Fallen Hunters-Bacchus

by Monica Owens

  “Get down!” I shouted.

  We all hit the floor, every man covering a woman. Bullets peppered the walls, the windows, the doors. Liquor bottles exploded, an oil lamp splintered. Deats got up and ran over to stop the spread of fire. He dropped his jacket onto the fire and stomped, then hid behind the bar to avoid getting shot.

  I was half on top of Baby, her dress yanked up her legs. Not the time to think about it, but my fucking dick knew it was resting right on her ass and he came straight to attention. Little bastard. I held my head down, like everyone else, and took the opportunity to grind into Charlotte’s ass. Because I’m an asshole.

  The sirens started and the headlights churned backward, away from our establishment. Dottie jumped to her feet immediately and raced to the back stairs. Her boy was in his room and no doubt terrified. Marty ran after her.

  The rest of us remained where we were.

  Another attack on us so soon after Joe’s death meant only one thing. While killing Joe had been a warning, we hadn’t moved fast enough to give Capone what he wanted.

  I pulled Charlotte’s hair back from over her ear and leaned over her. “You okay?” I whispered.

  She nodded and gave me a tremulous smile.

  I got to my feet and helped her up. Fern was already helping Deats clean up the remains of the small fire that had broken out. Mick, One and Two were rushing around trying to hide whatever the cops would love to find.

  I just stood there, holding Charlotte’s hand.

  This was no place for her. I kissed her forehead softly. “Go check on Dottie, yeah? I’ll deal with the cops.”

  Her hand came up to lie on my chest. “You sure?”

  “Yeah, Baby, go make sure that kid of hers is all right.”

  She skirted broken glass and disappeared up the stairs. Fern gave me a hard look but didn’t say anything. It was Mick who said it.

  “She’s gotta go, Angelo.”

  Like I didn’t know that. Like I didn’t know that those Tommy guns were meant to kill us all, including her. Capone knew she was with me, which meant he knew I probably had had her, which meant I’d taken something from him twice over. If I didn’t hand her over, he’d kill us all. I couldn’t let that happen.

  “Yeah,” I said softly. “I know.”

  “She’s a good girl,” Fern told me. “She doesn’t belong here.”

  “Yeah,” I said, a little harder than before. “I know.”

  The police sirens stopped right outside the building. Soon footsteps would be pounding down those stairs, busting through into the speakeasy. Cops had looked the other way for so long. I’d taken care of Dottie and her kid, I’d paid the right people, but there was no way they could overlook the building being shot up and potential innocent victims.

  “Fern, get upstairs. One and Two, you go, too. Just me and Mick’ll take the heat.”

  “Angelo—” Fern began.

  “Go,” I said again. “Someone’s gotta bail us out.”

  My cover wasn’t blown, but I sure as fuck had overstayed my welcome in Chicago.

  Chapter Ten

  Marty picked me and Mick up the next morning. Paid our bail and drove us back to the speakeasy. Mrs Dorchester wasn’t in and the pretense of owning a bookstore was shot to hell. Literally. The windows had been boarded up, but let’s face it, I wasn’t going to open that store back up.

  I’d made a plan during the night while Mick snored on the bunk above me. I had to take care of the people around me, then I’d go after Capone. It’s what he wanted. He wanted me to die or get arrested so he could snap Charlotte up. That wouldn’t happen, but I could still let him kill me.

  Everyone was in Dottie and Fern’s apartment. Mick and I walked in with Marty behind us, but no one said anything. Living on the outside of society teaches you lots of things. One of them is that any day, shit could be over. And it was over for us.

  “I’m gonna clean up,” I told the lot of them. “Wash jail off me and then we’ll all talk, okay?”

  No one answered and I turned away. What could they say?

  I went upstairs and started stripping off my clothes. Just as I filled the sink with water, I heard the apartment door open and close. The tentative steps approaching could only mean one person.

  After that first time yesterday, she’d been sore, but she wanted to do it again. So I lay down and lowered her over me. She loved it. Rode me until her legs got tired and I took over. She’d be sore again today, but I wanted to touch every inch of skin she had. Memorize it all.

  She stood in the bathroom doorway, fingering a ribbon on her dress. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Nothing a good scrub won’t hurt.” I braced my hands on the sink and looked at her in the mirror. “Tell me about Nebraska.”

  “It’s nowhere special.”

  “It is if you came from there.”

  She gave me a smile that faltered almost immediately. “Do you want me to draw you a bath?”

  “Yeah, Baby, that would be nice.”

  She moved around me and knelt by the tub. I watched her graceful movements, watched her fill the tub with flaming hot water. She seemed careful not to look at me. When she tossed in a bath salt, I knew she had every intention of joining me. So I wasn’t surprised when she stood up and began to untie the ribbon on her dress.

  We were naked in the tub, the water skimming her nipples, her back to my front, when I pulled her hand out of the water. I coasted my fingertips down her forearm and up her bicep. She shivered.

  I cupped a breast. “Did you give me this because of the money?”

  She moaned as I flicked a nipple with my finger. “No.”

  “Then why?”

  My shoulder cradled her head and she twined her fingers with mine. “My parents came to me and told me about the mortgage, the banker’s offer. A friend of mine had done the same thing in a neighboring town. But it wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right and I sure didn’t love him. I talked my parents into this, coming to Chicago to try to make money. They didn’t want me to marry that banker anymore than I wanted to.”

  “But why here?”

  She shook her head and shrugged those creamy shoulders. “I don’t know. I felt like I needed to be here. When I stepped off the train and Costa herded me toward Ebby’s, I didn’t know how to stop it.” She turned her head, her breath hot on my chest. “Then you came.”

  Seeing her beaten and almost raped nearly killed me. I didn’t say a word.

  “I knew. I just knew when you broke down that door that you were the one I was supposed to find. You would help. Maybe I felt that way because that man was trying to hurt me. For all I knew, you would do the same thing as that man. But I didn’t think so. It’s stupid, I know, but I trusted you the moment I saw you.”

  I cupped her chin in my hand. “This is where you want to be?”

  “Yes,” she said emphatically.

  “And if I’m not here?”

  She paused, those big blue eyes searching my face. “I know you’ll find a way back to me.”

  “If I can’t?”

  “You will.”

  “Baby—”

  “Why do you call me that?”

  I grinned at her attempt to change the subject. “You’re like a baby-doll. Porcelain and delicate. I don’t want you to break.”

  “I’m stronger than you think.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded once. “Yeah.”

  I leaned and kissed her, my mouth hot on hers. “Show me.”

  I guided her to her knees, her hands gripping the sides of the tub, her legs on either side of me. The bathwater helped me slide up inside of her. Tendrils of her hair, wet from the bath, snaked down her back and over her shoulders. I watched the muscles of her legs and ass work as she drifted up and down on me. She moved fluidly, her head thrown back, as she moaned louder and louder. I felt almost every muscle in her pussy grip me and I spread my hands across her hips.

  This might be the last time I fucked
her, so I wanted to make it good. I reached around and found her clit, squeezing it gently as she detonated all over me. Her fingers tightened on the porcelain tub and she pulled every drop of come right out of me.

  I wanted to take care of her. But after that fucking orgasm, she turned and batted those pretty blue eyes at me and I was toast. She washed me, dragging a sponge and a washcloth all over me, even my cock and balls. This one was a keeper.

  Too bad I’d be dead soon.

  ****

  “So that’s the plan?” Marty asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Marty and Mick exchanged glances. I ignored them and kept pulling money out of the safe.

  “I think you mighta left some things out, Angelo,” Marty tried again.

  “Nope.”

  Marty pursed his lips but didn’t say anything. Mick tried, though. “You honestly think that you’re gonna walk out of Capone’s with all your parts intact? Because I don’t see that shit happening.”

  “It’s not,” I answered. The piles of money on the desk in front of me were getting bigger. Nine piles to be exact. Marty, Mick, Dottie, Fern, One, Two, Charlotte, Deats and Dottie’s kid. Shit. Eleven piles. Forgot about Mrs. Dorchester and her son. Dammit. Now I had to start over.

  They watched me restack then pull out more money.

  Marty moved closer. “Look, we know what you’ve done for all of us, but getting yourself killed over a bird? Is she worth it?”

  I glanced at him, but I didn’t answer.

  Mick folded his arms across his chest. “You didn’t see that big lug that was trying to rape her, Marty.”

  Even thinking about that set my teeth on edge.

  “Capone ain’t gonna stop until he’s got Baby in hand,” Mick went on. “I don’t advocate killing yourself over a dame, but shit, maybe Marty’s right.”

  “We all gotta go sometime,” I answered.

  The piles got bigger and Mick got up to help me. Marty brooded on the couch in the downstairs count room. My mind was made up, but it was taking a hell of a long time to make theirs up, too. I was handing Marty money on a silver fucking platter, he could go anywhere he wanted, and he was worried about me getting blasted by Capone?

  Finally, I looked over at him, his elbows resting on his knees and his head bowed down. “Marty.”

  He lifted his head. “Yeah?”

  “Ask Dottie to go with you.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Huh?”

  “Wherever you go. Ask her to go along. She ain’t got nothing and no one. Besides, Charlotte doesn’t need you as a bodyguard, not if Mick goes with her.”

  “What makes you think that I—”

  “Oh, don’t play dumb,” Mick interrupted. “We all know you’ve got calf eyes for the young widow.”

  “Mick and I got this,” I told him. “Go ask her. Tell her the plan. We all gotta get out of Chicago tonight. Might as well get a head start.”

  Marty flushed. He was a good guy, but I could see what the problem was. He thought his past would make him look bad in her eyes. Funny thing is, love doesn’t work that way. Dottie’d been making calf eyes at him almost as long as he’d been pining for her.

  “Get out of here,” Mick insisted. “We ain’t gonna steal your money.”

  After a little more cajoling, Marty took his leave. I had no doubt that he and Dottie would be on the road within the hour, top down on that new car he’d bought, headed to the Pacific Ocean. The two of them talked about it enough.

  Mick and I finished counting up the money and I pulled out two cigars. We clipped them and lit them up. He leaned against the counting table as I sat down. Mick was in his early thirties and didn’t talk much about his life before we hooked up. All I knew was that he’d been born in Ireland and immigrated here when he was a kid. It was the same sob story as half the people in America. But from what he had—and hadn’t—said, it seemed like Mick had maybe had it a little worse than others.

  “You trust me with her?” he asked.

  My plan involved Mick taking Charlotte back to Nebraska. Seemed to me that One, Two, and Fern would probably go along. If what Charlotte said about her family’s farm was true, they’d probably need the help. Deats could have helped too, but he’d already stated he was staying in Chicago to look after Mrs. Dorchester.

  “Not at all,” I answered, the cigar clamped between my teeth.

  He laughed. “Asshole.”

  “I trust you,” I said after a moment.

  “Yeah? So why go there alone?”

  I couldn’t explain it to him. How could I put it into words? Besides, Capone didn’t want Mick. Hell, he didn’t even want me. But that’s what he was getting.

  When I didn’t answer, Mick nodded. “I get it. I had a Charlotte once, too. Only I didn’t protect mine.” He stared down at the tip of his cigar and I wasn’t even sure he was going to say anything else. “I got your girl, de Bacchio. She’ll be safe. Maybe not happy, but she’ll be safe.”

  I sat and stared at the money on the table. I couldn’t even thank him. Not even when he left to go get his stuff together. I sat for an hour or two, working up the courage to get this thing done.

  I could be a fallen angel all I wanted. A Hunter all I wanted. But when you gotta put your money where your mouth is…shit gets hard.

  Shit gets real hard.

  Chapter Eleven

  Charlotte cried. God, I hadn’t known the woman for more than two weeks and she was killing me with her tears. She was killing me, period. I fucked her hard and good again and then I told her the plan. Not real nice of me to drop the bomb during afterglow, I’ll admit, but we had to get a move on. I couldn’t let her go without another taste, I’m not that much of a martyr. But she cried. I tried to kiss her tears away, but she wasn’t having any of it.

  She pulled away from me and sat up in our bed. Fuck, we hadn’t really spent more than a day as lovers, and now I had to send her off. I ran my fingertips down her back, and while she shivered, she didn’t turn to look at me.

  “Baby, it’s just for a little while—”

  “No it isn’t,” she interjected, anger in her tone. “He’s going to kill you. You’re sending me away so that Capone can kill you.”

  Since I couldn’t argue with that, I didn’t say anything.

  Now she turned to me in a rustle of bedclothes. Her hair was delightfully tousled and her cheeks were red with the burn of my stubble. “He’s going to kill you,” she said again, like I was a fool.

  “He was going to kill me sooner or later, Charlotte.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I’m in his way. Better to barter for something I love while I’m going down.”

  She blinked. “What did you say?”

  In all of my mixed up emotions over the last thousand years, I don’t think I’d ever loved anyone. Not the way I loved Charlotte. There was a goodness in her that wasn’t in a lot of people. Hell, she’d traveled over a bunch of states to help her fucking parents out of a jam. But more than that, as a fallen angel, as a Hunter, I’d seen a lot in my years. Charlotte was the only woman I’d seen that could even hold a candle to what Heaven had been like.

  Oh, I didn’t believe that Charlotte was sent from Heaven, far from it. But a lot of people lose the innocence they’re born with before they even hit their teens. Charlotte still had it. She glowed with it. It’s the light of a million stars almost. Those big blue eyes went straight to her soul and what I saw in them I hadn’t seen in a millennia.

  “Yeah,” I ran a hand over my head. “About that….”

  “You said you loved me?”

  See? Those big blue eyes were blinking now, tears filling them up fast. All I could do for her now was get her home. Back to where she belonged. I wasn’t good enough for her, but she’d always be mine. And I didn’t have the heart to lie to her, to hurt her worse than I was.

  “Yeah, Baby. Yeah, I said that.”

  She threw her arms around me. “Oh, Angelo.” I heard the sob in her th
roat before she let it go. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  Her tears wet my cheek.

  Then I realized they weren’t hers.

  ****

  I waited until she was getting ready in the bathroom before I pulled my staff out of my inner coat pocket. Her carpet bag was sitting on the bed, the money in a false bottom we’d put in. Carefully, so as not to disturb the clothes she’d packed, I fit the staff in next to the money. Maybe she’d never find it, hidden as it was in that carpet bag. Maybe she would find it and think how pretty this jeweled stick was. At the very least, when I went to look for her, I’d be able to hone in on my staff. Sure, I’d probably need it when I went to get Capone, but giving it to Charlotte was more important.

  Before she could make it out of the bathroom, I snuck away.

  We’d already said our goodbyes.

  Chapter Twelve

  I watched as they all left. First Marty and Dottie and the cute tow-headed kid she had. They trundled into Marty’s car and didn’t look back. Mick filled up his car with just a few bags. They all knew they couldn’t take much with them, but I had a feeling that nothing left behind would be missed.

  It was nearing dusk when Mick ushered Fern out through the back door. One followed and he quickly headed to the driver’s seat. Mick waited till One started the car before he got Fern settled. Smart man. Who knows if someone had attached a bomb to the ignition. Best to keep Fern safe.

  Then there she was. My saving grace. My Baby. My Charlotte. She stepped out of that old building like she was getting ready to go to a party. Her hair was done up, she wore a warm, fancy coat, and her feet were encased in sensible shoes, even though they were a bright purple.

  I hung back farther in the shadows, leaning against the garage across the alley. My hands were jammed in my pockets and I fisted them so I wouldn’t go after her. That woman was everything to me. I was sending her away and she still meant the world to me.