by Nicole Fox
How did this go so wrong? I’m not a criminal, not really. I mean, I’ve done some things—necessary things—in order to get the money I’ve been owed. I’m no saint, but I’m also not a murderer. I’m not a rapist. I’m not dealing in arms or stolen art. I’m not paying off dirty cops. Maybe I was naïve to think I could extort millions from a guy who’s done all of the above and then some.
And not only that, I let myself get in deep with a mark. I let myself think I could walk away after I had my money, that I was just fucking her to keep her close, loyal.
I have stepped in it bigtime. The best I can hope for is to get out with my life, with Selena and her baby safe. I’d settle for the latter, if I could only pick one. What a surprise she has been. I marked her. At first, she was only the wife of a man who’d borrowed money and run. I meant to scare her, figured she’d find family or someone to loan it to her. But here I am now, ready to sacrifice myself just to get her free and safe.
How can I make this go my way? The way I’ve set up the business, I could liquidate my assets pretty quickly. My apartment’s on a month-to-month. I don’t have a thing holding me here. Not anymore. Maybe I could pull a pile of cash together today yet, get an untraceable car, find a way to get her away from him. We could run. Just get in the car and drive until we’re away from all of this.
Can I do that? Drop everything for a woman I hardly know? And a baby? For fuck’s sake, not even my baby. The thought isn’t so bad, really. Selena, glowing and round … that’s a sight I’d like to see. I’ve never thought of myself as father material, never even thought I’d ever want to go near a relationship, but here I am, envisioning me and Selena and a little kid, living quietly on some beach somewhere.
It’s crazy and, if my luck lately is any indication, probably a doomed plan—but I steel myself and get ready to get my woman and make a run for it.
***
Selena
“That boyfriend of yours is pretty fucking stupid,” Sergei says.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say for the umpteenth time. “My husband owes him money. He made me do all that stuff to get the money he says I owe him.”
“Was fucking him part of the payment?” he asks.
“Why do you care if I fucked him?” I ask.
This gets me a slap to the face. I close my eyes to keep from crying.
“This could have been good for you,” he says, grabbing my cheeks. I can smell alcohol on his breath as his face gets closer to mine. “Open your eyes, Selena. I want you to look at me, see what you’ve done to me. I could have made you a queen.”
“Did you say that to the last woman you hired?” I ask. “Where is she now?”
“You’ve got a pretty smart mouth for a woman who is about to die,” he says. “I meant what I told loverboy. I’m going to fuck you in every way possible. I’m going to cover your body in piss. I’m going to choke the light right out of your eyes. And then I’ll leave your body with him, so he’ll see just how it feels to be denied what he wants most.”
“He doesn’t care about me,” I say, trying desperately not to show fear. “He won’t come.”
“Oh, you’re wrong about that,” he says. “He’ll come, but he’ll be too late.”
He stands and goes to the door of his apartment, opening it and saying something in Russian to the two guys standing outside. One comes in and pulls a sack from his pocket, approaching me. I realize what he’s about to do and I scream but the guy is fast. He knocks me upside the head and everything goes dark.
I come to in a tiny room filled with mechanical gear. The room is circular. The floor is metal under my now bare feet. I’m tied to a chair, my dress slit up both sides to my hips. My hands and feet are bound. There’s a piece of cloth in my mouth.
There’s little light, only that which comes from the various buttons and levers on a large machine directly in front of me. I remember Sergei’s instructions to Finn. Jane’s Carousel. I think I must be inside the carousel, in the control room at the center of it.
The bad news? I’m tied up and alone inside a carousel. I have a raging headache and I’m dehydrated. I probably have a concussion. The good news? Sergei has done plenty of threatening, but I have not been raped or choked thus far today. He has not carried out his plans, nor do I think he means to. I think he is likely to try to kill Finn, even if he does bring all of the evidence. And I think he is likely to make my life a living hell, but I don’t think he’ll follow through on his threats on my life. After all, why kill me and leave Finn alive? Just to mess with him? To leave him scarred by my death? To what end? No, I think Sergei wants to own me, control me. He has exerted his position over me to put me in several degrading situations already; why not allow me to keep my life as long as I am on my knees for him when he wants me?
Maybe I am off base. And maybe it will all be a moot point, if Finn tries something crazy. Or if he doesn’t show at all.
I kind of hope he doesn’t show. I hope he walks away from this. Maybe he’ll give Sergei the evidence and then wash his hands of all of this.
This is not how I thought my life would turn out. Not at all. I married Matt and had these grand illusions about being a Wall Street wife. Trips, parties, shopping. It was all so surface. So meaningless. And it turns out, I barely even knew my husband at all.
It’s funny—when he left, I knew he was gone. He took some of his favorite items of clothing, a couple of books that had sat, dog-eared, on his nightstand. He didn’t take his business suits, or his briefcase. His laptop stayed, too. I called his mother after he’d been gone three days. She asked why I didn’t call the police, and then she called the police herself.
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 Serge
i, 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.