by Holly Hart
My world slowed around me, and I saw the bike's rear wheel kicking out from above, as if I was having an out of body experience. My mind considered every option in a fraction of a second.
Brake? No – one sure way to sail headfirst over the bike and hello death or else worse, a lifetime in a damn wheelchair.
Jump? No – again, I'd die in seconds, either from the impact or from a truck mowing me down.
There was only one thing left to do. I doubled down. My hand twisted on the throttle, and the bike leapt forward, jumping from eighty past a hundred miles an hour in seconds. The road flashed by on either side too fast to see – but the bike steadied.
I was safe – for now.
Jesus, Val. That was close.
I tried to concentrate, but my mind was firing questions at me on all cylinders. Questions like: do I have a kid? Did I abandon him all these years?
But truthfully, they all boiled down to one simple question. What the hell do I do now?
The answer was simple. I'd known it all day. Still it weighed on my shoulders, crushing down, pressing the breath out of me.
The rest of the ride passed in a blur, though, after my brush with the afterlife, I slowed the pace down some. Enough to signal to Death that my flirtation with his black embrace was done, at least for today. He knew he'd see me soon enough.
The second I reached Drummond Tower, I cut the engine. The bike glided to a halt in front of the shining metal and glass edifice, and I tore my gloves and helmet off, leaving them on the seat.
I didn't see any of my men, but that was as it should be. They were like me – wraiths in the night. Before many more seconds had passed, a hidden protector would spirit himself from his lair and deal with the detritus that followed me close behind.
I didn't remember the elevator ride up, or pressing my eye to the iris-reader to gain access to my apartment. I didn't see the artwork on the walls I faced, nor did I feel the soft, thick carpet underneath my feet. Nothing registered until I saw a small duffel bag, stuffed fit to burst, and a tiny pink child's rucksack discarded carelessly by the door.
"Boss," Anatoly said, inclining his head. "We got the girl for you, just like you asked."
Something about the sharp-faced man made my spine bristle. I didn't know what it was, but he struck me as untrustworthy: a thief in the night; a snake in my nest. His eyes were hungry, and his tongue travelled a never-ending dance across his lips. He looked like a man restraining an urge with all his might – and the only cause that I could think of was Cara herself. He was a snake sitting on my couch.
You did no such thing, I thought, flaring my nostrils. She came back on her own.
I eyed the man until his cheeks blanched red, and he bowed under the pressure. He rose with a slow, studied act of casualness, but it stank of insolence.
I resisted the urge to grab the pistol off his hip and beat him with it. It took every ounce of strength I had. But I had help. The knowledge that Cara might see me and might judge me slaked my thirst for blood. Still, Anatoly wouldn't have to push me far…
I nodded. "You did well. You can leave."
Anatoly grimaced, and ran his tongue under his front lip. I could tell he was straining to hold back a retort.
"Of course, boss. You got it."
My shoulders didn't relax until I heard the automatic deadbolts thud home as the high-security door hissed shut behind him. I made a note to revoke his ability to enter my home. I couldn't kill him, not yet anyway. But that didn't mean I had to trust him.
I let my head sink to my chest as, just for a second, I allowed my troubles to seep away. The adrenaline of my high-speed ride over, though, never drained away. Whether it was my barely-disguised fight with Anatoly, or just the stress of the last two years catching up with me, I didn't know.
That was a lie.
I knew exactly why my heart was beating fit to explode.
Why my tongue was dry and my toes tingling.
It was because I was terrified of what I was about to do.
And I didn't have the first idea of how to do it…
A girl careened around the couch, trailed by a parade of childish giggles and shoulder-length brown hair. Our eyes met, and my world slowed. She was young, perhaps two or three years old – though I was far from an expert.
Eyes locked with shy interest on mine, she forgot to look where she was going. Her legs clattered together like bowling pins and she tumbled headfirst into the plush carpet, spinning head over heel like a pinwheel.
My breath caught in my throat as I rushed toward her. I didn't know why, but I felt drawn to help her. It didn't make sense. I never liked kids. Well, that's not entirely true – I just never spent much time around them. The mob lifestyle isn't exactly 9 to 5, home in time to pick up the kids from school…
So why did you bring them here?
"Kitty! Are you – "
Shoulders hunched over as I reached to pluck the girl – Kitty – from the floor, I looked up at the sound of Cara's voice.
"Oh, it's you…" she said, flinching as her eyes widened with shock. Cara paused for a second, taken aback at the sight of me. Her chest stopped moving, as if her heart stopped beating, or the breath stilled in her throat. I hoped it was because she was happy to see me, but I feared the reverse was true.
I lifted Kitty upright and gently set her down on her feet. She ran to her mother and hugged Cara's leg. Shyness overtook her, and she looked at the ground. Since first catching sight of me, she hadn't made a sound.
"It's me. You came back."
Cara turned and surveyed my apartment. Her face was neutral, but I detected a hint of bitterness in her eyes. She knelt down before she answered, and murmured to her daughter.
"You go play with your things, honey; okay?"
Kitty looked back with wide, hazel eyes, nodded once and ran off – leaving Cara and I alone. My one-time lover's scent tickled my nostrils, and it took everything I had to avoid closing my eyes and basking in it. She was so close to me, yet – with that look in her eyes – so far. She stayed silent, and the air began to crackle and hum with electricity. I wanted nothing more than to push her onto the couch, tear the flimsy white blouse from her chest and –.
I cleared my throat. "She's beautiful – your daughter."
Is she mine?
"She's not!" Cara jumped, body reacting as though she'd been scalded. "My daughter, that is," she continued more softly. "She's my…step-sister."
A wave of relief and – more worryingly – disappointment flooded through me. I sagged at the knees, and a tightness that I hadn't even noticed released in my throat. At the same time, though, my eyes prickled with dismay.
I didn't know why. The last thing I needed in my life was a kid to take care of. There was no way in hell that I was I capable of looking after a two-year-old. It was hard enough learning to take care of myself.
And yet…
"Your sister?" I repeated, somewhat disbelievingly. There was something off about Cara – the way she stood, or the way her eyes filled with hurt as she spoke. I'd seen that look on a man's face before – in the seconds right before I forced him to betray a comrade. It didn't sit right on Cara's beautiful face, or in her deep green eyes. Like a wolf in sheep's clothing or a thief in the night, it read false.
Who are you to judge? You don't know what she's been through. What kind of hell she's lived. What does she see when she looks in your eyes?
I shuddered to think. I saw the way she looked at me, with mistrust and even fear. But I wasn't a bad guy, not really; just a normal man walking a dangerous path.
"Step-sister,” Cara corrected, raising her chin with fierce pride.
"Uh huh. Still, you came back."
"I –," she stammered. "We need your help. My, I mean our dad, he's looking for us. I'm terrified of what he'll do if he finds us. I don't care about what happens to me, but if he hurts Kitty…"
I blinked with surprise. A cold sense of rage filled me as I saw the look on Cara's face. Any man who
made his own daughter feel that way – his own blood, had no right to call himself a father, not in my book. I restrained it, no matter how it burned.
The man would pay; there was no doubt about that. But this was better than I had expected. Cara was coming to me for help – and not the other way around.
"I'll help," I said without thinking. I didn't need to. "Tell me what you need?"
Cara's shoulders sagged with relief. "You mean it?"
I nodded. "Anything." Everything.
"We just need a place to stay," she mumbled, looking down, at everywhere and anywhere but my eyes. I felt the cold heat of her shame licking my skin from here, and I wanted to hug her, to tell her there was no need to feel that way.
"It’ll be just for a while; just until his rage burns out. It always does, when he drowns himself in the bottle."
"Done," I agreed in an instant. "But there's something I need from you…"
She looked up warily, like a hunted animal. I wondered how many bargains she'd had to make while I was away. I hated to ask her this, but it was the only way I knew to guarantee her safety. If she hated me, then so be it. If she never looked at me again, I'd accept it. If she never touched me …
I'd understand it.
At least she'd be alive.
"I need you to marry me."
9
Cara
I felt it and I hated myself for it –
– resentment.
It crept into every crack, cranny and crevice in my mind, like acid seeping down through soil: unstoppable; lethal. I never wanted to be that girl; looking at the world through green-tinted eyes of envy, but it was hard not to, now. Val’s apartment wasn't a house; it was a palace.
Fifty floors up, kissing the clouds, the view took in the whole of Alexandria with one turn of the head. Cushions, worth more than a year's salary, mine at least, were artfully strewn upon a long, gray, suede couch. The kitchen fittings alone could pay for Kitty's entire college fund.
All this time, when his daughter and I had been scraping the bottom of the barrel just to survive, Val had been living the life of luxury. When I was choosing between paying the gas bill and buying Kitty's formula, he was probably jetting around the world, partying in a different city every night. When I had to walk Kitty in my arms in the cold, freezing rain to get to daycare, he was in the back of his limo, warm and sheltered.
You don't know that, girl.
But I did. How could it have been any different? I lusted for Val, and I hated him all at once. He'd tainted me with his touch, and I couldn't forgive him for it. And now I was bonded to him, whether I liked it or not. I'd made a pact with the devil – to marry the devil – and all to save my little girl.
Everything centered on my little girl, who happened to be his little girl as well.
You had other choices, the voice in my head whispered. You could have run. Escaped this city, and never looked back. You chose this.
I shut my eyes, doing battle inside my head with the cold voice of truth. It hissed a fact I didn't want to hear. One factor had drawn me here, kept me in Alexandria, and I knew what it was – Val.
He was an elixir I'd hungered after for years, the mythical cure that would save me from a life of hardship and poverty. I always dreamed of him riding into my life, like a white knight, whisking me away, and making all my troubles disappear with a wave of his hand.
So why were my insides boiling now he had? Now I was in his penthouse, safe from trouble? I didn't know, and not knowing haunted me. I felt confused. I wanted Val more than anything, hungered for his touch, dreamed of him lying beside me every night as I closed my eyes; I wanted to make him suffer, never touch me, scream and scratch out his eyes.
I made a vow. Whatever choices I'd made to get here, whatever decisions brought me to this point, they didn't matter.
I wiped the slate clean.
But know one thing, girl. You’re not here for you; you're here for Kitty. You don't get to just bring a man into your life when it's her life at stake. Whatever you want to do to Val, kiss him, fuck him, touch him or slap him – don't.
Just be composed.
Val's words echoed in my head. "I need you to marry me," he'd said. "At least, to say you have; to act like a married couple, whenever anyone's around." He'd gestured around the palatial apartment. "Luxury like this doesn't come cheap," he said – the understatement of the year.
"There're people out there who want to hurt me; people who'll do anything, target anyone to get at me. But, if we're together, you're untouchable, and so's Kitty. There's a code in my business, and there's not a man in the city who'd break it."
This code seemed like such a little thing to offer so much safety. I'd lived too long to trust to a man's word without question. Still, Val was supremely confident, and even through the curtains of bitter resentment that veiled my mind, I trusted him –
– mostly.
Besides, it wasn't as if I had any other choice. If I left the safety of Val's apartment, which was secured with fingerprint readers, retina scanners, armed men and alarm systems, the alternative was the street.
How could I take Kitty there? I couldn't sleep with one eye open; and a sleeping bag in an alleyway is no place to bring up a little girl. So, I was stuck, in more ways than one.
Val's apartment was as much a prison as a fortress. I couldn't leave.
I'd tried. I'd even got as far as the lobby of Val's opulent skyscraper apartment before a ghost stopped me. I wasn't going anywhere; nowhere in particular, anyway.
I paused for a second, and he was there – a man with a bulge at his shoulder – the glint of tempered steel strapped to his ankle. He gripped my elbow, clicked a button on his microphone twice, and escorted me to the elevator without a word.
Maybe it should have made me feel safe.
I suppose it did, in a way. But I felt like a songbird with clipped wings, grappling with the edges of my cage, surging forward the second I saw the door open, only to be cruelly denied as the bars swung shut. With Kitty napping, darkness falling on the eastern side of the panoramic, skyscraper windows, and Val “working” who knows where, cooped-up frustration flickered inside me, an ember stoking into an inferno.
I leapt off the long, gray suede couch that had been my home for hours, drawn to the windows like a moth. Beneath me, forty stories down, Alexandria twinkled in the dim twilight. I watched as streetlights flickered on a quarter-mile below, marching down the city avenues like flaming torchbearers, guiding the lost to salvation.
I put my hands on the long, floor to ceiling window and pushed. The cold glass met my fingers like a fire hose greeting a roaring blaze, the heat of my frustration, resentment and anger pushing me forward.
I don't know how long I stayed like that, long enough for the twilight to turn to darkness, and the city to come to life with even more lights beneath me. I stayed like that until the glass was warm to my touch, and until the fury soaked out of me, replaced by exhaustion. I rested my forehead against the glass, my eyes closed, and feeling dead to the world.
"You tried to leave." Val said quietly from behind me, approaching from nowhere. My face, hidden from his sight, drained of color.
It's fine, Cara, I told myself. You're not at home anymore. There's no reason to be afraid. He can't hurt you here.
The he was Russell, not Val. The truth was my life was at Val's pleasure, now. If he wanted, he could have me seized, bound, and brought to his bedroom, and what the hell would I be able to do about it?
Nothing.
I pressed my legs together as the thought provoked a shiver that vibrated down my spine. The thought wasn’t completely unpleasant…
Where the hell did that come from?
"I did," I replied simply, not turning. I didn't know whether I could stand seeing his face with its shock of black hair, his ice-gray eyes that grazed my soul, or the stubble that peppered his chin. Even the smell of him so close was doing things to my body that I couldn't control.
&nbs
p; Adding that piercing stare to the mixture… It would be a recipe for disaster.
I wondered whether he planned to rebuke me.
And if so, will he punish me?
He did neither.
"You know, you can leave anytime you want –"
"It doesn't feel like it!"
His hand gripped my shoulder, and a current of electricity crackled through my body. I was paralyzed by pleasure, intoxicated by his scent, by his touch, desperate for his taste. Even as a boy, a magnetism had blazed inside him. It attracted friends and admirers from afar like a flame in the night. Now he was a man; that power had grown until it burned and sizzled like the sun. It drew me to him now as it had then, a rope tugging at my ankle, a hunger. And it wasn’t just me.
How else could he – barely into his twenties – lead a group of men feared across the state?
I saw the way his men looked at him. He didn't rule with fear – or at least, not only with fear. They looked to him with respect, feared those penetrating eyes, and believed that he could lead them to the Promised Land.
He pulled against my arm, and I resisted, but it only served to redouble the lust flowing through me. His strength was so much greater than mine he touched me like he might caress a butterfly – with gentle, soft fingers – as if he worried he might bruise me like a peach. I wanted him, and I couldn't deny it. I knew he knew.
You made a vow.
"Cara," he murmured. "Believe me, caging you like this is the last thing I ever wanted to do. Stopping your sister from playing with her friends, or the caress of fresh air kissing her skin… That's not what I want. I'm not a monster. But you must understand, I have enemies, and until we –"
Sister.
The shame of my lie burned within me. I lashed out instead of facing up to my falsehood, doubling down on the assault on my conscience when I should have been on my knees, begging to make amends. I consoled myself with another lie – that it was all for Kitty's sake.
I spun to face him, knocking his hand off my shoulder as I moved. The electric current that had crackled between us broke, and resentment stepped into its place as my eyes swiveled past the expensive furniture. My voice spat harsher than I intended.