by Nicole Fox
“Now wait a second …” It’s easy to imagine Shane standing up straighter and looking the don in the eye. Whatever people say about Shane O’Rourke, nobody would ever call him a coward. “We won’t be doing anything until my daughter is out here. She’s my … property.” He hesitates on the word.
Colleen stiffens even more. “So he’s finally said it,” she whispers. “I just want you, Gabriel. I only want you. I … We need to get out of here. I want that life we talked about.”
“Yeah.” I laugh darkly. “Me too. But the fuck …” I shrug. “Maybe it’d be for the best if you gave yourself up. You don’t have to go down with me.”
“She’s always been disobedient,” Alma says loudly, really talking to Colleen but pretending to be talking to the people outside. “She has never understood what it means to be a true Family woman. She has always been weak. She was a slow child, far behind the other children. For a long time we thought there was something wrong with her.”
“Let us out and nobody else has to die!” Colleen screams, exploding with rage. “I’ll fucking scratch your eyes out, you evil witch! You evil—you nothing! You never loved me!”
“Nobody else?” Lorenzo snaps. “Nobody else? Wait … where is Samuel? Where is my goddamn nephew? Samuel! Samuel! Is he in there with you? You bitch! You cunt! Is he in there?”
“Steady now,” Shane warns. “That’s still my daughter you’re talking to, Lorenzo. You need to watch your fucking mouth!”
“Where is he?” Lorenzo barks. “Gabriel, if he’s dead …”
I swallow, a pit opening in my belly. I force away the feeling, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It’s the feeling a man gets when he’s close to death, one I’ve felt many times. But usually I have at least a fighting chance; I’m tooled up with more’n a pistol; I have backup with me. I’m not facing down the entire Irish and Italian mob combined.
“I think I see a way out of this,” Colleen says, close to my ear.
“Yeah? How’s that? Right now I’m not seeing it.”
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When she opens her eyes, she is noticeably calmer.
“Samuel held a knife to my throat and tried to rape me, so I grabbed the knife and stabbed him to death. He’s in here, lying in the corner. He’s covered in blood. He’s soiled himself as well. He’s dead, Lorenzo.”
I gape at her. The fuck is she doing? How is that going to help anything? But she nods at me and pleads with her eyes to go along with it. I don’t have any other options, so I just keep myself pressed against the door. I trust her, I realize in shock, which is a damn fool mistake. Trusting a civilian to carry out Family business is never a good idea. The fuck else am I going to do, though?
“You killed my nephew?” Lorenzo’s voice rises in pitch. There’s a rustle of fabric and metal as the men outside prepare for a fight. “You killed my blood? You stupid Irish whore. You fucking Irish slut. What is the matter with you?”
“I won’t warn you again,” Shane growls. “I won’t stand here and have my daughter insulted. You need to watch your fucking mouth.”
“That Irish whore killed my nephew!” Lorenzo roars. A loud bang; stamping his feet, maybe? “Boys, I don’t give a fuck anymore. Break in there and drag them both out by their hair. I want them at my feet. I want them begging for mercy. These fucks. My nephew … I raised that boy. I knew him from when he was a baby, and now this fucking whore …”
“I’ve already warned you!” Shane snaps. “You’re pushing your luck.”
Colleen inclines her head, nods, and I get the message: this is what we need. The Irish and the Italians angry at each other instead of us.
“What’d you think he’ll do to her if he gets in here, Mr. O’Rourke?” I shout. “He’ll kill her, just like he tried to kill her before. Your deal is bullshit. Any promises he made to you are bullshit. He’s a fucking liar and he always has been.”
“Kick that fucking door down!”
“Boys!” Shane snarls. “Boys, if any of these Italian pricks make one move for that door, you fucking end them.”
“Get down,” I mutter to Colleen. “On the floor, down there in the corner. Cover your ears.”
She does as I say, crouching down and putting her head between her legs in the brace position. I swallow, knowing that, any second, a slug could smash through this door and my spine in one blast. But also knowing that if I let the door go, shit gets just as bad.
“Now hold on,” Lorenzo says. “She’s killed one of my own. This isn’t your business anymore, Irishman!”
“The fuck it is!” Shane roars. “That’s the fucking Family in there! She has my name! You won’t insult my name like this, you Italian fuck!”
There’s always a moment before all hell breaks loose. It can be a small moment or a big moment, a pause, that calm before the storm that everybody’s always talking about. It’s real, and I feel it now. The moment stretches silently. Then the first gun is drawn, and the second, and the third. Metal rustles and more men shout, more and more, until everybody is shouting over each other.
Then a gunshot, a scream, and war is upon us.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Colleen
“Okay,” Gabriel says, with a calm I find incredible. Bullets thud into the walls outside the bathroom, so loud I can barely hear myself think, and here he is, talking to me as though we’re taking a gentle stroll. Holding the door with one hand, he ducks down low and waves me over. “Come here. Stay behind me.”
I crawl across the floor and hug up close to him, his body feeling safe and secure against me despite the madness outside. Despite everything, I find myself praying that Alma and Father are okay. They should be, since the Irish are trained to get them out of danger as soon as something bad happens. But I can’t think about that right now, I realize. This is it, a pivotal moment in my life; I have to seize this opportunity and take the chance.
“I’m sorry I left you,” I whisper urgently, grabbing onto Gabriel’s arm.
“Don’t be,” he whispers back, just as urgently. “I only want you, Colleen. It’s just me and you now, eh? I don’t give a shit about anything—” He ducks down low when a bullet smashes into the wall just outside, so loud it hurts my ears. “Just wait. Just be patient. We’ll be out of here soon, I promise. I fucking love you.” He turns his face; I meet him, kissing him with so much passion that, for a few long moments, I forget the hellfire outside.
“I love you too!” I gasp. “I love you so much!”
“Marry me!” he says. “What better time to ask you, eh? Marry me, Colleen.”
“Yes!” I cry, kissing him again. “Yes! Yes!”
Tears slide down my cheeks. It’s as though everything that has happened tonight comes out right then, the tears stinging my eyes, making my whole body tremble. I grab even harder onto his arm and wipe my tears on his shirt.
“Okay, are you ready?” he asks, taking out his pistol and letting go of the door. It swings back on its one remaining hinge. The fight has moved out to the ballroom now, the gunfire still loud but not as close.
“Yes,” I say, though I’m not sure if I am. What I am sure about is that I’ll never be sure, though, so there’s no other option.
“Stay at my side the whole time. Go where I go. Do as I say. We need to be quick about this. All right? One, two, three …”
He leaps up, clasping my hand and dragging my behind him at first. This dress wasn’t made for running, but somehow I manage it. With close, quick steps I keep pace with him. We run down the hallway, past several corpses, and then into the ballroom, which is so chaotic I can barely make anything out. I search the corpses and the men with guns but I don’t see Father or Alma, which brings me some measure of comfort, even if I don’t want to admit it. Gabriel leads me around the edge of the ballroom, hugging close to the wall, and then around a corner to the main entrance. Together, we run toward it; together, we run toward freedom.
“Stop!” Lorenzo steps from the side o
f the entrance, from the shadows. He’s bleeding from a wound in his shoulder. He raises his gun; Gabriel leaps in front of me and, as quick as a bolt of lightning, fires a shot. It cuts right through the middle of Lorenzo’s forehead and he collapses to the floor.
“Okay,” Gabriel says, completely unfazed. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
He takes me outside and darts to the left, to the small wooded area that borders the main road. I stop at the edge of the woods and glance back, spotting Alma and Father climbing into the limousine. Gabriel pulls on my hand but I need to see if they’ll wait; if they care that I might be in there, bleeding or dead, or if they’ll just run away … the limo’s wheels screech loudly as it pulls out of the parking space and barrels toward the exit gates. It smashes right through them and then veers wildly around the corner. They don’t stop, they don’t look back; they don’t care.
“Okay,” I whisper, wiping my eyes. “Let’s go.”
We run through the sleety, snowy woods and emerge on the other side of the road to an unmarked car, presumably Gabriel’s getaway car. It’s jet-black and difficult to see in the darkness with its tinted windows. Gabriel opens the door for me and then slides across the hood and jumps into the driver’s seat.
He turns to me with a rueful grin. “Buckle up, princess. You know I’m all about safety.”
We drive through the night, Gabriel leading us to the interstate. A duffle bag full of cash sits on the back seat, more money than I’ve ever seen; it must be nearly a million, so many bills stacked up like that, spilling out of the top. More cash rests in the footwell, alongside a painting covered in a protective layer of cardboard.
“What is that?” I ask after a while, when the ability to talk calmly finally returns to me.
“It’s worth two million,” he tells me. “I took it from Lorenzo’s study. I guess he won’t be needing it now anyway.”
“No,” I whisper. “I guess not.”
I rest my head against the glass and stare out at the blackness of the night, completely dark except for the other cars and the highway lights. We drive for a long, long time, until the sun rises and we’re no longer in New York or near New York. We cross state lines and then just keep on going. At some point I fall asleep, which is a miracle in itself. I wake up with Gabriel handing me a bottle of water.
“Wash your face and your hands with this,” he tells me. “We can’t have some civilian seeing all that blood and calling the cops.”
He hands me a bunch of paper towels and then leans against the car, waiting. He’s already cleaned himself up and changed out of his clothes. I guess he must’ve packed clean clothes in anticipation of rescuing me … rescuing me. I almost giggle at the idea, since it’s so different to how all of this started. He was the one I needed rescuing from. We’re sitting in the parking lot of a motel, right down near the end, opposite an empty swimming pool with blue tarpaulin pulled taut across it. The only other people in the lot are a couple going toward the main desk and a few kids kicking a soccer ball around.
I wash myself as best I can with the towels and the water, and then, together, we walk to our motel room. Gabriel locks the door behind us and then nods to the bed, where he’s laid out some clean clothes for me.
“You can shower and change,” he tells me. “I’ll be right out here.”
I go quickly to the shower, grateful for the chance to wash the dirt from last night from me. The water is hot and refreshing. I take a long shower, scrubbing myself longer after the water swirling down the plughole has turned from red to clear, and then I step out and wipe the steam from the mirror, looking at myself. I don’t look panicked, like I expected. I just look tired: tired and calm. I emerge from the shower wrapped in a towel, and then Gabriel goes into the bathroom and takes a shower of his own.
When he emerges in his towel, I’m lying in bed, knees drawn up to my chest, exhausted but unable to sleep. Gabriel smiles at me and pulls up a chair next to the bed. He sits down, his glistening muscles looking even tighter and bigger with beads of water sliding down them. I look him up and down, from his bare feet to his legs to his naked torso, and finally, into his eyes.
“I thought you’d be asleep,” he says, offering me his hand.
I take it, pressing my cheek against the back of it. “I’m just glad we’re together,” I tell him. “I don’t know—I’m just glad it’s all over. But …”
“What is it?” he urges, when I hesitate.
“Did you mean what you said about marrying me?”
He laughs and takes his hand away from me. For a crazy second I think he might be laughing at me, but then he goes to the duffle bag in the corner of the room, slides his hand through the piles of cash, and returns to me with a jewelry box. He opens it to show me a big, shining diamond ring.
“I picked this out the day after I visited you that night, when I threw those stones at your window. I just hope it fits.”
I offer him my hand, heart thumping more than it did back at the hotel, thumping right into the back of my throat. When he slides the ring onto me, it’s like the cool metal rejuvenates me somehow. It fits snugly. I clasp my hand, pressing the metal against my palm.
“It’s perfect,” I say.
He grins. “There room on there for me?”
“Of course there is.”
I move aside and he climbs onto the bed in his towel, hugging me close to him, his arms feeling so safe around me that I almost cry again. Despite all the madness, this is the safest I’ve ever felt. A strange truth, but a truth all the same. We hold each other like that until people in the adjacent rooms start to wake up and go about their days; alarms blare and glasses clink; voices get louder and outside cars pull into and out of the lot.
“Are you asleep?” I whisper, wondering if the feelings that are rising up within me make me a crazy lady. I shouldn’t be feeling like this now—no, I stop myself. It’s time I stopped worrying about what I am supposed to feel and just started letting myself feel.
“No,” he replies.
He must sense something in me because he rolls over, lets the towel drop away, and then brings his hand to my breast, sliding under my shirt and cupping it softly. He turns his face to mine with an expression that breaks my heart … and then fuses it back together when he kisses me, hard, on the lips. I kiss him even harder, breathing in deeply: breathing in the long-awaited pleasure. Our tongues dance and then he tears at my pants, rips them and my panties off of me and rolls over, holding his body above mine.
I open my legs and clasp his face in my hands, kissing him over and over as he slides his cock inside of me. There is no pain this time, no discomfort of any sort, just the ecstasy of finally being with the man I love, the man I have dreamt about ever since we were wrenched away from each other. His cock slides deep, deep, deep … and I sing a song of pleasure, my moans getting louder as he thrusts into me. He does not fuck me this time; neither do we make love. It’s something else, something more.
He thrusts into me so deeply now that I cannot hold it any longer. I squeeze my thighs around his massive cock—his cock touching every part of me—and then bite down on his shoulder as the orgasm wrenches through me, tearing me up, twisting me all over the place. I tilt my hips and sit down on him, again and again, as he smooths one hand over my breasts and uses the other to hold himself up.
“I love you,” I whisper-moan, right into his ear. “I—ah, oh, baby. I love you.”
The orgasm passes like a breath of wind, leaving me open to another gust. We fall into the lovemaking then, both of us utterly consumed with it.
The outside doesn’t exist anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gabriel
For the next month, we drive lazily west, taking our time, stopping in motels and making love every night. I never knew what love was until I met Colleen. I would think about it sometimes, maybe, looking at other people and wondering how they could spend their lives committed to another person. It never made sense. But now i
t does; just looking at her fills me with fierce emotion, far fiercer than anything the Family ever provoked.
I track what’s going on back in New York, and it’s all good for us: the Italians are waging a civil war of their own, forgetting all about us, and the Irish are going about business as usual. Through one of my contacts I learn that Alma is pregnant with a second child; he tells me that the O’Rourkes have lost all interest in Colleen since then.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, as we coast through the mind-boggling vastness of Wyoming, the trees standing like giants all around us. I never took myself for a man to be taken away by scenery, but when you’ve lived your whole life in New York, a little nature goes a long way.