by Korry Smith
We stood there with slacked jaws for a moment too long, but we were unable to look away. It was such a marvelous sight to behold. Sitting in neat and tidy piles were several stacks of crisp bills. That new-money scent that overwhelmed me when I entered the office finally had an origin. It made my mouth water to see that many Benjamins in one place. Thousands of dollars were suddenly within my grasp, and all I wanted to do was stuff it in my bra and call it a fucking day.
“Please tell me that this is what you were after,” I said, grinning up at him with hopeful eyes.
“No, I have bigger plans for us. What I wanted is this,” Alex said, reaching past me and into the safe, slipping a manila folder out from underneath all that beautiful money. He opened the flap and peered in, a smile of self-congratulation spreading across his face. “I had no idea that all those shady deals with the mob, and bribes to dirty judges, were to insure his status in office.”
“What is all that?”
“These are cash receipts and checks, social security cards and birth certificate mockups, all made out to Nickie Wallis.” He folded up the envelope and stuffed it inside of his blazer.
“You’re taking it? Won’t he notice that it’s gone?”
“I’m sure he will,” he said, closing the safe and hanging the painting. “But since we’re not taking any money, he’ll assume that he misplaced it somewhere. By the time he does catch on, CNN and the fucking FBI will be pounding on his front door, and it’ll be too late.”
“What about the other stuff?”
“We’re still going to stash them in the office as we planned,” he said, tossing a freezer bag of drugs over to me. “Hurry up, kid! We’re running out of time.”
Alex was wrong; our time was already gone. We were spilling over into our grace period—the extra five minutes we gave ourselves just in case we fell behind. Ramon was still waiting for us, but I knew if we didn’t come out soon, he was going to leave.
And after that, it was game over for the two outlaws known as Alex and Madison.
We both moved fast. I was going around the room, hiding vials of coke and bottles of pills behind the law books and in flower vases. Alex stood by the computer, pulling out his flash drive, closing all the open windows, and removing the recent history. The evidence of our presence was getting erased but also added. The only thing that would alert the senator to our activities was the painting that Alex hung on the wall cock-eyed.
“Seriously,” I said, stuffing the last baggie into the drawer, and walking over to fix his faux pas.
“We gotta go,” he said, coming up behind me and tugging on the back of my uniform.
“I gotta fix your shit first,” I said, readjusting the corners, making sure that the painting was straight.
“Baby, I appreciate your sudden desire to get shit perfect, but security is on their way back up, and Ramon is gone.”
“What? How do you know that?”
He showed me the text on his phone from Marcos.
Ramon gone. Ur busted. Get out.
“But…that’s not…we still have two minutes left.”
“No, we have less than a second left to get the fuck out of here,” he said, taking my arm, and hauling me out of the office.
The painting was still fucking slanted, and if we got out of there without security seeing us, it was going to be the smoking gun that got us caught. Alex didn’t think his father would take a second glance, but a man who had his whole life and career riding on the secrecy of those files locked away in a safe would notice when something was amiss.
Rounding the corner into the foyer, Alex skidded to a stop. He went up to the front door, turning around and warning me to be quiet. I tried to control my heavy breathing as he looked through the peephole.
“Shit!” he said, softly banging his head on the wood. “It’s too late.”
“No, it can’t be the end.”
He was pacing the floor like a madman. “We’re fucked. There’s nothing we can do. It’s done.”
“There’s still time...”
“To do what?” He snapped. “It’s over, Madison.”
It shocked me to see Alex this hopeless and trapped. He was the one who pulled us out of trouble and fixed all my stupid mistakes. He was the thinker, and I was the doer. And now he was, what, calling defeat and surrendering?
“No,” I said, decided. “I refuse to give up. There has to be another way.”
“What way is there?” he asked, rushing up to me with one stride of his long legs and placing his hands on my face. The rule to not touch me or kiss me was put on hold for now. “We’re fifty stories up, my parents are due home in twenty minutes, and there are too many fuckers out there with guns. If it were me, I would go out shooting, but…” He closed his eyes and kissed my forehead, letting it linger a lot longer than needed. “I won’t risk you getting hurt or killed.”
The fear of watching bullets rip through me was too much for him, and I understood that. All our talk about death being better than prison was all fucking talk. We would rather have the separation of thick concrete walls and barbed wire fences than having to see each other die.
“God,” I said, burying my nose in his chest. “How did we fuck this up?”
“It’s what we do, kid,” he said, rubbing his hands up and down my back. “We’re fuck-ups.”
As I breathed in deep, feeling the starched fabric of Alex’s maître d’ blazer under my fingertips, I wondered where we went wrong. All the trouble Ramon went through to get these uniforms for Alex and me so that we could walk through the lobby undetected shouldn’t be for nothing. I refused to believe all hope was gone. The plan as hired help was genius and it had taken us all the way up to the penthouse.
Why couldn’t it take us back down to the main floor?
“And what happens if we just go out there?” I asked.
“They’ll arrest us.”
“And if they don’t?”
Alex pulled away and searched my eyes. “Madi, we have no reason to be here, you understand? If we go out there, they’ll know something is up. Even Ramon will sell us out.”
“But what if we do have a right to be here?” I glanced around the foyer, looking for a probable excuse to be in the senator’s home. “We’re the hired help. We’re getting paid to be in this hotel, right?”
He was shaking his head and scratching the scruff on his cheek. “They’ll know.”
“Maybe not,” I said, gazing down at my maid’s uniform as a plan to deceive formulated itself in my head. “I’ve got an idea. You stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.”
“What? Where are you going?” he spoke in a hushed whisper, following after me.
“Stay down there, okay? Trust me,” I said, jogging up the stairs, taking two to three steps at a time.
It was a crazy plan, but I wasn’t going to sit there and wait for the cavalry to take us away. If Alex didn’t want to go down shooting, I was going to go down trying.
Reaching the second floor, I went straight to the master bedroom. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I needed a believable alibi, one that the security guards wouldn’t question. Ramon dressed me as a maid to hide the wolf amongst the sheep, and I wasn’t going let this disguise go to waste.
As I walked into the room, my eyes landed on the closet. I grinned like a fool, knowing what I needed to get Alex and me past the security guards.
Throwing the double-doors open, I clicked on the light and gasped loudly. The damn thing was fucking huge. There were three walls, floor to ceiling, dedicated to shoes. Clothes galore flowed out, fur coats and satin shirts, and if I gave two shits about fashion, I would be a puddle of want on the floor right now.
“Here we go,” I said, cracking my knuckles, and getting down to work.
Combing through the garments bags of Prada, Calvin Klein, and another designer I couldn’t pronounce, I thought of Nyx and Dev, imagining the fun they would have rummaging through these clothes. It had the opposite effect on me, and after a few mi
nutes, my vision became blurred, and I went cross-eyed. It had reached the point where I’d already spent too much time searching, and I needed to take whatever was within my grabbing range and leave.
It didn’t matter what was in the garment bags, just as long as the security guards believed that the senator and his wife ordered dry-cleaning.
Throwing the clothes over my shoulder, I turned off the light and exited the closet. As I headed for the door, something caught my attention out of my peripheral view. It was a small lump, covered in a duvet, lying in the center of the king-sized bed. I tilted my head to the side and watched for a moment, confused as to why the maids would leave it unmade.
Then it moved, but only slightly, up and down, like a slow and steady breath.
I blinked a couple of times, taking a step towards the bed, one after the other until I was right on top of it. Staring at a messy black haystack, it didn’t occur to me who it was lying there. The day’s events, anxiety-filled rollercoaster, were all coming together in one big clusterfuck, and turning my brain into mush—or, I just didn’t want to admit that I was looking down at Alex’s mother.
Lorelei.
She was sleeping on her stomach with her face buried in a pillow. I glanced over to the side table, and it was overflowing with spilled prescription drugs. I picked up the containers, reading them off in my head: Xanax, Vicodin, Valium, and Flexeril. The senator’s wife was drugged out of her fucking skull. I could leave. She didn’t see me and wouldn’t have a clue that I was ever there, but I couldn’t make my feet move.
This feeling came over me, an anger, stronger than anything I’d ever felt before, and I couldn’t dispel it.
Even though I’ve never met her, I knew her kind. She was a callous woman, who had thrown her only son to the wolves, watching as they ripped him apart, limb from limb. Not once did she flinch or show remorse. She stood there and lied on national television, defending her cheating and corrupt husband.
She was shit.
That anger grew in the pit of my stomach and evolved into hate. I despised Lorelei Ryan. She was a reminder and an extension of Susan. The same vile woman who gave birth to me, but spent years making sure that her daughter felt unwanted and insignificant.
A mother’s love, unconditional and straightforward, was all I wanted from her, and yet, it was too much for her to bear.
That’s how I perceived the form sleeping in front of me. This woman pained Alex with her morals and narrow judgment, casting him aside.
He was an orphan.
We both were.
These women didn’t deserve the honor of being a mother, let alone the right to breathe.
The pain stops here.
Laying the garments down neatly on the bed, I undid the buttons on my uniform, slipping my hand underneath and pulling out my Glock. It was a challenge to get out without entirely stripping down, but I managed. The only problem now was muffling the sound of the gun. It would alert Alex and the security guards to my deed, fucking up our plans to escape.
Besides, I needed something to block the spray. I doubt anyone would believe any story I told about being an innocent hotel maid if I walked out in a uniform covered in blood.
Scanning the room, I noticed a throw pillow at the end of the bed on a hope chest. It was thick, fluffy, and the perfect silencer.
Cocking my gun, I picked it up and pressed the muzzle into the cushion. Taking a deep breath, I aimed all my anger at the matted heap of hair. Slowly, I edged the pillow closer and closer until it was an inch from her head.
“Julian?” She flipped over on her back and opened her eyes, revealing a familiar and dazzling shade of blue. “Is that you?”
Chapter Twenty
The resemblance to Alex was uncanny, and it took my breath away. All my anger and hate dissipated in a puff, leaving me as quickly as it came. When the smoke cleared, I started to think…what if.
Those two words changed everything.
I couldn’t do it. No matter how much I fucking believed this woman deserved to atone for her sins and the sins of Susan, I was physically and emotionally unable to pull the trigger.
Fuck!
What was wrong with me? Was I crazy? I had to be. There was no other explanation for my chaotic thoughts and rash decisions.
What sane person tries to whack their boyfriend’s mother?
The room got smaller as the walls caved in on me, and I gasped, but the air was too thick and suffocating. I was losing my mind and spiraling into a hopeless abyss of dark thoughts.
I had to get out of there…and fast!
Lowering the pillow and tucking the gun into my stomach, I took a tentative step towards the bed.
“Mrs. Ryan…?”
She lifted her head to the sound of my timid voice and cocked it to the side.
I edged forward and continued. “I’m here for your dry-cleaning.”
Staring up at me, eyes bloodshot and glossy, she memorized every feature. I knew it was a risk to be flaunting my face so openly, but a small part of me wanted her to remember that I was there. That her life was in my hands and I allowed her to breathe for another day
“Do you understand?”
She blinked, each one slower than the last until her lids drifted down and stayed closed.
I stood there for a moment and watched her chest rise and fall as a soft snore reverberated from her small frame. Ambien was making another trip through her bloodstream, knocking her out cold. It was quiet in the room, peaceful even, and I could feel my tense muscles start to relax.
Booonnnng!
“Fuck!” My heart busted out of me in a panic as I swung around with the gun pointed and searched for the threat.
The antique grandfather clock was in the corner, the second-hand ticking, edging away from the six.
It was a false alarm, but my pulse was still bounding behind my eyes.
I was so over today.
Tossing the pillow across the room, I stuffed the gun back underneath my uniform and secured it in the belt strap wrapped around my waist, buttoning the dress back up.
Lorelei had her face buried in a mass of pillows and a duvet, sound asleep and peacefully unaware of what had happened moments ago.
I bid my future mother-in-law adieu, knowing that we’d never meet again. And if we did, I wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in her head.
Snatching the garment bags off the bed, I threw them over my shoulder and headed for the exit, my feet shuffling on the wooden floor, moving faster than ever. I wanted out of this never-ending hell before the senator came home.
Rushing out with my head down, I flung the door open and went flying out of there like the room was on fire, slamming face first into Alex’s chest. The dead stop of my blind momentum knocked me off my axis, and I went stumbling back into the open doorway.
“Shit!” Alex was quick to grab me, clutching the front of my uniform and pulling me forward with a jerk.
My hands flew up instinctively and grasped his biceps, needing the extra support to keep myself steady and upright.
“Hey, turbo,” he teased, bending to get level with me. “Are you okay?”
My gaze traveled up to his face, and I inhaled sharply.
God, he was beautiful.
I’m not sure if it was because of my emotional instability for nearly killing his mom or the fact that I’d missed him that much, but he was a sight for sore eyes.
The little nuances in his appearance that I’d taken for granted were heightened and unavoidable now. The four-day scruff had a slight shade of red hue mixed in with the black hair and tickled my skin when he buried his face in my neck. The streamlined eyebrows of his were furrowed with worry for my well-being, but a sly smirk curved on his mouth when he noticed me staring up at him. It had been two minutes since the last time I’d seen Alex and yet it felt like a million years.
How would I survive an actual separation?
“Are you a mute now?” he asked.
I smiled, running my h
ands up to his neck, feeling the heat of his skin inflame my own. “No, I can talk.”
“Good,” he said, standing up to his full height and glancing over my head. “What were you doing in there?”
Flashes of prescription drugs, messy black hair, blue eyes, grandfather clocks, guns, duvets, pillows, and lies brought me out of my Alex-induced stupor.
Oh...about that.
I reached behind me and closed the door to block the view of his sleeping mother. “Nothing.”
He narrowed his eyes and clicked his tongue. “Nothing?”
Alex knew me well enough to know that I was always up to something. It worked both ways, and our bad habits got us into sticky situations.
Case in point, this fucking robbery gone awry.
But who was he to question me?
Secrets and omissions were a part of our relationship now, because of him, and I was only doing my fair share.
“Why didn’t you wait downstairs like I asked you to?” I glared and backed away from him.
Like a magnet drawn to metal, he followed my movement by leaning in and placing his hands on the door frame.
Alex surrounded me.
“I did wait,” he said. “But then you started to take too fucking long. What was I supposed to do?”
“You keep on waiting,” I said, ducking underneath his arm, and heading for the stairs.
“What were you doing in my parents’ room?” Alex called.
I turned back around. “What?”
He was standing in a wide stance with his arms folded over his chest. He raised a single eyebrow. “What were you doing in my parents’ room?”
“I already told you.”
“Yeah, I know what you said, but...”
I groaned. “Ugh, Alex, why does it matter? I didn’t kill anyone.”
At that, his eyes flashed to the door, and I knew he was going to go in there.
I didn’t want to be around for the big reveal.
“I’ll be downstairs.”
It was a test to see what was more important to him. Would he stay to satiate his curiosity and lose me forever, or would he take a leap of faith and trust me?
Thank God, he was smarter than he looked, because he was running up behind me before my foot even got to the top step.