by Nicole Fox
***
Selena
Finn tells me we’ve got a pit stop to make before we head across the border into Baja. I’m anxious to get across, but he reminds me that we left with none of our identifying information. He’s had to call an old contact in order to get us fake passports and identities.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” I ask.
“He’s just a paper pusher,” Finn says. “Always up to make a buck but harmless.”
We drive into a packed neighborhood of run-down storefronts and apartment buildings. He parks several blocks from the place where we need to go. At first, he wants me to stay in the truck, but then he thinks better of it.
The day is gorgeous and sunny as we walk, but very hot. I mention that I can’t wait to buy a bathing suit and lie by a pool and we have a light conversation about swimming and beach activities. When we get to the meeting point, an apartment in a crummy building that smells like pot and piss, Finn goes rigid, his eyes darting all over the place as he checks every face, looks for every way out. He grips my hand and pulls me close as we climb two floors.
At a metal door with peeling brown paint, he knocks. A guy opens it only part of the way.
Finn holds out cash and the guy takes it before pushing the documents out at us. Finn takes it and I assume that’s the entire exchange, but then the guy says, “I’m sorry, man,” and flings the door wide.
There, behind the door, is Sergei. Not only Sergei, but another huge bodyguard, who has ahold of my husband Matt. We’re pushed inside by a huge man who seemingly comes out of nowhere from behind us, and the door slams shut, trapping us inside.
Matt’s got a terribly bruised face. He’s seen better days. I’m not even sure he recognizes me through his swollen eyes. Sergei doesn’t look much better, his arm in a sling, various cuts healing on his face.
“What the fuck?” Finn asks, narrowing his eyes at his friend.
The guy raises a shoulder. “I heard through the network there was a prize for information on you. Imagine my surprise when you called for docs. I needed the money.”
“Fuck you,” Finn snarls. “Fucking whoring yourself to the goddamn Russian mafia.”
Sergei tsks at us. “I am not the Russian mafia. I’m just a businessman. But I am a resourceful and relentless one, and I do owe you a bullet for the one you put in me.”
He pulls his weapon with a nonchalance that belies his injuries. That’s how dangerous he is.
“Just let Selena go,” Finn says. “Let her go live her life, and you can do whatever with me.”
“Oh, that’s sweet,” Sergei says. “You know, I found this guy in Columbus, Ohio. He was just working in some corporate job, as if his life in New York had never happened. A curious state of affairs. As a person to whom this man owes money, I would think you might take an interest in seeing him again. Perhaps you’d like to make a trade.”
“I don’t know what kind of trade you could possibly offer that would have any kind of satisfactory outcome for me or Selena, so you can do whatever you want with that asshole,” Finn says.
“Really?” Sergei asks, turning his attention to me. “I can give you this man, who owes you money, and promise no harm will come to Selena. You do not see that as a satisfactory offer? Considering that the alternative is that I kill you and take her anyway?”
“Matt,” I say sharply. My husband’s gaze is unfocused but he looks wildly around, finally settling on me.
I take a moment to look him over, the man I married, and I realize I feel nothing. I don’t necessarily want him hurt, but I also feel nothing. He is not a person I know anymore, if I ever knew him at all.
“I don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing here, but Matt is not a part of my life anymore. He walked out, and I’ve moved on,” I say.
“Would he have stayed away had he known about the child in your womb?” Sergei asks.
Matt struggles against his captor a bit, then. His eyes are wild as he comes to life. His voice cracks when he asks, “Child?”
Chapter Eighteen
Finn
This Matt guy is all fucked up. At the least, he’s severely concussed. At the worst, he’s got some kind of head trauma from the beating he’s taken already. Either way, he’s not doing too hot. I’m not sure he really recognizes Selena, and I can’t tell if he’s saying the word “child” because he’s trying to remember what that particular word means, or because his scrambled brain has made some kind of connection.
I’m not sure what the best possible outcome is here. Does Selena want me to play hero to this asshole who left her behind? Or does she care at all about him? I don’t want her hurt, but this guy has zero value to me, so it’s not a good deal to walk away with the damaged husk of a former client while this Russian bastard gets my girl.
Okay, decision made. I look around this dingy apartment. This guy Ralph who sold me out, he’s pushing forty and his apartment looks like a fraternity house from the early 1990s, with psychedelic black-light posters interspersed with posters of Playboy bunnies on the walls, a third-hand couch in one corner, that probably has bugs in it, and a dirty bong on the table.
There’s a guy behind us, one holding Selena’s husband, and then there’s Kovolov.
I look at Selena and meet her panicked gaze. She’s got a hand on her abdomen, a protective gesture that I’ll bet she doesn’t know she’s making. “It’s going to be okay,” I say quietly.
Kovolov starts laughing, taking two steps and pistol-whipping her across the temple. She cries out and crumples to his feet, where he kicks her right in the stomach. Selena pulls herself into a tight ball to protect her midsections and he kicks her in the back.
I’m on him in less than a heartbeat, pulling a knife from my belt and jamming it into his neck just as one of his goons grabs me like I weigh nothing, tossing me across the room. I’m back up, barreling into the guy as he waves his gun. We wrestle for it and he manages to flip me over, his big body pinning me down. The only way I’ll get away is if I shoot him, so I focus only on the gun, not on the way sharp pain slices through my shin, not the way his free hand crushes my shoulder.
I catch a break when his face gets close enough that I can head-butt him, my forehead smashing his nose with a satisfying crack and a not-so-satisfying spray of blood. He yowls in pain and his grip releases. I grab the gun, flip it to face him, and take the shot. He falls into a bloody, silent heap at my side.
I’m up, my legs barely holding me, and I aim at the one guy left. He’s got a knife to Matt’s throat as I aim the weapon.
“I’ll kill him,” he says.
“Go ahead,” I say. I shoot the gun and as the big guy falls, his knife slices the throat of Matt Russell. They both fall.
Selena is weeping, still in a fetal state on the floor. I reach down and pick her up, taking the weapon and our fake identities to the door. Ralph, white-faced with fear, opens the door for us.
“You better pray you never see me again, motherfucker,” I growl as I take my girl out into the hallway.
My shin and shoulder scream but I run. I run, carrying Selena in my arms, until I find the truck. I drive us miles away, finding a travel station where I can buy us new clothes. Selena is nearly vegetative as we await our turn in the truckers’ showers. I wash her and dress her in a tie-dye dress and flip-flops I bought in the gift shop. I wear a T-shirt and Bermuda swim trunks. We look ridiculous but I don’t care, because once we’re free of our bloody clothes, I load her back up and we head to the border.
I drive and drive, across the thin strip separating Baja from the rest of Mexico. Down the coast, until I find a tiny little town with one little motel. We stop and check in, and though it’s been hours, Selena still hasn’t said a word.
I carry her up the stairs to our room. It’s nicer than I would have expected, open to a veranda with a view of the water. A soft wind blows through, calling me out. I stand for a long time, my mind empty.
When my body feels like it might break, I
wander back in and fall asleep the moment I lie next to Selena.
***
Selena
I wake up and my first thought is, Wow, this must be how it feels to wake up from a coma. My second is wordless, sheer panic. Where am I? What happened? Am I okay?
The room I’m in is simple. The walls are off-white and the furnishings are dark wood. Sheer white curtains blow inward from a balcony. The smell of water and the sound of birds tells me we’re near the ocean, but other than that, I’m lost.
Finn sleeps next to me, snoring lightly. His face is still healing from his beating by Sergei’s henchmen, and a new bruise blooms on his cheek. As moments start coming back to me, I push a shaking hand to my temple, cringing at the pain of a bruise there. My hands go to my abdomen, also tender and bruised.
I realize I’m in some kind of sundress, ugly and brightly tie-dyed. Where did this come from? Finn is in swim trunks. What the heck?
As I make my way to the small bathroom, I look bruised and pale, but otherwise no worse for the wear. After cleaning up a bit, I tiptoe out to the balcony and suck in a surprised breath to see the ocean glimmering in the morning sun, spread out ahead of me like an invitation.
After watching the water for what feels like a very long time, I slip out of the room to figure out where we are. A young woman at the front desk speaks Spanish at first, and when I shake my head, wide-eyed, she switches to broken English.
“Mexico,” she says. “Playa Tortugas.”
“Ah,” I say. “Thank you.”
“There is coffee,” she says, holding out a hand to indicate a setup of coffee and light pastries.
I thank her and load up what I can, and then head back up to the room. When the door clicks shut, Finn sits up with a start. He looks around the room, unfocused, but settles when he sees me.
“I grabbed coffee and toast,” I say. “The pickings were slim with no money.”
“Mmmf,” he grunts, flopping back on the pillows. “I forgot where we were.”
“I didn’t know where we were in the first place,” I say, setting the food and drinks on the nightstand and crawling onto the bed with him. He wraps his arm around me, my head on his chest. “Mexico, apparently.”
“Yes,” he says. “We made it.”
“At what cost?” I ask.
“I killed Kovolov and his two men; they killed your husband. We probably can’t ever go back to the States,” he says. It’s a very matter-of-fact statement, totally free of emotion.
“Oh,” I say.
“Oh?” he asks. He takes a big breath. “I’m sorry, Selena. I’m sorry that I pulled you into a doomed plan, that I took you away from your home.”
“What … what happened?” I ask. “I’m having trouble putting thoughts together.”
“They pistol-whipped you, kicked you in the stomach. I raged and killed everyone. The end,” he says. “I couldn’t watch them hurt you. Couldn’t bear it. I got you out, carried you to the truck. We stopped at a travel station, used the truckers’ showers to get cleaned up. That’s where I got your dress. Sorry it’s ugly.”
“Oh,” I say again. I look down and let out a broken laugh.
As I lie there thinking about everything, the floodgates open and the laugh becomes a cry. I just let it all out. The stress, the fear, the worry. I let it all out and Finn lets me cry, because I think he knows what this has cost us. We are now in Mexico under fake identities. We are probably wanted criminals. We will never call the United States home again. I’ll never see the lights of Manhattan, never walk the streets of Brooklyn. I’ll probably never talk to my parents again. Finn’s business is gone.
After a good sob, I will my breathing back under control and the room around us is quiet and tranquil once more.
“I’m sorry he’s dead,” Finn says quietly.
“I’m sorry too, I guess,” I say, because I’m not sure what’s appropriate here.
“How did you feel, when you saw him?”
“Shocked. Worried. I mean, I saw how out of it he was. I wasn’t sure he was going to make it out alive, no matter what happened. And I don’t love him anymore, but he was part of my life for a long time and I didn’t want him dead. You know what I mean?”
“I do understand,” Finn says. “I spent a lot of time being pissed about what Becca did but never once did I wish bad things on her.”
“Yeah,” I say. “He just … started up somewhere new. Started a new life. Got a new job. Do you think he lived looking over his shoulder all the time?”
“I’m sure he did. He sure as hell wasn’t expecting the Russian mafia, though,” Finn answers as he trails his fingers along my bare arm, giving me goosebumps.
“No, probably not,” I agree. “Do you think we could be traced to the bodies? Will that guy rat us out?”
‘Yes and yes, unfortunately,” he says. “He’ll give up anything for money. And he’s not going to take the fall for three deaths. He might not know who you are, but he sure as hell has my name.”
I sit up and look around the small room. I’m not sure what comes next. At the least I probably need to shop for some new clothes. As Finn maneuvers himself up off the bed, I can see he is in pain. The sharp set of his jaw gives him away, as does the slight limp in his step as he makes his way to the bathroom.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask.
“Shoulder’s jammed. Probably a stress fracture in my shin,” he says as he shuts the door. “I’ll be all right as long as I take it easy.”
Take it easy we do, for the moment. We spend the morning on the balcony, drinking our coffee and watching the water shimmer as families gather on the sand. It looks like a happy place, an easy place to make a life.
“Will we stay here?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I think we should go south. Find a town that’s quiet but not too quiet. We’ll find some work. Get a place to live.”
Our gazes meet and I sigh. “We can go wherever we want, I suppose.”
“We should keep moving, just to be safe,” he says. “No one’s coming after us right now, but still …”
“Kovolov’s family will,” I say. “His sister. His father. I think she manages business in this part of the world.”
“Well, we’ll stay smart and mobile. We’ll pay attention. We’ll live quiet, unassuming lives. It will be okay,” he says.
“Yep. It will be okay,” I repeat. “Just the two of us.”
He reaches out and puts a hand on my stomach. “Just the three of us. We’re a family now. I’ll take care of you both.”
That causes my belly to tingle with excitement. “Just us three,” I agree. “That sounds great.”
Epilogue
Finn
“Me do, Dada,” my son says, grabbing the fishing pole from my hand.
“Careful of the hook,” I say, trying to at least wrestle the swinging line so he doesn’t end up jabbed. “It’s sharp.”
“Ouch!” Seamus says by way of telling me he understands, in his almost-three-year-old way, what sharp means.
“That’s right, honey,” Selena says. “Sharp things can hurt you. Ouch!”
She pretends to prick her finger, making a sad face. Little Seamus puckers his lips and she holds out her finger so he can kiss it. She pulls him close for a hug and he wriggles away, running off, dragging the pole behind him in the sand.
“I’ll get him,” I say, jogging off after the little guy. I catch him easily and throw him over my shoulder, eliciting waves of laughter that warms my heart.
When I deposit him with his mom, I look at my watch. “I’ve got to go close up the shop. Meet you at home for dinner?”
“Yep,” Selena says. “We’ll clean up here.”
She stands and I pull her close, kissing her as thoroughly as possible as she tries to hold onto Seamus’ hand to keep him from running headfirst into the ocean.
I make my way up to the street and down the two blocks to our small coffee shop. Isobel, our day manager, welcomes me wit
h a bright smile.
“Good day, boss?” she asks.
“It was,” I say. “You?”
“The usual crowd,” she says. “Nothing to write home about.”
“That’s fine with me. The usual crowd pays our paychecks,” I say with a smile.
She takes off her apron and heads off to fill out her timesheet as I count the drawer. Isobel and the rest of the community here in this tiny, Honduran beach town know us as the McMills family—Roberto and Elena. Those are the names on our most recent round of fake passports. Our son Seamus is the only one who is known by his real first name.