by Rebel Hart
“That was when you knew? That was yesterday!”
I laughed and shook my head. “Nooo. That just made it click. You did it that first night we were on the boat too. You kissed me on the forehead. I don’t think anyone has ever done that before. It was right in the middle of sex, so I don’t think I really registered how much it twisted me up.” My smile widened. “That was when I knew.”
He scoffed. “You were just excited for dick.”
I let out a loud laugh and realized that all the smiles I’d had lately had only been with Bryce. I didn’t smile much before him.
Damn… I had it so much worse than I realized.
“My parents want me to kill you,” I said.
He nodded, squeezing me a little closer as his smile disappeared. “Yeah. Mine want the same.”
“What do we do?” I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “Let’s just continue to lay here for now.”
Bryce was avoidant by nature, I’d learned. He was smart, much smarter than he let people believe. It was likely to his benefit for people to think he was his family’s resident meat-head, because he could exploit them not taking him seriously. He’d done that with me, more than once, and I’d paid the hard way for it. Now, he was just purely and simply saying that he was all out of ideas.
And he wasn’t the only one.
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t know either.”
19
Bryce
If I never had to leave that house, I probably wouldn’t have, but Baylor was still waiting back at my place. He knew where I was going, and if I didn’t come back within a reasonable amount of time, he would send out the cavalry. I didn’t want to leave Mari behind, especially when I still didn’t really know what to do, but in order to keep her safe for now, I had to leave her and get back to Baylor’s side.
“What will you do?” I asked as we left the house.
“I’m gonna go to Nique’s for tonight.” she said. “Uh, the place I’ve been pretending is mine is actually—”
“Your cousin’s. Yeah… I know.” It was a pretty safe bet that anything we believed was hidden between us actually wasn’t, so there was no use in pretending anymore. “What about your parents? Your brothers?” I saw something flash across her face as I asked. Anxiety maybe? Fear? “Mari? Will you be okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” She waved her hand in front of her face. “It’s not like they’re gonna kill me or anything. I just need to figure out how to explain why you aren’t dead. I’ll spend the night with Nique and figure it out in the morning.”
“Okay… Can you… Can you call me in the morning? I just, you know. I wanna make sure you’re okay.”
She nodded, pulling herself against me and lifting her head to mine to take a kiss. “I will, but don’t worry about me. I can handle myself, remember? I almost killed you.”
I had a feeling she wasn’t ever gonna let me live that down. “Yeah. You did. You’re not wrong.” I slid a hand into her hair and chuckled as I realized this woman had me wrapped around her finger a long time ago while I was pretending she was just a job. “I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah.”
I gave her one final kiss and then reluctantly left her side. Climbing into my car, I watched her for a final few minutes and then finally started up my car and started off into the desert.
It felt like the drive home was just a blip in time, and the second the elevator doors opened on my floor, Baylor jumped up and then let out a deep sigh of relief. “Shit, man.”
“Hey,” I said. “I told you I’d be fine.” I dipped my hand into my pocket and hesitated, before pulling Mari’s phone out of my pocket. “This is her phone. Can you get me into it?”
His eyes widened. “Holy shit!” He ran over and yanked the phone from me. “Did you actually kill her?”
“No,” I said. “And I don’t plan on it.”
His eyes shot up to me. “What?” I just shook my head and his shoulders slumped. “You fucking did it. You went and caught feelings after you swore you wouldn’t.”
“Yeah,” I said honestly. “I don’t really know how it happened, but it did. I can’t… I can’t kill her.”
He took a loud, deep breath in, then let it out. “I knew you couldn’t be trusted around a hot woman.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, but she’s so much more than that, you know? If she was just hot, I think I would have been okay. It was all the other stuff that got me.”
Baylor did a hard recoil at that. “Other stuff? I didn’t know you were capable of seeing other stuff.”
“I didn’t either,” I admitted. “Turns out I am, but only at the worst possible time.”
“What are you gonna do?” he asked. “I mean… how are you honestly going to be with her?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not stupid enough to think I can actually be with her. Between her family and ours, there will always be pressure for us to kill each other. The stress would be maddening. It’d never work out. It sucks, but I know I can’t be with her. I have to just settle for making sure she isn’t killed. She told me her family won’t kill her, so if I can get Mom to back off, she should be safe.” I nodded at the phone. “If you can get me in, I’m sure I’ll be able to flip the MasCat deal in her favor. Then she shouldn’t need to kill Mari, right?”
Baylor nodded, though with apprehension. “Hypothetically, but… really? You’re just not gonna be with her? You’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”
“Yeah, really. Her safety means more to me, so…”
“But dude, it sounds like you’re in lo—”
“Can you get into the phone?” I asked, cutting him off. I refused to use that word. Not having said it or heard it yet was the only thing keeping me from abandoning everything for her. This was what was best. Even if it hurt. “I wanna try and get this done tonight.”
Though Baylor still seemed sad for me, he nodded. “Yeah. Where’s your computer?”
Walking further into the apartment, I walked over to the table where my computer was still sitting, open, but asleep from that morning when I’d pulled it out to work. The plate of food I’d made for Mari was still sitting in the sink, untouched, and it made me wish that we could have reached a point of understanding before that, so we could have at least enjoyed our morning together.
Oh well. This night was a pretty good way to say goodbye, I supposed.
I unlocked my computer and handed it to Baylor and he took it and Mari’s phone, and sat down on the couch. He typed a few things on the keyboard, then held the phone up to the computer screen, and after a few seconds, it unlocked. He handed it to me and, after getting temporarily distracted by the cute selfie of Mari on the home screen, I navigated to her contacts. She had a contact for the CEO of MasCat Tech, Delano Asmu, so I clicked it and drafted a new text message.
“What are you doing?” Baylor asked, standing up to look over my shoulder.
“I’m telling Asmu that Jade has changed her mind about the GDM deal and that I think we should sign the contracts immediately to prevent from losing Gina to another vendor.”
I hit send, and waited. It was early evening, so he shouldn’t be asleep or anything, and I imagined, if everyone was already on board except for Mari, he’d be relieved to hear she was folding.
The phone buzzed in my hand and Baylor jumped. “Ooh! It’s him.” I opened it and Baylor read it aloud. “‘Thanks Mari, that’s great. I’ll order an emergency approval right now, and we’ll all sign off at the next board meeting. Some of this money is going right into your pocket, you’ll see. This is a good deal for all of us.’ So he knew who she really was.”
“Of course. She was probably threatening him to keep quiet. Mari’s kind of terrifying,” I said. “She’s got that sweet innocent face, but she nearly killed me tonight.”
Baylor’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I underestimated her ability to do it, but that’s part of her charm. She expl
oits people underestimating her.”
He laughed. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
My stomach twisted with sadness at that. “Yeah.” After a few minutes, the phone buzzed in my hand again. “Asmu.”
Once again, Baylor served as the narrator. “The emergency vote passed unanimously. He’s already on the phone with Gina Misterro sealing the deal.” Only about sixty seconds after that, did my cell phone ring and Baylor smiled again. “I bet that’s a good call.”
I pulled out my own phone, and sure enough, it was from my mom. “Hey, Mom,” I answered.
“Bryce.” There was obvious joy in her voice. “I just received a call from Delano Asmu telling me that his board of directors just had an emergency vote to approve my software, spearheaded by Jade Meghan. The vote passed unanimously. I’m going down there to sign contracts in the morning.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “I told you I had it.”
“I never should have doubted you. This is huge, Bryce. This makes up for all of that muck back in Boulder. I know now that you are perfectly capable of handling anything I throw your way. I hope you’re ready to take your proper seat beneath me, again. I can’t wait to see what you do with the rest of Vegas.”
“Yeah, Mom. Can’t wait. It’s gonna be good.”
“Okay. Let me go, I need to go and tell your father. I love you, son. I’m so proud of you.”
There was a smile on my face, albeit a small one. “Thanks, Mom. Love you too.”
I hung up the phone and Baylor tapped me on the back. “There you go! Back in Mom’s good graces! That’s great.”
“Yeah.” I sunk down onto the couch, staring sadly at Mari’s picture on her home screen. “That’s great.”
“Hey. Cheer up.” He sat down on the couch next to me. “Maybe it’s not all over for you and Mari. Maybe there’s a way… I don’t know. Maybe we can poach her or something. Show her that she’ll be better utilized by our family than hers.”
“I just stole her phone and used it to do the very thing she’s been trying to prevent me from doing this entire time. She’s gonna think…” I frowned. “She’s gonna think all that shit I told her was just a line to get one more over on her.”
“Well, it kind of was?” Baylor said.
I shook my head. “No. None of what I said to her was a lie. If it hadn’t been to protect her, I wouldn’t have even taken her phone to begin with. She’s gonna hate me now, though. Just like the way I felt when her brothers told me she was using me. That wasn’t true either, but it made me so angry that I was willing to kill her. Hell, she might make that choice now. I wouldn’t blame her.”
“Do you honestly think she’s going to try?” Baylor asked.
I shrugged. “Maybe. With the MasCat deal sealed, it might be a race to see which Westun can kill me first.”
“I didn’t even think about it that way. This whole thing is going to start a war, isn’t it?”
“I’m assuming so,” I said. “You and I just have to be prepared for anything.”
20
Mari
The look on Nique’s face as she snuck me in through her back door only served to elevate my anxiety. I pushed past her, wanting to get inside as soon as possible, then I ran through her house to the front and made sure that all the curtains were tightly drawn.
“Mariana,” Nique whined. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Why did I have to sneak you in through the back door?”
“Because my family keeps your house under close surveillance just in case anyone tries to come after you because you’re close with me,” I said.
She shook her head. “And so…?”
“I didn’t want my brothers or parents to see me arriving here,” I whispered.
“Wait, why?” Once she was sufficiently convinced that our simple surveillance was blocked, she grabbed my arm and pulled me into her bedroom near the back of the house. “Mari. You’re freaking me out. Are you on the run or something.”
“Kind of,” I huffed. “My parents wanted me to kill Bryce Misterro, but I didn’t, so now they’re going to kill me.”
Mari let out a sputtering laugh. “Is that what all of this is about? Honey, I’m sure they’re angry, but they’re not actually going to kill you. They’re your parents.”
I looked Nique straight in her eyes. “I need you to hear me right now, okay? When I went home earlier today, my parents and brothers sat me down at the dining room table and told me that they think I flipped on them for Bryce, and that if I don’t kill him, they’re going to kill me. It’s not a figure of speech. They aren’t being facetious. They’re serious. As soon as they find out Bryce isn’t dead, they are actually going to kill me.”
The smile of amusement faded from Nique’s face. “No… Not literally.”
“Literally,” I said. “Fun fact about being part of an organized crime family. They say blood is thicker than water; well in this life, money and success are thicker than blood. If my parents think I didn’t kill Bryce because I have feelings for him, then they are absolutely going to kill me. Not figuratively, but for real.”
“So just tell them that’s not why you didn’t kill him. He just got the upper hand, right?”
I winced at her. “Well… no. I did, at one point, have a gun pressed to his skull and his eyes were closed—he’d just accepted it.”
“Then why didn’t you kill him?” She then let out a loud gasp. “Because you loooove him.” When I just shrugged without arguing, her expression got more serious. “Oh my god. Do you love him?”
“I can’t think about that right now,” I said. “Right now, I need to just figure out how to deal with my family so that they don’t drive me to the ocean and drop me in.” I fished my hand into my purse looking for my phone, but it wasn’t there. I flipped everything over, dumped all the items out, but it wasn’t in there. “Shit. I left my phone back at the rental.”
“Okay. Well, let’s just go and get it.”
“We can’t. I just need to lay low right now. I’ll go get it in the morning.”
“But what if your family tries to… Mari?”
Suddenly, I felt really dizzy. I wasn’t the type of person that got sick when they were overly stressed, mainly because ‘stressed’ had been a default feeling for me my entire life. I stood up and tried to shake it off, thinking that I’d get some fresh air by checking my car for my phone, but the second I stood up, I got so lightheaded that I immediately started to fall from my feet. Nique jumped up and caught me, guiding me back down to sit on her bed.
“Hey. Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I feel weird,” I said, and no sooner than I said it, my stomach twisted up.
I heaved as swill shot up from my stomach into my throat and I knew I was gonna be sick. I leapt up and ran from the bedroom into Nique’s attached bathroom and dropped to my knees in front of the toilet, only just barely managing to get there before I started to puke. It wasn’t anything in particular, and though I’d eaten that day, I hadn’t recently, but all of a sudden my head was pounding, and my ears were ringing.
“Mari,” Nique said. She was right next to me, but her voice sounded distant. “Are you okay? Is it stress?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
The sink turned on, the hiss of the water filling the air, then it turned off again. Nique ducked down next to me and set a hand on my forehead. “You’re not hot.” She dabbed my skin with the cool rag and rubbed my back. “Random bug?” Then she laughed. “Not pregnant, are ya?”
My eyes went wide and I lifted my gaze to meet hers. “Oh my god.”
Her jaw dropped. “Wait… no. No! You’re on birth control, I thought?”
“I also thought! What day is it?”
“The 28th,” Mari replied.
“Oh no.” The birth control I was on had prevented me from getting pregnant, but didn’t block my periods entirely. Being so caught up in Bryce, I didn’t realize. “I’m about
a week late.”
Her expression got even more crazed. “Do you… oh man. Do you think you’re pregnant? Ooh! Wait!” She jumped up and walked over to a drawer under the sink, opened it, and then closed it again. She crouched next to me and held out a pregnancy test. “Tig and I had a scare a couple of months ago, long story. I bought a bunch just to be safe, and I still have a few left. Here. Take one.” Shakily, I pulled the box from Nique’s hand and she helped me to my feet. “Okay. I’m gonna leave. You pee.” She tapped my head and then skipped from the bathroom, leaving me alone.
The process of slowly unwrapping and figuring out exactly how to take the test only served to bolster my anxiety. After taking the test, I applied the cap and then set it down on the counter. I lifted the box to check how long the test usually took to get a reading, but then remembered I didn’t have my phone to set a timer regardless. I picked up the test and prepared to walk out and ask Nique to set a timer on her phone, but froze instead.
The test was already reading, “Positive.”
I shook my head and rubbed my finger over the screen, thinking maybe I’d accidentally neglected to remove a sticker or something, but no. It was reporting boldly that the test was positive. I ran out into the bedroom making some sort of strange, screeching, raptor noise.
“Mari, relax. It usually takes a few minutes.”
“It didn’t!” I barked. “It’s only been like thirty seconds and already says positive!”
“What?” She stood up and walked over to me. “Wow. You must be like… UBER pregnant.”
“Do you have another one?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. One more.”
She pulled the second one out for me, and after downing twelve glasses of water over the course of ten minutes, I was able to produce enough pee to take another one. This time, Nique threw privacy out the window and carefully monitored the process to ensure I was doing it right, then she took a piece of toilet paper and held the test, staring at the screen the entire time.