by Leslie North
"You wore that dress last night," he said.
"So?" Alexa glanced down at the little blue-and-poppy-flower garment once more clinging to every refreshed curve of her body. She had loved it from the moment she had put it on, and she didn't have any plans of letting it go.
"It’s not practical," Damian snapped. "Please tell me you packed something else."
"I’m sorry that in the sixty seconds I had to pack, I didn’t put more thought to my ensemble," she responded crossly. "The only pair of jeans I was provided are wet, so this dress just so happens to be the most practical thing I own at the moment. And anyway, we don't have any plans to leave here, do we?"
"Not until tomorrow." Damian parted the blinds to look out into the soggy world they left behind. Alexa sat on the edge of the bed and toweled her hair. The lighting in the room was dim, but she thought she could make out a dark mark on the back of his shoulder that she had never seen before. A tattoo?
Damian's back muscles rippled, as if she could sense her eyes on him. He pulled a fresh shirt from his bag and punched his substantial arms through the sleeves. In one disappointing roll of fabric, her magnificent view ended.
"We'll leave first thing in the morning, regardless of weather conditions. Until I can get ahold of Rockwell, we may have to rely on the bus system."
"What about the car?" she asked hesitantly. "Won't they find it along the side of the road?"
"Most likely."
A foreboding tingle inched along her spine and encircled her neck, but she understood there wasn't much else to be done at this point. Damian was working the best he could with what he had… and she trusted him. That thought, more than anything, unraveled her insides. Exactly when had that shift happened?
"You really didn't have to do this," she whispered. "You didn't have to take me with you, I mean."
"It's my job."
She couldn't read his expression in room’s scant light. Alexa slid off the bed with a little huff of frustration and turned the lamp on low. Her attempt at illumination only succeeded in throwing Damian's face further into shadow. He had yet to move from where he leaned against the desk.
"It ceased being your job when they betrayed you, as far as I can tell," she said. "Having another person around only compromises your escape. You would have been better off leaving me, and we both know it."
"You don't compromise me," Damian responded abruptly, surprising her. After a long minute in which he seemed to contemplate his response, the man crossed his arms. "My job is to keep you safe, for better or worse. Worse encompasses the dissolution of my job, as far as I'm concerned. And anyway, I'm not convinced I'm done until the man who employs me tells me himself."
"And while my interest in your safety is professional, I won't lie and say it also isn't a little personal." Damian stared for a long moment at the carpet. "Your testimony puts Nico Volkov behind bars for a very long time—maybe even indefinitely. There are a lot of people, past and future, who would benefit from seeing that man hang."
Her body tensed at the unwelcome visual. "My father isn't going to hang," Alexa snapped. "He isn't going to be harmed at all. That's the whole point of me testifying. To get him off the street so he'll be safe."
"The streets will be safer with him gone," said Damian. "If you can't see that, then you're no different than every man who has ever killed in his name… but your motivation is beside the point. If we both get the results we want, then protecting you seems in both our best interests."
"What do you have against my family, anyway?" she demanded. "I get that you were a cop—believe me—I get it loud and clear. But this isn’t the standard cops-and-robbers feud. Did my father do something to you, personally?"
Her question plunged the room into silence. She had suspected all along that this may have been the case. Now, she regretted the question. Shadows around Damian deepened as his posture shifted away from her. He was closing himself off; she would never know his truths.
"I lost someone," he said quietly. "My partner. Someone I had sworn to protect. He was gunned down in a fight with the Volkov mob."
Alexa skin chilled as if she had never come in from the rain. She stared at Damian, willing him to go on, willing him to stop. When he offered nothing further, she lowered one foot to the floor then rose to stand before him.
“I’m sorry.”
Damian shifted, his elbows perched at his knees, hands clasped. His stare was distant, vacant.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
Alexa couldn’t stand before him and not touch him, comfort him, so she opened up the room with her body, her pace nearly a crawl, her fingertips trailing meaningless objects that barely registered in her mind. “There are so many things I didn’t know about my father until a few months ago. I didn’t know he could curl up with me one night and read me the story of The Firebird and the Princess Vasilisa and the next night empty an entire clip of ammunition into his Polish rival, Dionizy. I didn’t know he could promise my mother the moon and the stars but give her a life where she could never leave the house to see them. I didn’t think blind loyalty was a condition of love, and I didn’t think that loving your father enough to keep him alive was a sin.”
By the time she had returned to stand before him, her voice no longer held strength. It wavered, but it didn’t seem wrong that he should hear her weakness. She wasn’t her father any more than he wasn’t his partner’s guardian.
“The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.” His voice was quiet, and sounded rough with pain that she felt all too keenly.
A sad smile crossed Alexa’s lips. “And here I thought the only things you read were detective novels.”
“High school play. Senior year.”
“The merchant, Antonio?”
“Lorenzo.” Damian crossed to the bed and settled his weight on the end. He was still far enough away from her to feel like they were adhering to boundaries, but the surprise of someone else's weight cushioned beneath the mattress made her all too aware of their positions. The hotel room seemed to contract to the size of a bedroom around them, with the emphasis being on bed.
“Ah, the lover of Venice. I can see that.”
“Can you?”
“The Shakespeare part.” How could he sit there and not feel it, too? “You know what I mean.”
Alexa drew up her legs up beneath her and did her best to position herself primly. Maybe the tiny little dress had been a mistake. Against her express wishes, she remembered the last time they had shared a piece of furniture back at the safe house, and flushed with the thought of what had nearly transpired. She desperately needed to get her head back into the conversation. What had they been talking about?
Sins. Right.
“So tell me about your partner.”
Damian crossed his arms and studied the ground once more, as if viewing a screen that transported him into the past. “He was green. A rookie, not two years in. Toughest stretch on the force. After that, intuition kicks in. He relied on me too much. I allowed it. He had piss-poor excuse for a father, always trying to make up for it. He was so good, you know? Always stopping to talk to kids in the rough neighborhoods, telling them to stay in school, telling them if they needed anything to call, giving them his card. I always thought he picked the wrong career. I didn’t want to see the job steal that optimism. It always does.”
“It didn’t steal yours.”
Damian cocked an eyebrow.
“Really. You wouldn’t be here, with me, if you didn’t believe in things. Important things. Things that can’t be bought.”
Damian stood and repositioned himself in the desk chair. “My partner believed in those things. Look where that got him.”
His hands made busywork of organizing his gun clips, effectively ending the conversation and, thereby, every attempt by Alexa to atone for the sins of her father.
CHAPTER 8
"You want to ask about the tattoo," Damian guessed.
He had arrang
ed a place for himself on the floor beside the bed. Alexa sprawled above him, her stomach against the mattress, her bare legs swinging back and forth in the air, her cheek pillowed in her fist. An empty pizza box sat beside her.
"What tattoo?" she asked innocently.
Damian rolled his eyes.
"No, really. I'm not sure what you're talking about."
She was in better spirits now that she had eaten. Damian realized that he liked this side of her, quite a bit—an insight that was as frustrating as it was astounding. While he wasn't significantly older than she—the file indicated a four year difference—he felt young when she was in the mood to flirt.
With a disbelieving snort, he raised himself up and twisted at the waist, lifting the hem of his shirt until his back was exposed. He heard Alexa move on the bed until she sat on the edge of the mattress. A soft hand replaced his in holding the shirt aloft.
He stilled beneath her. A familiar stir awakened within him.
She traced the scrolled ink with a warm fingertip, the skim of her smooth, polished nail triggering gooseflesh along his neck. His heart bucked once wildly at the unexpected touch.
"Who’s Daryl?" she asked.
Damian turned his head, eyeing the intricate scrawl over his right shoulder. "He was a friend. We were kids together. I made a mistake that cost him his life."
"What happened?"
She withdrew her hand. Damian pulled his shirt down and repositioned to his side.
"There was this group of kids…bullies, I guess you could say. Daryl and I were usually inseparable, but one day these kids cornered me when I was alone. We could take them when it was the two of us, but without Daryl, I was scared shitless. Turns out they didn't want to hurt me as badly as they wanted to hurt him. They promised to let me go if I told them where he was. Daryl was bigger. I figured he had a better shot of defending himself. I was going to follow and ambush them, but my dad rode by in his squad car and made me go home with him. Said the town sheriff couldn’t have a kid that set a bad example in the community.”
“Did you tell him what the boys planned to do?”
“I tried, but he wouldn’t listen. Said he’d talk to the kids’ fathers after his shift. By then it was too late.”
“What happened to Daryl?”
“Kids beat him so badly that he was hospitalized. Missing teeth. Bruised kidneys. Broken sternum from one of punks jumping on his chest. He missed school for the rest of the semester. I was too ashamed of what I had done to visit him, even to bring him his homework. I knew he knew I ratted him out. First day after Christmas break, I found out from the teacher that his family had moved to Virginia. He was my best friend, and I betrayed him."
Damian had never told this story before, not even at the tattoo parlor. Back at the police academy, he had always let others draw their conclusions. The presumed death of a friend seemed easier to explain than the real story.
Alexa was quiet for a long moment. When her voice finally came, it was liquid, like the ceaseless rain, like a tepid elixir meant to numb the pain. "You were just a kid. Kids make mistakes. I'm sure if you met him today, he wouldn't blame you for what happened."
"But I was to blame," Damian insisted. "And that feeling… it never left me. Daryl never left me. I got the tattoo so I would never betray anyone like that again. I've been thinking about adding another name."
"Your partner?"
Damian nodded.
"You know…" Alexa mused. "Most normal guys get the name of the woman they love tattooed onto their skin."
"I don't see the point," muttered Damian.
"Of being in love?"
"Of trying to immortalize something that is fleeting at best and destructive at worst," he continued.
Alexa shook her head. "How long have you been waiting to lay that line on someone?"
Damian's mouth stretched to a rueful grin. "A while."
Alexa held her wrist aloft and turned it in the light. "Well, for what it's worth, I like your tattoo better."
"So do I."
A pillow dropped from above and connected solidly with his face. Before he had a chance to retaliate, Alexa had already whipped around in the bed and switched off the lamp. Damian thought it an unfair tactic. She knew he couldn't follow up the attack without encroaching on her territory.
We're going to have to establish some ground rules, her voice echoed in his mind. Damian settled down onto his makeshift bed, still fully clothed. Ground rules were good. Ground rules were what he had been championing since day one of living together with the vexing beauty.
The bed and the body shifting atop it pulled at his attention. Damian dragged a hand down his face.
He knew he was in for another long night.
***
They checked out without incident the next morning. Alexa waited for Damian outside a payphone across the street from the motel, keeping a lookout as he dialed the last number available to him. After a thirty second conversation, he hung up the phone.
"I've found us a place to stay," he said as he exited the booth. "He's a former client of ours."
"A former witness?"
"Yes. I'm afraid that's all I can tell you."
"Can we trust him?" she asked.
Damian picked up his bag, shouldered it, and started down the road. "We don't have a choice. Rockwell's house is two days from here, and I don't want to chance another motel. Flynn lives along the way. He and his family will put us up."
They walked in companionable silence. Damian would have never imagined the knockout in spiked heels he had met only a few days ago at a gas station would be a satisfactory road trip partner. Alexa rarely complained, though she did manage a few mild insults along the way that made him smile. He had a feeling she was only continuing the jabs to keep them both entertained. They had come to an understanding last night and forged a tentative connection in the darkness that he hoped the daunting miles of road stretched ahead of them couldn't shake.
They walked all morning until they reached a sleepy, farming community. Sunlight had burned off the humidity brought on by the previous night’s rains and the midday clouds cast shifting shadows on the seemingly endless miles of sunflower crops, not yet mature enough to bloom.
"Wait here," Damian instructed as he passed over the threshold of the local diner. A brief conversation with the hostess assured him that it was the right place. Their rendezvous with Flynn was a go.
When he exited the diner, Alexa was nowhere to be found.
He spotted her across the street with a strange man. She conversed quickly, using broad hand gestures and animated expressions. Damian had seen her wound like that before, the day he called her a child. The man was a good six inches shorter than Alexa. Spiked blond hair. Hawk-like nose. Slick shoes. Lit cigarette.
Guy didn’t belong here anymore than they did.
Damian’s gut edged on a razor-sharp notion of distrust. For a moment, his belief in the woman he was protecting wavered. He crossed the street behind a cluster of delivery trucks and crouched behind a pallet stacked with lumber, close enough to eavesdrop. Alexa appeared too absorbed with the stranger to notice.
"Sasha, listen to me…"
"You betray your family?" The man spoke in a thick Russian accent, and the bruised-colored flesh around his eyes looked as if it had been stretched and remolded after a hundred fistfights. Though Alexa was taller, the man more than doubled her size in corded muscle and angry ink.
Alexa stood her ground.
"I'm not betraying anyone.” Her voice was pure venom. “This is between my father and me—"
"Loh. Naïve girl. Your father is a father to us all!" Sasha spit at her. "He will hear what his daughter is doing while she makes plans to take down his empire."
“You’re one to talk, aren’t you?” Hands on her hips, stance wide, Alexa showed no indication of backing down. “I’m sure he would likewise be interested to know the arms deals you’ve been making with Boryskov while he’s stuck behind bars.�
�
Sasha's face sank into an ugly scowl. "You are coming with me, devka."
"I'm not going anywhere with you." Alexa took a step back.
The Russian seized her arm.
Damian launched from his spot and cleared the distance to Alexa in less than three strides. By the time he reached her, she had spun her body to clear her wrist from Sasha’s grasp and dropped the guy to the dirt with one carefully-aimed knee and an elbow strike to the fleshy part of his neck.
She glanced up at Damian. Her expression sagged in relief as if she hadn’t just done a complete Muay Thai breakdown on a Russian mobster.
Damian’s body stalled into inactivity, his brain slow to click the badass piece into Alexa’s confounding jigsaw puzzle.
“What?” she said, her tone mildly defensive. “You think my dad only read me fairytales?”
No immediate response surfaced for Damian. The guy at his feet groaned. Damian crouched to pin the bastard to the pavement, easily besting him, exerting enough pressure on the guy’s wrist to turn his hand bone-white from loss of circulation. The Russian’s guttural curses threatened to empty his intestines onto the highway.
"Friend of yours?" he inquired over his shoulder to Alexa.
Damian wrestled the guy’s wrist another twenty degrees, exposing the crossbones of a faded Volkov gang tattoo.
The choirboy grunted in pain, but complied with the brutal handling.
“Hardly.” Alexa's icy eyes narrowed. "Not a friend to me, nor to anyone in my family."
"That's too bad." Damian gave the stranger's wrist a sharp jerk. Internal bones crunched, heralding a clean break.
Sasha howled in agony.
Passersby crossing the street shot alarmed looks over their shoulders.
“Check him for weapons,” said Damian.
Alexa knelt beside him and fished her hands through the guy’s pockets and every place a holster would ride the body. “None.”
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Drago. We’re going to let you recover your stinging nuts by tying you up over here behind the lumber yard.” Damian nodded to Alexa to grab a handful of plastic lumber ties as he hauled her attacker to his feet and half walked, half dragged him behind the nearest pallet. “Workers punch in for the day. You never saw us. Understand?”