by Gabi Moore
I made for the staircase to head up for a shower.
Crack.
I froze. Someone was in here with me. My eyes flew to the kitchen to see two men leaping out at me. With no time to think, I sprang off the first stairs and swung around behind the bannister, skidding out into the hall. Ordinarily, I could fight in a situation like this. But not now. Not with the baby…
I clutched at my belly and tore down the hall, both of them clattering loudly after me. There was only one exit from here: the bathroom window. It was wide enough, if I hurried and could make it. I could run from there. I was tired already, and barefoot, but the back of the house had enough gates and winding paths that I could gain some ground and maybe even hide.
My bare feet squeaked on the tiles as I turned the corner and went for the bathroom. Instantly, a hand closed around my throat and I felt the weight of a man bear down on me, trying to pull me to the ground. I had gone to MMA classes. I had run every day since I moved here. And I was currently sitting on a 170-pound personal squat record. And I would not allow them to pull me to the ground. No way in hell.
I crouched down, dropped my weight and jerked backwards, bringing my elbow into my attacker’s guts and then escaping under his elbow, still clinging to his hands that I now found I could twist. He pulled loose and then the other one was gearing up to grab me. I sprang to action and fled in the other direction. The bathroom escape wouldn’t work anymore.
I’d have to fight.
In a heartbeat, I had skidded into the sitting room and scrambled a Glock from a makeshift panel behind a painting. I spun to point it at them, but the first attacker was already careening into me, and nearly knocked it from my hands. His heavy boot trod down on my naked toes and I yelped out. In the brief moment it took him to glance down and then up at me again, I took my chance and slammed the butt of the gun into his face, sending him back reeling.
I jumped forward and threw every shred off energy into pinning him down hard, my knee square down on the tender part of his throat and the other jamming my heel into his groin. I flicked the barrel of the gun towards the next guy, who now stood frozen in the doorway, hands raised cautiously. I didn’t recognize him. Either of them.
“Move and I’ll shoot you both,” I said.
The look on his face told me he knew to believe me. It felt good to know that even in my strange, semi-retirement, I hadn’t lost it yet. In fact, even with a baby in me, I felt lighter and stronger than I had in years.
Crack.
I spun around the room. There was a third man!
With all my weight I pressed down hard into the guy’s neck and pricked my ears to see someone walk briskly into the living room, gun cocked and aimed. And then there they were. Those bottomless eyes. For a second, my hold on my hostage wavered, but I stood strong.
“Jack.”
“Evelyn.”
Chapter 8 - Jack
She was bent over him, nailing him to the ground somehow even though she was half his size. With a swell of admiration, I realized that I’d forgotten how insanely strong she was. And I’d clearly forgotten how beautiful, too. She had softened somehow. No more leather and dark lipstick. Instead, she was flushed pink, gentle looking, her hair loose and hanging casually around her bare face. It took me by surprise to see her like that, honestly. And by the look on her face, she was just as surprised.
“I thought you…”
“You thought they’d kill me? What?”
The guy under her wriggled and she instantly released a ferocious thrust downwards into his neck. He stopped at once.
“Well, yes I did actually,” she said and stared at me hard, almost challenging me.
I laughed.
“Why did they send you?” she said.
“Does it matter? Besides, they didn’t need to send me, I wanted to come here of my own accord. You set me up.”
She said nothing. But she looked pained.
“Jack, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to. But you were the only possibility. You were the one they sent along with me that night. If it had been someone else…”
“Bullshit! You deliberately chose to fuck with me and then have me take the fall.”
“Jack, please, I know you’re mad, but listen…”
“I’m not listening to a damn thing. I’m not leaving here until I’ve put a bullet in your head.”
Panic flashed over her face. In all my fantasies - the ones where I kill her - she was always faceless, evil, and entirely unrepentant. I hadn’t even imagined that she would apologize to me. In fact, I had never imagined that staring at her again would make me feel so …protective over her. I didn’t know if I wanted to jump in there and get that guy away from her, or whether I wanted to pull the trigger and kill her immediately or whether I wanted to …do other things to her.
“Please, Jack. It’s more complicated than that…”
I knew she had it in her to kill the guy she was crouching over. It was nothing for a woman like Evie. And I could not go back to Joey again with one man down. I was already in a tight position and I knew that she had no problem playing dirty with me.
“Let him go,” I said.
“No.”
“You’re making a mistake, Evie. This is the end of the road for you, and you know it. If you run away now, they’ll just send more people to come and find you. And kill you. It’s over.”
“Jack, I’ve wanted to tell you something ever since that day…”
I exchanged incredulous glances with the guy standing in the doorway.
“Well?”
“I made a mistake, Jack. I know that. There was something… I saw something, that night. Not just in you and in me, but I saw something else, something wonderful,” she said, her voice trailing off. It was like she was looking elsewhere, somewhere far off into the distance, way beyond the confines of the walls of this shitty apartment.
“Just stop talking,” I snapped.
“But I mean it… didn’t you feel it too? And I still think of it, every day, I still have dreams,” she began talking quickly, but I instantly took a step towards her and shoved my gun almost to her face.
“You’re a fucking liar,” I hissed under my breath.
She didn’t flinch, but kept staring at me, eyes wide. I had seen this before. It was called “feminine wiles”, if you were being generous, but it was straight up manipulative, and I wasn’t having it. I wouldn’t have been so mad at her just then if I didn’t feel like it was almost working. I hated that she set me up. I hated that she put me in this position. I hated that even now, it was so hard to hate her as much as I needed to.
“Jack… I’m pregnant.”
“What?”
The guy in the doorway snorted. My eyes flew down to her abdomen. She was crouched over, and she didn’t seem to be pregnant.
“Please don’t… I’m pregnant,” she said again.
They were all waiting on me now. Fucking brilliant. Kill the hot pregnant lady… could this day get any more painful? The guy in the doorway was frozen, and the guy on the floor looked like he had checked out. I felt a flash of anger that not only had I been framed, I was now the one in charge of cleaning up the fucking mess.
I clenched my jaw and stared at her panicked face, looped my finger over the trigger and squeezed. A muffled shot rang out in the apartment and the guy under Evie crumpled, his head thudding hard down onto the floor. Her eyes flew wild and she leapt back from the dead body, looking down at him with astonishment.
Knowing exactly what would come next, I spun around and faced the drawn weapon of the guy in the doorway.
“What the fuck are you doing man,” he said, but I cut him off by cocking the trigger and letting him know I’d waste him just as easily.
“She’s messing with you, man. Of course she’s not pregnant, and even if she is, the fuck does that have to with anything? You’re a goddam idiot,” he sputtered and looked down at the now lifeless body laying right in the middle of the living room.
/> “I’m not lying,” she said from her corner of the room. I couldn’t even look at her.
The guy took a threatening step toward her and waved his gun at her head.
“You shut your mouth. It’s fine by me, killing the both of you,” he said and took aim, probably pleased he’d now get double bounty.
Some animal part of my brain kicked in. I shot him. My shoulder kicked back and a blood red hole appeared instantly on his left cheek, sending him toppling to the floor. His face froze into a permanent expression of disgust, his arms twitched and he folded at the waist, dead. The entire room fell silent and I stood there, and she stood there, and two bodies lay between us, each as dead as the other.
I could see how hard she was thinking as she stared down at those bodies with me, realizing how drastically the situation had changed. She had no more bargaining chips. But then, neither did I. Even now, she looked beautiful. There was something about danger that really suited her. Something about the way her chest was heaving, and the way her arms were spread just a little, as though she was coiled and ready to pounce or flee at any moment. It hadn’t been the Pink Kisses that night. She really was this beautiful, even sober.
She was alone with me now.
Defenseless.
The moment I had played out over and over again in my head was actually happening. But I was paralyzed. I had been given my orders. I was already on thin ice with the organization, already having to save my ass and prove to Joseph Valenti where my loyalties really lay. But none of that seemed to matter now.
I had questions.
A lot of questions.
Chapter 9 - Evelyn
I was so sure that I was about to die that it was like my brain hadn’t actually thought of what would happen if I didn’t. I stood there stunned, mind trying to catch up, to decide if the best or the worst thing had just happened to me.
“You’re lying,” he said at last. It didn’t feel much like a question. I said nothing. He lowered his weapon, glanced down at the two goons and then back up at me.
“I just want to know why. Why did you do it? I trusted you.”
It was the voice I had heard in my head ever since I had stood in the kitchen and carefully folded a sinister white powder into the brown and stirred until it was all invisible. The voice that haunted me when I ran out of distractions for the day and was too exhausted to literally run anymore. The one remaining snag in my new life that was, for the most part, clean and new. I had no defense. I had done it to serve my own selfish needs. That was the truth. I wanted out, and when the opportunity presented itself, I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. Besides, I wasn’t planning on falling for him at all. In a way, I blamed him for ruining my plans. Did he have to go ahead and be so much more interesting than I originally gave him credit for?
“Jack, I’m sorry,” was all I could say.
He looked enraged.
“Do you have any idea of what I’ve been through? They kicked my ass, Evie. I go out of my way to keep my nose clean with those assholes and you just swoop in and serve me up on a platter. I thought you were different.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. I wanted to say that he was right. That I was wrong. I was hardened. It was because that life was damaging me so badly, because it was slowly killing that part of me that was human, that I had to get out. I regretted every single day that I had pulled him into it with me, but at the time I had felt I had no choice.
“Are you really even pregnant? Or is that just another lie?”
I began to seriously wonder what my escape options were. If he had wanted to kill me, he would have done it already.
“It’s yours,” I said. I was too tired to play my cards. I just wanted him to know. I was done with games and manipulation.
He took a step back and flopped against the wall, eyeing me with a look of amusement.
“Bullshit.”
“I’m not lying.”
He looked down at my belly. It’s true, I wasn’t showing much yet. But I stood tall and let him ogle my body if he wanted to. I had nothing to hide.
“How are you so sure? It could be anyone’s.”
That stung. I tried not to show any emotion. If he thought I was a heartless slut …well, he wouldn’t be the first. But that was my old life.
“It’s yours,” I said again, simply. His face softened a little. “I wasn’t with anyone else.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I know. But it’s true.”
“You’re just saying what you think I want to hear. Why the hell would I trust you? You’re a liar…”
“I haven’t been with anyone else. It was only you. That night at the warehouse… in the container…”
I couldn’t continue. We both knew what had happened, there was no point going into detail. But in the silence I knew he was thinking of it anyway. Thinking of how we fucked, how we hid ourselves away and did exciting, forbidden things to one another, how it felt like we had both held hands and taken a secret peek into paradise together. I don’t know when I had become such a fucking romantic.
“I still don’t believe you. You’re a beautiful woman; you could easily have any guy you wanted…”
I raised my eyebrow at him when I realized he was staring at me again. Staring at my form fitting running tights and tank top.
“Well, I haven’t. But I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said, and couldn’t help but lift my eyes to his. Our gazes locked together. My heart was kicking violently in my chest but I didn’t move. He could do anything he wanted to me. Not because I was alone and couldn’t defend myself. But because I wasn’t sure at that moment that I would even want to stop him.
“I was sent here to kill you. Joseph Valenti is on to you and he knows what you did. He was going to kill me, Evie. And fuck, maybe he still will. He seems to think you’re a threat because of some intel you have about the company. That you know some things that could bring down the entire organization….”
“Oh, I could do more than that,” I said quickly. I didn’t know how true that was. I didn’t quite yet know if I could defend myself if pushed, and I had never wanted to hurt the organization, just escape it. But if I could convince Jack that it was stupid to kill me, even just for the moment, then yes, I wanted him to believe that I had vital secret information that could completely change the game.
I could tell it piqued his interest. I held my head a little higher. I was carrying his baby, that was true, but knowing what I know about men, that might not have been enough to save my hide.
“I don’t believe you. But I don’t kill pregnant women,” he said quietly. Though he seemed that he was saddened by this conclusion, I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief and clutch instinctively at my belly. And though I hated to think about what would happen to him when he returned to Joey and told him that I was still alive, it was hard to care at that moment. I had to think about the little one now.
He knitted his brows as he saw me cradling my midriff.
“You’ve put me in a difficult fucking position, you know that? Again.”
I started to realize that he wasn’t quite the thug I had thought he was only a few months ago. In fact, every time we met I had the feeling that I was discovering some new and surprising aspect of him.
“So what are you going to do?” I asked.
It wasn’t my style, to be a timid damsel, but I was on a role and didn’t want to push my luck and give him a reason to make good on his revenge plans.
“I don’t know. I need to think.”
“I don’t …you don’t have to do anything, about the baby I mean, I have a new life here, I’ll be OK, you can just tell them--”
“Just stop! I’ve heard enough. Just, get out of my sight before I change my mind,” he said and looked at the ground.
“But Jack, please, you have to believe me, I’m sorry…” But he had already turned to leave.
I ran after him but he had flown out the apartment and slammed the doo
r. I opened it again and stood in the doorway, watching him leave. Tears burnt my eyes. I was alone again. Alive, but with two freshly dead strangers slowly bleeding into my brand new carpet. I pressed my shaking hand to the doorknob, shut the door, closed my eyes and tried to gather myself. Tried to think. I couldn’t lose my shit, not now. I couldn’t let the stress affect the baby. I was alive, and that was better than the alternative, and now I just had to calm down and think of what to do next.
They knew it was me. Fine. It was a risk I took. And they knew where to find me. Fine. I ran before, I could run again. Jack was alive. I hadn’t decided what I felt about that just yet. But he’d be on his way right now to …I didn’t even know what. I had no intention of using what I knew about the organization to bring down anyone, but I sure as hell would if they were planning to snuff me out because of it.
I walked slowly back into the living room and looked down at the bodies. All at once, a deep wave of nausea washed over me and I felt myself gag. I ran to the bathroom, dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and instantly threw up. Tears streamed down my face as another wave lurched deep in my gut and came rolling over me. I retched and threw up again, then again. My whole body was repulsed. Morning sickness. But also sickness at the thought that I hadn’t run far away enough. That I was back at square one again.
I flushed the toilet, stood and examined my red face in the mirror. I rinsed my mouth, fixed my hair and told myself to get a grip. And then I went back to the living room and looked it over. I’d have to move, preferably at the crack of dawn tomorrow. I had packing to do. I had enough money. I’d go east, leave behind the daffodils I had planted in the window box, and I’d just vanish. I’d need clean clothes, and to do something different with my hair maybe.
They say pregnant women can have incredible nesting instincts, when required. Well, it was required now. It was time for some serious housekeeping. I’d start with the two bodies spread out on my living room floor.
