Constant

by Rachel Higginson

  I was nothing but a slow-beating heart, struggling desperately not to make any noise, or movement or be anything but invisible. “Sayer,” the word was a whispered apology that he deserved.

  His head snapped up, almost as if he just remembered that I was here. “Then I show up in this hole of a town and here you are. Not dead. Not kidnapped by Italians or Irish or a crazy fucking serial killer trying to get to me. You’re just here. Working and living and dating. And normal. Happy. Fucking adjusted. I’m not here to play games with you, Caro. I’m here to live out a dream I once I had with a girl I once loved.” He leaned forward, holding my gaze, twisting it, squeezing it, crushing it. “Me being here has nothing to do with you because not everything is about you, Caroline. And after all this time, I am not about you at all.”

  I wanted to say something smart in reply; cutting, soul-ripping. But nothing came out of my mouth. Not one cruel response wandered into my head. I could do nothing but gape at him like a fish out of water, gasping for breath. I tried to console myself by believing I deserved that. I did. He was right. I had left him without a single word of where I was going or that I was going to be all right.

  He had no idea that anything was wrong. That I needed to leave. That I had to.

  And despite what he believed of me now, I had done the right thing.

  But I could never tell him that.

  “Six weeks,” he said.

  I just kept staring at him, only barely getting the feeling back in my appendages. “W-what?”

  “Put me down for six weeks. To start.”

  Remembering what I was doing and why he was here and that I had a job to do, I entered that into the computer. “The cabin isn’t available for six weeks. I can give it to you until… Next Thursday.”

  He rapped the counter with his knuckles. “Make this easy on yourself, Six, and figure it out.”

  Glaring at the computer and biting my bottom lip until I tasted blood, I fiddled around with the computer. “Six weeks? All right, that will be twenty thousand, three hundred and eighty dollars.”

  He didn’t flinch. “Don’t forget the dildo discount.”

  It was all I could do to keep from screaming. “I’ll refund you the difference after the repairman comes.”

  He leaned back, standing up straight. His shoulders relaxed and his face did something too—but it wasn’t relaxed. It was… I didn’t know what it was. “Make sure you include an itemized receipt when you do.”

  Since Sayer showed back up in my life, I had been afraid that he was going to murder me. What I hadn’t considered was me murdering him. That should be a concern for everybody. “For tax purposes?” I taunted him.

  “Obviously.”

  And kudos to him because he sounded serious.

  I finished entering his information and locking down his rental for the next six freaking weeks. I would have to do some rearranging later to figure out the rest of our calendar and upcoming reservations. It was going to be a giant pain in the ass. But I already had a feeling that Maggie was going to side with Sayer anyway.

  It had nothing to do with guilt over the way I left things with him five years ago.

  Nothing at all.

  Because that would be really stupid of me. And dangerous. And basically, shooting myself in the foot.

  I didn’t have a choice with this one. If Sayer wanted to stay here for six weeks, fine. At least then I could control what he saw of me. Juliet never came to work with me anyway. Problem solved.

  Besides, Sayer could hang out for six weeks if that’s what he wanted or for the rest of his life or whatever. It wasn’t like I was going to stick around.

  I ran his card for half the amount of his total stay, for the deposit and made two room keys for him. Pulling out a resort map, I highlighted his path from the main office to where his cabin was located. He’d gotten my favorite cabin. It was isolated from the other cabins, up the mountain a bit. He’d have privacy and quiet—which was something I knew he would appreciate.

  “You can call the office if you need anything,” I told him the same way I would tell any guest that same information. Granted I was as pleasant as a rock, but still, he couldn’t turn me in for not doing my job. “If you need more towels, or a wake-up call, or directions around town, just let us know. We’re happy to help.” I highlighted the number to the main office on the side of the map.

  He leaned forward again, bringing us close very suddenly. We still had the counter between us, but I had been leaned over with the highlighter. Now he was all in my space, his head barely brushing mine, his hands stretched out beside mine. “A wake-up call,” he murmured in that low, sandpapery voice of his. “I’m going to need a wake-up call every morning.”

  I struggled to swallow the boiling anger. “You don’t really want that.”

  “You offered,” he pointed out. “Every morning.”

  “I’ll make sure Maggie knows.”

  “From you, Six. Seven o’clock. Every morning.”

  I pushed up on my hands, desperately putting space between us. He smelled like… He smelled differently than he used to. It was distracting. “Sorry, I don’t get in until eight.”

  Plucking the map from the counter, he took a step back. “Not my problem.”

  This time I let him see my eye roll. “You’re going to have to get it from someone else, Sayer. I can’t help you.”

  “Ballsy. So fucking ballsy when I know so very much about you.”

  My heart dropped to my stomach. Another thinly veiled threat. How long was I going to have to put up with this? “I thought you weren’t here to play games. I thought this was just some kind of catastrophic coincidence.”

  He shrugged. “This isn’t a game, Six. This is your fucking life. Don’t be stupid with it. Wake-up call at seven. Every morning.”

  Remembering his note from the other night, I held his glare. “And if I run?”

  “Well, that would be pretty goddamn stupid, yeah?” His hand landed on the door to outside. “But, I don’t know, I guess try it if you want. I’m up for seeing what happens if you are.”

  His casual attitude and ambiguous threat sent a chill skittering over me. I felt turned inside out by this man. He wasn’t supposed to have found me, by coincidence or not. In one breath, he gutted me with memories of my past and the way I used to feel for him and how badly I’d hurt him. And in another I was terrified for my life, my daughter’s life, for this life we’d carved out of nothing and made into something worth protecting. Instead of giving into the fear that curled around me like a slowly tightening snake, I defaulted to the professional in me. “We’ll let you know when the repairman will be out to look at your hot tub.”

  Sayer’s expression finally broke, his lips lifting in a barely amused smile. “You do that, Six.” He pushed the door open. “Guess I’ll see you around then.”

  I nodded. I guess he would see me around.

  And I would see him.

  And call him every morning at seven.

  I waited until he’d pulled out of the parking lot in a brand-new Jeep Wrangler—apparently he was going all in with this whole Colorado life—before thumping my forehead on the counter and closing my eyes against the press of hot tears.

  What had I gotten myself into now?

  And how was I going to get out of it?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ten Years Ago

  Frankie walked quickly across the back yard to plant herself at my side. “He’s here,” she whispered discreetly. “He just walked in with my Uncle Alek.”

  “Francesca,” my dad beamed next to me, excited to be in such proximity to my friend. “You’re looking lovely tonight. Growing up to favor your ma, you know that?”

  My cheeks flushed on my friend’s behalf. Francesca hated drawing attention to herself and she hated being put on display for parties like this one. But her uncles would not tolerate her baseball cap and tomboy look tonight. She did look like her mom in her designer mini dress that had a big bow on
the right hip—which was a good thing for her since the entire bratva hated her deceased dad. Her hair was down in loose curls and fell almost all the way to her butt. She had even put on makeup tonight, something I’d made her repeat on me when I got over here earlier.

  “Th-thanks, Mr. Valero,” she mumbled.

  “Call me Leon, honey. How many times do I gotta tell you? Nobody calls me Mr. Valero unless they owe me a lotta money.”

  She lifted her face and attempted a smile, “Leon.”

  One of her uncles called her name from across the yard, and she snapped to attention. “Please excuse me.”

  I watched her weave through party guests, careful not to touch anyone. When we were on a job, she was like a ghost. She could slip through a room unseen, unnoticed. But here, she didn’t stand a chance. She wasn’t just on display. She was the focal point of the room. The poor orphaned princess. Her uncles’ pride and joy. The future of the Volkov dynasty.

  She had male cousins. It wasn’t like the syndicate was going to be entirely left to her. Her uncles had wives and sons and other family to step in. But they had also made a promise to Frankie’s mother. They were to give her a future, keep her close to the family, make sure she was taken care of for the rest of her life. She didn’t have a choice. The syndicate was her life.

  It would always be her life.

  My dad put his arm around me, ducking his head so we wouldn’t be overheard. “That girl okay?”

  “She’s fine,” I replied automatically. My dad squeezed my shoulder, demanding truth. “She hates being the center of attention,” I shared, confessing it like it was a secret. “These kinds of things make her uncomfortable.”

  He relaxed, letting out a good-natured chuckle. “Yeah, what is it about teenage girls, huh? These things make you uncomfortable too.”

  Was it so surprising that being at a house with thieves, murderers, drug dealers, sex traffickers and all manner of lowlife scum would make me, a fifteen-year-old girl, uncomfortable? Apparently.

  “I feel out of place,” I said, shrugging off his heavy arm. He smelled like booze and cigarettes and the girl he’d brought with him as his date tonight. “There aren’t that many people here my age.”

  “Lucky for you, I’ve heard there’s a job tonight. You can get out of here soon enough.”

  Only my dad would be so excited about a job for me. The fact that it would be highly illegal and dangerous didn’t bother him at all, even though I doubted he knew any of the details. He didn’t have my clearance level—something that equally made him proud and drove him crazy. I strained my neck and tilted it to the side, cracking the bones and releasing some stress.

  “I haven’t heard anything,” I argued. And I hadn’t. We were supposed to be celebrating Dymetrus’s birthday. The whole gang was here. A girl was supposed to jump out of a cake later and I had been curious about the finer details of that for a week. Was it a real cake? Or a plastic one like what you’d see on TV? Would she be covered in frosting? Would she be only covered in frosting? Because gross.

  I wasn’t usually invited to shindigs. The little parts Frankie and I played were usually purposefully overlooked. I was paying a childhood debt, and Frankie got to do whatever Frankie wanted. We reported to Sayer and Atticus and nobody else. They told us what to do, and we did it. That was it. That was our part. They paid us enough to keep us from wanting to take a piece for ourselves. We were Sixes; we were the bratok, soldiers with a specific purpose. But tonight, we got a piece of the cake.

  Only I wasn’t going to eat any of it if a woman jumped out of it.

  “Here comes the kid. He’ll tell you.” My dad’s attention moved to a cluster of young guys walking toward us. They moved through the crowd as one unit, the other, older guys stepping back, out of their way. Sayer was at the front, Gus and Atticus behind him like the wings of a fighter jet.

  It was ridiculous how much respect they commanded, how much influence they had. Gus and Sayer weren’t even out of high school yet. Atticus was an asshole. But they’d somehow built this untouchable reputation without being killers, without dealing in women, drugs or weapons.

  Money talked. And Sayer brought in a lot of money.

  He caught my eye from across the decorated backyard, jerking his chin in a command for me to follow him. I thought about looking away and pretending I didn’t see him. I could probably pull it off. I wasn’t always looking at Sayer. I looked at other things.

  Sometimes.

  “That’s your cue, kiddo.” My dad nudged me with his elbow.

  Letting out an agitated sigh, I looked at my dad. “Aren’t you supposed to protect me from this kind of stuff?”

  He let out a bark of laugh. “Protect you? Honey, I’m proud of you.” And then his eyes truly teared up. The bastard. “Who would’ve thought my daughter would be able to do what you do? I knew taking you on all those jobs when you were young would pay off. I saw the potential in you from day one. Now look at you. Think of your future, Caro. Don’t say I never did nothing for you. Cause you keep this up and you won’t gotta worry about nothing, baby. You’ll be set for life.”

  Yeah, right. Life in prison maybe. “Do you know how screwed up that is, Dad?” I asked calmly.

  His smile stretched. “I think you meant to say thank you.”

  “Unbelievable.” I turned around, knowing better than to keep Sayer and Atticus waiting. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Probably not going to be home tonight though,” he called after me, and I decided it was better if I didn’t know why.

  I slipped into the crowd the same way Frankie had, silently, stealthily, smoothly, clocking pockets and purses as I went. For being criminals, these people had no idea how to keep track of their crap. There was so much to take—so much there to be stolen.

  They assumed they were safe here, surrounded by their brothers and their weapons. But these were the moments we waited for. The game had begun.

  My fingers were light as feathers. A roll of cash peeking out of the side pocket of trousers, a money clip just barely visible in a back pocket, by the time I’d reached the other side of the party, I had three hundred bucks. I divided the money and slipped it into the cups of my bra. The extra padding wouldn’t hurt either.

  Sayer raised his eyebrows as I approached, having caught the tail end of my heist. I shrugged one shoulder and silently dared him to bring it up.

  “That’s a dangerous game, Six.”

  I looked away. “No more so than the job tonight.”

  “You don’t know what the job is yet.”

  “Is it legal?”

  His lips twitched. “You have a death wish, is that it?”

  We were standing under a tree that had twinkly lights wrapped around each of its branches heavy with the green leaves of summer. There was a band playing some kind of polka music near the house. Women were flirting, and men were laughing. The warm breeze smelled like expensive perfume and July moonlight.

  Sayer had dressed up for the night, in a white collared short-sleeve shirt and black shorts. His hair had been styled with actual product and pushed back from his face, tamed into staying in place. He was dangerous. And beautiful. And he was going to ask me to do something that I didn’t want to do.

  After I said yes, I would blame the magic of the night and the three hundred bucks hidden inside my bra.

  But Sayer had a kind of magic all his own. He stepped closer to me, trailing his finger over my bare shoulder. Dad had said I needed to dress up, that this was a big deal. So Frankie had let me borrow one of her designer things. A strapless emerald green dress that was too short and too tight and too pretty for me—the degenerate daughter of a bookie.

  “It’s not a death wish,” I told Sayer. “It’s more like a… get me out of here wish.”

  He stepped closer, dropping his voice so we weren’t overheard. “Where would you go, Six? There’s nothing out there that’s better than this. You’d be bored. You’d hate it.”

  Frankie said t
he same thing to me all the time. I don’t know what that said about me. I just knew what I felt and that was hatred for this life, for what we did, for what we stood for. I watched my dad struggle through life at the lowest level. He was either gambling or wishing he was gambling or regretting gambling. He was either asking people for money or making people pay him money or trying to figure out how he was going to pay someone off. He drank too much and smoked too much and slept around way too much.

  There had to be more to life than this. There had to be some kind of peace in living a normal, legal, safe life.

  I had to believe that. Because I could not live like this forever. I could not be my father. I could not grind out the next thirty years hopping from one job to the next, living in shitty apartments, always looking over my shoulder.

  Or worse. What if I got caught? By one of our marks? Or the police?

  How the hell would I survive prison?

  “I’d love it,” I argued with Sayer. “I’d get a normal job and a bank account and a library card. I’d even go to church.”

  His head moved back and forth. He didn’t believe me. “Yeah, where? Where would you live this normal, boring life?”

  I thought of the most normal place I could, the most boring, the most unexciting, the most even-paced place in all of existence. “The Midwest,” I said confidently.

  He laughed this time, low and truly amused. It made my stomach flip. It made my heart flutter. It made me question all of my dreams about the Midwest and want to throw them away.

  “The Midwest? Any place in particular? Or are you just going to grab the next covered wagon and see where you end up?”

  “Don’t be an asshole.” But I was trying not to laugh.