by A. Zavarelli
I was nervous about the prospect of showing my face in public where there would be photos printed in the media. It was a complete one eighty from the way I used to live my life, and even though I’d published under the name Gypsy West, there was always a chance something from my past could come back to haunt me. It was a risk, but in this case, I wanted to believe the reward outweighed that.
“I’ll be there.” I smiled. “Rain or shine.”
“HI.”
“Hi, Nolan.” I edged open the door. “Would you like to come in?”
He glanced inside the house before shaking his head quickly. “I can’t, I’m sorry. I’m running late already, but I just wanted to stop by to make sure you were all right.”
The concern in his voice caught me off guard. “Is everything okay?”
“I saw a flyer for your book.” His expression was grim, and my stomach soured at the thought of what he might say.
“Oh?”
“It just made me think about the hate mail Lucian used to get,” he said. “I thought it might be a good idea to warn you that it could get messy.”
My throat tightened, and my voice was barely audible when I responded. “Why?”
“So many strong emotions were involved in his cases,” Nolan pointed out. “He received threats on a regular basis. I just worry about you and the baby.”
What he was saying made sense, if I stopped to consider it, but I really hadn’t. “I don’t think it will be an issue. The book is mostly just about how he lived his life. The kind of work he did and his beliefs. There are only small highlights about the cases themselves.”
“Still,” Nolan said wearily. “I just want you to be aware of what this book might bring about if you go through with it. I’d hate to see you caught off guard.”
I laid a hand over my belly protectively. “I understand, and I appreciate that. But I can’t cancel the book deal because everything’s already signed. Even if it weren’t, I think it’s important for people to know who Lucian really was.”
“I get that”—Nolan shrugged—“but the public’s perception might be different. The media likes to spin things for dramatic effect, you know that. There might be people who will say you are only turning this tale for the royalties.”
“I’m not,” I insisted. “The royalties are going to the women and children’s transitional house.”
“I’m just telling you what people might say. I’d rather you didn’t face that kind of hostility, but if you’re prepared for it—”
“They can say whatever they want,” I assured him. “All that matters is the truth.”
Nolan didn’t look convinced, but he checked his watch again and frowned. “I have to run, I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t upset you, but I just wanted you to hear my thoughts. And I think it would be in your best interest to keep that in mind.”
“Thanks, Nolan.” I gave him a tight smile. “I appreciate it.”
“You take care now,” he said.
I wanted to. But when I shut the door behind him, I felt miserable all over again.
AT EIGHT MONTHS PREGNANT, FOOD dictated my life. I was tired and ached everywhere, and it seemed like every night, I had a new craving that needed to be fed.
Luckily for me, Birdie had stuck around and offered to be my personal shopper, making runs to the grocery store every night for ice cream or whatever else I deemed necessary at the moment.
Tonight, we were supposed to be having dinner with Ace and Father Hawk. It had become our Sunday night ritual, and even though it was a very odd combination to have sitting at one dinner table, it just worked.
But as I prepared the pasta, I couldn’t help but notice that Birdie had been gone for a long time. I’d sent her out for garlic bread, and she promised to be back in few minutes. That was over an hour ago. When I walked out to the driveway to check that I hadn’t missed her pull up, Ace was already out there.
“She still isn’t back yet?” I asked.
He grabbed his helmet and hopped on his bike. “No. I’m going to check on her to make sure she didn’t have any car trouble along the way.”
He tried to make it seem like that was a logical explanation, but the store was only a couple of miles down the road. If she had car trouble, she could have walked back by now, barring that her phone didn’t work, which it definitely did. Per my instructions, she always had a burner phone, and she always changed it out at the beginning of the month, loading it up with minutes.
“Hang on,” I said. “Let me try calling her really quick.”
I punched in Birdie’s number since habit taught me long ago not to store it in my phone under contacts. Ace waited, watching as it rang several times and then someone picked up. Someone who definitely wasn’t my sister.
“Hello?”
“Hello?” I answered. “Who is this?”
“My name is Tom,” he said. “I’m a medic with the Clark county ambulance service. Can you tell me who this phone belongs to?”
My stomach dropped, and it felt like the air had been punched from my lungs. Ace got off his bike and made it to me just in time before I collapsed against him and grabbed the phone.
“Who is this?” Ace demanded.
The previous conversation was repeated on speakerphone as Ace explained the phone belonged to Birdie, and she hadn’t made it home for dinner.
“It looks like she may have been involved in a car accident,” Tom explained from the other line. “We’re en route to Kindred Hospital now.”
Ace mumbled a few more words and hung up, somehow managing to load my heavily pregnant body into the passenger seat of Lucian’s Dodge Demon. He disappeared inside for a few seconds and returned with the keys.
“He didn’t say if she was okay,” I said. “Is she okay, Ace?”
I didn’t know how I expected him to have the answer to that, but I wasn’t thinking logically at that moment. I couldn’t go through this again. I just couldn’t.
“She’s okay,” Ace promised. “She’ll be okay. Birdie’s tough, remember?”
He gunned it down Summerlin, and I thought about what he said. “She isn’t that tough.”
Ace looked at me from the driver’s seat, his voice as steady and certain as I’d ever heard it. “She is.”
“She has a broken arm,” the doctor said, “a concussion, and a lot of bumps and bruises. But she’s extremely lucky to be alive.”
“Can we see her now?” I asked.
He nodded. “She’s probably a little groggy from the pain medication, but you can see her.”
Ace and I walked into the room, and I nearly broke down all over again at the sight of my sister in the hospital bed. It felt like history was repeating itself, the universe determined to take out everyone I loved.
“Birdie, what happened?”
She blinked as though she was trying to figure it out herself, and her voice was scratchy when she spoke. “Something was wrong with your car.”
“What do you mean?” I frowned.
“The steering wheel.” She made a gesture with her hand. “I don’t know what happened. It felt like something just gave out, and I lost control.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said.
Beside me, Ace was tense and growly when he spoke. “It does if someone’s been fucking with the car.”
Blood rushed from my head to my heart as I looked at Birdie. “I told you it wasn’t safe here. This is why.”
“It was your car,” she shot back. “So obviously, whoever did it wasn’t after me.”
That thought was sobering. It could have been me. I could have lost the baby or my sister. I sat down while I tried to process that. “Who would do that?”
“Do you think…” Birdie’s voice trailed off as her senses caught up with her and she realized Ace was still in the room.
“I don’t think so,” I answered.
There’s no way it could have anything to do with our past. Or at least, I needed to believe that.
“
The book,” she said. “Maybe someone put it together.”
“No,” I insisted. “It must have been an accident. Maybe something was faulty on the car.”
“I’ll look at it,” Ace said. “But either way, I’m calling some of my buddies to keep an eye on you two for now.”
AFTER A FEW DAYS, BIRDIE was already going out of her mind being cooped up in the house. We refused to stay at the clubhouse like Ace asked us to, so he’d sent reinforcements to us instead.
I never in a million years thought my life would come to this, but here we were, sitting down to dinner with a bunch of scruffy men in leathers. They weren’t much for conversation, so Birdie and I kept it between ourselves until Ace walked in. His shirt was stained with grease, and it was obvious he’d been working on something. I hoped it was my car because I was anxious to hear what he thought.
“What’s for dinner?” he asked.
“Pasta,” Birdie griped. “Again.”
I shrugged. “That’s what happens when you let the preggo dictate the menu every night.”
Ace dished himself a heaping plate and sat down in an empty space at the table, shoving forkfuls of food into his mouth as though he hadn’t eaten all day. I intended to let him finish his meal first, but Birdie had other ideas.
“Have you figured anything out yet?” she asked. “I’m going stir-crazy here.”
Ace shot her a pointed look. “It won’t kill you to stay out of trouble for a change.”
Birdie mumbled something under her breath, and Ace chose to ignore it, though I doubted that happened often.
“I took a look at the car,” he said. “Tore the whole thing apart. It was definitely tampered with.”
My stomach sank, and I set down my fork as I looked at him for answers. “How?”
“The steering shaft was sawed down to the bone. A little bit of torque on the steering wheel caused it to snap clean in two. That wasn’t no accident.”
I looked at Birdie. At this point in the past, we would have run. We would have left town and started fresh somewhere else. But that wasn’t an option anymore, at least not for me. My home was here. I was having a baby, and I couldn’t run anymore.
“What are we going to do?” Birdie asked.
I wanted to give her an answer, but when I looked at her, I realized she wasn’t asking me. She was asking Ace.
“Lucian has a security system,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure out who it was.”
“I WANT TO THANK YOU all for coming,” I spoke into the microphone, and it made an unpleasant screech as I adjusted it.
A flash went off, followed by a few more as I stared out into the sea of faces.
“This may come as a surprise”—I laughed nervously—“but I’m not really one for words, so I’m going to keep this short and to the point.”
A few more cameras went off as I tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear.
“You may have come here with the notion that you were here to help me celebrate the release of my book. But the truth is, the reason we’re all here tonight is because of Lucian West. He was a man of few words himself, but when he did have something to say, he made sure it was important.”
I glanced down at my shoes and tried to hold back the tears that were already threatening. “I wish I’d paid attention to everything he had to say when he was here with me. I wish that I’d taken even a second more to notice and appreciate all the good he did. But life doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes, we don’t even realize how important the memories we’re making are until it’s too late.”
I stalled momentarily to compose myself, and Kate gave me an encouraging smile from her place at the front of the crowd.
“Anyway, I don’t think I need to tell you that Lucian was an exceptional man, and it was a shame that so few really knew that. So, my hope with this book is that you will read it with an open mind and decide for yourself.”
Kal gave me a thumbs-up, and I smiled, deciding to end it there. “So that’s it, I guess. Thanks again for coming. I really do appreciate it.”
I handed off the mic and stepped down from the stage, my cheeks flushed and my emotions running at an all-time high.
“You did an amazing job,” Kal said as Kate nodded her agreement enthusiastically. “What’s next?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“What are you going to write next?” Kal clarified.
“Oh.” I frowned. “I haven’t really given that any thought. I mean, I’m not really a writer—”
Kal laughed and shook his head. “You wrote a book, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but it was mostly just piecing things together.”
“You did an exceptional job at piecing together Lucian’s story,” Kate chimed in. “It could be just the beginning for you, if you wanted it. No pressure, but I hope you’ll think about it.”
“I don’t even know what I’d write about,” I admitted. “This project came so easily to me because it was important.”
“You could write about others who have been wrongfully convicted,” Kal suggested. “Some of Lucian’s clients, maybe. Just an idea.”
“Oh.” Kate snapped her fingers. “That reminds me. Did you hear what happened with the Ariana Sanders case?”
“No, what happened?”
“Another victim came forward,” she said. “She’d been attacked a few months prior to Ariana. Same m.o., same everything. Anyway, as it turns out, she was able to identify the attacker, and they matched his fingerprints to Ariana’s apartment as well.”
My stomach felt like it had jumped into my throat. “So Emmanuel’s name has been cleared?”
Kate gave a bittersweet nod. “New charges have been filed in the case, so if nothing else, at least now the world will know it wasn’t Emmanuel.”
Any relief I felt over that idea was quickly chased away by sadness. “At least the world will know,” I agreed.
I just wished Lucian were able to know it too.
“Everything okay?” Birdie asked as I kicked off my shoes and hung up the shawl I’d worn for the evening.
“I’m fine,” I assured her. “It’s just… a lot.”
“I know,” she said softly. “Kinda bittersweet, huh?”
I nodded.
“Want to eat ice cream and stay up late watching stupid reality TV?” she asked.
“Thanks.” I gave her a weak smile. “But I just want a warm shower and my bed.”
“I get it.” She yawned. “I think I’ll probably crash too then.”
She gave me a hug, and I said good night to Ace, who had resumed his residency on the sofa. It had been a couple of weeks since the car incident, but he still wasn’t any closer to figuring out who it was.
While Lucian did, in fact, have a security system, it wasn’t much help when the person on the screen was wearing a mask. We still had no idea who messed with the car, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. There were only two logical conclusions to draw.
Nolan was right, and this was just the beginning of the storm I hadn’t battened down for. It could have been a nut following one of Lucian’s cases, or it could have been one of the men Birdie had stolen from. There was really no way to know for sure, and to that end, I couldn’t rule out any of the enemies I’d made over the years either.
Regardless, there wasn’t much I could do about it right now. The only options at our disposal were running or trusting Ace, and running wasn’t an option anymore.
I slipped into a hot shower and washed the day off me for a solid twenty minutes before my eyes were too heavy to stay inside any longer. I toweled off quickly and dressed in one of Lucian’s old tee shirts before crawling into bed.
I was exhausted, but the moment my head hit the pillow, the day caught up with me. Sleep evaded me while I played everything over and over in my mind, wondering if Lucian would hate what I’d written. If he’d be embarrassed to be on display like that in print. I couldn’t tell anymore. But I tossed and turned for half the ni
ght, somewhere between consciousness and sleep when I realized there was someone else in the room.
“Birdie?” I called out. “Is that you?”
There was no answer, even when I sat up and looked at the silhouette in the doorway.
“Birdie?” I choked out.
But it wasn’t Birdie. I knew that much. It was a man. A tall, imposing figure that left me paralyzed with fear as I scrambled from the bed and put as much distance between us as I could.
I trembled and wrapped my arms around myself. “Whoever you are, there are men outside. If they find out you’re in here—”
The light switched on, and all the air punched its way out of my lungs when I met the dark gaze of the man who had come to visit me in the dead of night.
“Lucian?” I brought a hand to my mouth in disbelief, shaking with fear that this wasn’t real. That I was dreaming, and if I moved even an inch, he would disappear.
He didn’t say a word. He seemed lost, confused, and completely unable or unwilling to remove his eyes from the bulging belly I now carried. He was thinner than I’d last seen him. The darkness under his eyes more prominent. And he was wearing a hat. I couldn’t ever remember him wearing a hat before.
“This isn’t real,” I whispered as I shook my head. “This isn’t real. It isn’t.”
He looked at me then, the cold in his eyes penetrating me even from where he stood. “I’m sorry to inform you that I’m not dead.”
A sob erupted from my throat, and he moved toward me with purpose, but something was wrong. This wasn’t the Lucian who had left me. This was the Lucian who had been stitched together with injustice and rage over the years.
The first touch of his hand around my arm fried all my nerve endings and short-circuited my brain. “I don’t understand,” I cried as he took possession of me. “How is this happening?”
“I thought I taught you that you don’t always get what you want,” he said callously. “But I guess you never learned.”