by Nicole Fox
I grin back. “You’re a quick learner.”
The drive to Long Island is quiet and smooth. I set my phone on the dash and follow the path of Lombardi’s blinking red dot. It stops in a little neighborhood deep in residential territory.
I’m surprised that’s where he’s holing up, actually. More down-to-earth than I would’ve expected. Especially since, from everything I know of Lombardi, he’s a high flier. Or at least, he tries to be. Which can only mean one thing: his resources aren’t as plentiful as he would have me believe.
I hone in closer. Soon, I’m a block away, at the foot of a modest little road sloping upwards. Nondescript houses dot the lots on either side of me. All the lights are off.
Except for one.
The white van is parked outside the fifth house on the right. I see a few illuminated windows in the home. No sign of movement, though.
Right on cue, I get a call from Phoenix. I park at the very bottom of the road and answer.
“We just finished a complete sweep of the warehouse,” he informs me. “Everything looks good.”
“Excellent.”
“How’re things on your end?”
“I’ve got the little fucker cornered,” I tell him. “But I’m going to need a clean-up team here as soon as possible. His body needs to disappear.”
“Got it,” Phoenix replies. “I’m coming, too.”
“Okay. See you soon. It’ll all be ready when you get here.”
“Wait—”
“Yeah?”
“You’re going in on your own?” Phoenix asks incredulously.
“Yes.”
“But you don’t know how many men he has in there.”
“Guess I’ll find out.”
“Kian…”
“Don’t worry, kid,” I tell him. “You’re starting to sound like your mother. I know it sounds like I’m taking a risk. But I’m not. I know this guy. He’s all sizzle, no steak.”
Phoenix snorts. “Fine. I’ll be there with the cleanup crew as soon as possible. Just… be careful, Uncle.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I hang up and drop the phone in the passenger seat.
Outside, the neighborhood is really fucking quiet. The kind of quiet that radiates from a bunch of working-class stiffs who are too tired at the end of the day to do anything but sleep like the dead.
I eye the front door of the Lombardi safehouse as I approach. One cursory glance tells me there’s no security at all. No barriers that will keep me from entering.
It’s like the bastard wants to be slaughtered.
I step right up to the door and knock as though I’m paying them a friendly social call. I hear running footsteps almost immediately. Frantic, actually.
Then the door swings open.
The young woman standing opposite me is not who I’m expecting. And based on her reaction, I’m not who she’s expecting either.
“Oh, God…” she breathes.
Her light brown eyes are wide with alarm. It does nothing to detract from her obvious beauty.
Dark hair swept wild around her face, but still silky and begging to be yanked. She’s got a petite frame, tempting curves, and yet she’s small enough that my hands are itching to throw her around the room and squeeze moans from her again and again.
She’s the kind of girl I’d love breaking.
But she’s looking at me like the boogeyman just showed up on her doorstep.
I smile softly and shove my way into the house. By the time I’m finished here, she’ll be wishing it was the boogeyman instead.
3
Kian
The girl doesn’t take her eyes off me as I lock the door behind me. Her hands ball into fists as though she’s poised for a fight.
As tiny and frail as she looks, I can’t just assume she’s not dangerous. It’s the fear in her amber eyes. Fear like a cornered animal. And I know from experience that sometimes, cornered animals are the most dangerous.
I’ll admit, the girl has thrown a spanner into my plan. I’d counted on finding Drago here alone. Or, failing that, to be shooting the shit with any accomplices still surviving.
The girl complicates matters.
Doesn’t mean I won’t kill her if I have to. But “have to” all depends on her.
“If you cooperate, then I won’t have to hurt you,” I tell her.
She flinches strangely at the sound of my voice. The reaction puzzles me, but I brush it off. I don’t have time to try and decipher her every move.
I frown. “Who are you?” I ask.
It’s sheer curiosity that drives me to answer the question. It really shouldn’t matter who she is.
But the curiosity only increases when she bites down on her lower lip and refuses to answer. There’s something about her nagging in the back of my mind. Something almost… familiar.
But there’s no way I’ve ever seen her before. I’d remember someone as beautiful as her. Even if she does seem so fucking young. Her sharp nose and high cheekbones are almost harsh, gaunt. Or at least, they would be, if it weren’t for the big brown eyes and plump lips to soften them.
She looks down, clearly uncomfortable with my scrutiny. But it’s almost like she has a secret to hide, too.
“I’ll ask one more time,” I rumble. “Who are you?”
She keeps her head down, but she looks up at me through her eyelashes. “What do you care?” she demands in a voice that’s low but fiery.
Well, well. The little vixen has spirit.
I shrug. “I suppose I don’t. But I’ve always been a curious motherfucker.”
“At least you got the ‘motherfucker’ part right.”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise, but I’m unable to keep the smile from my lips. “I guess my reputation precedes me.”
She stands her ground and lifts her face up a little. I don’t miss the way her eyes dart from side to side. As though she’s waiting for someone else to appear. Or else she’s hiding something. Maybe both.
“So can I assume you know who I am?” I press.
She glowers at me. “I’ve known you my whole life,” she hisses.
I frown, trying to figure out what that means. Nothing about this midnight house call is going the way I expected thus far.
There’s an almost intimate quality in the way she says that. I’ve known you my whole life. Almost makes me shudder with an eerie sense of recognition. Ma used to call that “a ghost passing through you.” That’s how it feels. Otherworldly.
“Your whole life, eh?” I ask, refusing to be affected by her or the weird feelings sweeping through me every time I catch those eyes raging at me.
Or rather, I’m trying not to be affected. But the fact that I’m still standing here talking to her instead of doing what I came here to do proves that I’m not exactly succeeding in that regard.
“My entire fucking life,” she seethes. “I know exactly who you are.”
“Doesn’t sound like there’s a lot of love lost here.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that, no.”
I shrug. “Well, whatever it is that got you all pissed off, my sincerest apologies. It was nothing personal.”
“For men like you, nothing ever is.”
“Speaking of men like me,” I say, glancing around the dimly lit living room, “where is Drago Lombardi?”
Her eyes flicker to the side, but she stops herself just short of giving away his position. He’s in here, though. That much is obvious.
I smile. “So the big man is indeed at home,” I remark. “Thanks for the confirmation.”
She grits her teeth.
“You his girlfriend or something?” I ask. What a pity it would be for a woman like her to be with someone like that slimy fuck.
Her body tenses slightly, but she stops herself short of answering that one, too.
“Don’t waste your life on him,” I advise, taking a step forward.
She moves back instinctively, leaving the same four feet of space between
us. Like we’re doing some pre-rehearsed dance.
“He’s a nobody with no future. Literally. It ends tonight.”
“You can’t kill him.”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
She looks lost. Like she’s searching for an answer that she doesn’t have. She settles on, “Because he’s going to kill you first.” She looks as shocked by her own words as I am. Maybe even more so.
I stare at her for a moment before my face cracks into insuppressible smile. “Is that right?” I chuckle. “Well, then, should I do the polite thing and wait for him to take his turn?”
She takes another step back.
“Like I said, I’m here for Lombardi. I don’t know who you are and frankly, I don’t give a fuck. But if you get in my way, I will dispose of you, too.”
Not entirely true that I don’t give a fuck. I wouldn’t mind giving a fuck about a woman like her—for a night, at least.
One night only. That’s all anyone ever gets from me. After everything that’s happened, that’s the only way to keep everyone safe.
But fuck, that would be one hell of a night.
“That’s what people are to you, aren’t they?” she accuses, her tone full of a venom that I still don’t fully understand. “Disposable?”
“Yes,” I reply without blinking. “That is precisely what they are to me. Glad we settled that so succinctly. Now, are you going to cooperate or not?”
She takes a moment to think about it. Then her head lowers. Submission—my favorite thing to see in this world.
When I step towards her, she doesn’t back away from me. She just stands there with her head hanging and her hands limp at her sides.
Why the fuck is there this nagging feeling in the back of my head every time I look at her? I want to attribute it to her looks. She’s beautiful. Young. Sexy. Pliable. Young. And young. Did I mention young?
But it’s more than just that.
“Now,” I say, trying to remind myself of the reason I’m here in the first place, “where is Drago—”
The second I’m in range, she drives her knee upwards towards my groin.
She’s fucking fast, but I’m faster.
I shift my weight to the side just enough to take the brunt of the blow in my thigh instead of my balls. But she gets sufficient contact to make my eyes water and slow me down.
And then she’s on the move. She darts to the left and around the wall that separates the main body of the house from the kitchen.
I limp forward, quickly regaining my bearings.
“Fucking fuck,” I mutter under my breath. I’ve played this whole thing stupidly. Now, I’m going to have to kill this girl and make her disappear along with Lombardi, wherever the hell that bastard is.
But before I can follow her around to the back portion of the ugly house, she emerges, her eyes blazing. She’s got her body angled in an odd way. It’s only when she lunges at me that I realize she’s concealing a knife.
It slashes across my face. I’m too slow this time and pain ignites across my left brow as she draws blood.
“Fuck!” I roar.
I’m both furious and impressed with how fast that escalated. Blood drips into my eyes, but I wipe it away fast and keep my gaze trained on her. She’s got the knife held in front of her, and she looks fucking glorious. All fury and determination and a deep-seated loathing that runs years deep.
“Who the hell are you?” I snarl.
“You’ve been my nightmare for twenty years,” she says defiantly. “Now, I get to be yours.”
She lunges again, eager to find my throat. But this time, I’m ready for her.
I let her get close. Until, at the last second, I lean away from the swiping blade, grab her knife-wielding wrist, and twist it around in the same motion, forcing her back against my chest.
She screams as I pluck the bloodied knife from her fingers and fling it across the room. “No!” she whimpers. “No!”
“That was a fucking mistake,” I whisper, into her ear. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt you if you complied.”
I sweep her legs out from under her with one foot. While she’s airborne, I put one hand on her throat and use the momentum to spin and slam her into the wall behind me. The whole house shudders as I pin her there, a foot off the ground.
Her feet are dancing on air and her hands scrabble at my wrist. But I don’t let go.
This shit has gone on too far. My free hand finds my gun on my hip. Unholsters it, flicks the safety off, and raises to press it into the girl’s temple.
It’s a shame to kill something so beautiful. But you can only get so close to fire before it burns you. Better to snuff it out before that happens.
She’s still struggling as I put pressure on the trigger. Eyes wide as death hurtles towards her faster than she ever expected. And then…
I notice something. Something I first noticed twenty years ago.
A tiny, crescent moon scar on her right cheek.
She stares back at me, the fury and fear competing in her deep brown eyes. Where is that little girl I’m remembering? The one who asked me why I did what I had done to her father? The one who stood still while I wiped the blood from her face—the blood pouring from the very scar I’m staring down at now?
The innocence and confusion have disappeared. In their place is anger. Hate. Bitterness.
I’ve known you my whole life. Isn’t that what she said to me?
Now, I understand why.
Now, I understand why she looks familiar.
I met this girl once, two decades ago, long before she morphed into the enraged beauty before me now.
I spared her then. A child’s life is not mine to take.
But she’s not a child anymore. She’s a fucking liability. She’d slice my throat open if I gave her half a chance. So why not end it? Tie up the loose end. Close the twenty-year loop and wipe one more Lombardi spawn out of existence.
She seems to realize that I’m not letting her out of my grip. That it’s pointless to keep struggling.
And when she does accept that, her fear fades away. In its place comes blazing challenge.
“Get it over with already,” she snarls through gritted teeth. “What are you waiting for?”
I haven’t decided yet, I want to say.
But before I can say that—or say anything—there’s a sudden, clumsy knock on the front door.
I wrench the girl off the wall, tuck my gun away, and clamp my hand down over her mouth. I take care to make sure her lips are sealed underneath my palm. I have a feeling she’s a biter.
“Excuse me?” a raised voice comes through from behind the door. “We received a distress call from this address.”
“You called the fucking cops?” I hiss furiously in her ear.
There’s no way she would have been able to make the call since I’ve been in the house. And there’s no way she could have known I was coming.
Which means…
I glance down at her. She made the call before I turned up.
There’s something here I don’t understand yet.
More knocking. This time louder. More impatient.
I meet her gaze. “You will fucking play along,” I snarl. “If not, you die. So will every other man who walks through that door. You want their deaths on your hands? Go right ahead and sound the alarm.”
I pull my hand away from her mouth, half expecting her to scream.
She doesn’t, though. She just stands there, as though waiting for instructions.
“Hello? Open up! Open the door!”
My eyes slide down her body. “You’ve got blood on your clothes,” I note. Whose blood, I wonder? Mine? Hers? …Or someone else’s?
I spot a sweatshirt thrown carelessly over one of the armchairs and grab it. “Put this on.”
Surprisingly, she does exactly what I tell her. Then she turns to me, the anger still burning in her eyes.
I need to think fast. My eyebrow is still thr
obbing from the slash she’s made in it. I turn to the closest mirror and take a look at myself. It’s not bad as I’m expecting. But it definitely looks like a fresh cut.
Guess I’ll just have to wing it.
I close the distance between us in two steps and tug up her sweatshirt before she can stop me. Then I grab the side of her t-shirt and rip off a long ribbon of fabric.
“What the fuck?” she protests.
“Sorry,” I say casually before dropping her sweatshirt back down.
“Are you actually?”
“No. Not even a little.”
She glares at me furiously while the knocking continues. “Well, now what?” she snaps.
I raise my eyebrows. “Now, you answer the goddamn door.”
4
Renata
My heart is beating hard, but I don’t know what I’m more scared of.
Drago? The cops?
…Or Kian O’Sullivan?
The sweatshirt isn’t helping my anxiety. It’s Drago’s and it’s thick as hell, so I’m already sweating through it.
The cop is halfway with another hard knock when I open it. His fist almost collides with my face, and as it does, his expression twists from impatience to shock in two seconds flat. But he recovers pretty fast.
I take a good look at him. He’s an older man with a bunch of laugh lines around his eyes and a salt-and-pepper beard. There’s another cop standing behind him. This one’s younger, a little too blonde and a little too cheery as he looks me up and down.
“Ma’am,” the older cop says by way of greeting, dipping his head down a little. “Sorry about the noise.”
“No, no, I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I was in the kitchen cooking and I just got distracted.”
“She’s in a world of her own when she cooks. You could burn the house down and she wouldn’t even notice.” I stiffen instantly when Kian walks up behind me and starts talking so casually.
I’d expected him to go hide. Especially with the gash over his eye from where I sliced him with the knife. But far from hiding, he’s out here in the open, brazenly chatting with the cops like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
