walk back into the bedroom, finding Jackson hovering by the door.
“I swear, Delia, if I don’t get answers, I’m leaving you here.” It’s a weak lie that drips from his lips and falls straight into the carpet.
“Yeah, right,” I laugh, calling his bluff. I point to the door, but he doesn’t move. And honestly, if he did? I don’t know if I wouldn’t run after him. My eyes go to Jackson’s boxers. I frown. “Can you at least put some pants on?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He rolls his eyes, snagging his jeans from the floor.
I sit on the bed, feeling a little better now that I’m fully dressed. I twist my fingers together. “So… what do you want to know?”
“Something,” he mutters. “Anything. I’m swinging in the dark here.”
I suppose that’s fair. Beyond delicious fucking skills, he’s got a talent for killing people. He has his own secrets—secrets that I’ve chosen not to pry into up until now. For some reason, he’s chosen to help me. To stay with me. I put my own questioning on the back burner.
I nod. “Right. Two weeks ago, my family was killed.” His eyes widen a fraction. “I escaped, but they wanted me dead, too. So I ran.”
“You ran from where?”
I inhale and exhale. Any minute now, he’s going to piece it together. I can just feel it. “Vegas.”
He narrows his eyes.
“You found me in my childhood home, okay? It was left to my mother from her grandparents, and then when she died, she left it to me. It was the only—”
“So they knew you had property?”
I blink. “What?”
“These people that are after you. Did they know you could be in Wyoming?” He crosses his arms, leaning on the desk across from the bed. A pang of guilt slices through me when I realize we didn’t even look at the wound on his arm. How much pain is he in?
“Uh…”
“Who’s after you?”
“Enemies of my family,” I mutter. Enough, a voice in my head whispers. It’s my father’s voice, warning me not to divulge family secrets. Unless he was one of us, there’s no way he could be told the full truth. I straighten my shoulders, rising panic urging me to turn the tables on him. “Speaking of questions, you killed them like it was nothing. I thought you were a firefighter.”
He lets out a laugh of disbelief. “Don’t turn this around on me.”
I glare at him, and he glares back. Whether or not my father said I was going to be a negotiator doesn’t matter now. Jackson wins.
My shoulders slump and I say, “It’s shit you don’t want to be involved in. You actually are better off leaving me here.” I tip my head back and laugh. “God, they’re going to kill me anyway.”
He stalks forward and grabs my shoulders. He shakes me, pressing me down into the mattress. “Tell. Me. Who.”
I try to shove him off of me, but he doesn’t budge. His weight bears down on me, and I have the disturbing urge to wrap my legs around his waist again. His hips press into mine, keeping me in place. Shame seeps through me when I realize his action is turning me on instead of inspiring fear. “Tell me this, Jackson. Why do you care? Why didn’t you drop me off on the side of the road and get away from this mess?” I reach up and grab his jaw. “I’m a hurricane,” I whisper. “Death follows me everywhere.”
His eyes flicker over my face, from my eyes to my nose, lingering on my lips. “That’s what I like about you,” he breathes.
My heart cracks. Any more words like this, and I’ll be a goner.
“The Castillos killed my family,” I say. “My father, my uncles—even my stepmother is gone.” I look down.
“How did you get out?”
I swallow. Some things are better left secret, and yet— “Tell me why you killed those men, and I’ll tell you how I escaped.”
His phone starts ringing, and we both flinch.
When he moves away from me, I raise an eyebrow. “You’re going to answer that?”
“Skye,” he says into his phone. He frowns. “Seriously, Spike? What, were you—”
He looks at me and mouths, Sorry.
I cock my head to the side, trying to eavesdrop without being obvious about it. My stomach growls, and for the first time in too long, I realize we haven’t eaten anything.
“Hang on,” Jackson mutters. He covers the mouthpiece of his phone and says, “Delia, do you want to get cleaned up?”
I sigh. He probably wants a moment of privacy. So I lift my bag and trudge into the bathroom, locking it behind me. I turn on the shower, watching the spray turn hot and start billowing steam into the room. I’m on my last clean pair of underwear. I have one shirt left, and only the pants on my body. There are some dirty socks stuffed into the bottom of the bag, along with the knife, my wallet, and a pack of gum. Slim pickings. In the front pocket, I have two bandaids and a small tube of hand sanitizer.
After the sex, I’m feeling strangely empty. Hollowed out. And yet, those feelings will have to wait for me to analyze them.
I strip. Bits of glass fall out of my shirt, and I watch them fall to the floor. It’s one thing to be shot at—that, at least, I could’ve put behind me. But this physical evidence of the chase drags the memories to the present. I step under the water and wash away the sounds of gunshots, the fear, the sex. But I hold onto the faces of the dead men as long as I can. Until I can’t bear it.
6
JACKSON
There are too many things to consider, and it’s making me jumpy.
One: they were able to track Delia way too easily. How did they know what motel we were in?
Two: after talking with Mason, I learned that the Castillos are an old-school cartel that rule half of Vegas. The other half is controlled by the Moretti family. But the Castillos? Not exactly a walk in the park. Half of the patrol cops in their area are on their payroll. That’s not even to mention the drugs and trafficking that they’re alleged to control.
Three…
I can’t think of the third thing, because I walk out of the bathroom after stitching my arm up and see Delia’s bare legs. My brain shorts out. She has fantastic legs, smooth and pale. She’s stretched out on the bed, fast asleep. For the life of me, I can’t move my eyes off of her calves.
Jesus, Jackson, I tell myself. Get a grip.
I’m a little tipsy. It was the only way I could make myself put the needle through my skin and lace the wound closed. Thank god this hotel stocks each room with a mini bar.
A desperate, lonely part of me wants to climb into bed with her. I want to wrap myself around her and never let her go. My heart aches for that kind of human contact—lust, or love, or whatever this adrenaline-fueled attraction ends up being.
Instead, I grab my jacket and the room key and rush outside. There’s too much at stake here, too many questions, just—too much. I had worked hard to get myself out of the muck. I forced myself to retire from dangerous activity. I’ve been steadily ridding myself of ghosts, and now they all come roaring back at me.
There were six of us. Mason, Wyatt, Griffin, Zach, Dalton, and me. Spilled blood ties us together tighter than any family. Each of us had our specialties, and I go through the list in my head of who might be able to pull us out of this mess. Unlike Mason and I, who both got out of contract work, Griffin, Zach, and Dalton are still in the thick of it. Wyatt survived overseas, but he died in the United States in a house fire only a year after being home. He would’ve been my first choice—he led us through dangerous missions all over Europe and western Asia. Griffin is probably in Europe. Dalton is living the rich and fabulous life in Miami. Mason always had his fingers in cyber security, and he’s been a big help. But he’s built a good life, and I can’t drag him into this.
&n
bsp; We were trained to get out of messy situations. Here I am, inserting myself into one.
I pull out my phone and lean against the brick siding of the hotel. I haven’t talked to Zach in months—about twelve of them, to be exact. He called me a few days after Wyatt died, but our conversation was stilted. I don’t remember most of what we talked about. He seems like the right person to call now. He makes a living doing exactly what Scorpion Industries trained us to do—he’s a smuggler. He gets weapons into the country, and sometimes he gets people out.
“Had a feeling you’d call,” he rasps. “Although I didn’t think it would be at five o’clock in the fucking morning.”
I chuckle to keep from vomiting my anxiety. He sounds the same. Do I apologize for the radio silence? Instead, I go with, “Figured I’d give you a wake-up call.”
He snorts.
He was the bulldozer of the group. The one with the machine guns blazing and the muscle to bust through fortified doors. He led the charges when we were in rough spots. He’s got enough muscle to bench press me and then some, and he was never afraid of flexing to get his way. After our contracts were up, and our war was deemed over—the real war never ends, but that’s a story for another day—he ended up in Chicago.
“What’d you need, Skye?”
I sigh. “What did Mason tell you?”
“Fuck, Mason is in on this?”
I scowl at his tone. “Who the fuck told you, then?”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad,” he warns. “A motel room obliterated off the face of the earth, three dead? I imagined it was you or Griffin, and Griff would’ve called me four hours ago.”
That brings a smile to my face. Griffin and Zach were always close, especially after we came back. “We had to get out of dodge before I could call for backup.”
He’s quiet for a minute. “Who’s we, and what kind of backup are you calling in?”
“You want me to hash this whole thing out with you? Right now?”
I imagine him smirking. The jackass probably wasn’t even asleep.
“Okay, fine,” I groan. “I was checking out a house on my way out—”
“You so bad off you burgle houses?”
“Everyone had to be evacuated,” I continue as if he didn’t cut me off. He knows damn well what I do. Did, at this rate, I mentally correct. Shame hits me like a sucker punch. “We were told someone might still be in one of the houses. So I went, and there was someone there. She got the jump on me.”
He whistles.
“She’s in trouble. The guys who shot up the motel room, the guys I—” Killed, I think, but I can’t say it out loud. I clear my throat. “They’re after her.”
“What’s the game plan?”
I tell myself that it’s okay to give away her secrets. “I don’t have one.”
“You know who’s hunting her?”
I kick a rock across the concrete. “I can guess.”
“So make an educated guess, jackass,” he snaps.
“The Castillos.”
He swears. Running with the mob in Chicago, it’s only natural that he’s heard of them. And if their name alone makes him nervous—which is what I’m picking up on from the colorful language bleeding through the phone—then we’re fucked.
“Jackson.” Zach hesitates. “Why are you doing this? Those guys have a long reach. Best to drop her off at the nearest airport and don’t look back. Those guys don’t have your face yet—you can still get away clean.”
I’m standing in my grave already, but only time will tell if I’ll be able to claw my way out again. Still, I can’t abandon my life for a girl I met less than twenty-four hours ago. Setting her free sounds like a safe, clean option. I’ll get her a new name, put her on a plane, and get back to my life.
“What’s Griff up to?”
Zach grunts. “What’re you thinking?”
“I’m thinking you’re right, and we need to get her a new name so she can get out of the country. Somewhere the Castillos have no reach. I was doing good work. Saving people from wildfires. Now I’m kind of on the run with a mysterious girl and I killed three people for her. What the fuck is happening to me?”
Zach is silent for a second. And then, “You fucking slept with her?”
“What?”
“Yeah, you fucking did, you jackass. Fucking the damsel in distress is a dickhead move.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re one to talk.”
“I’m proud of you, Skye. Real fuckin’ proud.”
“Get out of here,” I laugh.
“Go make us proud.”
“Hey, there’s a fight in Salt Lake City. Mason tell you?”
Zach chuckles. “You never invite us to those.”
I roll my shoulders back. Yeah, I’ve wanted Zach, Dalton, and Griff to think I was good. Spike, too. Mason was the only one I felt comfortable enough around to show my darkness. He’s too much of an angel himself to judge me. “Well, I am now.”
A car pulls into the hotel. I step back until I’m in the shadows against the building.
“Hey, Zach,” I say as two guys get out of the car and head into the lobby. “What’s the likelihood of two men checking into a hotel at,” I look at my watch, “quarter after five?”
“You better get out of there,” he mutters. “Shit. What can I do?”
I laugh as I tap my key card against the door, bolting up the stairs. “Mason told me to rent a car. How the fuck did they find us so fast?”
“Girl have a cell on her that they could be tracking?”
“I don’t know. I gotta go.” I hang up on him and slip into the room, slamming the deadbolt. She’s asleep flat on her stomach, her hair fanned out in a halo around her.
“Get up,” I say, unable to get closer to her. My heart beats faster around her, and I don’t like it. “Delia.”
She groans and rolls onto her back, and my heart thumps harder in my chest.
“Delia, we have to go.”
She finally blinks up at me, pulling herself into a sitting position. “We have to leave? We just got here.”
“How are they tracking us?” I ask, nearing the bed. “We drove for four hours. We could’ve gone in any direction. How did they find us?”
We both look at her bag at the same time and lunge for it. My arm grazes her breast. She pushes against me, hitting the newly closed wound, and I almost give in. We wrestle on the floor for a second. Her grip on the thick canvas is like iron, but I finally wrench it away from her.
Holding her back with one hand, I unzip it and dump the contents on my bed.
“Don’t,” she mumbles.
A shirt. Dirty socks. The knife, her wallet, and a pack of gum. A small notebook falls out, too, and that’s what makes her react.
When I grab it and flip it open, she looks like I’ve terrified her.
A name. A number. A code.
I hold it up. “What is this?” I growl.
Delia shakes her head.
“God damn it, Delia, I’m trying to help you.”
“Help? You’re trying to help me? You have no idea what’s coming after me. You have no idea what’s waiting for me—”
I drop the notebook and grab her by the back of her neck, hauling her close to me. My other hand covers her mouth. “Quiet,” I say.
We’re too late to get away. Someone is knocking on our door.
7
DELIA
I whimper against his fingers. His skin is hot, almost feverish, and I can’t help but remember what those fingers did to me earlier. Blood rushes to my cheeks as I stare at him, but his attention is on the door.
“Hide,” he mouths, slowly dropping his hands.
I lie down between the outside wall and the bed, pulling my legs up to my chest. The person on the other side of the door pounds on it hard enough to rattle it. Jackson slides back the deadbolt and snaps, “What?”
A man says, “Sorry to disturb you, sir. We’re looking for a woman.”
Jackson’
s laugh is cold. I don’t recognize this new person. I have to suppress my shiver. The door hits the wall. “Look for yourself. Trust me, if I had a woman in here, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be getting ready for work before it’s light out.”
There’s a brief pause, and the man says, “Sorry about that, sir. If you see a blonde woman, brown eyes, about five feet six inches, please give us a call. She’s considered armed and dangerous.”
“Police business, then?”
“No, her family just wants her home safe.”
Anger twists my stomach. My family is dead. I can still see my dad’s eyes, wide open and unseeing, staring up at the ceiling. I almost jump up, just so I can kill this man myself.
Before I can work up the nerve, they’re wishing each other goodnight and the door is closed once again. I hop up and stab my finger in his direction. “What was that? You were just going to let him search the room?”
“It’s okay, Delia.”
He’s so fucking calm. How? He said he was a firefighter. Firefighters don’t kill people. They don’t lie so easily. I eye him. “Why are you still with me?”
He exhales and takes a seat on the bed. “You want the honest answer?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “I don’t want you to lie to me.”
“I’m drawn to you. I don’t know why.”
I straighten my shoulders. “So… you’re not going to leave me?”
He looks me square in the eye when he says, “I’ll have to leave you eventually. Get you a new ID, passport. A new name. It’ll get you out of the country.”
I cross the room and take a seat next to him. The heat of his body pours off of him. I lean into him and rest my head on his shoulder. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
When his lips press against the top of my head, a shiver runs down my spine. “I know,” he tells me. “We’re going to get to a safe house until we can get you out. But first, I need to know if you’ve been communicating with anyone. Someone who you think is on your side.”