by Nicole Fox
I wipe the glass off her seat and keep a hand on her elbow as I help her into the passenger side. As I walk back over to my side, I can feel the glass shards in my palm. I pull out the two larger fragments, edges slick with blood, and toss them into the storm drain.
I couldn’t care less that Duilio or Siro are dead. I don’t care about their grieving widows, their orphaned children, the idea that they could have changed—I couldn’t give less of a flying fuck if they spent millions of dollars on homeless shelters and now hundreds of homeless people are dying in the cold.
I care only that they wanted me dead and that they were in my way. It was a problem with two outcomes: I end up on top or I end up six feet deep. There are no other possibilities.
But, seeing it on Allison’s face, it feels more personal. I still don’t care that the gunman is dead, but I understand how someone else could. I understand how they’d picture a child waking up to find out his or her father is dead. I understand how someone would say that he happened to be on the losing side, through no fault of his own. That he was just doing his job, following orders like a good soldier. That I deserve the exact same fate for all my sins.
But I don’t. Because, unlike this man, I don’t leave my target breathing.
As my heartrate slows down, a sharp pain radiates from my side. I glance down.
Blood.
9
Allison
In Lev’s car, we slip onto the back roads. I feel the breeze through the broken window, but it barely registers against my skin. My bag is still hanging off my shoulder and chafing against my skin, but I can’t seem to figure out how to move my arms or hands to do anything about it.
I twitch my fingers. They work.
Not paralyzed. Not dead.
I’ve witnessed two men killed in front of me and it felt like I was a ghost in both situations. I had no control over the situation. Everything happened around me and I was left just standing there, useless and guilty.
Heat rushes under my skin. I curl my hand into a fist. Prosecutors don’t freeze when a defendant becomes volatile. They demand answers. They see a weakness and strike.
I flex my hand again. I pull my bag off my shoulder and set it on my lap. I grip the strap, squeezing it in my hands.
“What the hell? What the fuck?” I say, the words coming out slowly, then picking up speed. “What just happened? Who was that?”
“I have no idea,” he says, his eyes focused on the road.
“You have no idea who you just killed—you have no idea, and yet you had a gun on you this whole time when we were just having dinner in my apartment. You have no idea, but you just killed that man and acted like it was nothing. You have no idea. Tell me something, Lev. Give me something. I deserve that much at least.”
“I saved your life and you’re making demands?” he asks. “Just take a breath, Allison. Just breathe.”
“You spent all this time accusing me of being a murderer, but you killed that man and you’re not showing the slightest remorse. You’re a sociopath.” I shake my head, looking out the window as we turn onto a sketchy road. We pass by a group of men standing at the corner. They eye the car with some interest but disregard it when they notice the broken window. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll tell my father what happened.”
“And he’ll find out what you did. He’ll start suspecting we’re accomplices,” he says. “Or, unlike his daughter, maybe he’ll be happy that I saved your life. Ally, it’s—”
“Call me Allison. We’re not that close.”
“Allison. It’s better if you don’t know anything. You don’t need to know. I’ll make it so it doesn’t affect you again.”
He takes his cell phone out of his pocket. As he finds a number on his screen and brings the phone up to his ear, the thought that he’s breaking the law sneaks to the front of my mind, which is ridiculous in the context of the rest of the night.
“Hey,” he says. “There was a situation in front of Allison’s apartment and another on Dover Street. I don’t need the clean-up crew. But it was them. They’ve already recuperated.”
I glance over at him, trying to read the space between the lines. As he looks back at me, I let my gaze slide down. That’s when I notice it.
Crimson.
Just the slightest bit, peeking outside of his sports jacket. I reach forward, pulling the flap of his jacket back. The bloodstain looks like a continent against the white of his shirt. It’s darker in the center than the outside and the cloth is sticking to his skin.
Lev takes his hand off the wheel, his legs keeping the wheel steady, and pushes away my hand, continuing to talk on the phone.
“You were shot,” I hiss.
“We’ll talk about it later. I’ll deal with it,” he says to whoever is on the other end of the call. Hanging up, he sets down the phone and turns to me. “It’s fine, Allison. It’s just a superficial wound. The shot grazed me. You should check yourself. Adrenaline can fool your body into thinking you’re not hurt.”
I run my hands down my body, checking for wet spots or signs of pain. Nothing. I look over at Lev. I almost expect him to be checking me out, but his body is tense and his forehead is furrowed.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Check again.”
As I run my hand over the back of my thighs, he presses a button for his mansion gates to open up. I pull off my seat belt while he parks.
My brain is on fire, each piece of information and emotion adding a new flame. Jeffrey Douglas died as a result of my actions. Lev kept a gun with him during a simple dinner. This strange man wanted to kill Lev. He could have killed me. Lev killed him without hesitation or remorse. And we left another crime scene.
My life isn’t this. I don’t manufacture relationships for selfish personal gain. I don’t get into car chases. I don’t watch people get killed and get in the car with the murderer like nothing happened.
The bodies are piling up. There’s going to be a point where I can’t see over them.
I jerk my door open and take off running.
I pass by a massive mountain of a man standing by the door. I barely give him a second thought, yanking open the front door and running inside. I get to the end of the hallway, ending up in the dining room. I take my cell phone out of my bag. My hands are trembling as I find my father’s number. I tap it.
Lev grabs me so abruptly that I can barely register where he came from. He wrenches the phone from my hand, ending the call before it hits two seconds. He throws the phone onto the table. It bounces once before sliding to a stop.
I smack him. I shove him. The tension under my skin is enough to break me and I need to break someone else to release it. When I try to hit him again, he grabs my wrists. His fingers easily overlap mine—just another reminder of how much bigger he is than me.
“You should have made your first hit count,” he growls.
In his eyes, I see the killer—I thought he was hard and emotionless, but I see the frozen rage now, just needing a flame.
I wait for him to shove me away from him, to hit me, to make me feel his complete control over our situation. He keeps his gaze on me but slowly loosens his grip on my wrists until he lets them go.
“You need to remember what’s at stake—your career, your father’s career, your whole family’s reputation, and all those victims’ loved ones. That man was trying to kill us. I did what I needed to do to protect us.”
I rub my wrists. “Then tell the police that.”
“I’d rather die.”
“Fine,” I say. I reach around him to get my phone, but he grabs my shoulder and shoves me back.
“You’re not getting that back any time soon.”
I swing my hand up, hitting him across the face. He barely winces. He grabs my arms, yanking me around him, and shoving me up against the wall. He steps up, our bodies almost touching as he pins my arms against the wall.
“Take a goddamn breath,” he commands. I lunge at his fa
ce, not sure what I’ll do if we connect—bite him, maybe?—and he pulls away just in time. His lip curls up, anger flashing in his eyes. I’m certain he’s going to hit me. I’m certain that this is the point where he changes from the manipulative sociopath to the brutal monster who needs someone to lash out at.
He kisses me. It’s an open-mouth kiss, a bruising kiss. It’s brutal and my body arches against his to meet the brutality. When he pulls away, my body is flush against his. With every breath, I try to get my body to relax, but my body is thrumming and desperate for more.
I take a deep breath. “You can’t hold Jeffrey’s death over me now. We’re both killers, so you can’t tell me—”
He kisses me again. The kiss is like grief, going through stages. First, denial as I start to push against him. Then, anger as he pushes himself against me hard enough that it takes some of my breath. His mouth demands my mouth’s attention, punishing me for my resistance, and I love it. As I start to kiss him back, my hands on his waist, my fingertips brushing against his gun, we switch to the bargaining stage. I promise him passion as long as he gives it back to me in the same degree. His hands are off my arms, moving to my hips as he agrees to my terms.
We’re both killers now.
I put my hands on his shoulders and push him away. There’s a starving look in his eyes and he seems ready to pounce on me, but he sways for a second before raising his hands in compliance.
Stage four: depression.
“I need some time,” I mutter, moving around him. I grab my bag. He leans against the wall.
“I can’t let you leave right now,” he says. “Your life could still be in danger. Just stay until after the gala.”
“You mean until you get what you want?”
“I didn’t get what I wanted,” he says.
I bow my head, fiddling with the straps of my bag. “I need to be able to leave. I still need a dress for the gala.”
“I’ll get you one,” he says.
“You can’t keep me a prisoner in your house,” I tell him. He rubs his bottom lip. He’s a blade, all sharp edges, solid, and smooth. He could slice me in half and both my halves would want him.
He walks over to the table and picks up my phone. He holds it out to me. When I try to grab it, he flicks it out of my reach.
“Your father doesn’t need to know anything. It will only hurt people,” he warns. I snatch the phone out of his hand, turn from him, and walk away.
As I walk down the hallway, I expect him to call out to me. When I open the front door, I expect to have the Titan-sized man guarding the door to drag me back inside. Nothing happens.
When I get into my car, I touch my mouth. I try to get the warmth and tenderness to sink past my lips and linger, but as I drive down the road, it fades away.
I haven’t been driving long before I notice the car following me. Any other day, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. But any other day I wouldn’t be a murderer engaged to another murderer. I wouldn’t have the blood from my fiancé’s minor wound on my shirt—a wound sustained when he killed a man. Given the circumstances, it seems pretty clear the car behind me is keeping pace.
My law textbooks come to mind. Stalking didn’t become a crime until 1990 when the first law was passed in California after several high-profile stalking cases ended in murders. Stalking was defined in 2005 as a crime where a person incites fear for the safety of another person or persons or causes them a significant amount of emotional distress.
That seems to fit the current situation like a glove.
I peer at my rearview mirror. The black car is still there.
It remains a car or two behind me except for one street, but I have to turn several times to get to my apartment and it turns with me.
I veer sharply into my apartment’s parking lot. It’s not quite as smooth as Lev’s driving, but the black car doesn’t make the same turn. It gives me enough time to park, lock the car, and run into the apartment. I sprint up the stairs. It’s late enough that I don’t pass anybody. I lock myself in the apartment, then run to the window facing the parking lot.
The black car is pulling in. It parks near the two cars that are missing tires. I stare at it. Nobody gets out.
I take my cell phone out of my bag, staring at it. I could call my father, tell him about the car. But if it is the police, it could cause them to become more suspicious of me—they’ll twist it in front of a jury, saying it’s a sign of a guilty conscience.
Except it won’t be a twist because I am guilty and my conscience is a stack of bricks on my shoulders.
“Hey. Where did you go before?”
I whirl around. Julia raises her hands to show she’s unarmed.
“Whoa. Are you okay?” she asks. “You look like you’ve taken enough meth to take on—wait, you didn’t do meth, did you?”
“No,” I scowl. I turn back to the window. I can’t see if the person is still in the car. The windows are tinted.
Julia steps up beside me. “What are we looking at? That’s a nice car. It isn’t Lev’s, is it?”
“No,” I say. “I think it was following me.”
“Why would a car be following you?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”
I drop my bag on our couch. Fear is beating hard in my chest. But I know if I’m marrying Lev, I’m going to need to be able to stand up to him. And Lev can shoot a man without flinching, so the least that I can do is confront some sociopath in a public place.
By the time I’m almost to the car, I see the silhouette of the man inside the car. He barely fits in the driver’s seat. As I grab the handle of the driver’s door, lurching it open, I recognize him.
It’s the same man who was guarding Lev’s mansion. The mountain man.
“What the hell,” I snarl. “Why were you following me?”
The man shrugs, less volatile than I would have expected. “Lev told me to watch out for you.”
“Why wouldn’t he just tell me that?”
The man pauses, checking over his shoulder. “It’s not my business to know, Miss Harrington. There’s another, um, person watching out for you on the other side of the building. It’s not just me. But I will have to tell the boss that you came out here to talk to me. It wasn’t a very smart thing to do.”
I slam my palm against the roof of the car. “While you’re at it, tell Lev that I told him to go screw himself.”
I turn around, rage slamming down with every footstep away from him. When I’m nearly back to the apartment, I turn back around and head back to the car.
“Never mind. Don’t tell him anything,” I say. “I’m going to tell him myself.”
I take my phone out, walking a few steps away from Lev’s guard dog. It rings twice.
“Hello, Allison,” Lev answers, irritatingly calm. “I’m going to assume that you have some complaints.”
“Complaints? Oh no. Never. I love thinking that I’m being stalked by a psychopath my whole drive home and then finding out that he’s working for you. I might turn it into my new hobby.”
“If it’s any reassurance, I can’t prove that he’s a psychopath.”
“Well, we have proof that you’re a sociopath,” I snap. “Why wouldn’t you just tell me? Did you want to scare me? Is there some lesson in this? Do you want me to be paranoid everywhere I go?”
“It’s nothing like that. You didn’t take my first option, so I altered my plan. This is the second option.”
I grit my teeth as Julia comes out of the apartment.
“What was it?” she asks. “Is everything okay?”
I nod, covering my phone’s mouthpiece. “It’s fine. Lev just thought we might need someone to watch out for us. Like we’re little children.”
“Oh.” She smiles. “Cool.”
“It’s not cool at all,” I say.
Lev clears his throat. “Could you put me on the phone with Julia? We both want what’s best for you while you’re on a su
icide mission.”
I remove my finger from the speaker.
“No,” I say. “Julia, he didn’t even tell me he was going to do this.”
“That’s a bit shitty,” she admits. “But he must have seen the neighborhood we’re in and thought you needed someone watching out for us. It’s a little overbearing, but I’d rather have someone watching out for me than risking getting stabbed by Blake.”
Blake is the meth-head that lives on the first floor. Julia has saved his life twice and she’s not overly enthusiastic about the guy.
“Allison,” Lev says. “Why does it sound like you’re outside right now? Go back to your apartment. Lock the door.”
I hang up on him.
When I slide back into bed, it already feels like a dream—one of those dreams where your brain tells you that something is your childhood home, the courthouse, or your bed, but it doesn’t resemble any of those at all. Everything has changed so much since I went to sleep last night that it might as well be a different bed.
It’s too quiet in this room.
And empty.
My heartrate should be slowing down, but it patters along like the mice in the walls. I stare up at the water-stained ceiling, the shapes reminding me of Lev’s wound.
And the thought of blood reminds me of the man he killed.
In the quiet, the truth sneaks into the room. Seeing the man be killed in front of me was more traumatizing than seeing Jeffrey slowly die because I was less than a second away from dying, too. We were nearly in opposite positions. And it was all because of my own naiveté. It was because of my black and white morality. Lev was right—my morality didn’t help me at all. I made Lev hesitate, and it almost got us killed.
But Lev saved my life.
I grip my hair, pulling it up into a bun, imagining tying it up, but instead, the prickle of pain in my scalp only makes me think of Lev. I need his hands in my hair, his body pressed against mine until my thoughts dissipate.