by Tasha Fawkes
I reached my hand across the table and clasped hers. “I’m okay. We’re all going to be okay.” She looked at me doubtfully, an eyebrow raised.
“How can you be so sure?”
I leaned forward as I continued to hold her hand. “I need to tell you something. I’m in love with Marcus. I mean love, not a crush, not merely affection or fondness, not even a fling or summer romance. I love him deeply. I can’t imagine my life without him.”
Selena stared at me, her eyes growing wider by the second.
“Allie, are you sure? That’s some declaration. I know that feelings like this are exciting, but he’s the first guy you’ve ever—”
“I gave him an ultimatum.”
Her eyes nearly bulged out of her pale face. “An ultimatum?” She spoke slowly, as if she were in a dream. “You gave the mob boss of the notorious Philly Outfit an ultimatum?” she hissed. “Are you insane?”
I smiled softly and squeezed her hand. “Probably. I feel insane at least. I gave Marcus an ultimatum, and I’m working on convincing him to walk away from the only life he’s ever known. I told him I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. And you know very well that I’m not about to be sequestered in his penthouse like I was a nun in a sixteenth-century convent.”
“Well, that’s the truth,” she admitted. “I’m surprised you haven’t gone stir crazy already.”
“Be that as it may, believe me that I know, that whatever happens from here on out, my life will never be the same, regardless of the decision Marcus makes.”
“But, Allie, what if—”
“As my best friend, I need your blessing.”
“My blessing?” Selena asked, eyebrows raised in confusion. “Blessing for what?”
I reached into my purse and took out the jewelry box I’d tucked inside. I put it on the table and opened it, revealing the beautiful engagement ring inside. Selena stared at it for several moments, then at me, then back at the ring, her eyes wide.
“Marcus asked me to marry him.”
She blinked. “When? What did you say?”
“It’s been a few days, and yes, he asked me before I told him about the agent. And, of course, I said yes.”
Tears filled her eyes, and her mouth moved, but I couldn’t understand the words.
“Selena?” Only when I knew I had her full and focused attention did I continue. “If everything works out the way I’m hoping, will you be my maid of honor?”
A single tear fell, and she moved from her side of the table to my mine in a flash, throwing her arms around me for a long hug. When she pulled away, I could see the concern still in her expression. “Are you sure?”
My chest tightened as my body acknowledged her doubt with doubts of its own. “Yes, I’m sure.”
She exhaled a long breath and nodded. “Then I’m happy that you’ve found someone to love.”
Heat filled my eyes, and my vision began to blur. “Thank you. I just wish…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Wishes didn’t come true. Not in the real world.
She squeezed me tighter. “I wish the same. I wish that I was your fairy godmother and that I could wave my magic wand and make everything okay.”
“I wish you could too.”
Selena grinned, causing yet another tear to fall. “I promise, my dearest friend, that if everything works out, I’ll be the best maid of honor to ever exist.”
If everything works out.
I held my friend so that she couldn’t see my face.
That was a great big if.
Two hours later, I nervously waited for the agent as I sat on a cushioned bench in an alcove on the fifth floor of the McPhearson Medical Building on the east side of Blue Bell. If I hadn’t been so nervous about meeting Agent Warner, I might have enjoyed the ride over, but as it was, the closer I got to our predestined meeting place, the worse I felt.
My stomach was tied up in knots, and I kept my hands clasped, so I didn’t have to look at my trembling fingers. Marcus hadn’t been home when Agent Warner contacted me early this morning, leaving me a brief message about the meeting.
In fact, Marcus hadn’t said much at all, about anything. While he made his decision, I decided to give him space and was temporarily sleeping in the bedroom upstairs. He didn’t seem upset about it, seemed to understand that I was just trying to give him room, that I acknowledged that the decision he had to make was serious. We couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t.
It wasn’t like he was avoiding me, and he didn’t seem angry. He hadn’t raised his voice to me since that first outburst, that first accusation. He kept his emotions in check. I wish I could do the same. I believed that Marcus must love me, or he would have kicked me out already. If he didn’t love me, why had he asked me to marry him? I could not doubt his sense of protection, because even this morning, before he left, he had cautioned me, as he always did, about not exposing myself outside more than necessary.
At the same time, I desperately wanted to talk to him more about this decision. We needed to talk about it. What was he thinking? What was he planning?
I wasn’t stupid. I knew that any attempt to leave this type of lifestyle would be a tricky endeavor, and I certainly didn’t want to put him in danger. At the same time, I needed to know what he was planning to do about all of it. Especially now that I had this meeting with Agent Warner.
I had left him a brief note on the kitchen table, telling him that I needed to go for an appointment. I hoped he could read between the lines, but I certainly wasn’t going to tell him what I was doing over the phone. I was sure he’d understand.
At the same time, I didn’t like not having the answers I needed. Sure, I was willing to give Marcus some space, but how long did it take someone to make a decision? Either he wanted to be with me, or he didn’t. I knew it wasn’t exactly black and white, and there wasn’t much gray in that decision. I was just hoping that—
“Allie.”
I turned from the window to find Agent Warner standing several feet away. She dressed casually in a pair of slacks and a cream-colored blouse, a large black handbag draped over one shoulder. If I didn’t know any better, I would think of her as one of the rich housewives that roamed through this neighborhood. Certainly not a federal agent who was probably carrying a weapon in that purse, maybe even a smaller one around her ankle.
“Come with me, please,” the agent said, gesturing down the hall.
I followed her quietly down the carpeted hallway until she paused in front of a door halfway down on the left. She pulled a key from the pocket of her slacks and opened it, pausing in the doorway as she turned on the light and peered inside. With a nod, she stepped in and opened the door wider, closing it immediately behind me as I too entered the room.
It looked like a doctor’s waiting room. I glanced at her questioningly.
“It’s empty office space for now. We have the place to ourselves, and I’ve already swept it for bugs.”
Bugs? How would anyone know we were even meeting? Then again, I guessed someone in her position never trusted anybody or anything.
“Mind if I check you?”
I frowned, briefly confused. “Me? What do you…?” Then I understood. With a sigh, I put my purse on the floor and lifted my arms out to my side. “Don’t worry. I’m not wired, bugged, or anything else.”
“You have a cell phone?”
“Yes.”
“Give it to me, please.”
Though not sure what she was up to, I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and gave it to her. In a few moments, she had the back off, the battery and the SIM card out. She placed all the pieces on a side table with a magazine spread. I briefly glanced at one of them and noted they were dated earlier in the year.
She gestured toward a pair of chairs on either side of the table.
“Sit, Allie.”
I did, and she followed suit, sitting like a proper, gentrified lady near the edge of the seat, back straight and knees together, fe
et crossed at an angle in front of her. Waiting. I wasn’t sure what to say, and then just spilled.
“I’m ready to offer you my full cooperation,” I finally said, repeating what Marcus had told me to say. My heart pounded, my mouth dry. I wanted to cry and scream at the unfairness of it all.
Agent Warner stared at me for several moments and then offered a small nod. “You’re making the right decision.”
What other choice did I have? If I said no, I’d be in big trouble, and by saying yes, it gave me the advantage of time and hopefully the ability to learn more. Any information I could get out of the agent could be useful to Marcus and to me. “So, what happens now? What do we do now?”
“You do nothing.”
Her answer wasn’t what I expected. I frowned, confused. “What do you mean I do nothing? What is our next move? What do you want me to do?”
“Just like I told you. Do nothing. Carry on like nothing’s changed.”
Was she crazy? Everything had changed! My life, Marcus’s life, our life together.
“But everything’s changed, Agent Warner. Certainly, you must understand that.”
“Frankly, Allie, that’s not my problem.”
She spoke softly and without harsh judgment, but her words still prompted a cold chill to race down my spine.
“While I commiserate with your circumstances, it’s up to you to make this decision and stick to it. You should know that your life depends on the decision you’ve just made. It’s the right one, but I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy.”
“But how do I move on when I don’t know what the hell is going on? Are you going to make me wait on pins and needles for something to happen? What if—”
“Allie, you carry on like you have been since you met Marcus Ryan. You do what you do any other day or any other night.”
But she didn’t know. She didn’t know that I’d given Marcus an ultimatum, to either choose me or the Outfit. Didn’t that change everything? What was I supposed to do? Should I tell her what I had done? No, I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t betray Marcus like that. At that moment, I wanted to feel his arms around me, to talk to him, to have him tell me what to do.
“It’s important that you act normally, Allie,” Agent Warner reiterated. “We don’t want to spook Marcus Ryan or the Outfit. I’ll be in touch with you when we need your cooperation, okay?”
I stared at her. How could she put me in this position and then tell me to go on as if everything was normal? My emotions roiling, I spoke, detesting the weakness I heard in my voice. “But how do you expect me to do that?”
She stood and gazed down at me. The brief glimpse of compassion and commiseration I had seen in her eyes seconds ago was gone. “Like I said, Allie, that’s not my problem. I didn’t put you here. You did. It’s up to you to see it through to the end, come what may.”
With that, she rose and strode to the door, gesturing toward me. On legs that felt like water, I left the room, doing my best to keep my shoulders and chin up, to ignore the wobbling in my knees, to shake off my stunned dismay. I stopped in the hallway, expecting to see her standing behind me.
Instead, the door closed in my face.
Then nothing but silence.
Fifteen
Allie
I stood in the living room of my little apartment, gazing at the stacks of boxes surrounding me. A bittersweet feeling rushed over my body, part hesitance, part regret, part excitement, and anticipation. Marcus and I had discussed my moving in with him permanently days ago, and because of…well, because of my ultimatum, I hadn’t done anything, not sure if he still wanted to marry me, not even sure he wanted me staying with him. I played back the conversation we had last night from memory, every bit of it firmly etched into my mind.
“I’m figuring things out, Allie,” he’d said to me. “I do want you in my life, and I’m doing everything I can to make sure you will be.”
He stared into my eyes, and my heart leapt with excitement and a surge of affection and love that nearly took my breath away. His next words dampened my enthusiasm.
“But you have to give me some time to work things out. You see, you don’t just walk away from this life without repercussions. I have to make sure that you’re safe, not only today and tomorrow, but months from now, maybe even years from now. You understand that, don’t you?”
I wanted to; I really did. I’d already known it wouldn’t be easy, but I must have underestimated just how serious an endeavor it would be. If the Outfit found out, would they kill him? Would they be so angry that they would follow him to the ends of the earth? Would their punishment come more from feelings of betrayal, or would they mostly worry that he would divulge everything he knew about the Outfit to the authorities?
A shiver of fear effectively curbed any thrill I’d felt with his words. Worry took its place.
“Marcus, I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” I’d said earnestly, resting my head against his chest as he wrapped his arms around me. I listened to the steady thud of his heartbeat in my ear. His skin warm, those arms enveloping me in a blanket of security. “I wish it didn’t have to be so difficult. I wish we had met under different circumstances, but—”
“We couldn’t have met under any different circumstances,” he said softly. “This is my life, sweetheart. You might’ve seen me at a political function, maybe even a gala, something like that, but we wouldn’t have done more than simply cross paths.”
I wanted to help him. To do something besides sit there and leave everything to him. I looked up at him, an idea forming. “I can help. Let me go back to the office with Selena. We can do some digging of our own, find a way to—”
“No!” He cleared his throat and softened his voice. “Not just yet. I know you want to help, but right now, I just want you to keep a low profile. The less I have to worry about you and your safety, the more I can focus on what I have to do.”
He’d cupped my cheeks in his hands, gazing down at me, his expression somber.
“This isn’t a movie, it isn’t pretend, it isn’t something you’ve read in a story. I have to find a way to extricate myself not only from the Tarasov alliance but from the board, from Niall, from my life here. It’s complicated, convoluted, and not at all black and white. I need you to be patient.”
“But what about the ATF lady?”
“We’ll have to talk about that too, but not now. Later.”
Now, packed up and ready to leave my small apartment, I took one last look over the place as I continued to pack the last of my dishes into a box on the kitchen table.
“Here we go!”
I glanced up as Selena walked out of my bedroom, dragging a box by its flap by one hand, a smaller box tucked under her other arm.
She looked at me and snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re going to miss this dump!”
I sighed. “But it’s my dump, and yes, I am going to miss it.” For some reason, I felt that leaving this apartment equated to leaving a part of me behind. My past.
For now, I balanced on a precipice, not sure what the future would bring, wishing at this instant that I could just stay here, to have my life back the way it used to be.
“If only things could’ve been simpler.” I shrugged, reaching for the roll of packing tape to seal the boxes Selena had brought in.
“Believe me, Allie, we all say that.” She reached for another roll of packing tape. “Here, let me help you tape up these last boxes. You’re making a mess out of everything.”
Seemed like making messes was what I did best these days. I hadn’t yet told Dad that I was officially moving in with Marcus. I talked to him on the phone a couple of times this week, but I hadn’t wanted to go over, afraid of Tarasov’s men finding me and following me there. I had begged off, telling Dad that I was catching a cold, and the last thing he needed was to get sick.
He understood and told me to come visit as soon as I felt better. To soothe my anxiety, he told me that he was happy at the new apartment,
that everything suited him just fine. I wasn’t sure whether he was telling the truth or just trying to make me feel better, but that was something else laying heavily on my conscience. I didn’t like lying to him.
“I’ve made a mess out of everything, for everybody,” I said, pausing in my packing to look at Selena. “I want to tell you how sorry I am. Really.”
She straightened, a frown tugging at her lovely eyebrows. “Stop feeling so sorry for yourself.”
That was a surprise. “I’m sorry. I—”
She pointed a finger at me. “And stop apologizing. Have you heard me complaining about anything?”
“Well, at the bakery, you were afraid. I’m sorry—” I stopped when she narrowed her eyes at me.
She ripped off a piece of tape. “I am afraid. Afraid for you, mostly. As I’ve said before, I was the one who pushed you into accepting the job. Me.”
“But I was the one stupid enough to sleep with the boss. Me.”
She threw up her hands. “Then, we’re equally stupid, so that makes us even. Now stop complaining and worrying and just focus on figuring out what to do next!”
She had a point.
Ripping a long strip of tape off, I grinned. “How’s your parents? If anything, I thought you’d hate me for forcing you to live with them again.”
She shrugged. “Actually, it hasn’t been so bad.”
“Seriously?” I wasn’t sure I could believe that at all.
“They left on a trip to Monte Carlo a couple of days ago. Won’t be back for a month.” She grinned an impish smile. “So, I’ve got the place all to myself. What could be better?”
I had to laugh, but then sobered when she reached out a hand and clasped mine.
“Allie, it’s going to be all right. Somehow. Not only that, but you’re going to have to accept that your mob boss and soon-to-be husband is certainly not going to allow his wife to slum it in such tacky lodgings.”
Selena always made me smile, always managed to cheer me up. “Tacky or not, it was my home.”
With everything that had happened over the past few weeks, and especially the past few days, it hit me hard. The moment I left this apartment, everything would change. I knew this was just one small thing. My entire life was going to change—a lot.