by Evelyn Glass
I’m jolted from my thoughts when Felicity jogs from the bathroom, alone. I watch as she jogs across the room and toward her father. I swallow. She’s going to tell him. She’s going to tell him and if she tells him, Secret Service will descend like a murder of crows. I take a deep breath and aim the rifle directly at the ambassador’s head. Felicity seems to take an age to get across the room.
Cleft nudges me with his weapon. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I have no damn clue.”
“Yeah, right,” Cleft snaps. “You better make something happen or me and my boys are gonna have a damn good time with you.”
Felicity reaches her father and takes him by the arm, leads him away from the group. My forehead is sweating, the idea of shooting a man so close to Felicity bringing on nerves unlike anything I normally feel. I lean my head back to wipe sweat from my head. As I do so, I happen to glance across the street. My heart thuds.
Standing in a room a few levels higher than mine, in a building off to the right, is Mr. Black. Not one of his cronies, or one of his goons, but Mr. Black himself. And he’s holding a scoped rifle just like mine.
Chapter Forty-Two
Felicity
I crash through the door and run through the room toward Dad. People turn and regard with me confused expressions, but I ignore them. One man, one of those politicians who would look more at home on an oil rig than at a party, steps into my path, thumbs tucked into his belt and smiling benevolently.
“Miss Fellows!” he booms, his grin growing wider by the moment. “Miss Fellows!” he repeats, as though I didn’t hear him the first time. “I have to say, it is an honor to be standing here with you. We’ve all heard the story.” He leans in and I smell whisky on his breath. Strange, because we’re only serving champagne, water, and wine. “Lots of these nasty folk thought your father had something to do with it! Imagine! It was a scandal, I tell you, an absolute scandal! I know Gregory Fellows—not well, you understand, but well enough—and I know that he would never, even if his life depended on it, harm his daughter.”
All through this speech I try and step around him, but he shifts aside to block me. He is so rotund that he doesn’t have to move much to block me completely. He continues smiling, but . . . no, can it be?
“Are you part of it?” I snap. The words come out shrill. Several heads snap to us.
“Part of what?” he says, genuinely bemused.
“Part of it,” I hiss.
He squints at me, shaking his head. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.
“Oh,” I mutter. “Never mind.”
I step around him and continue on my way. Jogging in heels is hard enough. It’s made harder by the fact that this dress is super-tight around my legs, causing my steps to be small, little pitter-patters which barely make any ground at all. I’m halfway across the room when the purple-framed-glasses journalist tumbles into my path.
“We haven’t finished our conversation,” she says, with a note of offence. She totters on her feet and that’s when I realize that everybody is a little too drunk. Everybody sways slightly and everybody’s faces are varying shades of red. “I don’t have to be a named author, you know. I’m not above ghostwriting your memoir. Or, we could collaborate. I think much good could come of a collaboration, you know? Much good, indeed. Why don’t we try it? It could be wonderful.”
“I’m sure it could,” I growl through gritted teeth. Is the whole world against me today? “We’ll discuss it later.”
I push past her, ignoring her cry of outrage, and finally I make it to Dad. He’s standing with an old couple. Just before I reach him, he lets out a laugh which fills the room like the call of a fog horn.
“Dad,” I gasp, touching his shoulder.
He holds a finger up to the couple—one second, ever so sorry—and turns to me. “That’s the Secretary of State,” he says tightly, nodding at the man, who turns and walks away. “You shouldn’t interrupt me when I’m with the Secretary of State, Felicity. You know better than that.”
“Yes, I know, but—”
“What’s wrong?” he says. “You look all flustered.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” I hiss.
He brings his hand to my forehead, touches it. “You’re burning up,” he says.
“Dad!” I snap.
He tilts his head at me. “Are you drunk?”
“No, listen to me,” I breathe. “I think somebody is going to make an attempt on your life tonight. I just ran into a man who was part of the team that kidnapped me. He’s here, Dad, and if he’s here, that means that—”
“Sweetheart,” he says.
That word, spoken in that tone of voice, makes me want to scream. Sweetheart, is always followed by some nonsense excuse which is really only given to make me shut up.
“No, Dad,” I snap. “Not sweetheart. This is real. Somebody is going to try and kill you tonight.”
“Okay, okay.” Dad holds his hands up. “Let’s talk to this man you spotted. Where is he?”
“In the bathroom,” I mutter.
“Then let’s go see him.”
“He’s knocked out,” I admit, cheeks becoming warm.
“Knocked out?” Dad laughs. “What are you talking about? Listen, sweetheart, it’s natural that you feel worried. After all, you’ve only been back a couple of days—”
A gunshot shatters the glass of a window, spraying it like crystal across the room.
Chapter Forty-Three
Roma
Mr. Black! I think, mind racing.
He’s alone, holding a rifle. Mr. Black is never on his own. He always has an entourage, and he’s holding a rifle. He never does the dirty work. He’s the Man in Black, the Man in the Shadows, the Man Who Gives Orders. But he holds the rifle confidently, like he has no problem with using it. I look through the scope and see his grinning face, follow the trail of his aim. He’s aiming right at the ambassador, with Felicity right beside him.
My blood turns cold at the sight of Mr. Black aiming the gun at her. My bones turn to ice and all the pain and exhaustion I was feeling falls away. A cool killer’s calm comes over me, the calm which used to be my default mood before I met Felicity. Suddenly, Cleft’s gun pressed into my back seems absurd. I will not let him shoot her, I think. I will never let that happen.
My hands are steady and my eyes are honed. My muscles feel relaxed, stronger than they’ve ever been. I feel as though I have been injected with a calming drug. I am Roma again. I am Bear’s protégée again.
“Cleft,” I say, keeping my voice as casual as possible.
“What?” He grunts, the gun moving up and down my spine.
I close my eyes, sense him, feel his movements. I can feel his breathing by the reverberations it makes down his arm, through the gun, and onto my back.
“I fucked your girlfriend a few weeks ago.”
“What?” Cleft snaps.
Come on, come on, let that anger take you, motherfucker.
“I fucked your girlfriend and she told me she loved me.”
“Yeah fucking right,” Cleft grunts, but his voice is shaky. “What color’s her hair then?”
Shit.
I take a stab: “It’s blonde.”
I hear his breathing tremble.
“What shade of blonde?”
Shit, shit.
I take another stab. “Dyed blonde, bleached.”
There’s a pause and I wonder if I’ve got it wrong.
But then Cleft screams: “Piece of shit!”
He won’t shoot me, so he tries to do the only other thing he can. He lifts the gun and makes to smack me over the head with it. Eyes closed, I feel every movement, the sensation of the gun being pulled away from me, the way Cleft’s breathing gets quicker and quicker. Half a second—he brings the gun down.
I lurch to the side and the gun smacks harmlessly against the chair. I jump up and punch him so hard in the face blood explodes lik
e a burst watermelon, pouring down his shirtfront. I’m on him in a second, wrenching the gun from his grip. The other man, taken off guard, tries to lift his gun to aim it at me. Two shots. Pop-pop. And Cleft and his friend are dead, headshots, lying like sacks of potatoes on the floor.
And I’d kill a thousand more to protect Felicity, I think.
I quickly grab the rifle and look through the scope at Mr. Black. He’s looking straight at me, mouth set in a determined grimace. I watch as he swings the rifle in a wide arc, aiming right for Felicity.
“No fucking way,” I growl.
Before I met Felicity, I never would have dreamed I’d do what I’m about to do. It would’ve sounded like a joke, a twisted joke that made little sense. The Man in Black is my employer. The Man in Black is the man who pays my bills. The Man in Black is the reason I have almost one million in cash stashed away. I’ve known the Man in Black almost as long as I’ve known Bear. But none of that matters anymore. He’s pointing a gun straight at Felicity. I can’t have that.
I pull the trigger, but a split-second before I do, he manages to get a shot off. A window in the party room smashes. Even from up here, I hear the screams. Mr. Black slumps forward, a bullet hole in his head, blood spilling onto his rifle. I look at him for half a second, thinking: You played the game, sir, and you lost.
And then I’m on my feet, charging down the stairs and out onto the street. A shot cut through the party. Felicity . . .
If she’s been hit, I’ll never forgive myself. If she’s been hit, I’ll take my own life, make no mistake. I love her more than I’ve ever cared for anything or anybody. If that bastard has killed her.
I sprint across the street, traffic swerving around me, people mashing their horns. The air fills with the sound of curses and honking. I ignore it all and sprint into the hotel room, glancing around. I know that any moment now, Felicity could be bleeding out. On her back, blood gushing from her mouth. I should’ve shot sooner, I think. Goddamn it! Why didn’t I shoot sooner?
“Sir,” the receptionist says, as I spring toward the door guarded by two Secret Service agents. “Sir, you can’t go that way.”
The agents step into my path. I don’t want to hurt them. These aren’t men who’re part of the life. So I don’t. I just do something they don’t expect. I bow my head and bull-rush them. The men—clean-shaven, tidy-haired, with a military look about them, but not the hardened, mercenary look of Mr. Black’s men—let out a yelp and step aside reflexively. After a moment, they realize what they’ve done and jump after me.
But they’re too late. I crash through the door and look around the room.
It’s chaos. I can’t see anything. I push through politicians, wading through the crowd.
“Get him!” somebody screams.
Finally, I reach the front of the crowd.
I stop, heart hammering in my chest. Felicity and her father stand huddled close together, unharmed. I look at the shattered window, follow the path the bullet must’ve taken. There, low on the stage, I see the shredded wood where Mr. Black’s shot missed. Gasping, I stare at Felicity. Her head is bowed, but at the sound of the mayhem, she looks up. When she sees me her eyes go wide and her hands begin to shake.
“Felicity,” I say. “I love you. I couldn’t let—”
A Secret Service agent barrels into me, taking me clean off my feet and slamming me into the ground. The crowd lets out a scream as three, four, five agents begin laying into me; the two I charged past at the door are the angriest and pound my face and my arms with heavy fists. I grunt as their strikes hit me, but I’m too relieved to see Felicity unharmed to fight back. Blood pours down me and old wounds reopen.
So what? I think in the midst of the beating. Felicity is alive. Mr. Black is dead. That’s all that matters.
Then Felicity’s voice cuts through the pain. “Stop that!” she screams. “I am the daughter of the ambassador and you are Secret Service agents and I order you to stop, right now!”
Reluctantly, the men stop beating me. One of them grabs me by the wrists and pulls me to my feet. I can hardly see. Blood drips down my forehead and covers my eyes.
But none of that matters. Felicity is alive and her would-be killer is dead. She is safe. Bleeding or not, wounded or not, in agony or not, I have saved her.
Chapter Forty-Four
Felicity
Roma’s body sags between four Secret Service agents, his face a bloody pulp. But when he looks up at me, I see that he is smiling. He breathes shallowly and his clothes are covered in blood, but the smile outshines all of that. The entire room is turned toward him, all of them no doubt expecting him to be the culprit. But I know Roma. He’s a professional. If he was the one who fired off the shot, Dad would be dead. No, somebody else must’ve fired it. And even if, by some twist of fate, he had missed, he wouldn’t run down here and cause this scene. He’d run before anybody knew what happened.
I look into his face and feel warmth bloom across my chest.
Then Dad touches my arm. “Felicity,” he says, voice sharp. “Do you know this man?”
“He just charged in here,” one of the Secret Service men says. The man’s teeth are gritted. He’s the one who beat Roma the most savagely, I remember. “Charged right past us. He must have something to do with the gunshot.”
My mind spins over and over, searching for an explanation. They’ll take him and throw him in prison, but not just regular prison. They’ll arrest him for treason and put him in a tiny windowless cell where he’ll grow old alone and frightened. Come on, I tell myself. He saved you. Now it’s your turn to save him. Because I’m sure he saved me. I’m sure that’s the reason he’s here.
“Felicity,” Dad says. “He used your name. He said he loved you. Why would a man with the gall to charge into this private party, minutes after a gunshot almost killed me, say that?”
My mouth falls open as I search for words. I need to say something which will cause them to release him, without question.
Suddenly, more Secret Service men burst into the room. “We found the shooter,” one of them says. “An old man in a black suit across the way. The trajectory lines up perfectly.”
“So this man isn’t the shooter?” Dad asks.
“Not by the looks of it,” the man replies.
“Then who is he, why is he here, and how does he know my daughter’s name?”
Roma looks at me and I see the way this could easily go. I’ll remain silent and he’ll be carted away from me. They’ll search his name and find nothing. He hasn’t been on the system since he was a kid, maybe not even then. They’ll interrogate him, but Roma is tough. He won’t give anything up. But that won’t stop them holding him indefinitely.
I realize that everybody is watching me.
Yes! I think, when the idea comes into my head.
“He’s my husband,” I say.
A smile touches Roma’s lips.
“Your . . . what?” Dad gasps.
“My husband,” I say with more confidence. “I met him in France and we were married. I was going to tell you after the party. I didn’t want to worry you. He asked if he could come—he was there when I was kidnapped and he didn’t want to let me out of his sight—but I told him it would only confuse matters. He waited across the street instead.”
Roma nods. “When I heard the gunshot,” he says, “I assumed the worst. I needed to see my wife.”
Dad looks from me to Roma, from Roma to me. I know he’s concerned about the gunshot, about the sequence of events. But first and foremost Dad is a politician. I know what’s concerning him more than the gunshot and the chaos is the political repercussions. Secret Service just savagely beat a man who is, as far as everybody now knows, just a man who wanted to make sure his wife was safe.
I step forward, closing the distance between me and Roma.
“Let go of him,” I say to the Secret Service.
“Ma’am,” the man who beat him says. “I don’t think that’s such a good—”
“He is my husband and you just beat him within an inch of his life,” I interrupt. “How dare you tell me what is and is not a good idea?”
“Let go of him,” Dad says from behind me. “My daughter wants to tend to her husband.”
The Secret Service step back. Roma, unsteady on his feet, tumbles forward into my arms. I hug him close to me, supporting him, and he wraps his arms around me and squeezes me tightly against him, as though he is afraid I might float away.