by Alaska Jones
“When did I promise you that?” I snort, sitting down to put on my boots.
“Last night, when you woke up. You asked me to lock the door, and then you said, I promise you, I’ll stay in bed all day.”
“Oh, really?” I stand up and step to her. “I said that?”
Her eyebrows draw together as she struggles to keep a serious face. “You said that.”
“Nice try, sweetheart.” I can see her cheeks darken as she blows out an angry breath and stalks off to the bed. “Call me if anything happens, and stay in the room.”
“You just locked it. How am I supposed to get out?”
“I’d love to hear the answer to that question, too.” I wink at her and walk out the door.
The fresh air is a relief, since I still have a fever, but the stench of blood and sand in the car makes me sick. I shouldn’t have left it in the sun like this, but I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.
It’s ten at night, and the roads are still busy as I head to Wholesale District, an industrial neighborhood up north. It’s hard to say why I didn’t think of this before. I knew Hunt had other facilities in town, aside from the three clubs, but I dismissed the idea when I still thought he left LA. Now that I know he’s here, hiding right under the mob’s nose, I bet he’s using the same tactics for the load he has stolen.
I take a couple of extra turns before I hit the highway to make sure no one’s tailing me, but even if Dwight does have a hidden agenda, he wouldn’t have me followed from the building. He might be a rotten old rascal, but he’s no fool, to turn me on himself like that. It’s probably the only reason why I’ve been allowed to set my own rules all this time, him being afraid I’d switch teams and start working against him. Little does he know, I’m going to quit the game altogether.
The road only takes twenty minutes. I pull up in some dark alley and grab my black hooded sweatshirt from the back as I get out of the Jeep. The small industrial building that Hunt owns under a fake name is just down the road, so I walk there, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. There are no lights or any other signs of someone’s presence, but I see them all the same, the two guards on the roof with automatic guns. Their presence is all I need to know that something definitely is in there.
I smile as I jog back to the Jeep and hop inside. Dwight is only one of the many, and Hunt has pissed off quite a few of them. If Dwight becomes a problem, I’ll find someone else who’s interested in this information.
My phone buzzes in my jeans pocket, and I stare at it in surprise. “What?” I ask, seeing Jenna’s number on the screen. The hair on the back of my neck stand on end as I hear nothing but static. “Jenna?”
“Cage, do you- ” she disappears again.
“Jenna, what happened??” I start the car with a nervous twist of the key.
“Cage? Do you hear me? The connection is really bad,” her voice finally comes through, and I heave a sigh of relief, cursing myself for overreacting every time it comes to her.
“Why are you calling me?” I say irritably as I turn the Jeep back to the main road.
“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t pass out somewhere in a gutter.”
I snort, shaking my head. “Why? I only told you to call if something happened!”
“Well, something did happen – I got worried. Sitting here locked in the dark is not exactly reassuring.”
“Get used to it. I’ll be home in twenty.” I hang up, grimacing at my phrasing. Home. It doesn’t stop me from dropping by the store so I can get a bag of junk food to celebrate my tiny victory, plus a couple of Greek yogurts. It doesn’t even stop me from admitting to myself that I only stopped for the yogurts.
That’s when I notice him, the man that’s waiting behind the glass doors with a cigarette. I know I’ve seen him before, but I can’t remember where. He looks about twenty-five, tall and athletic, with blue eyes and blond hair that shines in the light.
He walks across the parking lot to a black BMW sedan, and I take my time picking out some magazines for Jenna until he gets in the car. As I get my bag from the cashier and walk outside, I can see his headlights flare to life at the edge of my sight. He keeps his distance, following me until I turn off the main road. The Bimmer disappears for a few seconds, only to reappear in a narrow alley behind the parking lot. I mark down the spot in my head and park the Jeep, making sure to grab the rifle and binoculars that are still under the backseat.
Jenna greets me with a sullen silence, so I drop the paper bag on the bed for her and go to the living room to change back into sweatpants, skipping the shirt, as usual. With the day’s mission accomplished, and my fever getting worse, TV and snacks is pretty much all I want to do. Except the very particular redhead in my bedroom, but that’s off limit.
I groan, hating myself for even thinking about it, but head to the bedroom all the same.
“Did you take your antibiotics today?” she asks the moment I step inside, already holding a yogurt in her hand.
I nod and open the silver case. “Anything good?” I point at the TV.
“There are two channels, what do you think?”
“If you’re lucky, you only need one,” I say with a shrug and flop down beside her, stretching out my legs.
Her eyes glitter ironically as she looks at me. “Should I write that down for your future quotes collection?”
“One quote is not much of a collection, no matter how great,” I parry, getting a wry smile from her. With her hair in a loose braid and her legs crossed, she looks like one of those girls’ magazine illustrations. Though her black shorts and top are far more decent than what she used to wear before our fight, it doesn’t make much difference to me, because her legs are just as exposed, long, and perfect, and her boobs are just as tempting.
It takes all in me to stop ogling her and focus on the TV and No Country For Old Men.
“How was the trip? Did you find what you were looking for?” Her voice is a mix of caution and curiosity. She’s probably still scared of me after the damn fight.
“Mm-hm,” I mumble over a pack of M&M’s, not sure what she expects to hear.
“Care to share what it was?” She nudges me slightly with her elbow, breaking my focus, and I swallow a sigh as my eyes fall back on her chest.
“I’d love to, but when it comes to me, half the information I can share won’t make any sense to you, and the other half can get you killed.”
“So… that’s a no.”
“Mm-hm,” I mumble again, seeing her face fall a little, and hand her the M&M’s. “You can have this.”
She leans in to grab the pack and pauses when our gazes lock, dangerously close. While I fight with my inner voice over the blinding desire to kiss her, she’s suddenly the one to close the distance between us and press her lush lips to mine.
Without my command, my fingers slip into her hair, and I force her lips open, deepening the kiss until she lets out a small moan that shoots straight to my core, setting every nerve in my body on fire. Somewhere in the back of my head, a furious voice keeps yelling at me to stop, but my other hand is already grasping her butt, and my tongue is way too deep in her mouth for me to remember any words, let alone understand them.
I inhale her sweet scent, sucking her lower lip into my mouth, and there’s not enough air all of a sudden. Breaking the kiss just for a heartbeat, I take a deep breath and pull her closer, so that her legs are intertwined with mine.
Next second, I jerk back as the room shakes with a deafening gunshot. My eyes dart to the TV screen, where one of the characters just got shot, and a moment later, the reality washes over me like a cold wave.
I look back into her wide, confused eyes and open my mouth, but words just won’t come out.
“It’s just the TV,” she whispers dizzily. I let go of her warm body and press my index finger to her lips, gathering my thoughts.
“It’s not that…” Eyebrows raised, she stares at me without blinking, effectively ruining every sentence that I m
anage to put together. “Jenna, I can’t,” I breathe out in the end, giving up.
Her hand moves from the back of my head to my cheek, and I close my eyes, losing myself in the sensation for a moment. “But why?” I hear her whisper.
“Because I won’t be able to stop,” the words pour out of me on their own, and I can only listen, lost somewhere in between the layers of reality.
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I utter, opening my eyes to find her face just a couple of inches away from mine. What did you mean, genius? Stop what? Loving her? You can’t tell her that. Touching my forehead to hers, I squeeze my eyes shut again so I can think. “If anything happens between us, I won’t be able to let you go.”
“So don’t.”
“It’s not that simple, Jenna.”
“It is. Take me with you, wherever you’re going. I need you. You need me. Please.” I can hear her voice breaking and grind my teeth.
“I’m no good for you. You won’t be safe.”
“You act like I don’t have any say in this.”
“Because you don’t. You don’t know anything about the world I live in, so you have to trust me on this one. You gotta let it go, Jenna.”
She pulls away with a sigh. “You know what? Stop making this about me, because it’s not. It’s about you being stuck in your pity party and scared of this,” she motions between us and gets off the bed. “You’re so scared to live, you’d rather just exist, alone and miserable.”
“Jenna!” I throw up my hand, following her with my eyes as she heads to the door. “Where are you going??”
Her eyes flash at me. “To sleep. Alone.”
The grid slams closed, and I lie back on the pillow, suddenly exhausted. The bed seems too big and empty, the movie depressing, and something’s telling me there’s a whole night of nightmares waiting for me.
Chapter 24
Jenna
I wake up with a strange feeling that someone’s watching me, but when I open my eyes, Cage is standing on the balcony with his back to me. There are binoculars in his hands, and he’s concentrated on something down below, like a predator waiting in a tree.
For a minute, I allow myself to watch him, tracing the lines of his back and the curves of his arms with my eyes and memorizing his silhouette, in case I don’t have another chance like this. Whatever happens, I’ll always have the memory of him barefoot and shirtless in the morning sun, heartbreakingly perfect with his scars, ink, and frayed jeans. I try to ignore the words he said to me last night, but they keep ringing in my head, until they’re all I hear.
Following some malicious urge, I reach out to the table and push an empty water bottle. It hits the floor with a sharp clang, and I hold back a smile when Cage spins around, lethal like a big cat.
“Um… Morning,” he greets me, but I ignore him as I get up and head to the bathroom. It’s not as much about me not talking to him like a frustrated child, as it is about me not having anything to say that wouldn’t cause another argument.
I take my time enjoying the hot water, and by the time I return to the kitchen, dressed in clean clothes and smelling of strawberry body cream, he’s waiting for me at the table with the silver case open before him.
“I need your help with the dressings.” It sounds like an order, which annoys the hell out of me.
Without a word, I start undoing the bandage on his arm, and he keeps staring at me, waiting for me to look him in the eyes. The tension grows with every minute, until he’s the first to crack.
“If you got something to say about last night, just spit it out so we can get it out of the way.”
I purse my lips and shake my head, holding on to my mask of calm with all I have. My fingers are as careful as ever while I apply the medicine and put a new bandage on his arm, and I can sense with my every cell just how much it annoys him.
“What, you’re not talking to me now?” I pretend to be focused on the gauze I’m wrapping around his bicep. “Fine, you don’t have to. I will. And you can choose whether to keep acting like a child or to deal with this like a reasonable adult.” I almost roll my eyes at his patronizing tone. “You can be pissed at me all you want. I can live with that, if that’s the price for you being alive and well. You don’t know what it’s like to look over your shoulder your whole life. This’ll all blow over, and you’ll want a normal life, a normal man, and opportunities that are worthy of your talent. And I won’t be able to give you that, because all I have in my future is a quiet life in a small Mexican town where no one will recognize me. You can start over in any other city in a year or so, when everyone forgets who Anthony Hunt was and what he did. I, on the other hand, have probably a hundred times more enemies than he does, and if anyone sees us together, we’re both dead sooner or later. You’ll never be able to restart your career. A small local bar full of drunken fishermen, that’s the ceiling for you if you go with me. Still got nothing to say?” He raises his eyebrows with a demanding stare, and I shake my head, just like before.
“Nope. Nothing.” It takes all in me to keep my emotions from breaking free as I put some finishing touches on his bandage and clean up the table. “Oh, except this,” I point at the sofa, amused at the spark that lightens up his eyes for a second as he thinks I’m about to respond to his tirade. “This thing is a hazard. It should be burned. Publicly.”
With that, I turn on my heels and head to the bedroom, grasping for every shred of self-control that I’ve got to hold back the tears that threaten to spill.
Chapter 25
Cage
“Okay, let’s try this again. Tall guy, blond hair, drives a black Bimmer. Did you or did you not see Dwight meet with him in the past week?”
Holding a gun to Wayne’s thick neck, I sip from the beer bottle that I picked up off the table in his backyard, where I’d found him lounging in a chair with a magazine. The man barely changed his position, having acknowledged my presence with a raised eyebrow and a sigh, and with my back blocking the view of the Beretta, we look like two buddies enjoying a sunny day.
“Have ya gone deaf from all the shooting?” Wayne speaks in his drawling Southern accent. “I told you already, I don’t know who you’re talking ’bout. You know I ain’t got no reason to cover for Dwight. He pays me, I do my job. That’s it.”
I swallow a weary sigh, watching his ratlike dog run in circles in the grass. What is it with big, fat men and their tiny dogs?
“You can do better than this, Wayne. I know there’s something you can share with me. Every little detail matters. You know me, I’m not looking for trouble. I just want to be left alone after my job is done. And if Dwight was the one who sent the shitty sniper, I need to know about it.”
He grunts, raising his hand to scratch his bald head. “There was nothin’ out of the ordinary. He had a few closed meetings. I stayed outside, and I ain’t Superman to see through walls.” I grimace at the nerdy reference, pressing the gun into his neck so he doesn’t relax too much. “He said he knew where you were staying, but that’s it.”
“He didn’t mention anyone tailing me?”
“No.”
“Alright. Give me something else, and I’ll go.”
Wayne sighs and waves at someone, and I glance at the middle-aged man waving at him with a big smile from behind the fence.
“Don’t shoot Bill. He owes me two grand,” Wayne grumbles.
“I won’t.” I wave at Bill with my beer bottle, edging slightly to the left. “Where was Dwight two days ago around five PM? Any meetings? Phone calls?”
“Oh, good Lord. You’ve got too much faith in my memory. We spent the whole day driving back and forth on his personal business. His real estate agent called him a few times.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, he’s selling his house.”
“Interesting.”
“Not really. He’s actually been pretty cryptic on the phone lately. No names or places, that kind of thing. He h
ad one of those calls that day, I don’t know when. The sun was setting, I think. He just listened for a minute and then said, “Something doesn’t add up.” I remember laughing at him goin’ all James Bond, like anyone cares what he talks ’bout on his damn phone.”
“I do.” I put the bottle on the table and step back, holding Wayne’s gaze as he turns to stare at me with his beady black eyes. “It goes without saying that Dwight will not find out about this little visit.”
“Or what? You gonna shoot me, Cage?”
I lift one shoulder in a shrug. “Nah, that’s probably too much. I will…” I look around, before pointing the gun at the dog. “I’ll shoot the dog. It looks like it wants to die anyway.”
Wayne’s face darkens, and I can barely hold back the laughter that’s building in my chest. “The fuck’s wrong with you?” he booms, getting up on his feet. “Get off my property!”
“Have a nice day, Wayne.”
“Fuck off,” he growls.
I hold up my hands with a wicked grin and back out of his backyard. He won’t do anything. Real or not, my threat is enough, and he never particularly cared about Dwight to meddle in his business. What little he told me is nothing compared to the GPS tracker that I put on his car, but he doesn’t know about it. He stands in his front yard, glowering at me even as I hop into the Jeep and drive away.
The black Bimmer is still in place as I return home, although the driver is nowhere to be seen. I park the car and climb the stairs, only to freeze in surprise when the apartment door swings open the moment my hand falls on the handle.
I hold my breath and take out the Beretta.
My ears strain for anything suspicious as I cock the gun and slowly open the door. If before, situations like this one caused nothing but a slight speeding of my heart, now, blood is beating at my temples as if it’s trying to break free.
Grim images keep flashing through my head, all including Jenna’s cold body, as I peek into the empty bedroom and edge to the living room. Taking a deep breath to steady my hand, I freeze for a second by the doorway before swinging inside, gun pointed forward.