A Vote For Lust: A Bad Boy Political Romance

by Natasha Tanner

  “Quick,” the man said. “Down.”

  He pushed me forward with his left hand. His touch was urgent, but at the same time, weirdly gentle. Or maybe it was my gratitude that made me feel it that way.

  I took a couple of unsure steps in the dark. The staircase should have been illuminated, but someone (this same man, perhaps) had made sure they weren’t. He pulled a flashlight from somewhere and gave it to me. I kept going down, too fast for my taste, but all the same, I felt like it was taking years to get to the bottom floor. He walked down behind me, his black glove always in contact with my back.

  “I’m Six, by the way,” he said quietly, as he took the lead before opening the door to exit the staircase.

  A number. His name was a number. And yet, it sounded so sweet when he said it.

  “I’m Sadie.”

  He opened the door very, very slowly, and stepped into the hall. A few seconds later, he waved at me to come out. We reached the entrance to the parking lot.

  “Thank you,” I said as we were about to step out. “For saving me.”

  “I should have killed you.”

  FAST TRACK OUT

  SADIE

  The parking lot turned out not to be quite as empty as I had initially thought. There was a black car I hadn’t seen before. Six looked around and gave me a tap in the shoulder to indicate that I should follow him. We started walking to the car when we noticed there was something else in that parking lot, too.

  This time, I could hear the shot clearly. Then, the sound of tires screeching on the pavement. Six pushed me hard, making me fall to the ground, and I crawled a couple of feet in search for the car’s cover. I caught a glimpse of its rear and noticed there was no plate. Six shot once, twice. I looked over my shoulder frantically. I saw a shadow speeding past him: a motorcycle, its driver all clad in black too, shooting with his or her left hand as he controlled the bike with the right.

  “Fuck,” Six swore, as the bike rushed out the entrance and out to the sleeping city. He leaned over me and offered me his hand to help me stand up. “That was for both of us.”

  For both? At first I thought it was someone from the building’s security team, but of course, security guards don’t dress all in black and shoot at people from a moving motorcycle in the parking lot. I tried not to think about what could have happened to the guards. Maybe they were OK. Maybe they were huffing and puffing as they went up the stairs to see what had happened in Mark’s office.

  “Who– who was that?” I asked as Six hurried me into the car and jumped on the driver’s seat himself. I was nearly out of breath; right in that moment, the enormity of what was happening hit me. I had been in some kind of trance for a couple of minutes, but now, a shiver shook my spine and I felt like my whole body was freezing. He put his hand on mine. A warm hand, not too heavy. He had gotten rid of his glove at some point.

  “That was the Scope,” Six said as he turned on the engine, letting go of my hand in the process. “The less you know, the better.”

  I didn’t question that. Right now I was trying to make sense of it all, and failing. My hands were shaking visibly, and my heart was beating like a tommy gun. He took off his balaclava and threw it on the backseat. I glanced at him and my heart stopped for a second, then resumed its wild cadence.

  Six was hot. I mean he fit my idea of what an attractive man looks like. His green eyes were set upon a stern face, with a well-defined jaw, conclusive nose, mutinous dark hair and a harsh stubble that made him look like an outlaw. Well, he was an outlaw, so it all fit, I concluded, and I felt the heat on my cheeks as I inevitably blushed at the dirty thoughts that had just entered my mind.

  It’s a natural reaction, you fool, I told myself. He’s just knocked down the asshole who was trying to rape you. Pay no mind to your wild fantasies. In a few minutes you’ll fear him again.

  But that was the thing: I still feared Six. I was terrified of what he would do to me, but I also felt attracted to him, to the idea of playing with his frozen fire.

  I always loved playing with fire. I mean literally. As a kid, I was always trying to put my hands on a box of matches and some paper or dry leaves. I would burn them in the patio, with mom or dad watching at close range. Once the fire was lit, I crouched there beside it, my gaze lost in the flames, fascinated by their hot dance. I would feed the little fire with more leaves or even little twigs, to keep it burning. I could spend maybe an hour looking at it. What if I put my hand on it? If I step on it? How long could I stand the burning? Six’s fire was dark and cold, and it gave me the chills, but I still found it fascinating. What if I tease him some more? What if I feed his flame? What if I make him burst?

  “OK, here are some rules,” he said, as I tried to control the shivering in my whole body. “You try to run away, I kill you. You try to make a call, I kill you. You make a gesture to a stranger to let them see that you’re kidnapped, I kill you. Do you understand?”

  “Am... am I kidnapped?”

  He pondered my question for a few seconds. His jaw stood firm and hard, betraying no emotion.

  “It depends on you,” he said, finally. “There are other people who want to kill both of us. You can stay with me and lay low, or go home and get murdered tomorrow. Does that fit your definition of kidnapped?”

  “Hey, you were the one who said the word first.”

  The comeback came to me instantly and I said it without thinking. I was baiting my own fear. I was afraid of Six, but I felt like I could push him a bit anyway, maybe even make a joke. It was crazy, but even though I could feel his darkness, and that was terrifying, I also felt compelled to dig into it, to see what was underneath. The thrill of danger, I guess.

  “Look, pretty face,” he said, glancing at me briefly and letting his eyes go down from my face to my cleavage, then to my legs, then quickly to the road ahead. “I haven’t decided what to do with you yet. I might still kill you. The more annoying you get, the more likely it is I’ll end up doing it.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed you’re very charming.”

  Sadie, you’re playing with fire. Again. It would be better for me to shut up for a while, I thought when he snorted, irritated, but I kept tempting my luck, annoying him on purpose.

  Maybe it was a way to prove myself that I was still alive, in spite of all the danger.

  * * *

  The thrill of danger subsided slowly as the car ate the miles in its constant journey through the night. Blackness punctuated by yellow and white lines on the road, orange streetlamps, green signs with numbers and arrows pointing to fantastic places, where people lived, ate, fucked and slept every day without ever thinking about the Scope and the killers and the rapists who could become presidents. Now I felt a different thrill. The dangerous man at the wheel irradiated a powerful energy, like a force of gravity that could suck you in if you got too close: a man in black who was a black hole.

  I spent this time trying to weigh my options. Escaping right now was out of the question; I couldn’t just jump out of a car going so fast. I might be able to escape once we arrived... wherever it was Six was taking me. And then, what? If I went to the police, telling them about the rape attempt, I would have to tell them about Six. He wouldn’t let me do it. He could kill me on the spot, I thought with a shiver.

  “So,” I said after like an hour of silence, “you’re a hired gun.”

  He nodded, maybe grunted quietly.

  “And the Scope is... the organization you work for?”

  He sent me a brief reproachful look, then looked ahead once more. The beauty of his green eyes lingered in the air inside the car, then there was only his solid shape in the shadow, intermittently punctuated by the streetlamps passing one after the other. A dark silhouette against a background of flickering glow, like a vignette in a crime noir comic.

  “You’re Six,” I kept on, “so that means there are at least five more. Do you get much work?”

  He grunted so heavily this time that he made me flinch. I fell into
silence again as the road moved below us like a hardened sea.

  HIT THE ROAD, SIX

  SIX

  One last job. Just one. And then I would be out forever.

  Of course I had to fuck it up.

  As I stepped on the pedal, making the streets rush away in a maelstrom of darkness and light, I kept cursing at myself. I had botched the assignment and broken two of the rules that had always guided my work. Maybe three. And I would have to break one or two more.

  Why?

  Because of her.

  Because of the frightened girl who sat in the passenger’s seat, rubbing her hands against each other frantically, sending a furtive glance my way whenever she thought I wasn’t looking.

  This shouldn’t have happened. I didn’t have to let her be raped, but I didn’t have to keep her alive either. A quick, clean shot through his and her head, just a fraction of a second and it would all have been over.

  Yes, I should have killed her. It’s one of the rules in the hitman’s code: No witnesses.

  That’s why you always approach the mark when he’s alone. That’s why you make sure no one is looking. But if, despite your efforts, some poor soul ends up unexpectedly in the middle of the action, that soul must be sent to heaven immediately.

  No witnesses. No loose threads.

  And yet, there was a loose thread right beside me, shivering as the light and shadow drew ephemeral shapes on her body as they passed swiftly through. And the mark was still alive: the biggest violation to the rules.

  Why hadn’t I taken the shot? Why didn’t I want to?

  I wasn’t thinking clearly. It had been a very, very bad idea. But what’s done is done, I guess.

  “Where are we going?”

  It was the loose thread talking. I caught a glimpse of her legs with my peripheral vision, and I bit my lip to keep from giving her an answer. She kept making attempts at conversation, trying to make me talk about the Scope and whatnot. But I might have to kill her still; it wasn’t a good idea to start chit-chatting now. Even if I could somehow fix things and finish the job, the Scope would want her dead. There was the question of whether to get rid of her or try to...

  “Hey. I’m talking to you.”

  This time I had to look at her, surprised by her tone of voice. She spoke as if she was in control, and I were indebted to her instead of being her savior.

  Once more, since the instant where I botched the job, I dwelled in her eyes. They were big and beautiful, dark and transparent at the same time, because they let me see exactly how she felt in that moment. They were the eyes of a doe caught in the headlights, as the truck approaches fast with no signs of stopping.

  She was afraid of me; there was no doubt about it. Her face was pale, her lips pressed in fear. But she was doing her best to appear calm and dominating. I had to give it to her, that was admirable.

  But I still hadn’t decided if I was going to let her live.

  “This job was my ticket to retirement,” I said, skipping the answer she wanted.

  “This job?” she asked, and a second later, when she processed what I had just said, she added: “Was?”

  “I didn’t kill your asshole of a boss, you may have noticed,” I replied. “Partly because you threw yourself at my gun.”

  “At your arm.” She was quick to correct me.

  “How romantic.”

  She blushed, maybe for the third time, and looked through her window in an attempt to hide it.

  “I couldn’t just stand there while you killed him in cold blood.”

  “What do you care? The guy tried to rape you.”

  She shook visibly at the mention. After a few seconds, she insisted: “But you could have killed him at once, before that. Why didn’t you?”

  “There was no clear shot.”

  She glanced at me briefly and went back to the window. She looked disappointed, her lips pressed against each other.

  What did she expect to hear? That I had decided to reform myself?

  I had told her the truth, but it was a lie as well. There’s always a slice of time, a window when you have a clear shot. There had been one in this case. It was when she drew her head aside and saw me. In that moment, the candidate’s head had been the only thing at the crosshairs. A clean shot, a job quickly done.

  But there was a problem. When she saw me... I saw her, too.

  It had never happened before. I had never let something like that interfere with the job. Maybe it was because I instantly switched from killer mode to savior mode –my instinct was to save the girl, and killing the guy came on second place. But that explanation didn’t satisfy me. There was something more, something I saw in her eyes. Something like a transparency, as if I could see her true self just by looking at her.

  Seven would have offered a very simple explanation. “You’re going soft,” he would have said, patting me in the back with mocking sorrow. But who the hell knew where he was or even if he was still alive.

  OUT OF SCOPE

  SADIE

  I tried. I really tried to hate him as I watched him from afar, talking with the motel’s employee as the sun started to rise. Why wouldn’t I? He had shattered my whole life in a second, tearing my dream to pieces, so I had ample reasons to do so. But I couldn’t. I could only be grateful. Also (and this made me blush when I realized it), I found myself checking out his ass. He was still wearing the same clothes, minus the gloves and balaclava; his tight pants revealed the shape of a couple of muscular legs, and his black leather jacket made him look like a biker.

  Which he might well be. He had ditched the car on a side road which was basically just a dirt track. We then walked for several minutes, in the dark, until we happened upon an old barn. The wooden doors creaked open when he untethered them; then he turned on his flashlight again. His motorcycle was waiting there, dark and shiny. There was only one helmet, of course, so he gave it to me. We both climbed on the bike and came back to the main road. I had to clench my arms around him as we sped ahead, shivering from the cold wind but also feeling weirdly calmed by the iron-like hardness and strength of his torso, like a column standing unshaken in the middle of a storm. We arrived at the motel a couple hours later.

  “It’s done,” he said when he walked back to me, with the key to the room in one hand, and grabbed the helmet with the other. “You’re Jenny now. Come on.”

  “Jenny what?” I asked as I climbed down from the bike.

  “Just Jenny. They don’t ask questions here unless you mess up. So don’t.”

  You’re not a talker, eh? I thought, following him.

  The room was small and looked just about like you would expect from a place whose owners don’t ask questions. There was an old TV, an even older mini fridge, and a bed for two, if those two could manage to cram themselves in the space for one and a half. As soon as I saw it, I immediately felt sleepy. Only then I realized we had been travelling all night and it was now the morning after. I had dozed off once or twice in the car, but apart from that, I hadn’t slept.

  As I laid down on the bed, starting to close my eyes already, I saw his green eyes watching me. I couldn’t decipher his expression, but I think he was pissed off, maybe chastising himself for not having killed me right out. He could do it now, while I’m sleeping, I thought as my head rested on the worn out blanket. But I knew he wouldn’t. While I didn’t know exactly what was dwelling in those eyes as he looked at me, there was a part of it I could easily identify: raw desire.

  * * *

  It was hunger that made me wake up, not the abundant light of noon percolating through the rickety blinds. My stomach seemed to want to devour the rest of my body and then itself.

  I was alone.

  When I got off the bed, I noticed Six had taken the work of taking my shoes off me and put them in a corner of the room. Everything else was just like I remembered it from before falling asleep –nothing his was there, no jacket, no helmet, no gloves, no keyring or change or pack of cigarettes. I wondered
if he had decided to leave me alone (and free!) as he stayed on the run.

  No, I thought, alarmed. He said the Scope was after both of us. He can’t leave me alone. Not right now.

  It was ridiculous. I, a lawyer, and an aide to a lawmaker, was hoping that a professional killer continued protecting me, which meant also that I would be covering him. I should be thinking of getting out of here ASAP and going to the police. I was one of the good ones, he was one of the baddies.

  Yes. That’s it. The police will protect me well enough. If I only knew where I am exactly...

  We had been on the road for six hours maybe. We were still in the good ol’ South, but in which state? I’ve never been very good at orienting myself, and when I’m in shock I’m even worse. I didn’t even remember which direction Six took once we left the parking lot.

  I still had my cellphone with me, which struck me as odd. What was stopping me from calling, like, anyone at all? My mother, my sister, the police. I bet they could be here before Six could count to seven. And yet, he seemed to be so sure I wasn’t going to make any calls. Just as sure as he seemed to be about everything.

  By the way, I hadn’t received any calls either. I was half expecting a call from Mark. I certainly didn’t want to talk to him, but if the asshole was just a tiny bit worried about my safety, he should be trying to contact me. Unless he was still lying unconscious on the floor in his luxurious office.

  Then it hit me. Of course he won’t call you, fool, I thought, cursing at myself for being so stupid. You were not supposed to be there, alone, with him, at that hour. He was about to rape you. He won’t even think of calling you or sending you a message or doing anything that can prove he was in contact with you last night.

  In fact, the best thing that could happen to him was for someone to kill me as soon as possible. If not Six, someone else. Well away from him, and well before I could get in touch with any pesky journalist.

  I found myself trying to deny this, to somehow keep things just like they had been until a few hours earlier. But, of course, it was impossible. My life had been shattered. My dreams. My career. My sense of security. Everything.