by Korry Smith
"Are you threatening me?" I chewed on the inner part of my cheek, curbing a smile. My legs twitched, ready to turn around at a moment's notice and make a run for it.
"It's not a threat; it's a fucking promise. How do you want to play this?" He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "It's your call."
"Well, I choose—" but I couldn't even finish that sentence because he sprang for me.
I was quick, managing to duck under his arm and run to the other side of the Mercedes. Alex blocked my escape at every turn. After a tense minute of back and forth, bob and weave, he grew impatient and gunned it around the front of the car. I bolted, and he chased me all over the parking lot. My legs were burning with each strenuous stride, and by the fourth lap, he reached out and grabbed me.
"Gotcha!"
"Let go of me!" I screamed and kicked, trying to break myself free, but he was strong, tugging me back and spinning me around.
"Never!” Alex thrust me into his chest and captured my lips. I went limp, absorbed by his kiss. He loosened his grip on my waist, our mouths never disengaging, and moved his hands up to my face to hold me still.
Nothing outside of him mattered in those moments. I didn't hear anything apart from us. I couldn't sense when danger was coming. All my anxiety and awareness faded into the background, like a faint humming in my ears. He had such an influence on me; That all too dangerous and ill-fated ignorance.
It was my guy's job to keep tabs on the outside world.
"What the fuck?" Len shoved Alex in the back and broke our kiss. "Do you guys not hear that shit?"
It was then, brought back down to earth, did I notice the police sirens in the distance and a helicopter overhead. The radio in the car was alerting all available units around our location. They were en route, and estimated time of arrival was less than five minutes, but from what I could tell by the loud screeching of the sirens and white light from the sky, they were a hell of a lot closer than that.
My old man failed miserably. He was hopeless and ignorant, just like me.
"Yeah, I hear it." Alex grunted, annoyed, but his eyes were steely and calm. He seized my chin and gave me a quick peck on the lips. "Get in the car."
I glanced over my shoulder and noticed forty sets of eyes on me. Things had escalated, and several people were coming out of their rooms to investigate the sudden commotion. I'm not sure if they knew who we were or what was going on, but they got a good look at our vehicle. It wasn't ideal circumstances, but a typical occurrence for two outlaws with the worst fucking luck.
At this point, it was standard for my heart to beat rapidly with anxiety and dread that I didn't even bother to rush to get into the car.
"You buckled in?" Alex slid into the seat next to me a few seconds later.
I tugged on the belt across my chest. “Yup.”
Len hopped into the front and started the car. It roared to life, a powerful engine. He was antsy and panicked, glancing out the rearview mirror, waiting for Hell to open and swallow us whole.
"If we get caught…"
"We won't." Alex gave Len's headrest a gentle nudge. "Drive us to the airport."
Len shifted into reverse and punched the gas. The tires spun and smoked, leaving a rubber thread as he sped the Mercedes out of the parking lot. We were going fifty when the car reached the road, fishtailing, and almost crashing into a ditch.
Len was driving like a fucking maniac.
I grasped onto Alex's thigh for stability and turned around to look out the back window. Numerous police cars were coming up from the north, about a mile and a half behind us. Their lights, red and blue, a fucking justice rainbow, flickered and lit up the night. The ghetto bird, chop, chop, chop, hovered over the hotel, it's bright spotlight illuminating the tile roof.
It wouldn't take them long to track us down, and Len, sweating their proximity, stepped on the gas. We were doing over a hundred, and it was nuts. I was more afraid of a fiery crash and mangled metal than the dozen police cruisers that were less than a mile down the road.
Alex's soothing voice and encouraging words were the only things that calmed Len, but he didn't fully relax until he turned right on to another street and removed all the lights from his rearview mirror.
"Jesus, what a fucking rush," Len said with a mixture of disbelief and relief. He turned back in the seat and grinned. "Never a dull moment with you two, is there?"
Alex and I laughed, stealing a quick glance at each other.
He didn't even know the half of it.
It was June 14th, 9:55 on a Thursday night, and Alex and I were sitting in the car at a private airport, situated between South Phoenix and Casa Grande, waiting for Marcos’ plane to land.
It was four minutes out.
Len was sitting on the hood of the car, chugging water, and talking to Devlin on his phone. She was with Nyx in Mexico. They didn't make the trip to break Alex and me out of jail. Their men wouldn't let them. Too dangerous, they said. I would love to see Alex try to tell me that. He wouldn't get very far.
Guerrero Municipal Airport, owned by a wealthy business tycoon with dirty endeavors, housed many drug-runs on planes that landed there. The town of Casa Grande kept things quiet, and no one advertised it. The only people who knew of the existence of this airport were the ones doing all the smuggling and transporting.
It’s where Marcos had his merchandise flown in. They were small, unregistered Cessna planes, and the thought of being a mile high in those made me nervous. Alex assured me that Marcos was arriving in his Learjet 85 model.
"That's bigger than the Cessna, right?" I asked, biting the shit out of the corner of my thumb's nail.
"Yes, it's bigger." Alex smiled and eased my hand away from my mouth. "The plane is worth seventeen million dollars."
My heart stopped and then went pitter-patter.
"Are you kidding me?"
He shook his head.
"How in the hell can he afford seventeen million dollars for a plane, but you lived in a shitty two-bedroom apartment in West Phoenix?" I asked him, trying to add up all his expenses in my head. Nothing he owned would make him seem that fucking broke. It didn't make sense.
"We preferred to keep things low-key in the States."
"Yeah, that's an understatement," I said, a thought occurring to me. "Wait, I thought you two were in business together."
"No, we did business with each other, and that was it. I had my connections, and Marcos had his. It just so happens; his merchandise was far better than anything trafficked in Mexico. He liked me, and the services I provided because I was good getting the shit past the border and distributed in America." Alex fumbled with the door panel in the car, pulling back the clear, plastic covering. "It was a sweet partnership."
There were things I didn't know about Alex's dealings with Marcos, and it was my fault for not asking, but it made me feel like we were on two completely different islands separated by water that extended for miles. I tried to bridge the gap, and I got closer every day with my stones and tweed rope, but it wasn't fast enough for me. I was growing impatient.
"It's funny," I said, idly picking the small lint off his jeans, "but I always feel like you don't tell me everything. Like there is this whole other world to you that I don't know about."
He ran his hand over his face and flipped the hoodie off his head. “I know.”
There was something he wanted to tell me. I could see it in the way he gnawed on his lip ring. If he didn't come out with soon, he would be outside this car puffing away on a cigarette. His nervous and anxious habits had a cycle. I knew them well.
"The terms we agreed on in Saint Louis still stands," I said, plucking that fucking lip from his teeth.
"Exclusivity, I know. I remember," Alex said, taking my hand and tracing the rough cuts on my knuckles. "And it's yours. All of it."
There was this knot manifesting in my stomach, tense and uneasy.
I lowered my head to get a better look at his face, narrowing my eyes. "What ar
e you not telling me?"
He was a blank slate, pulling his hand from mine and gazing down at the clock on his phone, waiting for the neon numbers to change. It was rare for him to ignore me this way. I didn't want to keep pushing him, but he was hiding something from me—and after everything we've been through together?
I felt flushed, not in a sexy way, and yanked away from his grasp, folding my hands in my lap. I scooted across the seat and crossed my legs, pressing my knees to the door. Keeping my back turned to him, I knew he couldn't see how pissed off he made me, but I'm sure he felt it.
"Madi," he said, after one minute and thirty-four seconds of uncomfortable silence. He rubbed my shoulder, and I jerked away. He got closer, putting his arms around me, and resting his forehead on the back of my neck. "Can you trust me enough to believe that I'll tell you things when you need to know them?"
"Do you trust me enough to keep things from you?"
"God, woman.” He groaned, biting my shoulder, hard, and rolled away to the other side of the car. "You're fucking impossible!"
"You're no picnic yourself," I said, going over to my corner to ignore him.
When Len got off the phone to tell us the plane was about to land, he could see the mood between Alex and me had shifted and changed for the worse. The guy was smart, he didn't ask, but just backed away from the problem and went to unload the trunk.
"Let's go." Alex got out, but didn't wait for me, and slammed his door so hard that the car shook.
The Learjet came in and landed a few yards from where we all stood. It was loud, white, and beautiful. It was the most incredible plane I'd ever seen. It wasn't big like a seven-forty-seven, but it wasn't tiny like a cracked-out Cessna. It was perfect, and I could see seventeen million dollars being well-spent.
I stared in fascination as the hatch opened and stairs came down. A man appeared in the lighted doorway, and I squinted, unable to get a clear view of him.
"Marcos!" Len shouted, jogging up to greet him.
I watched them interact in a casual matter. Len dramatically swung his arms, acted out skits, and cracked jokes with him.
In all the times I thought of this scary man, the many forms I'd imagined the devil to be, this was not it. He looked nothing like his brother Miguel. Marcos was tall, handsome, and dressed to the nines in a black suit. It stunned me, but also made me fucking nervous.
"Come on.” Alex put his arm around my shoulders and led me towards the plane.
My assessment from a distance was that Marcos didn't seem dangerous with his kind smile, but when I came face to face with him and heard him speak? I was convinced that this man would never hurt a fly.
"My friend!" Marcos shook Alex's hand. "Glad to see you're alive and intact." He stood back and took in my guy's rough appearance. "Well, mostly intact, anyway."
"I can't thank you enough for doing this for us," Alex said, and it was genuine.
Marcos waved him off. "It was nothing. I owe you, remember?"
"Yes, but I do believe you paid me in full for the Missouri trip."
Marcos’ eyes brightened, and he smiled. "That was a fun outing. I hadn't done that in years."
I stood there, glancing back and forth between the two men. They were speaking in code. What business did Marcos have in Missouri? The only thing I could think of was Ramon and the wildcat. The mere thought of that white powder made my stomach twist and churn in disgust.
Never, never again.
"Which reminds me," Marcos said, reaching into the inner pocket of his suit, and pulling out a Polaroid. "I took this for you. Forgive the poor quality. Old habits die hard."
Alex took the picture and stared down at it. There was no emotion in his eyes. He gave a firm nod and a silent thanks to Marcos, and all too quickly, he was shoving it into his back pocket until I stopped him.
"What is that? Let me see," I said, standing on my tiptoes and peering around his arm. He had it face up in his palm, and I gasped. "Is that..."
"Yup," Alex said. "It's done."
It was a gruesome depiction of Senator Julian Ryan with a single gunshot wound between the eyes. Marcos’ business, I now realized, was to kill Alex’s father and stage it as a mob hit.
It was payment for Miguel.
Tit for tat, both men had done for each other what the other one couldn't do on his own.
"It's Madison, correct?" Marcos asked, and my head snapped up to the sound.
"It's Madi," I said, holding my hand out for him to shake.
He grabbed it with a tight and firm grasp, turning it over and kissing it. I watched out of the corner of my eyes for Alex's reaction, but he just smiled.
No possessive rage or a compulsive eye twitch.
He didn't even go for his gun.
Nada.
"It's lovely to meet you." Marcos’ smile never faded. "I've heard so much about you."
I laughed, thinking of two sources who may have spoken to him about me, and both biased. "Only believe the good stuff, right?"
"I've heard nothing but good things…” He paused as his dark eyes drifted down towards the chain hanging from my neck. There was recognition as he reached out and delicately thumbed the pendant. “Virgen De Guadalupe, our lady of protection. Did she serve you well, bonita?”
No apologies.
“The jury is still out,” I said.
“Indeed.” He pulled his hand away and gazed over my head. “Well, your reputation precedes you."
Alex and I spun around to see those persistent red and blue lights flashing and coming up fast in the distance. This shit was getting annoying. I'm not sure when I lost that natural panic response of a fugitive on the run should have every time a cop was near, but I was tired and couldn't find it in me to care.
"How long before you can have this thing up in the air?" Alex eyed the mobile stairs underneath the belly of the plane and the man pumping gas into the tank.
"Ah, Carlos should be finished by now, and it shouldn't take longer than a minute to get her off the ground." Marcos stepped aside and with a broad sweep of his arm, ushered us forward. "Perhaps, we should board."
"I couldn't fucking agree more," Alex said, placing his hand on my lower back to steady me as I climbed the narrow steps.
Once inside the plane, we sat down in the plush, cream-colored leather seats and buckled our belts. Len sat behind me with earphones on, unfazed and oblivious, singing and drumming his fingers on the back of my headrest.
I leaned forward and stared out the oval window. The law was descending upon the airport. There were ten patrol cars and four SUVs. The helicopter was gone, not being able to fly over restricted airspace.
Even from the safety of my seat, I could sense their urgency.
They knew their two fugitives were close to getting away and would do anything to stop that from happening.
Alex said something to Marcos, placing a comforting hand on my knee as the door closed and locked. He looked disinterested in the drama unfolding outside, unlike me. I was fucking enthralled. Every tense moment reflected in my wide eyes.
The jet rolled forward with slow ease, lining up with the runway for takeoff. The cops in the airport were frantic. I could see them pacing inside and demanding the control tower to stop the plane from leaving, but the pilot was a pure-bred Mexican and hired directly by Marcos. He didn't adhere to American laws.
Given the go-ahead, the pilot propelled the jet forward and increased the speed. Police cars broke through the gate and drove on the tarmac, riding alongside the plane. It was madness. They hung out their windows, showing their guns and badges, but it was pointless. The jet was racing down the runway at a hundred and fifty miles an hour. The cops couldn't keep up, and I lost sight of them, blocked by the wing.
I sat back and closed my eyes, anxiously clutching the armrests on my seat.
"This is my favorite part," Alex said into my ear, placing his hand over mine and giving it a gentle, reassuring squeeze.
The jet tilted back, vertically, and l
ifted off the ground. There was a loud whine, and the hard thud as the wheels tucked into the belly of the plane, causing my pulse to quicken again. It wasn't until we gained altitude and leveled off did my body relax.
"Where's the fucking flight attendant?" I snapped my eyes open and sat straight. "I need a drink."
"Yeah, I could use one, too," Alex said, glancing around, and helping me look.
Marcos unbuckled his belt and stood up. He pulled out a bottle of champagne that was sitting on ice and poured it into a crystal flute.
"Here," he said, handing Alex and me a glass. "¡Salud!"
"¡Salud!" We clinked our glasses with Marcos.
I put it to my lips and sipped on it. Alex didn't even bother trying it, setting the glass down on the table in front of him. I think he was hoping for a beer, but this was a private jet with a fucking crystal chandelier hanging over our heads. When in Rome, you drink expensive, bubbly shit.
"This must be the infamous Madison?" a high female's voice with a heavy Hispanic accent asked.
I turned in my seat to see a stunning woman with dark olive skin and black hair standing behind Marcos. She was smiling at me, genuine and kind. There were no ill intentions behind her thoughtful eyes.
"Umm, yes…well, it's Madi." I floundered, not knowing what to say. She wasn't intimidating, more elegant, and fragile looking. It was her sudden emergence that caught me by surprise.
"Magda," she said, fucking my name up, but I didn’t correct her this time. She took the glass out of Marcos’ hand and sat on his lap. "My name is Gloria."
"Oh, of course," I said, everything coming back to me in a flash. "It's nice to meet you."
"Likewise." She studied me for a long moment. "You're very young."
"Yeah, so I've been told.” I gave Alex a sideways glance and winked.
He laughed, shaking his head.
"I'm curious, míja," Gloria said. "Was Miguel your first hit?"
The glass flute was on my lips, and I froze, slowly swallowing the champagne down. "Yes."
"Did you enjoy it?" Marcos asked as his eyes flickered down at my pendant.
"Oh, um…" I sat the glass down in front of me. It was uncomfortable. Everyone was staring—Alex especially. He was curious more than anyone to hear my answer. It took me a moment to gather my thoughts. “Well, it happened so fast. I didn't have time to reflect on it."