by Korry Smith
He coughed, choking on his drink. "Right, that's where we come in all of this."
"Yeah, us, too," Sawyer said, raising his hand over his head. Nyx smiled and laughed, falling in close to his side.
For the first time, I saw them as a couple, but they always denied it. Weird.
"You see, Madi? They are going to lead the law towards Mexico, pretending to be us. That's why the Montana robbery was a good thing." Alex rubbed my knee. "These guys will go into a store with their face masked and rob them. Everyone will assume that it's you and me doing it when we’ll be in Saint Louis robbing my father blind."
It was a complicated plan, but still straightforward, and if it worked, God willing, Alex and I wouldn't have to run anymore. It gave me a sparkle of hope.
"You think this will work?" I asked.
"I fucking know it will," Alex said.
"But what about them? I mean, they don't look anything like us," I said, pointing at Dev's curvaceous body and Nyx's lean and tall stature. "People aren't that stupid."
Dev snorted. "They are."
"They won't be able to tell the difference," Nyx added. "America will believe whatever the news tells them."
"Yeah, but I don't want you guys getting arrested," I said, biting my lip nervously.
"We won't," Dev said, waving me off. "They'll assume it's you guys robbing the stores, and well, it's like you said, Nyx and I look nothing like you, baby Madi. If they pull us over, they'll see that we're not you and move on."
"Come here," Alex said, taking my face in his hands, and turning my head towards him. "Listen, kid," his voice strained with intensity, "you need to trust me. If I didn't think this would work, we would be heading off to fucking Mexico right now. I wouldn't risk fucking losing you on something like this if I wasn't a hundred percent positive."
Glancing around the room and seeing the people that traveled from Arizona to be a part of Alex's plan had ripped air right out of my lungs. Everyone sitting there believed that it would work, so much so, that they were willing to put their freedom on the line.
They trusted him.
“I meant what I said last night,” I said. “No matter what, I'm in. All the way. Even if it kills us."
He smiled. "It won't."
"Awesome. It's fucking settled then!" Len said, clapping his hands together and jumping to his feet. "When do we start?"
"Soon," Alex said, keeping his eyes trained on mine. "There's just one last thing that my girl and I got to do."
Len and Sawyer had been outside on the balcony arguing with Alex for about ten minutes now. The guys disapproved of the last thrill robbery. It was a mistake. It wasn’t wise to press our luck. The cops were everywhere, and they will catch us.
Sawyer said he was crazy.
Len said he was stupid.
But they both agreed that Alex lacked any form of rational judgment.
He listened to their reasoning, and bobbed his head, smoking casually on his cigarette.
My eyes focused in on his full and bite-worthy lips as they wrapped around the filter. The pure sex that Alex exuded was maddening. It captivated me, and it was hard to look away. I peered out the window by pushing the curtains aside. It wasn’t enough for them to see me, but it did afford me a decent view of the object of my desire.
Alex knew that I was watching.
He was always aware of me.
His eyes met mine with a sideways glance, giving me a sly and knowing smirk. It was the slightest upturn of the corner of his mouth, genuine and sweet, yet all too brief. It lasted a millisecond before he wiped all emotion from his face, feigning indifference.
It would be impossible for anyone to notice, even if they were looking directly at him, but I was acutely in tune with my guy.
Every smile and frown engraved in my brain. I knew Alex’s face better than I knew my own.
I dreamed of that face.
Turning his attention away from me, he stared impassively at Sawyer, who continued to speak in low and neutral tones. Len had foregone trying to talk him out of it. The conversation was going nowhere. I wanted to laugh. What did the guys expect? They should’ve known there was no talking him out of something once Alex’s mind was set.
Mr. Ryan was a stubborn jackass.
Somewhere behind me, I knew that Nyx and Dev were watching me, making fun of my snooping and how I just had to be involved in everything. They even said something about how I couldn’t bear to let Alex out of my sight.
They teased me relentlessly. I’m used to it. Especially today. The not-so-quiet morning sex was all Len wanted to talk about, every minute he was thinking of something new and embarrassing to say. The goal was to make me blush a deeper scarlet color than the last—and he didn’t give a shit how uncomfortable it made everyone in the room. It just fueled him more.
The one thing that shut him up was Alex’s right hook, which at once led into a massive wrestling match on the floor with all the guys joining in, aside from Miguel.
He was the outsider, sitting quietly and seeing everything from the corner.
The guy made me nervous.
“Madi!” Dev cackled. “You’re such a sad little puppy waiting at the door for your master to come home.”
My face got hot with embarrassment, and I shook my head, hiding behind the thick layers of my dark hair. I pulled away from the window and let the thin polyester curtain slipped through my fingers. It fell against the glass, blocking the view of my sun, and I sat back in my seat, glancing over at two sets of eyes. I tried to sell an air of innocence, but they weren’t buying it.
“Give it up, girl. It’s obvious that you and Alex got some separation issues going on,” Dev said.
Nyx snorted and choked on her soda.
“No, we don’t!” I glared, regaining some backbone. “I’m nosy. That’s all. Come on, you guys. I’m not that crazy.”
I was, but they didn’t need to know that.
“Yeah. Okay, whatever,” Dev said, rolling her eyes.
“No, she’s right.” Nyx came to my defense. “When it comes to having separation anxiety, I would have to say that Alex is worse than she is.”
Dev scoffed. “Isn’t that the fucking truth? I heard about the whole Mexico fiasco and how manic he got...”
“Wait? What Mexico fiasco?” I interrupted.
I knew Alex had come home early, but I didn’t bother to find out why. He had been holding me and kissing me that night, and anything beyond that was inconsequential.
Dev shot her eyes at me, and smiled deviously, obviously feeding into my curiosity. “Well, Len told me that they had to end the trip early and screw over a lot of people because Alex simply,” she flailed her hands around her for a dramatic effect, “couldn’t handle being away from you.”
Now that got everybody’s attention—Miguel especially. He sat up straight in his chair from across the room, his presence hidden by a darkened corner, and tilted his head to the side. He assessed me more thoroughly now. How could my mere existence affect Alex in such a way, where business no longer came first?
The sudden scrutiny was uncomfortable, and my face got hotter and hotter until it itched. I tried to dodge that fixed gaze by sinking in my chair, hoping to disappear from Miguel’s view.
I was unsuccessful.
“Dev,” Nyx said, trying to keep her tone light and upbeat as her wide and cautionary eyes conveyed a different sentiment. “You know that’s not what happened. It’s not nice to mess with Madi like that.”
“Huh?” Dev replied, dumbfounded, and slightly offended by Nyx reprimanding her. “What are you...” she paused, finally catching a glimpse of Miguel in the corner, looking like he wanted to skin me alive. Like a flick of a light switch, her expression turned into one of ease, and she faced me, gently slapping my knee. “You know I’m just fucking with you, right?”
“Of course,” I replied, playing along, but it was too late.
Miguel stood up from his seat and gave us a terse nod as he walked casu
ally towards the door. I watched him, and he watched me. Not once in that tense ten seconds did either of us break eye contact.
I held my breath the entire time.
The moment the door closed behind him, Nyx punched Dev in the leg. “God damn it! You got a big mouth!”
“Bitch!” Dev hissed, forcefully shoving Nyx away from her. “Fuck! That hurt.”
“Good! Do you realize what you’ve just done?” Nyx whispered, her head snapping up towards Adriana and Peter, who were taking a silent cue and excusing themselves by escaping into the bathroom. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“It was an accident,” Dev snapped. “Shit happens.”
I leaned back in my chair, gingerly opening the curtains, and glancing outside. The balcony was empty. Everyone was gone.
“Why was he looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” Dev asked, still rubbing out the knot where Nyx knuckled her.
“I don’t know...like he wanted to kill me.”
Nyx groaned. “This is not good.”
Something changed in Dev, and her face went pale, ghostly even. “Oh, shit...I fucked up.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, replaying back the last two minutes, trying to pinpoint the exact origin of the sudden conflict. Then it hit me, and I gasped, realizing the seriousness of the situation. “Miguel didn’t know the reason behind the guys leaving early, did he?”
Nyx shook her head, pulling out her phone and texting away on her keyboard furiously. “All they told Miguel was that they got pulled over by the Mexican police and escorted back to the border. They were supposed to meet up in Tucson later that week.”
There was a rolling in my stomach, and I pushed my fists into my gut to thwart it off. “But we took off…”
“Miguel was still pissed off about Mexico, and when Alex didn’t show up in Tucson with Len and Sawyer, it just added insult to injury.”
There was so much behind the scenes that my guy never told me. All this dangerous tornado of chaos that surrounded us, he continued to downplay, because I was the one who created it. He protected me in this bubble. So afraid if I knew the truth, I would run.
“What did Miguel do?” I asked.
“He went into a rage and told the guys if Alex didn’t show his face soon that things were going to be very bad for him…like, really bad.” Nyx made the ‘slit the throat’ gesture with her finger.
All air left my lungs, and I fell back into my chair. “Oh, no…”
“Yeah, exactly, and if somebody hadn’t—"
“Jesus, Nyx! I forgot he was here, all right?” Dev interjected with an exasperated huff. “All that fucking guy does is just sit there in that corner and doesn’t say shit to anyone.”
Nyx tightened her jaw, trying to stay calm and composed, annoyed with all of Dev’s excuses. “Anyway,” she continued, opening her eyes, and looking over at me. “Alex had to do a lot of ass kissing and made a shit load of promises to Miguel to get back into his good graces…But now?”
“It’s all for nothing?” I asked, glancing back and forth between a nodding Nyx and a guilt-ridden Dev. I shook my head, hoping to rationalize this impossible situation. “Yeah, all right, so what? Miguel knows that Alex bailed out on Mexico early, why does it even matter? He’s getting a big cut of the senator’s money now. It should be forgiven and forgotten.”
“That’s very true, but Miguel sees Alex as unreliable …” Nyx paused, eyes moving from her phone and up at me, filled with sympathy. “And it makes you a huge liability, a threat to him, even.”
“A threat? Me?” I asked, shocked. “To what?”
“His livelihood, the cartel, just everything,” Nyx answered with a depleted sigh. “Men in love...”
“Make for bad business partners,” Alex finished, appearing in front of me out of nowhere. He took me by the arm and helped me to my feet. Spinning around to Dev, he shook his head in disappointment. “Thanks a lot for stirring up some shit for me. That was the last fucking thing I needed today.”
“I’m sorry, Alex,” she said. “I forgot he was here, and it just came out. I didn’t mean for it to—"
“Yeah, yeah. I don’t want to hear it,” he said, waving her off and turning back towards me. “Is all our stuff packed and ready to go?”
I glanced down at the side of the bed where our black duffel bags sat; all zipped up and ready for us to take them away. “I’m set.”
“Good,” Alex said, gently squeezing my arms. He narrowed his eyes, assessing the vexed look on my face. The anger he expressed moments ago was slowly dissipating from his hardened features, and he smiled weakly. “Don’t worry. Everything is fine.”
I trusted him more than anything, and I wanted to believe him, but he had a bad habit of toning down shit to protect me.
“You’re just saying that, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, giving me an uneven and self-satisfying smile.
“Oh, well, that’s great.”
“But it’s nothing that we can’t handle.” Alex glanced down and pulled out his phone to check the time. He shot his eyes back up to me. “We need to leave.”
Letting me go long enough to get both duffel bags off the floor, he threw them over his shoulder, and then scanned the room for his other friends: Peter and Adriana. They felt that it was safe enough to come out of hiding. I passed them on my way to the bathroom sink to pack up my scarce supply of makeup and hair products.
The blonde-twins smiled when they saw me, eyes filled with sympathy. As much as I tried to ignore their pity, I couldn’t stop the anger from rising to the surface of my skin and flushing my neck and face with this intense heat. It was annoying how everyone treated me…like some fragile fucking flower. My age and size served me well on occasions, making me look innocent and unassuming, but a lot of the time, I found it to be a considerable hindrance. All of Alex’s friends: crooks, drug dealers, and thieves alike, saw me as this defenseless girl, one who needed protection.
It was the furthest thing from the truth.
If pushed up against a wall, I wouldn’t lie down and let the world dissolve me. No, I would fight back, kicking and screaming, busting a fucking skull open with a vase.
“In about an hour or so, I need you guys to come get Madison and me at the state line,” Alex said. “I’ll text you. After that, we’ll all drive down to Kansas City with Miguel.”
At the sound of that man’s name, I shot my eyes up and stared into the mirror, past my frightened reflection, and over to Alex as he talked with Adriana and Peter.
“Miguel?” Peter asked, skepticism in his voice, and I would have to agree with him.
“Yeah, I know, he’s a fucking wild card, but we need him. Don’t worry, Peter; he’s not going to be a problem, but just in case, keep your eyes open, and your Glock loaded. You got me?”
“I believe it was me who taught you that.” Peter laughed.
“It’s good advice.” Alex chuckled, glancing over at me. “You about ready, kid?”
“Yup,” I said, zipping up my makeup bag and throwing it in my purse. I walked up to Alex and grabbed his hand, securely interlocking our fingers.
“Now, about this job,” Peter started.
“We’ll discuss all the paperwork and our disguises when we meet up again,” Alex said, gesturing towards the brown suitcase in Peter’s closed fist. “In the meantime, I want you guys to prepare everything. The grunt work, if you will.”
“How long do we have to get the paperwork together?” Peter asked.
“The senator is scheduled to make an appearance in Springfield this coming Saturday. He’ll bring my mother with him, and the only people that will be at the mansion are the security and housekeepers. We’ll have about three days to organize everything before Saint Louis. Is that enough time?”
Adriana smiled blissfully. “It’s more than enough. Godspeed Alex and Madison. We’ll see you both soon.”
Her tone was soothing…and odd. I knew the hippie couple was of
f their rockers by just looking at them, but I didn’t expect them to be cult-like.
Alex smiled politely and reached out to shake Peter’s free hand. “Likewise.”
After a brief and uncomfortable hug from the beautiful pair, Alex said his goodbyes and pulled me towards the door. The pace in his step, fast and urgent, told me that time was significant, and whatever destination he planned for our robbery, it appears we were already running late. Which was why Dev, jumping up from the bed and blocking our path, was bad timing on her part.
The way she sprang into action at the last moment surprised me. She had been quiet for so long, looking disinterested in everything that was going on, but now, there was genuine concern behind those eyes.
“Before you leave, Alex, I need to ask one thing.”
Cursing under his breath, he closed his eyes and rubbed his brow. “What do you want?”
Dev was hesitant, shifting nervously from foot to foot. Alex tried to be patient, but I could feel him slowly losing his temper as he squeezed the hell out of my hand.
“Speak now or forever hold your peace,” I said, grimacing.
“How bad is it?” she blurted out, seeing her window of opportunity closing rapidly.
“How bad is it?” Alex mulled over her simple statement, raising his eyebrow at her. She nodded. “Well, let’s say that you’re fucking lucky that Sawyer was able to convince Miguel that you were a typical una pollita talking out of your ass.”
I’m not sure what that word meant, but it didn’t sound complimentary.
She looked relieved, letting out a small swoosh of air. “That’s good though, right? I mean, it could’ve been worse.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever helps you fucking sleep at night,” Alex said, towing me towards the door again. Dev, bolder than before, reached out and gripped his arm, stopping us both in mid-stride. He clenched his jaw and ground his teeth, making this awful noise. “What?!”
“What…what would he have done...you know, if Sawyer hadn’t talked him down?”
“You got to be fucking kidding me?” He laughed dryly, jerking his arm away. “Be thankful, Dev, that you’ll never have to find out, all right? Now leave me alone. I’m fucking busy.”