KNOCKED UP BY THE KILLER

by Nicole Fox

  I was questioned but they determined that he had just left of his own volition. There was no reason to suspect foul play. And then, it was quiet. He was gone. His family went radio silent. And I was left with an apartment full of his things.

  I don’t know why I’m thinking so much about Matt right now. It seems he should be the farthest thing from my mind, but for whatever reason, I wish I could have closure. I wish I could tell him that it’s okay he’s gone, that I will probably be better off without him. I wish I could thank him for giving me this child, the person I never I knew I needed in my life until I heard that fluttering heartbeat for the first time.

  Tears stream down my face as I realize there’s a very real chance I might not make it out of this. That Finn might not come. That Sergei might indeed make good on his promises.

  It’s hard to hear much from inside of this metal contraption, but Finn’s voice is unmistakable when he arrives. My heart leaps. He actually came for me. He has no reason to care, no reason to stick around for this, to put his life on the line. I mean, who am I to him? Just someone whose husband owes him money. Just someone he fucked a few times. But nonetheless, he’s here, and I feel a surge of hope.

  Sergei’s is quieter, the quiet calm of a viper ready to strike. I can’t hear their words, just the muffled sounds of their voices. Calm. A chess game.

  It feels like hours before the door to the small room opens. One of Sergei’s big minions comes in and unties me but keeps me gagged. He grabs me roughly by the arm and tows me out into the cool night.

  Across the water, Manhattan sparkles, wide awake even at this late hour. Or early, I guess. I look around, disoriented. Sergei’s dark town car sits, a driver waiting inside. Another car sits nearby, the driver’s side door still open.

  “See,” Sergei says, “She is alive.”

  Finn holds an envelope, thick with all of the evidence I copied for him. “Let her go to my car. As soon as she’s inside, I’ll hand this to you and we’ll be square,” he says. “We’ll go away forever.”

  “Oh, how sweet,” Sergei says with a vicious smile. “We. You and Selena and her unborn child,”

  All of the air leaves my lungs. He knows about the baby? I look, wide-eyed, at Finn, as panic sets in.

  He beckons with one finger and his henchman pulls me forward, closer to Sergei, who pulls me roughly against him, one hand at my breasts, one between my legs. His touch is rough as he holds me against the length of his body, my back to his front. I meet Finn’s narrow gaze, seeing the seething anger there.

  “You think I didn’t know?” Sergei says into my ear. “You think I didn’t notice how sick you were? How your body changed? I watch you, Selena; I know you. You would have made a beautiful princess. We could have raised that child as the heir to a massive international company. He would have been a prince.”

  “You are delusional,” I growl. “Fucking insane.”

  “I’m a businessman. And I like pretty things. We could have made a nice business arrangement together. It would have worked for both of us. But now … no. Now you and your lover are going to be scattered across the five boroughs. First we’ll kill him here in front of you. Then I’ll take you home for a good fuck. Then I’ll kill you, too. It’s a waste, but there you have it.”

  “You do an awful lot of talking,” Finn says.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Finn

  I’m gonna need that motherfucker to get his hands off of my woman.

  The way his hand sprawls against her breast, the other playing between her legs … it makes me want to drop a nuclear bomb on him. But it’s okay—he’s about to be dead.

  One thing I don’t tell too many people? I’m quick on the draw. But I know I only have a moment and I need Selena’s help, so I meet her eyes, trying desperately to give her a sign. I need a distraction.

  “Finnegan,” Kovolov says, “What are you plotting? Nothing good, I suppose. Your plots don’t really seem to work out for you, do they? Not just this one, either, right? You planned a shakedown with your last girlfriend and she double-crossed you. Ran off with the mark and the money and left you with nothing.”

  Selena’s eyes go wide. This is not a story I tell. Ever. And how the fuck this asshole knows about it, I have no idea.

  “Rebecca Sallinger,” Kovolov says, grinning. “The one that got away.”

  The name isn’t one I let myself think on very often anymore. Petite, green-eyed, blonde-haired Becca looked like a little pixie. I fell fast and hard, even though I knew she was trouble. She came from a troubled past, had drug issues. I helped her get clean. Gave her a place to live, a job in my shop. I loved her. Like, wanted to marry her. And it was her idea to set up a big shakedown of a local dealer. He’d pimped her out when she was younger. She knew he had quite a bit of money amassed and she wanted it as payback. We set up Grand Cayman accounts, had the whole plan worked out. But when the money was transferred, I found that she’d set the account up in only her name. And then she was gone, and so was he, and I’ll bet they’re still sipping frozen margaritas somewhere, having a laugh.

  “You’re a decent loan shark, but a lousy criminal,” Kovolov says. “In way over your head.”

  I open my mouth to tell him to shut the fuck up and stop fucking talking already, but just as I do, Selena clutches at her stomach and cries out. Kovolov lets go of her and she falls to the ground, passed out. He bends to check on her, looking for all the world like a guy who actually cares, so I use the moment to pull the gun I’ve stashed in this envelope. Boom! I get the first guy right in the chest. Boom! Boom! The second guy in the arm, then in the head. They both go down and don’t get up again.

  Kovolov spins, his eyes wide as he pulls his weapon from the inside of his jacket. But before he can get off a shot, Selena is up, kicking him in the balls. He doubles over and I pull the trigger one more time.

  I don’t take the time to make sure he’s dead and I suspect he’s not, but I reach for Selena’s hand and we run to the car I got from a friend in Queens. It’s not registered to anyone, totally rebuilt. Untraceable.

  We get in and I peel out, heading to the nearest highway exit. We practically fly. Three in the morning is about the only time there is no traffic on the highway here. But I can’t risk getting pulled over by a cop, not after I’ve just shot three people, so I slow down. A few miles after I slow to just above the speed limit, I see Kovolov’s driver catching up to me.

  “We’ve got company,” I say, looking in the rearview. Kovolov’s in the front seat. His driver is stone-faced and focused as he pushes forward, close enough for Kovolov to lean out of his window and get off a shot. It doesn’t even come close. I swerve just to keep him on his toes. He shoots again and it hits the passenger side mirror. Selena yelps and ducks down in the seat.

  “Can you get away from them?” she asks.

  “I’ll sure as hell try,” I answer. I hand her my gun. “It’s got two bullets left. Get in a good shot if you can. Hit the driver. Hit the tire. Something to disable them.”

  She lifts the weapon and I can see on her face that she’s never shot a gun before. Fuck me. “The safety’s not on. Just pull back on the barrel to cock it. Point and pull the trigger.”

  Another shot rings out, wide, and it ricochets and hits the side panel. “Now,” I coach.

  Selena leans out and, after a steadying breath, takes a shot. She hits the tire.

  “Holy crap!” she yelps. “Did you see that?”

  “I did. That’s my girl!”

  That driver is a machine, though, because while anyone else would spin out, he manages to steady the vehicle, his speed slowing only slightly as he keeps going, even on a busted tire.

  I pull off of the highway and down the exit ramp. Nothing coming, I spin around the corner and into a dark, dusty-looking neighborhood dotted with small homes, gas stations, and liquor stores. I peel through the neighborhood, twisting and turning, getting lost in the maze at a pretty good pace. There’s no way he can keep up
with me, not with his tire shredded like that.

  When I’m fairly sure I’ve lost him, I find a municipal parking garage and pull in, going up several levels and parking in a packed area. I turn off the engine and the lights. And we wait.

  After thirty minutes, I tell Selena to stay put. I pull on a ball cap and a hoodie and get out, walking the whole perimeter of the level before I’m satisfied we weren’t followed in. As I walk back to car, I scope out everything parked. Most have alarms. I do find an older Jeep that’s unlocked and unarmed. And after a good ransacking, I discover an extra key under the backseat. As if the owner was begging for the thing to be stolen.

  I use wet wipes to wipe all of our prints from the previous car, move the few belongings I packed to the Jeep, and we head back out in our newly stolen vehicle. And here I was saying I’m not really a criminal.

  We drive and drive until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. It might be twenty hours. It might be Mississippi. Or Oklahoma. I don’t fucking know, but the cheap motel bed feels great. And the shitty waffles at the nearby diner taste amazing the next morning, too. I don’t remember much else.

  As we eat, Selena reaches over and takes my hand. We haven’t talked much since we left New York. A few times when she needed to stop. Once to talk about what radio station I liked.

  Now, though, she waits until I look her in the eye.

  “Finn,” she says.

  I take a swig of my coffee before meeting her gaze.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  “Sorry for what?” I grunt.

  “Sorry I got you into all of this,” she says. “You should have left me with him.”

  I snort a laugh at this. “That’s a laugh. Leave you to be raped and murdered? Nah. Not my style.”

  “Still,” she says. “You have no reason to stick by me. None. What am I to you but a liability?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I admit. “But I care enough to try to get you out.”

  And I don’t know. Not really. My feelings are hard to get to on a good day and right about now, they’re jumbled and scrambled. I wasn’t expecting the onslaught of memories about Becca that came after Sergei mentioned her, nor the gnawing worry for her safety. You never want bad things to happen to people you’ve love.

  It’s funny, I realize now how Becca manipulated me. She was a user to the fullest extent. My first year with her was half mind-blowing sex and half worrying she was going to overdose every time I left her alone. In and out of rehab. Stolen items to pay for drugs. Then she got clean and clear-eyed, and she turned into Vengeance Fairy. She wanted to fuck up everyone who had anything to do with how she’d gotten hooked. Esteban Cardillas was first on the list. He’d given her the first hit of heroin she’d ever tried. He’d sent her to sleep with men for money. He’d kicked her to the curb when her habit had become too much of a liability.

  But all that time that we plotted, all the time she told me she loved me, and how we were going to start a new life together, she was plotting with him. I was the idiot. The loser. The moron who couldn’t see he was getting played.

  When she disappeared, I would have killed someone to get her back. And when I figured out what had really happened, I shut myself down. I loaned money; I made money. I fucked when I was horny. I did not do love or relationships.

  So here is this new wounded deer. Doe-eyed, long, and lean, Selena is nothing like Becca. She is smart and fit, self-assured. She’s educated. She married the wrong fucking guy and she got screwed, so she knows what this is like. And yet, she didn’t shut down. Not at all. She remained a caring person, an empathetic person. A good person.

  And damn, she’s a good lay. Responsive, giving, sexy. Selena is a beautiful woman.

  My woman.

  I shove the thought out of my head. Getting proprietary about this woman is not a smart move. But the thought lingers there, even after we pay and get back on the road.

  ***

  Selena

  He could have left me there. Could have walked away, wiped his hands of this whole mess. But he didn’t. Where Matt ran away from his problems, Finn has taken on mine, created his own. He didn’t need to do this. He’s absolutely got to be

  The lack of sleep is getting to him. Big black bruises bloom beneath his eyes and he’s stiff and mechanical, like he’s just using sheer will to stay awake and alert. We’re in Arizona now, and we’ve probably said fifty words to each other.

  “Why don’t we stop?” I ask. “Get a nice hotel room? Eat a nice meal? Shower? Sleep?”

  He glances at me, his mouth set into a deep frown. I assume he’ll say no, but he gives a short nod and tells me to look out for something.

  We find it in a resort town. There are several man-made, ultra-green golf courses, flanked by extravagantly expensive homes and resort hotels. We pick one and pull up, the valet scowling at us as we exit, still in the same clothes we left New York in two days ago.

  “Do you have a reservation?” the guy asks.

  Finn throws a twenty at him and says, “We will.”

  “I didn’t think about money,” I say, cringing. “Sergei’s surely watching my bank transactions, right?”

  “Probably,” he says. “But it’s fine. I’ve got cash.”

  We book ourselves into a plush room with a king-sized bed. Finn calls the concierge and asks him to send someone up to fit us for dinner attire. A fussy, middle-aged woman comes up shortly after, clucking her tongue and taking measurements. She leaves without much conversation and I stare at Finn, open-mouthed, only to get a limp shoulder shrug in reply.

  “I’m fucking beat,” he says. “What the fuck time is it?”

  I peer at the bedside clock. “Two in the afternoon. Take a nap.”

  He doesn’t have to be told twice as he flops onto the bed, folding his arms across his chest, soft snores escaping just moments after his head hits the pillow.

  I try to sleep, but after an hour of futile tossing and turning, I decide to take a long bath.

  In the oversized soaker tub, I load up on the berry-scented soap, washing my hair twice, filling the tub with bubbles. I lay my head back, a towel bolstering my neck, and my eyes get heavy instantly.

  The sloshing of water wakes me up. Finn’s big body pushes much of the now bubble-less water onto the floor. I blink at him and he grins.

  “Good evening, princess,” he says. “Nice soak?”

  “I guess,” I say, sitting up, trying to make room for him as he sits at the other end of the tub, facing me. “Nice nap?”

  “The best,” he says. “I needed it. Good call.”

  There’s a long, awkward silence between us. I’m not sure what to say or do.

  Finally, I say, “Finn, I can make my own way from here. You don’t have to stay with me. I know you’ve got a life, a business to run.”

  “I don’t,” he says.

  “You don’t,” I answer, as if agreeing. No, you don’t have to stay.

  “I don’t mean it like that,” he says. He takes his forefinger and twirls it in the now lukewarm water. “I mean I don’t have a business. Not anymore.”

  I give what I’m sure is a confused look.

  “I liquidated it all. When I knew he had you. I had set it up to get out of it quickly. It was in a holding company, ready to liquidate whenever I needed to. I signed it away, walked with the cash. My apartment was month-to-month. There’s nothing tying me to New York.”

  “Why? Why would you do that?” I ask.

  “Because I knew we might need to run. Or at the least, I might have to pay him off,” he answers.

  “That’s insane. You can’t give up your business for me,” I say sharply, tears welling in my eyes.

  “Well, I did. So there.”

  “But why?” I ask, crying in earnest now.

  “Because I care about you. I care that you’re all right, okay?” he asks. “That business … whatever. I was a loan shark. What the fuck kind of business is that anyway. I made good money. I’ve got a lo
cked box of cash in that Jeep that should last us several years if we’re careful. I can take care of us, no matter where we land.”

  “Us,” I say. I feel like I got the wind knocked out of me. I say it again. “Us.”

  He looks stricken. “Is this where you tell me there is no us?” he asks. “I mean, I can take it, but damn.”

  I laugh through my tears and snot comes out of my nose. I wipe it away, still laughing. “That’s sexy,” I say.

  He moves his big body so that he’s on his knees, hovering over me. He leans in for a soft kiss. “You’re always sexy to me,” he says.