by B. B. Hamel
“Yeah, well, my dad doesn’t seem to care.”
Tanner laughed. “Your dad’s an idiot,” he said. “But don’t worry. He’ll sit down with Don Leone.”
I squinted at him and tilted my head. “You had something to do with this, didn’t you?”
“I might’ve.”
“What did you do?”
“I paid the Don a visit.”
I let out a huff. “Seriously, Tanner? I feel like you’re just making things worse. Ramping them up.”
“Well, okay, I didn’t see the Don himself. I talked to his guard, a guy named Roberto. And I made it very clear that it was in his best interest to make sure this little fight goes away. I think my message got through.”
I shook my head. “You really are crazy.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me.” He frowned a little. “I don’t know, I don’t see it. I feel like I’m pretty rational.”
I walked over to him and put my hands on his chest. He smiled, put his hands on my hips. I tilted my chin up toward him and he kissed my lips, gently at first, then deeper.
“What do you think?” he asked. “We’re going to get through this, right?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Sometimes I think so. Then you idiots do something stupid and I’m pretty sure we’re all going to die. We’re sitting on the brink of war, you know? One wrong move…”
“And it all goes boom.” He grinned and kissed my neck. “Exciting, right?”
“Crazy,” I said.
“Maybe I’m crazy. But I’m on your side. And I think I’m the only one who really is. Your father says he wants to help but I think he just wants to help himself. And everyone else…” He trailed off.
“Better to have a crazy guy than nobody, I guess.”
“Exactly.” He kissed me again. “Let’s go up to your room. I bet your dad’s on the phone for another hour shouting at his people. He probably won’t hear us.”
“You want to sneak into my room to have sex while my dad’s home?” I gave him a look. “We’re not teenagers.”
“True,” he said. “Which makes it more fun.”
“I can’t even begin to understand what that means.”
He laughed and pulled away. “Pack your stuff,” he said. “We’re getting out of here tomorrow.”
“Where are we going?”
“Back to my place. It’ll be safe there for a while.”
“I was hoping you’d say we were going back to the hotel.”
He grinned at me. “You miss that room, huh?”
“I miss the endless room service.”
“I’ll cook for you if that’s all you need.” He walked to the back door and paused there. “I’ll come get you tomorrow, so be ready. And don’t push things with your dad. He’s fragile right now.”
“What a poor baby.” I rolled my eyes.
He waved, opened the door, and slipped out back.
I stared as the door shut silently and shook my head.
“You talking to someone?”
I nearly jumped as I looked back at my dad. He stood on the steps, frowning at me.
“No,” I said. “Who was that on the phone?”
“Told my guys not to bother showing up, the fucking assholes.” He glared at me. “We’re deep in it now.”
“We always were.” I sighed, trying to release some tension. “You hungry? I’ll make something.”
“Thanks,” he said, and stomped back upstairs.
I lingered for a second. I could feel the pull of both worlds. On the one hand, there was my father and that whole thing. While I didn’t particularly like him, being around him meant I’d be a part of his crew and his family. There’d be people to help me raise my baby.
But then there was Tanner, the father of my child. He truly was crazy, but he was also gorgeous and incredible and loyal. I trusted him way more than I should, despite everything.
Two worlds, but there was really only one choice.
I headed into the kitchen to start cooking.
26
Tanner
I waited for her father to leave early the next morning before knocking on the door. She answered in a pair of yoga pants and a loose gray tank top. Her hair was in a messy bun on her head and she smiled at me.
“Since when did you knock?” she asked.
“I didn’t feel like jumping the fence,” I said. “You ready?”
She held up a black duffel bag. “My entire existence is in this.”
“Lovely. Come on, then.” I offered her my arm and she took it, shutting the door behind her as we headed along the alley and toward the main sidewalk.
My Lexus was parked a block away. We got in and I drove along the old familiar roads toward my place. I parked a block away from my building and led Elise along the sidewalk. I slipped my hand in hers and tugged her close.
She looked up at me, smiled, but said nothing. A girl with dark eyebrows and huge headphones hurried past. Sunlight slipped dappled through trees. Cool wind blew over my skin. Nearby a car horn blared.
I pushed open the door to my building. My footsteps echoed off the marble. Herb looked up from his desk and stood. Surprise flitted across his face.
“Tanner,” he said. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in a bit.”
“Took a vacation,” I said, then gestured to Elise. “This is my main squeeze, Herb.”
“Miss.” Herb doffed an invisible cap to her.
Elise laughed. “Hello. Nice to meet you.”
“Herb’s the best doorman in the city,” I said. “Go to him if you ever need anything.”
“Almost anything,” Herb said. “I draw the line at bringing the bodies down.”
I laughed and tugged Elise to the elevator. She looked at me with wide eyes.
“Was he serious?” she whispered.
I shrugged, hit the call button, waited for the elevator. Elise looked back over her shoulder at good old Herb and he waved to her again, his eyes sparkling, a big smile on his face.
We rode the elevator up. I took her to my door, unlocked it, let her step inside.
She looked around at the clean, plain modern apartment. The sun rose over the nearby buildings as she stepped over toward the sliding glass doors.
“Okay,” she said, turning to me as I lingered in the kitchen. “This isn’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know.” She gestured around. “Blood, guts, doll parts. Bones and skulls.”
“If you don’t like any of that, I wouldn’t go in the bedroom if I were you.”
She gave me a look and laughed. She sat down on the couch and bounced a little bit.
“So you live here,” she said.
“I do,” I said.
“And you’re friends with the doorman.”
“I am,” I said.
“And this is somehow all normal.”
“It is,” I said.
She sighed and stretched her legs. “Okay,” she said. “I’m going to just turn off the part of my brain that’s telling me to run away, since I’m technically in the home of a killer, and just accept all this.”
“You’ve been sleeping in the same place as a killer for weeks,” I said. “Nothing’s changed just because you’re on my couch.”
“True.” She looked down at herself. “You haven’t killed anyone in here, have you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course not. Come on.”
She got up. “Okay, okay, sorry. I’m going to finish the tour.”
I gestured toward the bathroom and the bedroom. “Go right ahead.”
She disappeared down the hall. I heard her opening doors and looking in my closet as I got a glass of water. I drank it down and she appeared back in the living room a second later.
“You have good taste,” she said. “I kind of hate to admit it, but your place is a lot nicer than mine.”
“I have money,” I said. “Easy to have good taste when you have money.”
“Not necessarily true. This place is all—” She paused. “Modern. Contemporary. You know, clean lines, very minimal.”
“I guess I’m drawn to that.”
“I like it.” She wandered over toward me and leaned against the counter. “So, you have me in your place. What are you going to do with me now?”
I stepped close to her and kissed her gently. She smiled up at me, eyes sparkling.
“That sounds like an invitation,” I said. “If you’d like me to take advantage of this situation, I’d be more than happy to. But I’ll warn you, once I start, I’m not going to stop until I get my fill.”
“Promise?”
I kissed her again, deeper and slow. I ran a hand up her hips, gripped her ass, then palmed her breast. I moved it up into her hair and—
My phone began to ring.
I hesitated. I wasn’t going to stop, but she pulled back.
“You should get it,” she said. “It could be important.”
“Whoever that is can fuck off,” I said.
“Tanner.”
I grunted and pulled myself away from her. I fished my phone from my pocket, walked a few feet away, and answered.
“What do you want?” I snapped.
She gave me a look.
“Tanner, uh, this is Mortimer Slade.”
I looked back at Elise then walked down the side hall toward my bedroom. “Mortimer,” I said. “How’d you get this number?”
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me with a soft click.
“Pulled some strings,” he said. “I know this isn’t exactly professional, but I thought you’d want to hear from me.”
I walked to the bedroom window and frowned out at the building across from mine. Mortimer was another hitman in the city. He was a low-tier guy, not much experience under his belt, but he was an up-and-comer. I figured he’d be pretty good in a few years, if he could get a few more contracts and stay alive and out of jail.
“All right,” I said. “I’m listening.”
“I got a call from the Leone family,” he said. “Didn’t think much of it at first. You know they’re always putting out jobs, right? Got kind of excited, since I haven’t gotten any from them yet. And they’re the big leagues.”
“Get to the point, Mortimer,” I said, my stomach slowly sinking down into the floor.
“Yeah, uh, so, uh, they said your name.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t take it, obviously. But I figured sooner or later, someone’s gonna step up and accept the contract, so I figured, yeah, you should know.”
Rage rolled through me in waves. The fucking Leones were still putting the contract out, despite all this fucking shit. They still wanted to come at me, like that was even remotely a good idea.
“Thanks for telling me,” I said.
“Sure.” He cleared his throat again. “Uh, we’re cool, right? I mean, I wouldn’t go against you or nothing, I just wanted to be sure, right?”
“We’re cool,” I said. “I appreciate the call.”
“Sure, man, sure. We killers gotta stick together, eh?” He laughed. “Anyway good luck with all that shit. I hope you can work it out with the family, yeah?”
He hung up without another word. I lowered the phone and stared at it for along moment before throwing it against the wall. It made a loud bang and left a dent in the drywall as it clattered to the floor. I stood there breathing hard, staring at the phone lying on the floor, the screen partially cracked.
I wanted to murder Roberto. I wanted to kill the whole Leone family, starting with their precious Don and moving down to every single lowlife and scumbag that worked for that piece-of-shit family.
I wanted to burn it all down.
“Tanner?” Elise knocked on the door gently then opened it. Her face poked in through the opening, worry etched in her eyes.
“They’re still coming for me,” I said.
She opened the door all the way and stepped inside. “What do you mean?”
“That was another hitman I know,” I said. “We’re a kind of professional cohort, you know what I mean? Small world, I guess.”
“Sure. Killers know each other.” She shrugged like it was totally normal and rational. Of course murderers all knew each other.
“He said the Leone family reached out to him about a job. Said the job was to take me out.”
“I guess he turned it down.”
“Yeah, he did, but someone will take it eventually.”
“What’s this mean? I thought they were going to sit down with my father?”
I shook my head and turned away from her. I didn’t want her to see the anger that threatened to spill over and ruin everything.
“Means a lot of things,” I said. “Means they don’t trust me, don’t trust your father. Maybe it means they don’t really plan on playing nice at all. Or maybe it means they’re going to punish me for going against them no matter what happens with your father. But either way, it’s fucked, and we need to be prepared.”
“What do we do?”
“We’ll stay here for now,” I said. “It’s safe enough and I don’t think we can survive another few days in a hotel room. We’ll move forward with our plans and hope shit works out.”
I heard her walk toward me and put a hand on my shoulder. I half turned and she reached up to touch my face with her other hand.
“I didn’t really think about what this would mean for you long-term,” she said.
I smiled and tilted my head toward her. “Just means I’m not going to be a hitman anymore.”
“It also means you just lost all your contacts in this city,” she said. “And the Leone family wants to hurt you now. I mean… it’s a huge deal, isn’t it?”
I stared into her eyes and thought about lying to her. She didn’t need this pressure on her right now. I wanted to make shit easy if I could.
But she was right. If the Leone family wanted to punish me, it didn’t matter how things shook out with her father and them. They’d come after me when this was all over whether I liked it or not.
Another problem for another day.
“It’s a huge deal,” I said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it right now. First thing’s first, we need to make sure they’re not going to come after you anymore. We need to make sure this peace goes through. Then I’ll worry about myself.”
“Tanner—”
“Trust me, okay? I don’t plan on letting them touch me.”
She chewed her lip and let me kiss her. I turned to face her, put my hands on her hips, and pulled her close.
“What a mess,” she murmured into my chest.
“I know.” I breathed the smell of her hair then released her. “Come on. Let’s make something to eat and figure out how we’re not going to kill each other for the next few days.”
She laughed lightly. “After that hotel room, I doubt this can be worse.”
“True enough.” She turned to head to the door and I grabbed her ass hard then draped my arm over her shoulder. “We’ll share my bed this time.”
“Oh, no way,” she said. “You’re on the couch.”
“Brutal,” I said. “I thought I was the killer.”
“When it comes to my personal space, I’m the biggest killer around.”
I laughed as we slipped through the door together and headed back into the kitchen. I wanted to pick up where we left off but the moment was gone.
And I figured there’d be plenty more moments to come. No need to force something, no need to rush it.
The outside world would rush us as much as it wanted. We could try to enjoy each other, at least for a while.
27
Elise
We spent the next two days in and out of bed. During that stretch, for a full twenty-four hours, I actually managed to forget all about the men that want to kill me and Tanner.
But on the morning of the third day as I sat on the balcony and sipped some coffee, I couldn’t shake the feeling that some
thing was off. Cool air rippled over my skin. Car horns honked down below. A small long-legged spider crawled along the metal bannister.
The sliding door opened. “Hungry?” Tanner asked.
I looked back at him and shook my head. He stood wearing a pair of dark fitted sweats and no shirt. Tattoos covered his muscular chest. I wanted to kiss those tattoos, run my tongue along them, and let him tease me just the way I liked.
But I couldn’t shake the pit in my stomach.
“Have you heard from my dad?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“I haven’t either. That’s weird, right?”
“Not necessarily. He’s a busy guy.”
“You’d think he’d message me, at least. I mean, I sort of disappeared on him, right?”
“We could go check on him,” Tanner said. “Make sure he’s on the straight and narrow. Maybe I could have a little chat with him.”
I grunted and sipped my coffee. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said. “But maybe you’re right. We could check on him at least.”
He leaned against the doorway. “Are you worried?” he asked.
“About him?”
He gestured vaguely toward the city. “About anything.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think I am but I’m not sure why. It shouldn’t matter that he hasn’t gotten in touch yet, but it does for some reason.”
“We’ll do a safety check. Make sure he’s still alive.”
I nodded. “Yeah, okay. That’s a good idea.”
“You sure you’re not hungry? I’m making eggs.”
“I’m okay, really. I had some granola already.”
“Suit yourself.” He disappeared back inside and I turned toward the city again.
Sunlight bounced off the steel and glass of the building across the street. I wondered how many lives were being led in that place, and how many of them would go screaming for the hills if they had to deal with even half of what I’ve been through.
Didn’t matter. It wasn’t over for me. And I had no other life, just this one.
I sipped my coffee and leaned back, closing my eyes.
Tanner drove slowly toward my father’s place. He wore a decent suit with a gun tucked into a holster under his arm. He looked like an FBI agent or a murder detective, except his suit cost ten times whatever they wore.