“What. Do. You. Want!”
“Hmm...I like this bit of spunk you’ve gotten.”
“Luthor, I’m done. I don’t want to be a part of this anymore. I never wanted to be.”
“Like I give a god damn what you want. The way that I see it, I own you for as long as I say so. Do you get that!”.
Yeah, I thought and made sure that my phone had still been recording the call. I got it.
“Fuck you!” I said.
“Ah...Ah...Ah...” Luthor chided. “You don’t want to go doing that now, do you?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
There was a pause. The kind of deafening silence that builds to a moment so monumental that it could send even the most powerful men to their knees. It was the kind of quiet confidence that could wrinkle my spine.
When he didn’t answer, I continued. “Luthor! What did you do?”
“I hear you’re tending bar tonight,” Luthor said. “Pity how the mighty have fallen. Me, a felon. You, a bar-maid. We make one hell of a couple, don’t we?”
“I don’t want any part of whatever it is that you’ve got going on.”
“Oh, Vicky...” He feigned regret. “...You still think that you have a choice. Sad.”
“You can’t control me, Luthor. Not anymore!”
“Oh!” he patronized again—this time, barely putting in the effort to speak distinctly.
He even yawned.
“Perhaps you should check on your little bar friend. I’m sure that he could use your help right about now.”
“Vicky!” Milton screamed as if the grim reaper himself had come for his soul. “Stay outside!”
“Shut up, old man,” another voice hurled from the inside of the bar. “Unless you want your brains painting the wall.”
Luthor laughed. “You’d better go check on him.”
I didn’t think to peek first. At the sound of Milton’s voice—screaming bloody murder—my instincts took over. I went inside.
“There she is!” The head asshole said—with glossy eyes and the nervous twitch he’d been gifted from hours of heavy drinking. “Sit your ass down!”
He’d been holding Milton at gunpoint—the very same gun that Milty had kept loaded on the wall behind the bar. They must have overpowered him.
“I said...sit your ass down!” he ordered again as the barrel of the shotgun pushed a dent into Milton’s skull.
“Vicky! Get out of here! They just want the money!”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Luthor said, between sips of whatever he’d been drinking to pair with his amusement. “Relax, Vicky. They won’t hurt you...much.”
“What?” I gasped as my blood boiled and the image of Milton’s flushed face and panicked eyes burned itself into my memory.
“They’re my men,” Luthor continued. “After your little ‘date’ with Mr. Fox, I thought that it might be best to keep an eye on you. You understand my concern.”
“I’m not fucking around, bitch!” The head asshole said as he tightened his grip around Milton’s neck. “sit…down!”
“You should listen,” Luthor said as if he hadn’t been toying with our lives.
Did I deserve this? I thought.
Did I do this?
Luthor continued, “Now, as you know, my sentencing is coming up. I don’t know how long they plan on keeping me in a cage—some bum-fuck facility up north—but I’ll be needing some assurances before I go.” I could almost hear the devil in his voice. “You see that guy with the slick back hair and the tattoos?”
“Yes,” I answered. “He’s the one holding a gun to my best friend's head.”
“Wonderful,” Luthor exclaimed. “Please hand him the phone...Slowly. He’s the fidgety type. Wouldn’t want that trigger getting pulled by accident.”
If it was my own head, I may have reconsidered.
I did what I was told.
He made me hold the phone to his ear while Luthor spoke to him and Milton periodically gasped for air. “I’m sorry,” I mouthed to Milton who simply whispered back, “It’s okay.”
After several minutes of acting as a human bluetooth, the man with the slicked-back hair pulled his ear away from the phone and ordered, “The bag. On the table.”
Before I could move an inch, a shadow arrived through the back door. It was shortly followed by a third-party demand that none of us had expected.
“Put it down!” the voice screamed.
Brenton, I thought.
With the distraction, Milton saw fit to take some action of his own. While his captor and the rest of us had shot our eyes toward the back door, Milton took his chance to escape. He threw his bald head like a stone back into the man’s nose. It knocked him back a few inches before he started to gush blood.
Despite the blow, his grip around Milton’s neck hadn’t budged or loosened.
As his senses returned to him, he pulled the trigger.
18
Brenton
I got to Shaky’s, just after 2 a.m. I knew they’d be closed, but I’d had hope that Victoria may have stuck around to help Milton clean up.
At worst, I assumed that I could purchase her address from him. He seemed like he could use a few grand, if not, then I’d found it equally unlikely that he’d turn me down—so long as the price was right.
With the front door locked, I crept around the side of the building, hoping to God that the place had an emergency exit. Fire-marshals were touchy about that sort of a thing. To my surprise, luck had been on my side. Kind of.
I snuck in through the open door, barely noticing the fresh footprints in the snow beside an egg-crate. Usually, I’d made a point to be better aware of my surroundings, but I was distracted.
“Put it down!” I shouted. “We can fix this.”
“Shut the fuck up, pretty boy! Take a seat! Now!”
There were five men in total—each one looked drunker than the last. They were a sizeable gang of intimidators and likely hired to keep an eye on Victoria. Alongside Luthor’s track record of white-collar crimes, was a laundry list of “accidents” and disappearances that initially soured me to the idea of ever meeting him.
The very moment that SplitWire was set to merge with MossCorp, the Feds had come knocking at my door, hoping that I’d play along with their little sting operation. I agreed, as did Ian, but I was never in it for the purple heart or any other subsequent badge of honor. I was in it for her and only her.
“Put it down!” I shouted again to give myself time to think. The fight wouldn’t have been the problem, had Victoria not been there. I didn’t want her to see that side of me.
The rage.
It takes a lot to break my calm. Amongst the “first-strike, last-strike" means of which to piss me off, was endangering the lives of innocent people.
I don’t like bullies.
When the gun misfired against Milton’s head, there was no more choice. “Victoria,” I screamed. “Get under a table!”
“Who the hell do you think you are?’ The man with the bleeding face sniped at me as if his words were a bomb. “You don’t call any shots here.”
I bided my time until she’d gotten somewhere safe. Somewhere out of the way. “Get your ass over here,” the bloody man continued.
“You sure that you want me to embarrass you...in front of your friends,” I said.
The other four men had been standing at attention and wobbly legged. They weren’t the concern. Neither, I suppose was the bleeding man holding a dead gun to Milton’s face.
“What!”
“You heard me,” I shot back with the same ferocity that I’d been given. At the sight of his shudder, I knew that the fight was already over. The only question that remained, however, was how long until my foes knew that as well.
“You want a piece of me, tough guy?” He grumbled as he released Milton onto the floor. The old man gasped for air and coughed like he’d been in a late stage of the flu, but he was okay.
&nbs
p; “Maybe I do,” I dropped my jacket to the floor and met the asshole at the barrel of his gun. I let it press into my chest as he stared me down and cocked the gun for a second time.
I let him.
“I’m only going to tell you one time. My orders were to leave the girl alone. You and the old man, however...” A laugh. “You two may as well be in the ground already.”
“Then, pull the trigger,” I dared. “Unless you’re too chicken shit...Afraid of a little blood on your hands?”
He aimed the gun at my heart and held it steady. “You best watch your words, man. This ain’t no fucking fairytale.”
I held the barrel steady as his hands shook at the butt of the gun. “Do it,” I dared again. “Put me out of my misery.”
“You’re fucking crazy!” He said and just swiftly receded into his dignity—a furrowed brow and a killer’s leer. I wouldn’t have been his first victim.
“A bit,” I answered.
There were no thoughts. In moments like that, we’re all animals. Predator or prey. Surviving. Rejoicing. Living.
Dying.
He slid his index finger over the trigger and double-checked to make sure that the safety was off. “There’s no coming back from this.”
“Good,” I answered. “Do it.”
Each second felt like hours as I and my would-be killer exchanged grimaces and subtle grunts. I was afraid that it might be the end.
“Victoria,” I said as I watched the trigger descend backward. “I love you...”
Steadying my breath, I took inventory of my life and decided that, should it end then, at least I’d finally gotten to tell her.
At the sound of the loudest bang that I’d heard since having my body beaten to breadcrumbs, the bleeding man hunched over as smoke passed through his body. His wounds revealed themselves through his clothes and he fell to the floor like a dry leaf in the fall—bleeding out and wailing in pain. I’d survived.
The gun was in my hands before his cronies could act.
And, I had one more shot.
Fun fact about older guns, the damn things are built to last for eons. The particular make that Milton had was known for its faulty trigger. Should the first shot not have fired, the following would backfire. It’s why my hunter friends had always warned me to keep the handle balanced in the cup of my shoulder, rather than my ribcage.
Given that the safety was on, I assumed that I’d had a 50/50 chance.
They were fair enough odds.
As the asshole breathed his death rattle, I took aim at the other four—they'd been cowering in their khaki’s and looking like they’d wanted to leave just as badly as I did. But I wasn’t done.
“Milton? You okay?”
“I’m fine...” He took a second to spit on the dying man’s body before phoning the police.
“What now?” I asked.
Milton looked over the bar, at the dying man beside his feet, as well as the crew of (now leaderless) assholes. “You two get out of here. I’ll keep these sons-a-bitches company until ‘Johnny Law’ shows up.
“Sounds good.” I paused. “Victoria?”
She’d been curled under one of the bar tables, holding her phone. As I went to her, she was grateful...for all of a minute. “Come on,” I reached a hand to her and pulled her to her feet. It was then that I realized that I was exactly where I was supposed to be and that she was exactly who I was supposed to be there with.
As our lips touched, her soft lilac smelling skin grazing over my own quivering jaw, I felt a completeness that had evaded me for the better part of my life. I knew what I'd felt. There was no guesswork. No side ordeal. No motivation but our happiness together.
Then, she pulled away, “I can’t go with you.”
“Vicky, you need to get the hell out of here,” Milton demanded. “You stick around any longer and the blues will have you doing paperwork all night!”
“He’s right,” I said.
“Everyone that I get close to gets hurt,” she answered.
It’d only hit me then that I hadn’t told her anything beyond what I felt. “Let me take you home.” I wrapped an arm around her, careful not to let her wandering gaze linger on the scene any longer than she’d already had to. “Please, come with me. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
“But...” She whimpered.
“I promise...” I held her close enough for her ponytail to tickle my nose. It was all I’d ever really wanted. “No one’s going to hurt you ever again. I’ll be sure of it.”
Just as I’d made my vow, she presented something to me. Her cellphone that had been recording. It was exactly ten minutes of everything that I’d needed to free her from herself.
A gift. One that neither of us deserved, though we’d happily accepted it.
“I’m tired of running, Brenton.”
“And, I’m telling you that you don’t have to anymore.”
I told her everything—against every “dog eat dog” impulse that I’d learned from a decade of cracking deals with men and women who’d have, just as quickly, had my head served on a platter.
I told her about my deal with FinCEN and the agreement of immunity. I told her about my personal file on Luthor. I even confessed to my initial hope that she would go down in flames alongside him.
To my shock, she took it all in stride. It was like she’d anticipated the fallout from everything that she’d been forced to do. Like she wanted the punishment more than her own freedom.
By the time we’d gotten to her apartment, she’d already been silent for the better part of our walk. Though, she didn’t seem repulsed by it in any way. More so, she treated the situation like a bad dream. Something intangible that she’d wanted, but couldn’t bring herself to have.
“But, what if I’m supposed to rot,” she said, finally breaking her moments of silence. “I’m a bad person, Brenton. You don’t want me. You’re better off with Miss Universe or some model. Not me, Brenton. Not me.” Her eyes twinkled as she spoke like the stars had fallen from the sky and entered her every tear as she pushed me away.
“You don't believe that,” I answered. “You don’t believe that for a single second.”
“Brenton,” she yelled as she slammed the door shut behind her, “I’ve been complicit in a conspiracy to launder money for most of the last decade. It doesn’t matter what we do. What you do. I have to face my crimes and I deserve every day that they give me.”
“But we have the tape! You’re exonerated!”
“And you think that’s the end of it!” Her tears boiled over into streams of glowing pain—overflowing onto her cheeks, and dripping to the floor. “It’ll never be the end. Luthor will never stop hunting me.”
A pause.
“So then, we leave,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” She dumped herself onto her couch and curled into the corner—not wanting to be touched, held, or consoled. “I’m not going to run forever.”
I sat beside her, careful not to get too close. “Then stop running,” I said as I inched closer. “Stop running from us.”
“You’re one to talk,” she said, cracking a smile and swatting my hand away from wiping her tears. “How long have you been following me?”
The question alone was enough to floor me, but the time for games was long over.
“I never stopped following you, Victoria. Every day since the last time that I saw you has been a never-ending road of pain and deception. Deception of myself. Deception of others. Deception of you.” I inched a little closer. She allowed me to wipe those tears.
“Every night, I’ve thought of being with you again. I used to think that it was hate that drove me. That made me want to see through my revenge, but it was never any of that,” I said.
She tilted her head up to me, finally listening and looking at me as if I’d known something about her that she’d just discovered about herself.
“You mean the world to me, Vicky. I promise that I’ll never let anything blind m
e to that again.”
“But, I’m bad news, Brenton...You should go.”
“Only if you want to be. And, I’m not going anywhere without you.”
In her eyes, I saw a woman defeated. I saw the remnants of her life boil over onto her face as she sunk herself back down onto the lip of the couch.
“I think that two of us were meant to be together,” I said and pressed my body against hers, if only to remind her of what it felt like outside of the cold. Though she’d rejected me at first—shoving a firm elbow into my chest, I persisted in taking her in my arms and undressing her slowly.
“What are you doing?” She groaned. “Stop...” Her voice sounded less convincing than when she’d asked me to leave. “You don’t understand, Brenton. I’m finished! Do you really want to wait around for half of your life ...for me?” Suddenly the warmth had seemed to get to her.
“Victoria,” I took her in my hands as the straps on her tank top dangled around her shoulders. “I’ve been waiting for you for my entire life. I refuse to let you go again. Even if I have to wait an eternity to have you.”
“Brenton,” she staggered. “I’m scared.”
“Don't be,” I answered. “I’ll keep you safe.”
Our lips touched and the whole world and its problems melted away with our formal reunion. The rest of her shirt seemed to fall off on its own as it wrapped around the sweet contours of her body and rested just above her hips, where it straddled her in a way that I could only hope to come close to.
It wasn’t just our skin pressed against each other, nor how sweet she’d tasted that had infatuated me so. It was something indescribable. A passion that knew no bounds beyond our love and like our love was endless. Infinite. Complete and enviable to all who’ve never felt passion’s voracious fire shatter their own misconceptions and set them free.
The same freedom that we’d been allowed. The same silky-smooth road that led to her pleasure and my duty to feed every morsel of her that ached for love. As she laid on her back, squirming down just low enough for me to pull her pants off, I felt my mouth fill with a hungered salivation.
Take Me Over: A Protector Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Page 12