by Cynthia Dane
Nala saw the horror before it arrived. A large intersection. A red light. No time to stop. And no time to wait for Hawk to catch up and smack them into oncoming traffic anyway.
Vincent would do that on his own.
Screams erupted from every direction. Vincent cursed at the top of his lungs, whipping the steering wheel this way, holding himself back, and pointing in the other direction. Nala remained curled up in her seat, belt far away from her throat in case it got any ideas about decapitating her.
Horns that did not belong to Vincent’s car blew up. Through every window - whether broken or not - Nala saw a riot of colors through the rain. Cars. Trucks. People. Bags. Signs. Buildings. This part of Portland was about to get a face lift. Luckily it did not come from Vincent, who managed to maneuver his way through the red light without a scratch.
The same couldn’t be said for the cars behind them.
Nala would never forget that moment. When she looked in the side mirror, she saw three cars smack into one another, a flurry of pedestrians run away screaming, and enough smoke to be mistaken for another cloudy day. Before she could find out if a fire erupted from the pileup, Vincent turned down another road and swerved around cars until they were on the nearest bridge taking them into Washington.
It wasn’t until they were halfway across the Columbia when Vincent finally slowed down, his eyes almost never leaving the rearview mirror. “I think we lost her in that crash,” he mumbled. “If it didn’t get her, it at least slowed her down.”
Even so, Nala found it very fucking difficult to calm down. Her heart continued to beat incessantly in her chest; her breath was caught in her throat like a whirlwind. Nala had come this close to death yet again, and she was the one about to explode in tears and vomit.
“We’ll have to dump the car,” Vincent muttered. “Otherwise they’ll know where we’re going. Plus, cops.”
Nala looked around. They were in Vancouver now, surrounded by cars with Washington plates and road signs shaped like a dead president’s head. “Where are we going?”
Vincent puffed out his cheeks as his brain continued to tick off a list of things he had to do. “We’ll head toward Seattle. I’ll grab some cash at an ATM when we dump the car.”
“Dump the car?”
“You heard me.”
Oh, she did. The moment they were in the countryside, Vincent prompted her to get out before he had the chance to pull off the side of the road. He parked his car behind a small grove of trees. It wouldn’t be enough to cover it forever, but it should be enough to give them a head start… wherever they were going.
They got out, taking whatever valuables they could carry… which wasn’t much. Nala had her small backpack and Vincent had his wallet. He brought his keys with him, not that he would need them.
He grabbed a large wad of cash from the nearest ATM and peered around a quiet town in search of something. Hawk? Cops? No. It was a used car available for a few hundred bucks. Vincent paid extra cash in exchange for the seller’s silence. The way the gruff looking man nodded… He probably thinks we’re drug dealers. Nala had never felt dirty like this before. She kinda liked it, if only because it took her mind off the terrors they had been through.
This car was far from being as nice as Vincent’s old one. It grumbled. It shook. The seatbelt barely worked, but Nala made it work, because the last thing they needed was to be pulled over by police. Vincent kept to the back roads as they headed north to Seattle, where they, in his words, could lay low for a while. Nala had no idea what to expect in the next few hours, let alone days.
They didn’t say a damn thing the whole drive to Seattle. Nala fought back a wave of shivers that could have either been illness or more fear. When will I be safe again? She looked to Vincent, whose grim face was set and sticking to the road before them. Signs announcing turn offs to the outskirts to Seattle eventually appeared. Nala wondered what they would do once they got there. Did he have friends? A safe-house? Were they wanted now? Nala tried to sink into her uncomfortable seat and take a nap, but sleep did not come easy with her adrenaline still on high.
It wasn’t until they were checked into a hotel outside Seattle when Nala finally allowed herself to breathe, and it wasn’t an easy breath. Even with Vincent sitting on the bed with her, their eyes staring emptily at a picture of a vase of daisies on the wall, Nala still waited for another bullet to whisk by or for the car she was no longer in to swerve in either direction.
Finally, she threw herself into Vincent’s arms and held on for dear life.
“It’s okay,” he said, patting her back. “We’re safe for now. We’ve got a car nobody is looking out for. I’ve got cash so I don’t have to use my card. I can easily hack the GPS in our phones. I’ve got a fake ID so I can get us rooms…”
“You’ve got a fake ID?”
“Sure do. They’re easy to get, especially with my connections.”
He’s probably seen fake IDs being made since college. Those tech geeks… “Is there anyone we can trust here? I don’t know anyone in Seattle. Crow owns half this city too…”
“That may be so, but there was nowhere else to go in the moment. If we have to, I can sneak us down the coast toward California. I’ve got some friends there who may be able to help us.” Vincent pulled away from her and gave her shoulders a firm, reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry, darling. Rest. I’ve got some calls to make.”
Except Nala couldn’t rest. She lay on the bed, afraid to take off any of her clothes even though they were the only ones she had in her possession. This reminded her of staying in hotels around Portland. Except things were even worse now… it actually wasn’t like their previous situation at all!
“…I’m serious. I have all the evidence we need to get an arrest and a conviction. Yeah, I hacked it. Do you think I would admit otherwise?” Vincent must have been on the phone with the lawyer they were supposed to meet. “I need your help. No, stop, listen. I know you don’t want to get involved, but you were involved the moment you met that man. He’ll keep making your life hell until this is over, so you really want to help us right now. Okay? Good.” Vincent sat at a table in the corner of the room and jotted something down on a complimentary notepad. “Make sure you hire some security. I can give you a number. If they’ll let you, have a guy at the hospital. I’m serious, Lucian…”
Lucian? Nala turned over.
“I know you’re freaked out, man. How do you think I feel? It’s what I’ve been telling you since the beginning. You think you know the guy, but he’s a fucking killer. That Hawk has tried to kill us twice now, and I have all the evidence I need to prove that she killed my fiancée and my girlfriend’s sister. You think he won’t come after you and Clara too? He already has!”
Silence. Vincent glared at his phone as Lucian said whatever he had to say.
“No. Don’t leave Portland unless you have to. I need someone there, especially since I don’t have access to my computers. I need you to do me favor. I need you to look up the address of Jay and Marguerite Jones. Yes, I’m serious. They are somehow involved with this. Crow killed their kid. At this point, anyone in The Aviary who hasn’t been touched in some way by Crow’s disgusting deeds is probably working with him. Look into that as well. Look for any tragic or mysterious deaths in the other members’ families. Yeah, you remember Crow’s girlfriend Raven? That was Nala’s sister. I’m not fucking with you. Start digging. You’re already in hot water, you might as well enjoy the bath.”
When Vincent hung up, he sat on the edge of the bed next to Nala and put a hand on her side. “So what now?” she asked. “What are we gonna do? I doubt the police here are any help either. If anything, they want our asses as much as the ones in Portland do. Or anywhere. Oh my God, Vincent, how fucked are we?”
“Pretty fucked,” he admitted. “That doesn’t mean we can’t get through this, though. Our main goal right now is to not get killed or arrested.”
“Oh, well, that’s easy.”
He ignored her sarcasm. “We need to get the evidence into the hands of someone who can do something with it. The news? He probably owns all of it around here. Still, it won’t hurt to look into it.” Vincent tightened his grip on Nala. “I’m so sorry it has come to this. I knew going into The Aviary that I was putting myself at risk. I should have thought more about you as well, but…”
“Back then, I was your means to an end. Things have changed.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry. I was short-sighted.”
“You did what you thought was right. Do you think I was planning things any better? I don’t blame you for any of this, Vincent.”
“I’m glad.”
Nala sat up, resting her head on the brunt of his shoulder. “Could you do me a favor? Could you hug me and say that we’re going to be okay? Even if you’re lying, I want to hear it.”
Vincent drew her into his arms and kissed the side of her head. Nala had to fight back the urge to cry into the crook of his neck. Be strong. Now is not the time to show too much weakness. Anything could happen at any moment. Fuck.
“We’re going to be all right, Nala.” She knew that voice was fake. There was no way Vincent could say that so reassuringly. “At the very least, I’ll make sure that you’ll be all right. I’ll do everything in my power to protect you. Because I…”
Nala’s breath caught in her throat for the tenth time that day… and this time it had nothing to do with adrenaline. Is he going to say it? This would be a helluva time to admit that he loved her!
“Because I wouldn’t make it if I lost you too.”
That was as close to a love declaration as Vincent Lane would ever make. Nala rolled into his arms, letting her cheek feel the softness of his clothes. I’m here. He’s here. We’re safe for now. I couldn’t be safer with anyone else in this world. I fucking love him. I know he loves me. That’s all that matters.
Whatever happened now didn’t matter. Nala was scared, but she was still willing to go down if Vincent was by her side. She hoped he felt the same exact way. He had to. For his sake - and hers.
Entry #22
We are on the run again, this time in Seattle. Every time I think I can’t come closer to death, I’m proven wrong again.
This time it’s indisputably personal.
Not just my hatred for him.
But his hatred for me.
One of us will destroy the other before it’s too late.
Chapter 11
History repeated itself in Seattle. They went from hotel to hotel, Vincent using a series of fake IDs he kept in the back of his wallet. Nala’s identity changed as well depending on who asked. Sometimes her name was Natalie. Other times it was Natasha. Once, she introduced herself to a hotel clerk using the name Natalya. They were easy to remember and yet so different. Not like Vincent, who was Lewis one minute and Gabriel the next.
He used his reserves of cash to rent these rooms, buy them food, and buy them small necessities. It was not a glamorous life, not even when compared to hotel hopping in Portland. That had been a warning. This was real. Nala lived under a constant threat of death. Her hotel could catch on fire. She could be shot or hit by a car crossing the street with Vincent right in front of her. What a way to go.
And Vincent? Well, all Nala could say was that she was happy he had plenty to distract himself with. Otherwise, when he suffered from downtimes, he was a bundle of negative energy.
The man was still processing the horrors. The horrors of what Xavier Crow did to his fiancée, and the horrors of almost dying in his own car. Sometimes he opened up to Nala about these terrors, but more often than not he drowned himself in phone calls and researching things on either his or Nala’s phone. She tried to help where she could, but without knowing what ticked in her boyfriend’s mile-a-minute brain, it was nearly impossible.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked the second day. Vincent kicked up his heels on the hotel room couch, searching a million things on his phone. If he had a real computer, I would be really shut-out. The only thing keeping Mr. Billionaire from walking into a store and buying one was the fact he didn’t have enough cash and didn’t want to use his card anywhere. “I hate standing around feeling useless.”
“You’re not useless,” he said. “But if it makes you feel better, you could go through those emails we have and highlight the really important things.”
It was a task best left to some law enforcement grunt, but Vincent was right in that it made her feel better. At least I have something to do. As painful as some of the emails were to read, Nala re-read as many as she could, creating a color-coded system from a pack of highlighters Vincent bought at the nearby convenience store. Pink for names. Green for ordered hits. Blue for veiled threats. Etc., etc.
She nearly lost her light lunch of a sandwich when she reached the correspondence between Crow and Desirée. He did unspeakable things to her. She carried her child, and was probably never going to tell Vincent either thing. What would Nala have done in that situation? Well, she wasn’t Desirée, that was for sure. She would have made very different decisions from Vincent’s fiancée. One of those things would have been telling him about the acts. Then again, Nala knew a very different Vincent from the one Desirée was destined to marry.
Was she scared? Desirée must have been scared. Although her words to Crow were calm and collected, there was an underlying panic to them. She didn’t want Crow to be a part of her life - not after what he had done. Yet she needed the money. She had decided to raise the baby - with Vincent, no less - and back then there was no way to know how rich Lane Technological Solutions would make everyone. I wouldn’t take that poisoned money. Easy for Nala to say. She was used to poverty and making things work on the tightest budget around, whether or not she had to take care of people beyond herself. Desirée probably wasn’t used to that. She probably grew up middle class like Vincent. She wanted a certain life for her baby, regardless of who the biological father was. Because Vincent would be the real father.
Nala swallowed the last of her bile for the day as she put those emails to the side. Instead, she went through some more recent ones, particularly about Othello and Sparrow. Last Nala had heard, Melanie / Sparrow was still in a coma in some German hospital. Just like how Robin was still in a hospital, probably the safest place for her to be right now.
“Lucian sent me the Jones’ address,” Vincent interrupted her. “They live all the way out in Hillsboro.”
“What’s weird about that?” It was the westernmost suburb, practically in farm country if someone strayed too far from the main streets, but not a strange place for someone to live. If the Jones’ wanted extra land, that was the place. “Don’t Starling and Joseph live in Beaverton?”
“That’s all well and good, but the address isn’t exactly high flying. They live in pure suburbia. Two bedroom house. Small yard. The house is worth about $500,000, and that’s only because of the bubble. A few years ago when it was bought, it was only about $300,000.”
Only, the billionaire says. “So what are you saying? That they’re not exactly swimming in dough?”
“Hardly. Either that or they love living the simple life by a millionaire’s standards.”
Nala thought back to their dinner. It felt like months ago. “I thought they were investing in huge properties, though?”
“That’s what I thought too. They’re getting money from somewhere, but it’s definitely not reflected in their home. The nicest thing they own is their car, and it’s five years old.”
“Do you know how ridiculous you sound?”
“Point being, Nala… well, I don’t know what the point is. Find anything new in those emails?”
Just an exchange where Desirée condemns Crow to hell. “Not yet. I’m organizing them again. Hey, at least we have them. Who knows what they’ve gone through at your house.”
Vincent pursed his lips. “I’m sure the police have been through a time or two by now. They probably know more about you than you do.”
“Maybe they think I’m a Russian spy by now. Or a mail-order bride. Even though I was born here.”
She exchanged a smile with Vincent. He found it in him to waggle his eyebrows at her. “I have very discerning tastes for a man who…”
“Who yanks girls off staircases and turns them into his unsuspecting subs?”
“I was under the impression you liked it.”
“Oh, I do, Mr. Lane.”
It was the first real flirtation - let alone one laced with promises of kink - between them in days. Maybe a week. Ever since the bodyguards started hanging around the loft, there weren’t many opportunities to even make out, let alone have sex. I’m dying. Now that the adrenaline rush had faded for the time being, Nala’s hormones took over again. Her period came and went over the past few days, both relieving her that she wasn’t pregnant and annoying her that it existed during such a time of high stress, so now all she could think about was getting off and then getting off some more.
There hadn’t been time for that, though. There definitely wasn’t time in Vincent’s world. If he longed for her like she did for him, none of that was happening until…
Nala stopped flipping through the stack of printouts. With a highlighter in hand, she grimaced, her face paling as she read her sister’s name in a “FROM” field.
“Mr. Crow, I cannot thank you enough for the plethora of opportunities you have given me these past few months. Working as a researcher for your company has been an absolute pleasure. I’m sorry the latest trial did not work out like we hoped, but my resignation from your company has nothing to do with the work itself. I just can’t do the personal anymore.”
Nala knew that she should not keep reading. Yet she did, because she was a glutton for punishment.