by Eden Butler
We both stood and I reached for my nine, squinted until the car sped up. I only relaxed when it pulled out of the square heading to the section leading toward the highway. “This woman, no matter how hot she is, comes here, automatically refuses to accept our rules, that disrupts the peace. It makes people nervous. And nervous people in small towns are never good.”
“So, you want me to find out…”
“Little brother,” I said, standing from my car, popping his shoulder to get him off it too. “I want you to remember who you are.” I grabbed my jacket, throwing it through my open window. “I don’t care if that means you scare the shit out of her or fuck her into submission.” A quick laugh left my mouth when he licked his lips, like just the thought had him ravenous. “Fuck’s sake, man. You do you. I seem to recall you being good at that shit. And if my memory isn’t too shot, I remember a lot of women being glad you were good at it too.” I crossed to the driver’s side, my attention back on the town square and the shape I spotted outside of Maggie’s building. Dario grinned, chin a little higher, looking a lot like my brother again. “Just help me out, yeah? God knows I’ve got enough headaches.”
The parking lot outside my building was empty but secluded when I slipped into my spot five minutes later. But it wasn’t the secluded lot that held my attention when I left my car.
Through the thick limbs of a red maple tree, I made out Maggie’s Outback. It was loaded up, the back open, filled with blankets and bags and the only empty spot taken up in the back by the kid’s new car seat. Half of the shit she was meant to bring to my apartment. Most she promised couldn’t be boxed and loaded in one vehicle. She’d need help, or so she said. And now…it was loaded in one night? And she’d managed it on her own?
Nah. Bullshit.
She was packing.
She was leaving.
This town.
Her life here.
Me.
Everything clicked into place. Everything I had. Everything I could lose in an instant. I loved her. Them. I couldn’t lose her.
She moved around the trunk, stuffing a suitcase into the side, wiggling her round ass into the air as she cursed in Spanish, a few words I recognized and should have made me laughed, but the fear was back. It was doubled.
“Fuck that,” I said to the open air, worry and dread clawing inside my chest like an animal, getting hotter, deeper the closer I came to the car watching Maggie pack away her life, readying herself to leave this town and me in her rearview.
No damn way was I going to let that shit happen.
13
Maggie
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Those three lines repeated over and over, like a throbbing pulse; a heartbeat rising, telling me I was in danger.
I’m coming for you. I’m coming for my boy. I won’t be long.
He could be here now.
He’d take away everything I’d built.
Just because he could.
But how? How the hell had he known?
No. I wouldn’t start that again.
Vi was waiting with Mateo inside. She was trying to get him asleep. She was more nervous than me, though she tried to pretend she wasn’t.
“He’s not the first man I’ve heard make threats, honey.” She’d waved off my worry, shrugging like I couldn’t see how her foot bounced, how she kept chewing on her bottom lip. “I’ve seen worse than the likes of him.”
But I wouldn’t waste time. Not when I knew he was coming. Not when Mateo and Vi’s lives could be in danger.
The last bag was full of Mateo’s clothes; outfits that probably wouldn’t fit him in a month, but maybe I could sell them.
I’d need the money. And if Smoke knew…God, what would he do? Kill Alejandro? Start some kind of battle that got a bunch of people dead? Have Smoke spend the rest of his life in jail because of my worthless ex? I couldn’t let that happen.
No. It was better this way.
But I had to be smart. We couldn’t go to my aunt’s in the city. Alejandro would look for us there.
He knew everything about me.
He knew where I’d think to hide.
“Jesus, help me,” I said sniffling back the weak prayer when my eyes burned, and the worry felt too thick in my throat. Then, the shuffle of feet behind me had that worry doubling, morphing into fear. I turned, thinking he’d caught me, instantly relaxing when Smoke stopped next to me, his hand resting on the trunk.
He kept quiet, moving his gaze from my face, already wet, likely blotchy and full of emotion. I tried to tamp down the bubble of worry running through me, then stood in front of the trunk brimming with boxes and bags of everything we owned. The duffle in my hand was half out, half stuffed in what space remained in the trunk.
Smoke leaned in, taking it to readjust how I’d placed it. Then, he laid it flat, tucking it under a blanket at the back. He still didn’t speak, keeping whatever he thought to himself, and I wondered if he was worried, or maybe so pissed off that he was trying to get himself calm.
I was leaving. From how all this had to look to him, I had no intention of telling him goodbye. Even though I’d promised to tell him when the threat was coming, I didn’t. Instead, I was running. Fleeing. Escaping.
He gripped the top of the trunk, looking down at me, his mouth pulled into a frown. He motioned me back with a nod, closing the trunk after I stepped out of the way. It was several long seconds with him looking at the full back seat of my car before he said a word. In that time, I thought my pulse had gotten louder and louder with each beat of my heart.
“You were just going to leave? No goodbye? No thanks? No fuck you, Carelli, see you later?” He didn’t look at me. Instead he moved his attention to my building, straight to the fourth floor, our floor like he hoped somehow, he could spot Mateo through all that stone and mortar.
“It’s… a little more complicated than…” I exhaled, not sure what I should tell him. If I knew anything about this man, it was that he took on everyone’s problems. He was a rescuer even when no one wanted him to be.
Smoke Carelli might be a gangster, but he also was a Lancelot, always showing up to save you even when you swore you didn’t need anyone slaying your dragons.
And this was the biggest damn dragon I’ve ever faced.
“Maggie?” he said, finally looking at me. He narrowed his eyes, tilting his head toward me until I let him catch my gaze. “What’s going on?”
He was going to be pissed.
He was going to rage and curse at me for trying to handle this all on my own.
“If this is about Rick and the blood…”
When I didn’t say anything, looking away, down the street, reminding myself the damage he’d do if he knew the truth, Smoke lifted my chin, his expression tight, but his eyes soft. “You promised me.”
“I…” Damn it. I had. I’d given him my word.
“Just tell me. We can fix this.”
“I…don’t want anyone dying because of me.”
Smoke lifted his eyebrows then, and he grabbed my elbow, like he wanted to keep me from taking off. “Who needs to die, bella?”
“I don’t want you killing anyone because of me.”
There was a lot I saw moving in his eyes then. There was a lot I guessed he wanted to say, but Smoke was a man with secrets and even if he loved me, there was some secrets he’d keep buried. Even from me. Likely to protect me. It was his way.
“You tell me, and I’ll protect you the way I need to.”
I shut my eyes, knowing what I said would likely be signing someone’s death certificate. Mateo was my child. He was my life. If I had to choose between him and anyone else in the world, it would always be him.
Looking up at Smoke, I exhaled, knowing the second I spoke, he’d take care of us. Knowing we would be safe. That terrified me. But it made me feel relieved at the same time.
“It’s Alejandro.” Those two words totally transformed Smoke.
The tone of his voice h
ardened and the relaxed press of his fingers on my elbow tensed, dropping into a ball at his side when he stood straight, moving in front of me. “What about him?”
I nodded, not sure what to think of how deep his voice got.
“He sent me the flowers. There was another bouquet today.”
Smoke grunted, his nostrils flaring just as he curled his top lip a fraction.
I waved my hand, trying to calm him, even grabbed his arm to keep him from imagining the wrong thing. “This time, there was a note. He promised he was coming for us. When I read it, I immediately started packing everything. We…have to get out of here before he shows up.”
Overhead the wind picked up, brushing my hair into my eyes. I reached for my face, but stopped, dropping my arm when Smoke took the long strands and swept them off my forehead. He’d never looked at me the way he was now, all angry and worried, a little lost, a lot enraged, but too caught up in his own thoughts to do more than just look at me.
When he held my face between his large hands, I closed my eyes, taking one last moment to enjoy the way only Smoke touched me.
“You’re a hardheaded woman…” His voice was dark, deep, and something in his tone twisted my insides, like warm, smooth tequila you felt all the way down.
“I have to leave.” I inhaled, letting his earthy, masculine scent intoxicate me one last time. “For my son, Smoke, I have to go.”
“I can…”
“Don’t say it.” I took Smoke’s hand from my face and he didn’t fight me. He let me get as far as the driver’s side, not stopping me when I threw Mateo’s diaper bag in through the open window. “I can’t let you go to battle for us. I won’t be responsible for all that—”
I was nearly to the entrance of my building, reaching my hand for the door, when Smoke grabbed my arm. He turned me and pressed me against its stone surface. “You don’t get to make that decision anymore. It’s not yours alone. You think you can come into my life, our lives and just walk away? You think you haven’t left a mark? You think there isn’t a person in my family who wouldn’t burn down the world to protect you and that baby?” He held my face still, his fingers tight, demanding. “No. This isn’t going down without me in the thick of it. Fuck that. I won’t let you do this shit without me.”
“It’s not your choice,” I told him, not caring that my voice was loud, that it was inching toward ten o’clock and there were still people leaving their jobs just blocks away from my building.
“Like hell it’s not!” he yelled, kissing me silent.
Smoke made me drunk with that kiss, taking his time, his tongue and teeth intoxicating me before he took it all away. He moved my chin up, staring in my eyes like he wanted to make sure he had my full attention. “I’ve never loved anything more than you and Mateo. You’re mine, both of you. I’m yours. You have to know that by now. I’m willing to give up my entire life here. I’m willing to run after you, to tell my fucking cousin I can’t help him, can’t do anything for him.” He stretched his head back, not making any sense at all to me. But Smoke didn’t stop. He didn’t give me any space to breathe either.
Instead, he leaned on his arm, pressing it against the wall at my head, his free hand in my hair. “I love you enough that I’m thinking stupid things, like telling the fucker who put a bullet in my most loyal man’s chest that he can have my business because all I care about is you and me and our…our boy. Everything is different with you, bella. I’m different with you. I’m not…” He shook his head and for a second I got lost in thought, in the moment, wondering what he wanted, who he could be with me. “You don’t expect me to be…” A long breath and he lowered his voice, the tone coming out in a rasp that had the air freezing in my lungs. “I’m only myself with you. Only you. There’s no criminal, no gangster. There’s only the man that loves you. There’s only…”
“Dimitri…” I said, the word sounding comfortable, familiar. He nodded once, wiping the tears from my lashes as they fell onto my cheek. All I could do was to grab his shirt and dip my head, holding onto him as I cried.
“I didn’t want any of this,” he said against the side of my face, his hands on the back of my head as he held me. “Not with you. Not with anyone, don’t you understand that?”
I lifted my head, my chin and mouth shaking.
“I just wanted to keep everyone safe, but fuck, I can’t do that and be who they need me to be, but I love you enough to walk away from it all. You and Mateo…to me, don’t you get it? You’re the only ones that matter anymore. I can’t let you climb into that car and drive away without a backward glance. I don’t work that way. I can’t.” Smoke pushed his eyebrows together, like he couldn’t believe anything coming out of his mouth. Like they were words someone else put there and he was helpless to keep from speaking them. “You got inside. You both did and I can’t…I won’t let you go.”
His thumbs were warm, soft against my cheeks when he rubbed my face there. I could make out the slightest glint in his eyes, thought maybe, it could have been moisture. But this was Smoke Carelli. He wasn’t a man who cried. Not ever.
“Alejandro…”
A hard frown returned to Dimitri’s mouth and he flexed his jaw as he stretched his neck. “Is a dead fucking man if he thinks he can take what’s mine, that’s a promise.”
“It…won’t be that simple.” The only reason I escaped him was because he’d been so strung out on whatever it was that he’d been taking. I’d always assumed he’d stayed that way for the past year. “If he’s gotten sober, then he’s a dangerous man.”
Smoke smiled, the same smile he reserved for me when I tried to leave his bed in the middle of the night. It meant he’d end up getting his way.
“I know you’re dangerous too…”
“Baby, you don’t know the half of it.” He lowered his smile but didn’t let it drop from his mouth.
I rested against the wall, taking his hand when he kissed my palm. “Maybe not, but if Alejandro is motivated and sober? Then we’re in trouble. He’s the most motivated man I’ve ever met when there’s something he wants.”
“You’re saying he wants you?”
He looked away when I shrugged, seeming indifferent about my non-answer until he grabbed me around my waist, kissing me one last time. “He’s too fucking late and I don’t give a shit what he wants. You and that baby,” he nodded toward the stairs, punctuating his point by pulling me close, “you are mine, same as I am yours. There’s no way I’m letting some drugged-out asshole take you away from me.” He stepped back, gripping my fingers in his hands. “Now come on.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, as he moved us to the building entrance.
Dimitri paused long enough to open the door and stretch out his arm for me to walk inside. “To get our boy and call-in reinforcements.” When I stopped, tugging on his hand, he grinned, holding up his palm to calm me. “Stop worrying. It’s not what you think.”
“And what am I thinking?”
He scratched the stubble on his chin and nodded me toward the lobby. “That I’m gonna lock you and the baby in a room with a bunch of no-neck guards sporting nines and wearing holsters.”
When I shot my eyebrows up and tilted my head, giving him a silent confirmation, the man laughed, rolling his eyes.
“Give me a little credit, yeah? I’ve got something scarier than that shit planned for your ex.”
“What the hell could be scarier than armed guards?” I asked, waiting as he pushed the call button for the elevator.
He grabbed me around the waist again, kissing me once before the doors opened. His laugh was calm, sweet and got lowered when I looked at him.
“Me, baby, and whatever the hell I come up with to protect what’s mine.”
14
Smoke
She was still nervous. Maggie clutched my hand as the elevator shot up the building, moving her fingers in a beat across the top on my hand. One two, one, two, until the skin on my knuckles itched.
I cover
ed her fingers, grinning down at her. The woman smiled back, the same lazy, sweet gesture I got any time I’d done anything that made her feel good.
“You’re fine. Promise,” I told her, meaning it to put her at ease, calm her a little as the car stopped and the doors opened.
“I am now, but we have to hurry. I’ve left them alone too long already,” she said, though it came out through a sigh. She hated admitting she liked my being there to have her back. I understood wanting to find your own way without anyone’s help, but this was different.
This was no street tussle.
She let me hold her hand. I felt the way her fingers trembled, how she couldn’t keep the shake out of her limbs, how her gaze kept jumping to the numbers above the elevator door. Maggie was terrified. Whatever this asshole had done to her—and I suspected it was plenty—one thing I knew was her fear was about more than any threat he posed to her.
Fear was my bread and butter. I knew it when I saw it.
And I knew when someone’s worry had nothing to do with them. When they were vulnerable. Maggie didn’t look at me when I squeezed her hand, didn’t pull her gaze from the numbers climbing higher and higher above the doors. It was obvious.
This was about Mateo. Nothing else mattered.
The second we stepped out of the elevator and came ten feet from her door, I knew something was off. Maggie seemed to sense it too.
We stopped at the same time, spotting her door and the sliver of light coming from it underneath and at the side.
“Do you ever…” I started.
But she held on so tight to my hand, her head moving in a wordless shake that I didn’t have to finish asking her.
“Shit.”
She came with me slow, not arguing, not putting up a fight when I tugged her away from the door to the alcove at the back of the hallway. “Look at me,” I told her when I spotted her eyes going glassy and wet again.
But her attention was on that open door and whatever shit she’d invented was behind it.
