Smoke: A Bad Boy Romance

by Paula Cox

  I keep thinking about Roma and the gunshot. Surely it’s possible he could’ve done something and gotten to the car in time? Surely it’s possible he didn’t have to shoot at us? Surely it’s possible he could’ve gotten away with us.

  I adjust the flower on my red dress. My kidnapping has been a public scandal in the time I was away. Dad was bombarded with questions and even some ridiculous accusations, namely that he orchestrated the whole thing to garner some twisted political attention. Now, tonight is his big night, his chance to parade me in front of the press and his colleagues and show that I was the victim of a horrible kidnapping, not some political scheme. But not just any kidnapping, I remind myself. Dad wants to make it clear that it was a Russian kidnapping. Like it or not, I’m political currency now.

  Dad knocks on the door. “Can I come in?”

  “Yes,” I reply.

  He steps in and looks around my bedroom, exactly how I left it before college. Posters of fitness buffs and DVD covers of my favorite movies cover the walls. My bookshelf, directly next to my bed, is chipped from where I used to absentmindedly claw at it with my nails in my sleep. My prom dress hangs in plastic covering on the back of the door.

  Dad is wearing a tuxedo. He looks old and tired. But that’s what politics does to people. Only his sparkling green eyes are completely untouched by the madness of politics. He glances around the room. “There’s no need for you to come tonight, if you’d rather stay in,” Dad says.

  He means this, I know. He’d be willing to put me first. But in truth, I don’t want to stay in. I’ve been locked in the house for three days and all I can think about is Roma, the gunshot which cut through the air above us. And Bear, the way he dropped me off half a block from Dad’s house and coasted after me as I jogged down the street. When he saw I was safely through the doors, he drove away. God knows where he’s gone. I feel guilty. I didn’t even have a chance to thank him, I was so stunned.

  “I want to come,” I say. “It’ll be fun.”

  I try a smile. Dad doesn’t know about Roma. As far as he knows, I was kidnapped and that was that. I gave the Secret Service the location of the factory, but by the time they got there, it was empty. Mr. Black moves fast.

  “Fun?” Dad tilts his head. “That’s one word for it. If you can call taking a dip with a pack of hungry piranhas fun.”

  I can’t help but giggle. But always, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking of Roma. It’s like my thoughts run on two sets of tracks. One runs in the present, talking and eating and sleeping and jogging on the running machine. The other is constantly, without pause, dedicated to Roma. I wonder what happened after he fired off that shot. Did they kill him? Do they even know that he’s the one who set off that explosion? Did firing the shot give him a decent alibi?

  “You seem distracted,” Dad says. He joins me at the mirror. “I’m so proud of you, Felicity. You know that, don’t you? I can’t say I don’t miss the days when you asked me for advice—and permission, if truth be told—but I’m proud of the woman you’ve become. You’re handling this with grace and poise.”

  “Maybe I’ll remember that when I’m President.” I laugh.

  Dad nods seriously. “You better.” He pauses, and then goes on: “When you were gone, I kept thinking about you—about how I raised you, I mean. I kept wondering if I’d done a good job, you know, after your mother . . .”

  “You did a fine job,” I say. “Don’t be silly.”

  “I’m sorry I was away so often.”

  I roll my eyes. “Dad, you’re an ambassador. That’s sort of the point, isn’t it?”

  “Well, if you insist on being technical, yes.”

  “Is it almost time to go?” I ask.

  Dad nods. “Ten minutes. We have a large function room on the first floor, Secret Service coming out of the wazoo, lots of them plainclothes.”

  “Need to keep up appearances,” I say.

  Dad nods again, and then leaves.

  He shuts the door behind him and I turn once again to the mirror. It hasn’t been that long since I set out on my backpacking trip. What—a month? And yet so much has happened in that time I can’t help but wonder if I’m looking at the same woman. The features are there, the eyes and the cheekbones and the lips and the nose and the chin, all the things which make up my face. But I’m sure I see something underneath it, something which wasn’t there before, something dark and hard and gritty.

  It’s Roma, I realize with a shock. I’m seeing Roma.

  I look closer. Yes, he’s there, in my expression. Roma’s hardness, Roma’s capability.

  Please, I think. Please, Roma, don’t be dead.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Roma

  Crates of beer surround me, forming walls around the chair I’m tied to. The truck doesn’t move, but anybody from the outside—maybe we’re parked on a main street, I have no damn clue—will just see a beer truck. And there’s no point in screaming. I know Mr. Black. This truck is soundproofed.

  I shot at her, I think.

  That’s true, and yet what the fuck else was I supposed to do? Mr. Black let his men use his private elevator, the one Bear hadn’t managed to block, and they were swarming after them like flies on shit. Ten of them, all coming, and Felicity was looking at me like she was going to jump out of the car and follow me, like she was going to put herself in danger. I couldn’t let that happen. All the fighting and the bloodshed could not be for nothing. I had to make her leave. I love her. I couldn’t let anything happen to her.

  I’ve been tied here for around two days at a guess. No food. No water. I’ve tried breaking free from my bindings, but I’m stuck fast. Wrists together, ankles together, wrists and ankles tied to the chair, and a taut rope around my chest and my waist for extra security. The bindings dig into my skin, causing the skin around my hands to bleed. I feel it dripping into my palm. Still, it’s only pain. Pain I can take. With Felicity safe, I can take all the pain in the world.

  My only hope now is that she takes this safety and runs far away. Runs and runs to someplace even Mr. Black can’t get at her. I don’t care what happens to me. Kill me, torture me, burn me, bury me—it’s all the same. This is what happens in our game. Bear once told me, when I had just started in the business: “Boy, you get to killin’ long enough, you’re gonna get killed. That’s just the way life works. Everything moves in circles.”

  I didn’t believe him at the time. But like so much he said, it’s true.

  I close my eyes and I think, wonder what could’ve been different, wonder who my parents were, what my last name is. I’ve never wasted much time on that. My parents were probably just crackheads, addicts who couldn’t be bothered with a kid. But now, on what I’m sure is my deathbed—or deathchair—I wonder on it. If it wasn’t for Bear, I would never have known a father. And even he only got to me after a few years on the street, living like a feral amidst the other unseen feral children of the gutter.

  I laugh grimly into the almost-complete darkness, the only light coming from a small orange signal set high in the truck, probably an on light for the coolers.

  It’s been a hell of a run, I think. Now go, Felicity, and be safe and happy.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Felicity

  “I don’t like all these windows,” one of Dad’s Secret Service agents says.

  His name is David Brown and he’s been with Dad for as long as I can remember. I used to think he looked like a superhero, tall and black-haired and muscular with an expression which never looked unsure. But looking at him now, after meeting Roma and Bear and seeing Mr. Black’s men, he looks inconsequential. He looks around the function room, long, wide windows set along the walls. Chandeliers hang from the ceiling and politicians stand in small circles, waiters walking between them holding silver platters of champagne and nibbles. I notice several people looking at me, trying and failing to be discreet.

  Dad speaks through his teeth. “You have the place secured, don’t you?” he
snaps, a smile plastered on his face. That’s a politician’s trick I’ll never stop being impressed by, their ability to smile whilst being angry. “We couldn’t exactly hold the party in a dungeon, could we?”

  “Sir.” David nods, taking a step back.

  A stage has been erected at the front, a podium dominating it. I know that I’ll be standing up there later with Dad, being paraded as safe, evidence that he is not scared and certainly not guilty. Any annoyance I felt at being used as political currency dropped away a long time ago. Dad’s been a politician my entire life; it’s all I know.

  Dad turns to me, his politician’s smile plastered onto his face. “We should mingle,” he says.

  And so we mingle. Women wearing sparkling dresses which cost more than many apartments compliment me on how well I seem to be taking it. Men in suits tell me I’m brave, a testament to American resilience. I’m approached by a journalist who wants to write my story as a memoir. I politely tell her I’ll think about it and continue circling the groups. I hear Dad’s forced laughter boom throughout the room as he talks to congressmen and women. At some point, I end up at the side of the room, leaning against the wall, sipping my champagne and looking over the faces of everybody.

  I look and look but all I can think about is Roma. Dead? I think in horror. Or alive and still working for Mr. Black? Please, God, don’t let him be dead!

  I hear the shot he fired over and over in my mind, the way it tore through the air, the pained expression on his face as he fired it. Over time, the memory becomes confused and I don’t know if I’m imagining certain things or if it’s really how they happened. I hear him muttering sorry as he fired off the shot. But surely I wasn’t close enough to hear that? I see him smack his chest, as though punishing himself for shooting in my direction. I even see him blow me a kiss. All made-up, I know. All that happened was he shot at us as you’d shoot at an animal which was lingering too long.

  I imagine that later on tonight I won’t be going back to an empty room, but to mine and Roma’s room. I’ll fall into his arms and he’ll hold me close and we’ll laugh about the whole thing. We’ll agree to start over. Because, no matter what’s happened, I want to see him again, to be with him again, to fall in love with him, deeply, truly, without holding back. I want to know just how much I can love him. I want to give it my all.

  I start when the woman appears at my shoulder. “Awfully tiring, isn’t it?”

  I turn. It’s the journalist. She’s a sinewy woman with a ponytail even tighter than mine. She wears thick purple-framed glasses.

  “Oh, I love it,” I say, my smile wide and fake. Since returning from the yacht, I find I can control my expression with more ease. Once you’ve smiled into the faces of Russian thugs, smiling into the face of a journalist is no big thing.

  She grins at me. “You’re very good, Miss Fellows, very good indeed. I’m incredibly sorry to bother you. I’m just fascinated by your story. Would it be too much hassle to answer a few questions?”

  “What . . . now?”

  I’m in no mood to talk, let alone be interviewed.

  “Well, yes,” the woman says. “If it isn’t too much trouble.”

  As we walk, I absentmindedly watch the crowd. A big-bellied politician pats another big-bellied politician on the back and I wonder if they’ve just made some kind of deal over champagne and cheese-and-pineapple sticks. A glamorous woman wearing a bright dress looks anxiously around the crowd, for her husband, I bet. A young ginger man with a freckled face and . . .

  And . . .

  Daniel!

  I squint at him, wondering if I’m not seeing him properly. Surely he could just be any young ginger-haired man. But the closer I look, the more certain I am that the guard I seduced, the guard whose gun I stole, the guard I knocked out, is here, at my party. I stifle a cry by widening my smile.

  I face the journalist. “You know most people here, don’t you?” I ask.

  She nods proudly. “Of course.”

  I point at Daniel. “Do you recognize that man?”

  The journalist pushes her glasses up on her nose and leans her head forward. “Oh, yes, that’s one of Congressman Andrews’ interns. I forget his name. He’s junior. Apparently very efficient, though.”

  The little prick is in government! Mr. Black has a nephew in government!

  “Oh, yes, I do know him!” I click my fingers and my words come out sweetly in my most artificial voice. “If you’ll excuse for me for moment, I should go and say hello.”

  I don’t wait for her permission. I weave my way through the crowd and directly to Daniel, the man who stood outside of my cell with a gun only three days ago.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Roma

  “Your little girlfriend is doing all the work for me,” Mr. Black says.

  He leans over me, looking down his nose and into my face. Three goons stand behind him and judging by their expressions—rabid dogs would make them look tame—they’d love nothing more than to lay into me right now. Beat me so bloody that I can’t breathe and then finish the job with a bullet to the head. And that’s what’s going to happen, I think. But . . .

  My lips are dry, chapped, and my body is in agony from being bent out of shape for so long.

  “What—” I cough, my mouth tasting stale and off-putting. “What do you mean?” I manage to wheeze.

  “Felicity and her father are having a little party. And when I say little party, I mean a party that could rival the most decadent of Ancient Roman orgies. I have it on good authority that they are hiring a large function room and inviting the cream of the crop of Mr. Fellows’ political friends—and enemies, come to think of it, but when do such distinctions matter in politics?”

  No, no, no. My mind rebels against the idea. Felicity should be far away from here now, far away and somewhere safe, not having a party.

  “You might ask yourself, why is he telling me?”

  I nod, head feeling weak, neck feeling like it can’t support my head.

  Mr. Black grabs my face with both his hands and brings his face close to mine. His eyes really are black. I look into them and I see nothing. Crow’s feet tug at the corners of his eyes and for the first time I realize how old he must be. He was at least forty when I got into the game. He must be mid-sixties now, at least. He digs his fingers into the skin of my face.

  “I am telling you, Roma, because I am a kind man. I am willing to give you yet another chance to prove yourself. I am willing to treat you like a son. Because, and this may surprise you, you are a son to me. I’ve known you since you were a teenager, since Bear brought you into the organization. Despite what people say, my heart isn’t as black as my name. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t want to lose you. But, you understand, if you are to have any chance of being welcomed back into the fold, you have to prove yourself.”

  “Boss,” one of the goons mutters.

  Mr. Black spins on him so quickly I feel a breath of wind touch my face.

  “Don’t you ever interrupt me! You are stone! You are a rock! You do not speak!”

  The man swallows audibly and then takes a step back, inclining his head.

  Mr. Black, hands trembling, turns back to me.

  “Roma, think now. Be smart. How many women are there out there? I can get you any woman you like. Black, white, Asian, Columbian, English . . . the list goes on and on. I can get you a whole harem of women if you like. You can do whatever you like to them. Piss on them, shit on them, slit their throats for all I care.”

  My bones go cold at his words. How did I never spot how twisted he was before? I think. How have I worked for this man for so long? But I never questioned the life, not before I met Felicity. Before her, the life was the life and that was all.

  “Here is my proposal.” Mr. Black glances at the man who spoke and then back to me. The man looks as though he’s just been stared down by a viper. “I am going to give you an escort, men who will make sure you carry out your task. They are going to
take you to a building opposite the function room and you, with a scoped rifle, are going to assassinate Ambassador Fellows like we originally agreed!” Spit flies from his lips on the last words, hitting me in the face. “Or,” he goes on, forcing calm into his voice, “you will hesitate and the ambassador will die anyway. My men will put a bullet in the back of your head—and much worse beforehand, I’d wager—and I’ll go on with my life. I’ll be sad to lose you, but the organization will go on. Don’t speak.” He holds up his hand. “I don’t need an answer. This is what’s happening.”