by Sasha Leone
I know Carlos isn’t crazy enough to walk home, even if the wind isn’t as bad as usual. “How are you getting home?” I ask.
“Blue Line!” he sings. “You?”
Shit. Both my train line and my bus stop are in the opposite direction of the Blue Line. If I’m going home tonight, it’s going to have to be on my own. I’m seriously considering sleeping at Chelly’s. With the thermometer turned all the way up, it’ll be way warmer here, in the backroom office, than it will be at my place anyway. I’m sure Mrs. Cheng won’t complain either, when I’m here first thing in the morning tomorrow...
Carlos exits the kitchen with a jumbled plate of scraps and leftovers. His steak and eggs were amazing, but I’m already hungry again. I bow in thanks and dig in.
“I’m thinking about sleeping here tonight,” I float the idea out in the open.
“Ew,” Carlos immediately pronounces, recoiling in disgust. His eyes wander around the shabby diner. “How could you?”
“Ugh, you’re such a queen,” I tease.
“You know it, girlfriend. I’m royalty through and through. That’s why I’m working at this dump, even after a bunch of goons shot through the window less than 24-hours ago.”
I shake my head and hold back a smile. Carlos’s spirit never seems to dampen. “So, your ride has abandoned you, huh?” I prod, ashamed that I’m hoping he’s just as lonely as I am right now.
Carlos shakes his head and swallows his food. “We’ll spend the night together.”
My heart sinks in conflicted happiness. Good. Carlos deserves better than to be alone at a time like this.
“... I can ask if there’s a spot for you,” he starts, before I stop him with the palm of my hand.
“Nonsense. I’ll be cozy here.”
“Shit. You’re braver than I am. After what happened last night?”
A cold chuckle leaves my lips. “Not brave. Just broke. It’s warmer here than it will be at my place anyway. Plus, there’s actually food in Chelly’s fridge.”
Carlos sighs and leans against my shoulder. “We’ll break free from this struggle someday, girl.”
I lean back against him. I hope he’s right.
7
Ronan
This rat is either dumber than I thought or smarter than I’ve given him credit for.
I’ve been following Santino’s trail for hours now, and I’m right back where I started: at the edge of Baker street, with no sign of my target.
Sure enough, the runaway had left a mixed trail of blood and carnage as he escaped last night, but for the life of me, I can’t see it leading anywhere but back to where we had our shootout. Did he really circle back around, or is he just fucking with me?
“Nothing on my end, bud,” Finn’s voice crackles over my earpiece.
Shit.
“This guy must be smarter than we thought.” I would never say the words out loud, but Finn has no problem. He doesn’t seem too frustrated by our dead end. I guess he’s used to it, being an incompetent cop and all. “Oh, hey, you’ll never guess who I picked up today,” he chuckles.
Finn’s clearly trying to lighten my mood. The kid never learns. I like my place in the dark, and trying to pull me out of it only makes me angrier.
“No guesses?” Finn teases, when I don’t respond. “Aw, come one. I’ll give you three tries—”
“Jesus, shut up,” I growl. I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to fight back the pulverizing headache pulsing through my skull. I might need another transfusion of blood or something, I don’t know, all I know is that I feel weak. I hate feeling weak.
I’ll refill myself with Santino’s blood, I tell myself, unsure if it’ll ever actually happen. It’s not often that I lose a purp, and I feel like taking my anger out on the entire city.
Finn huffs over the airwaves. “You know I actually used to like you better before, at least you were polite. I always thought you were the better evil twin...”
I sigh. “... Biff?”
Finn chuckles. “There we go! It only took you one guess! This Santino character doesn’t stand a chance after all.”
I walk out of the alley way, just off of Baker street, that I had been desperately searching for any sign of Santino in. There was no hint of his ghost.
“What did Biff do this time?” I ask, almost curious.
Biff Trigger isn’t actually my twin, he just looks like it. The low-level crook is almost my exact physical doppelganger. He’s also the reason Finn and I ever met in the first place. If I was in the mood, I’d say it was a funny story, but nothing seems funny right now.
“He tried to rape a girl,” Finn tells me.
“... Fucking asshole,” I growl. If having a stupid body double wasn’t so useful, I’d have killed that nuisance long ago. Scum like him don’t deserve to be called criminals. I at least have a code; he doesn’t.
“I have him in an unmarked cell... if you want to take a little anger out...” Finn suggests.
I actually consider it. My left arm throbs but my right arm is still feeling alright. Maybe I could get to thinking clearly if I laid a few fists into that bastard’s familiar face.
“Just say the word...” Finn says sadistically.
“Not right now,” I reject the offer. It’d feel nice to release my anger on the scumbag, but I can’t take on any pleasure until I’ve finished my job. Santino’s still out there somewhere, and I have a feeling he’s close—plus, if I fail, I may need Biff’s familiar looking features to bail me out one last time.
Finn’s patrol car pulls up on the corner of Baker street. I don’t get too close. We can’t let anyone see us together. Even the Barone family doesn’t know just how closely we work together. Finn’s all mine, and as long as no one knows it, we can do great things together... or so I once thought. This whole failure with Santino is going worse than any other venture we’ve ever taken on.
Finn and I first met back when an APB with Biff’s description went out over the airwaves a few years ago. Finn was a young cop looking to make his mark, and he’d been a little overzealous in trying to catch the guy.
The Barone family owns half the cops in this city, and most of them know not to fuck with me—not Finn, though. He was still uninitiated. He found me walking home from dinner and decided to try and pick me up.
Believe me when I say I was seething angry at the inconvenience, but one thing you learn quickly as a career criminal is to always be a polite and gracious suspect. I knew some older, wiser crooked cop would get me out of jail just as quickly as Finn was able to put me in, so I was kinder to the fresh-faced maverick than I should have been.
Finn had really appreciated my attitude. He’d been getting nothing but shit since the day he put on his uniform, and to have a dude twice his size seemingly respect his authority went a long way. Still, he cuffed me and took me in when I didn’t show him ID—I don’t carry personal identification around; never have, never will.
I chatted him up, buttered him a bit, and got ready for a big told-you-so ending.
When a crooked cop stopped us on our way into the station, though, and let the rookie know about his mistake, I didn’t feel the satisfaction I’d been expecting. I kind of liked the little guy. It dawned on me that this could be an opportunity. I was an Irishman in an Italian mob. I had no one truly on my side, but if I could bag a cop, I could be just a little more free.
So, I offered to help him catch Biff. After some hesitation, he agreed, and I tracked down that motherfucker before you could say ‘Fuck You’.
Finn got to go back to the station looking like a hotshot, and I got my dirty cop.
It was a win-win.
This situation we’re currently in with Santino, though, is looking increasingly like a lose-lose.
“At least no-one’s bugging us,” Finn’s voice comes over my earpiece again.
“That’s ‘cause no one’s allowed to,” I grumble, scanning the dark streets for something, anything, I might have missed. Finn is right, th
ere doesn’t seem to be another soul in sight. Truth is, I wouldn’t be surprise if every cop in the city has been told by some boss or another to stay away from this area. Gianni made it known to all of the officers in his pocket that there was to be no investigation into what happened last night, as did Vadim Volkov, the head of the Russian Bratva, to his men.
“You don’t think some cops could help search for Santino?” Finn asks.
I scoff at the suggestion. “Cops never help anything.”
“Geez, thanks.”
“Have you driven by that diner yet? Are their lights still on?” I want to go back and check the spot where I was shot, but the place was still open the last time I checked.
“Lights were off last time I drove by,” Finn confirms.
Good. Maybe there’s a clue there that will help be solve this whole stupid puzzle.
“Hey, why aren’t the Russians even slinking around tonight? Don’t they want Santino as bad as anyone?” Finn asks over my earpiece, as I march away from his patrol car towards the darkened diner.
“Because they were respectfully asked not to,” I answer. A cool breeze whips across my exposed face. The wind isn’t nearly as bad tonight as it was last night. Still, as I approach the diner where I was shot, I hear the loud racket of a makeshift saran-wrapped window flapping around in the breeze. “My boss wants the opportunity to personally gift Santino to them, as a show of apology for what happened. It’s up to me to make that happen.”
“Want backup right now?” Finn asks. I’m sure he’s worried about me returning to the scene of the crime. He might even think I’d have a hard time snooping around a place where, just over 24-hours ago, I was shot. I feel no such hesitancy. I’ve been shot before. It’s an occupational hazard. I need to figure out where Santino’s gone, and the diner’s the last piece of the puzzle I haven’t already traced over.
“You stay back at the intersection,” I order. “Just let me know if you see anything.”
Under the streetlamp closest to the diner, I can see the stain my blood left behind on the sidewalk. I take a deep breath and my arm aches under its bandages. The flimsy window ruffles in the wind in front of me. At least I won’t have any trouble getting in.
I claw at the saran wrap until I create a hold big enough to fit through. When I step inside, I’m surprised by how warm it is. Even with the cold air coming in through the puncture wound I just made, I feel immediately wrapped in heat. I don’t think too much about it as I scan the floor for clues. There’s no sign of blood or glass—someone must have put in a good day’s work cleaning up my mess.
Suddenly, an uninvited vision of that woman who’d met my gaze last night flashes behind my eyes. My chest stirs. I sneer and ball up both fists, trying to use the pain from my arm as a way to distract myself from her image. She was beautiful...
The wind from outside seeps in through the saran wrap and tunnels through the diner. A low, rumbling howl fills the room. I don’t see anything that might help me with my mission. If there had been a clue here somewhere before, it’s gone now. I have to give it to whoever runs this store, they’re tough. Most people wouldn’t want to stick around to tidy up after an incident like that.
I can’t stop myself from wondering if that waitress came back. She didn’t look away when I sneered at her. In fact, she’d sneered back. Warm blood pulses through my body at her memory. Those eyes... those lips...
Suddenly, I hear a sound break through the white noise of the wind. I tense up and whip around towards the source of the disturbance. The diner’s kitchen door swings slightly behind the counter. I relax a little. Must be the wind.
Still, the commotion causes a new thought to cross my mind. If Santino’s not already long gone and on the run by now, he’s going to have to eat while he hides away. Maybe, just maybe, he circled around back to Chinatown after our altercation, because he knows this area well enough to disappear in.
If he knows where to steal food from, he can hide out around here for as long as it takes for the heat around him to die—and me with it.
There are a couple of small grocery stores, as well as a dozen or so restaurants on this strip. An experienced scavenger could make due here for as long as he needed, unless a real predator showed up to stop him. If Santino’s come back to Chinatown to hide out, this might be around the time he’d come out to go looking for food.
It’d almost be too good to be true if he just so happened to start here.
I won’t be caught off guard again.
I tense back up and unholster my Glock, slowly creeping towards the swinging kitchen door. I make sure to turn my earpiece off. The only sound is that of the seeping wind; it’s enough to cover the noise of my footsteps against the tiles.
Come out to play, you bastard.
I click the safety off of my gun and slowly push the kitchen door open with my foot. I stop when I catch a sliver of light down the dark hallway.
Someone’s here.
I let my finger fall over the trigger as I slide through the doorway. When it shuts behind me, I can barely hear the wind outside anymore. My footsteps become as loud as gunshots. There’s not going to be any sneaking up on whoever’s on the other side of this next door.
I get ready for a fight and slip into the darkness at the edge of the hallway. The dull ache on my left arm slowly fades as my heart pumps a barrel full of adrenaline into my veins. I grind my canines and flex my fingers. I’m not going to fuck up this time.
Suddenly, though, I hear something unexpected come from the other side of the door at the end of the hall. I stop trudging forward and I listen for it again. Silence fills the tense air as I wait—until, suddenly, I hear it again.
A woman’s voice
“...Hello?” Somehow, her tone is as smooth as butter, even through the frightened tremble that undercuts her words.
I already somehow know who it is.
It has to be her. No other voice could match that face.
I slide my weapon back into its holster and get ready to handle her. If she’s anywhere near as feisty as her sneer from last night suggests, she’s about to attack.
It doesn’t take long for her to confirm my intuition. The backdoor bursts open and I’m nearly blinded by the light that washes out from behind it. If I wasn’t prepared, I might actually have been in trouble. Instead, all I have to do is step aside and reach for her arm. I see the silhouette of a long kitchen knife in her hand; I catch her wrist before the blade can touch my skin. I hold her tight, and the knife quickly drops from her grip and clangs off the tiles below.
I furiously blink, trying to regain my sight in the sudden change of lighting. The woman struggles desperately under my grasp, but I’m too strong. I reach around her body and grab her other wrist, and then I push her backwards until she’s pinned against the wall.
Slowly, my vision re-focuses. The light from the now open doorway casts our inter-tangled shadows against the opposite wall. I feel her inflamed breath wash against my face, and then I see her.
Those big brown eyes are even more intense up close. I tighten my grip. She stops struggling. Her plump lips quiver and her soft limbs shake. I hold her steady.
“... You,” she whispers, finally recognizing me.
You, I think, with no intention of ever letting her go.
8
Nia
A crackling hand of dried lava wraps around my heart and extinguishes the fiery courage I had been building up inside. I thought I might have a chance if I caught the invader by surprise, but he was too quick, too strong, too furious. No light seeps from his grip. He has me, dead to rights.
I can only stare up at the steaming nightmare that pins me against the wall. He’s even more domineering up close than I could have ever imagined. He towers over me like a great oak tree with eyes that shine with the blue heat of two raging stars. The strength in his hard fingers drains all of my strength until I feel like a twig washed up against his broad trunk.
His fiery breath
is warm against my cheeks. Still, I shiver under his intense stare. There’s something cold and hard about him that overcomes the furnace we find ourselves in. His bulging chest pushes against my heaving breasts.
I grind my teeth, fighting the thought of how good this feels. I save my energy until I have enough to put up another bit of a fight, but it’s all for show. I’m his, and we both know it.
“...Hello? Hello? This is Operator 29. What’s the location of your emergency?”
Shit. If I can hear it, then so can he. As soon as I’d recognized that sound of footsteps out in the hall, I’d grabbed my cell phone and dialled 911. I wasn’t about to let myself get caught off guard again. Still, I didn’t have enough time. It must be a busy night in the underworld, because my phone rang for far longer than I’d ever hoped and emergency line would. Fuck this scummy city and all of its problems. Why can’t someone worry about me for once?
I’d felt the stranger’s presence even before I’d heard another one of his steps. So, I grabbed the knife I’d borrowed from the kitchen and got ready to pounce. A lot of good it did me. Maybe I should have waited for him to come inside, but I was too nervous to stay put for one second longer. Someone big and mean was just outside my door and no one was coming to help me, so I put aside my phone and tried my best.
As usual, my best wasn’t good enough.
The stranger’s steely blue eyes wander over my shoulder and towards my cell phone on the ground behind me. His massive hands make my wrists feel so insignificant and useless; his giant body makes me feel completely captive. I want to struggle more, but I’m defeated. All my energy is drained through his powerful grip.
“What do you—“ I start, before I’m shut-up. I’m not exactly a small woman—I’m taller than average and I have curves enough to tip the scale in my favor if I were fighting someone around my size—but when the giant stranger tosses me to the ground, I feel like a weightless toothpick. There’s no fighting back against this man; all I can do is brace myself for the fall.
