I’m too well aware that every single one of the people walking down the street has a mother, and a father, and maybe a child, or maybe a partner. I know they have dreams and I know they have nightmares and I don’t pretend that my life is any more important than theirs. If anything, until Radiah, I struggled to put myself on par with them. It was my own life that seemed to mean so much less. Now, I see us as the same, truly. Everyone of us is fragile and hoping for another day, for another hour, for another minute. It is one of Radiah’s many gifts to me—my ability to see myself as someone with value. I am not, as I thought for so long, simply here to take a bullet, or to be a bullet. I’m not that because I am something to her, and because she is something to me.
The front door to Carla’s building swings wide. Radiah steps out. She’s wearing her biking clothes, a pair of black nylon shorts and a tank top and running shoes. Her hair is loose on her shoulders and her caramel skin gleams warm and soft in the shadow. The zippers on her small green backpack glint in the fading light. Before she goes down the few short steps to the street, she pauses at the bike rack to undo the lock and the chain.
Someone walks past her and she smiles up at the woman; they exchange a few words. I doubt Radiah knows her—this is just the way Radiah is, it is what she does. She is friendly and open with everyone. But right now, to me, everyone is a potential enemy. Even this woman. I watch the way the stranger stands. I watch where her weight is balanced, to take note of where any weapon might be hidden. Silently, I will Radiah to do the same.
She cannot let her guard down now.
The woman walks on, and into the building.
Shifting my gaze, I glance down the sidewalk. The eaves and the doorways and the newspaper stand make pockets of dark and curve into small blind spots it is impossible to see into. He could be almost on her already, and because of his, I set my hand on the door handle. I don’t want to give myself away too early, to tip him off to our plan, and yet, when he makes his move, I need to have enough time to react.
Radiah unhooks her bike. She doesn’t hop on it; she wheels it down the two short steps of the building and onto the sidewalk.
And then I see him. He is standing beside the small newspaper stand near to the corner. He is tall, about my age. I know it is him. She has described him to me, but her description does not give him away. His description could be three other men on this same street—tall, about my age, well built with dark hair.
I know it is him because I see the way he reacts to her.
He is watching her. Maybe not unusual for Radiah, beautiful as she is, I know she catches many a man’s eye. But this man is not looking at her like that. There is no appreciation lighting through his eyes. This man is looking at her as though he has spotted his prey. It’s a look I’m more than familiar with. I’ve been the target of that same stare and it’s the same stare I’ve given to many a man. All of this man’s attention is honing, narrowing, zeroed in.
She is his target. And he is my target.
Radiah starts to roll the bike down the street and the man I’ve marked straightens, tosses the paper into the wastebasket, and starts to move too.
That means that I too, move.
Pushing my car door open, I step out before slamming it closed behind me. Rounding the front of the car, I step up onto the curb, onto the sidewalk. I start down the street. My eyes are centered on the man who is about twenty feet ahead. He’s wearing a suit jacket and slacks, has the dark hair she has described to me and I know that is him and I know that his eyes are centered ahead on Radiah.
Does she feel his eyes on her? Does she know she is being followed? She isn’t turning to look behind her. Maybe she just doesn’t want to tip Emilio off. Or maybe she has no idea of the danger she is in.
Maybe she doesn’t realize the bait has been taken.
Bait. I hate using that word. I hate doing this. Never again, I swear to myself. What had I been thinking? Letting her talk me into this? I suppose, to be honest, I’d barely been thinking at all last night. Last night, I’d been consumed with having her, and then with having her again. I’m sure, had she wanted to, Radiah could have talked me into anything she damn well wanted to.
Still. If something happens to her... If anything happens to her, the fault is mine, and mine alone. I have no doubt Emilio is a part of the same organization that took out Boris.
I have no doubt this man, or men he works with, are willing, and capable, of killing.
Be careful, Vasily had told me when I’d spoken to him earlier, when I’d apprised him of our plan. And, again, the man had hinted that he did not intend to come after me should I decide this life was not the life I wanted to live any longer.
‘I will always be your friend,’ Vasily had said to me.
I think Radiah had wondered at me then, because as I’d hung up, I know there was emotion in my eyes. Vasily would always be my friend, and I would always be his friend.
But things change. Priorities change. I have never felt it so acutely. I have never realized, until right now as I’m following the man that is following Radiah, how unwilling I am to risk her.
Or to lose her.
We are like a chain made of loose parts moving between the loose-knit crowd, tethered together by eyes and by intent.
On the street, a car horn honks. The murmur of conversation drifts in the small pockets of groups of twos and threes as they pass me and I pass them. It’s a pretty spring evening. The sun has set but the light is hanging on between the tall buildings, and the windows reflect the dying glare; it makes the city a place of shadow and half-darkness, a place that is all moving with the steady drumbeat of an underwater chanting.
The footfalls become staccato snares that echo the steady thud of my own heart. This is making me nervous and, generally, very little does that to me at all. But Radiah is in danger. Despite the inherent danger she has always been in simply through her association with me, I’ve worked hard to keep her separated from my work. I’ve certainly never willingly put her into danger.
Maybe it would have been better to send her out of the city, or out of the country even, until I resolved this. I have homes in Italy. I have a home in the French countryside, and an apartment in London. I have a penthouse in Los Angeles and one in Las Vegas. The options are, very nearly, endless.
There is no time to reassess the merit of our plan now though. And even if there were time, I saw her eyes last night. I had seen a determination and a fight in them I’ve always known but have never seen shine so strongly, so surely. I know, in his way, this Emilio has hurt Radiah personally. He’d gained her trust, and then he’d frightened her. He’d sought to use that trust to come after me. I know how protective she is. And I know she’s never been one to back down. I know that a part of this is her way of feeling strong again.
And I want her to have that. I just don’t want it to cost her.
I will not let it cost her. She is counting on me. I will not let her down.
I turn sideways, to avoid bumping into a woman who is staring down at her phone. Even then, my peripheral vision stays locked onto Radiah. I will not let her out of my sight. I know even a lapse of attention that lasts for less than seconds might mean the difference between seeing her again and never seeing her again.
Seconds had taken Boris. I can almost feel it now. The cold press of the gun barrel seaming between air and flesh closes the distance between life and death.
Just one second.
Shadow passes to my right.
The shadow makes me turn. Maybe the shadow is falling too quickly, or maybe it is the quickstep I hear as the shadow shifts.
Just a second, I think, and it is a desperate thinking. I cannot take a second back by wishing it.
It is too late.
For whatever reason, as I feel the cold of something circular, something I know too well and will not name to myself, press against my side, I am already shifting, already turning, already bunching my hand into a fist and punching. It is
too late.
I was following Emilio. Emilio is following Radiah. And someone is following me.
The gun is the only thing I see. I know I need to get it away from him.
I hear someone shout.
I imagine him pulling the trigger; I imagine the bullets flying down the street. I have seen what they do to people. I won’t let him do this to anyone.
Closing my hand around his wrist, I wrench at it, twist it hard. Hard enough to hear the bone snap.
Bone becomes little more than a twig.
The gun flies from his hand, scatters with a loud clatter against the concrete. Someone else screams.
“He has a gun!”
The sidewalk becomes a myriad of moving, darting shadows scrambling for cover.
Just a second, I think again. If only things would slow down, if only I had time to think…
Again, too late.
A set of arms wraps around me from behind. Simultaneously, I shove my elbow back, hard. I pull forward. All I can think about is Radiah. Does she know she is in danger?
The scuff of shoes and the hard-drawn breaths of their exertion and mine are the only things I hear.
They hit, and I suck my breath in hard; they have me surrounded.
The men surrounding me are not my concern though.
It’s obvious they expected our little ploy.
My concern is her. While I am dealing with this, what is happening to her?
Whirling, grabbing at the man in front of me while trying to evade the man behind me, I grip at him, yank him forward while I knee up at his stomach. We are a grit of turning now; the huffing, harder-drawn breaths of shifting and striking.
He punches. I grunt, ignore the pain that shoots up my side.
I punch. I punch up, under his chin, and then, as he is falling, I punch again. The crack of bone snaps and his blood oozes between my fingers. It is a slow thing, and all I can see is the man going down in front of me and the man rounding me to take his place.
In that brief instant I try to see further down the street. The whole block becomes a tunnel, a narrowing field of shadows and movement.
I try to see her.
And I do. I see her, and I see the distance closing between her and the man who is moving faster behind her.
In the distance, police sirens blare.
My blood turns, pitches into a fever. I have to get to her.
I have to get to her now.
Now, I am the attacker.
I don’t attack to get away from him; I attack to get nearer to her. I take one punch, one punch I put everything, all I have in me, into. The power comes up from the soles of my feet, up through my calves and into my thighs and into the swivel of my hips.
Into my arm and through my fist.
Onto his face.
I hit him again as he is falling. I hit him to keep him down.
He will not be getting up again.
I run.
I see it happening ahead. I watch Radiah turn.
The man behind her turns towards me. It is not Emilio.
My fist is there. Without pausing in my run, I jab out at him, punch him with a short, hard blow to his face.
He falls.
But I see the car speeding down the street from the opposite direction. Coming across the yellow line, it peels toward the curb.
And now I see him. I see Emilio. He’s flanking her.
She doesn’t see him. She’s looking back, at me, at the man I’ve just punched to the street, the man who is scrambling upright, grabbing at me.
“Radiah!” Shouting, I muscle the man aside, and I dart forward. I run as hard as I’ve run. But I’m not there.
Too late, she looks to the street; too late she looks to her right where Emilio is darting towards her. Together, they grab at her. She kicks out against them. She swings her fists. Radiah is strong but she’s not strong enough, not against two men who are used to fighting, used to subduing; in an instant, she is in their hands. I am running toward her while they drag her into the car, I am five feet away when the door slams shut behind them—behind Radiah and Emilio.
The other man is in the street, rushing towards me.
Shoving him aside, I lunge at the car.
The car pulls forward. Even lunging, I only graze the edge of the black trunk with my fingertips.
She is gone. He has her.
Panic claws, it rises through my stomach. I feel like shouting her name.
Turning, I punch at the other man as he reaches for me. The crack of his face breaking between my knuckles is a loud crunch.
I don’t stop running. The sidewalk streams at my sides as I make my way back down the street, back to my car. I don’t look around to see if there are anymore of Emilio’s men coming at me. If there are, I know I will take them out without stopping.
I can’t stop.
The car is pulling down the street. I watch it as I’m running.
I’ve lost her. Through the tinted windows it’s impossible for me to even see her. I’ve done this. If something happens to her, it’s my fault, and my fault alone.
I should have stopped doing this long ago. I should have changed for her. I should have done anything for her. Instead, all I can do is watch the black car and its red brake lights disappear down the street.
The idea of never seeing her again, of never touching her again, or never hearing her voice, never feeling the heat of her skin or seeing the way her smile lights at her eyes—it is a thing I cannot comprehend. It is a thing I cannot accept. I just got her back. I’d intended to never let her go again.
Now, she is already gone.
I don’t stop moving. I don’t look at the men on the streets, I ignore the reflections of the blue lights that are nearing. Without breaking stride, I am back at my own car. Yanking the door open, I climb in. I throw the car into drive and make a screeching U-turn down the street. Accelerating, lowering my brow to pin the car I want into my focus, I chase the distant trail of the taillights down one narrow side-street after the next, until the car turns onto Central Park West.
On one side of the street, the park is dark shadowed. On the other side of the street, the Museum of Natural History, the glass of the planetarium, rises then drifts back into the distance.
My hands tighten over the wheel. Pressing down on the accelerator, I bypass one of the cars in our lane by driving into the opposite lane when it is clear.
Then I do it again. Nearer and nearer.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone standing on the street corner throw up a middle finger in my direction.
The police might be coming. More of Emilio’s men might be coming.
I don’t give a fuck about any of it. I know myself when I am this way. I know I can do whatever I need to do to get the outcome I want.
Here, there is no other outcome but one.
I will not lose her.
It is not a thing I will even consider. Not a possibility I will give any quarter to. I hope she knows. I hope she has no doubt.
I am coming.
Radiah
It all happened so fast. One minute I was walking down the street. I knew he was behind me. I’d felt it. I hadn’t turned to look over my shoulder, but I’d felt it.
Don’t look back, I kept telling myself. I knew if I’d looked back, my eyes might meet his. And if our eyes met, he would know.
I hadn’t wanted him to know that I knew he was there. I’d been so focused on acting normal I hadn’t even seen the car pull up to the curb. And then, when I did see it...by the time I’d turned to see the men attacking Alexei, it had been too late.
Now, I’m sitting next to Emilio.
Emilio is driving with one hand.
His other hand is occupied. With a gun he has pointed towards me.
“You’re making a mistake.” I try to say it calmly but I can hear the tremble in my voice. I can feel the tremble shudder through my shoulders. This is not what I’d expected. Somehow, Emilio must have been onto us.
Or he’d been intending to kidnap me from the get go.
Did Alexei see what had happened? Is he coming? The idea of him coming fills me with terror. And the idea of him not coming fills me with terror too. Either way, he could get hurt.
Her Designer Baby: (Loving Over 40 Book 1) Page 29