It’s not a bad feeling, either.
I shake it from my mind.
I hear my door creak when I come out of the bathroom from brushing my teeth, and I see Eva standing there in her usual t-shirt and underwear, having grabbed another quick shower to wash off the attic grime. Just the sight of her makes my cock start to swell, and the wide-eyed look she’s giving me only tugs at my heartstrings more.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she says back. When I raise an eyebrow at her, she continues. “I was just wondering about, well, what happens now. Now that we know what you found out about Blake’s ‘friend.’”
“I’m going to go see him tomorrow,” I say simply. She doesn’t need to know more than that, but I can tell by her falling face that it’s all she needs to know.
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“I could tell you about the kind of man he is, if that will help.”
“I don’t want to think about that before bed,” she says with a feeble smile. “Do you... do you mind if I sleep in here tonight?”
I pause, looking at the large bed and thinking for a moment. I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. And yet…
“Sure,” I say with a smile. The way she brightens up at that simple world fills me with warmth. As we get under the covers together and I feel her warm body near mine, I feel more relaxed than usual.
She drifts off to sleep in a matter of minutes, and I lie awake, watching her chest rise and fall with each breath.
There’s so much wrong with me keeping her here at my side.
But after all this time... it feels like a mistake we both want to make.
The next day, I watch the clock hit 6:00 PM on my car’s dashboard.
It’s already dark outside and has been for some time. Most people are home from work already and settling in for a nice evening.
I, on the other hand, am parked outside a run-down apartment, watching a rat scurry across the sidewalk and listening to a dog barking in the distance as I stare up at the apartment window where I know Jerry is.
I did a little research on him to track him to this place. It wasn’t hard, for me.
People like Jerry are slippery. There’s one good way to deal with that without getting too deep in the muck or risking a knife in your back.
Stepping out of the car, I take a breath and head into the apartment complex.
In what passes for a lobby, there are two sullen-looking teenagers talking quietly to each other. One of them looks like he’s about to stop me with a snide look on his face, but I cast him a glare that makes the both of them avert their eyes.
I’m not in the mood to trifle with the small fishes.
As calmly as if I were going to a regular business meeting, I make my way up the stairs, hands in my jacket pockets. Every now and then, I cast a glance over my shoulder to make sure I’m not being followed by someone braver than those kids. This is the kind of place to watch yourself.
Eventually, I make it to the fourth floor, room 406. I make my way up to it, check the gun strapped to my side, and I knock.
I can hear a television on behind the door. There’s a pause before I hear someone trying to sneak up to the door quietly. At last, the door handle turns, and it cracks open just enough to peer through the gap. A green eye looks up at me behind the little chain holding the door shut.
Before he can jump away and try to shut the door, my leg flies out and kicks it open.
“Fuck!” Jerry cries as he stumbles back, the door flying in his face and knocking him to the ground at the same time that the door chain gets ripped from the wood and hits the ground uselessly.
Wearing my usual all-black attire, I step into the apartment, light behind me making me look even darker as I move toward Jerry.
The fear in his eyes is so intense that he must think he’s hallucinating.
“Oh- oh god, no!” he stammers. He has fallen on his back, giving me a full look of him and everything in his meager apartment.
He’s a thin, tall man with a wispy mustache that gives him a rat-like face. The carpet is old and stained, and it smells like mothballs in the room. There’s a porno playing on the television, and I see a half-drunk bottle of bourbon on the table in front of the couch.
“Hell of a way to spend Christmas Eve, Jerry,” I say as I push the door shut behind me. It’s broken now, so I just slide a nearby chair in front of it to give us some privacy.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” he splutters, looking like he’s about to piss himself. I act as casually as if I were here to have a normal conversation, turning around and taking a few steps toward him.
I then pull out my gun and point it at him.
“Dealing with you,” I say simply.
“Waitwaitwait! Shit,” he stammers, looking around desperately and seeing no weapon, nor anything to help him. “Fuck, how did you get here? Look, Sal, I-I-I don’t know what you want!”
“Has that ever mattered?” I say, watching him back up to the back of the couch with his hands up, still on the ground. I can practically see his heart pounding out of his chest. “You know how I operate.”
“Fuck,” he breathes again. “Look, I don’t know who sent you, but—was it the bartender? I didn’t mean for all that shit to happen with his sister, I swear to god she said she was eighteen, I-”
“Shut up,” I say, moving toward him and raising my gun. Jerry is the kind of man you don’t have to dig into far before you start finding the worst of the worst details. I already don’t want to turn that stone over.
Besides, I already have a lie to get him to talk.
“You should be proud, Jerry,” I say. “You’re a loose end getting tied off by someone with a lot of power. That’s quite an accomplishment, for you.”
“What?” he sputters, and then recognition comes over his face. “Oh my god, it’s that spoiled fucker, isn’t it? Blake Brighton?” He runs a hand through his hair, suddenly smiling nervously. “Hey, listen, that guy’s an even bigger piece of shit than me, okay? Look, j-just, I’ll tell you anything you want to know about him, alright? I can have a ticket to Mexico and a new ID card in two days, and it’ll be just like you did the job! He’ll never know, the kid’s a complete dipshit!”
That was easier than I thought.
Of course, bargaining like that never sways me. I’ve killed more convincing men than Jerry who’ve offered me even more. I’m not a man who can be bought off once I’m after my prey. I have a plan for Jerry, though.
“That does make your position interesting, doesn’t it?” I say. “But that depends on what you have to say.”
“Jesus, everything!” he says, hands shaking as he realizes he might have a little hope. “The kid’s a snot-nosed brat with more money than he knows what to do with. What do you want to know?”
“Why does a corporate heir like Blake Brighton want a rat like you dead? Let’s start there.”
He takes a deep breath, trying to regain his will. “Probably because I helped the fucker kill that little Cinderella project of a sister.”
“What?” I demand, feigning ignorance.
“Kid’s the son of Kirk Brighton, that giant-ass office building looming over downtown,” he says. “Turns out, his dad has some bastard daughter he ignored for years. When he got sick, Blake took over the business. Guess Blake must have been fucking things up, because when Blake contacted me, he kept going on about his bitch of a sister getting the company instead of him.”
I furrow my eyebrows.
“So you helped kill this girl?” I growl.
“No! I mean, I put Blake in touch with Geoffrey Mink, the old guy who used to work for your bosses. Why do you care?”
It takes a lot of willpower not to blow him away right then, if he knowingly subjected any woman to that horrible man. Just a little more time is all I need.
“It’s your lucky day, Jerry. Don’t play dumb, you’ve heard what I did in New York. My bosses are dead by my hand, and I n
eed someone with connections to help me stay out of sight. Is Blake not smart enough to realize Kirk will find out about all this?” I ask. “It didn’t take much to find you—this is a murder in a shallow grave.”
“Won’t matter after tonight,” he says with a wretched smile.
“Speak English,” I demand, taking a step closer, and he puts his hands up further in terror.
“Blake’s put a hit out on Kirk! I helped set him up again!” he whimpers, cringing up as much as he can.
“What?” I say, my eyes going wide.
“Old guy’s in the hospital, Blake wanted it taken care of tonight, when it would be a skeleton staff watching him!” Jerry says hurriedly. “If you want blackmail on the guy, I-I-I’ve got his correspondences in the drawer! Let me just-”
POP.
One quick shot from my silenced pistol puts Jerry’s brains all over the back of his couch.
The world is a better place without him.
I stride into his bedroom, rummage through the drawers, and rip out the documents I need, barely giving them a glance before I hurry out of the room and make my way back down to the car.
There are hitmen after Eva’s father.
What I told Jerry about needing protection might have been true at one point, but as I peel out of the driveway, I realize that I’m doing this for more than just me, now.
I’m doing it for Eva.
But I’ve got to race against time.
16
Eva
“Oh my god, oh my god,” I murmur to myself as I pace up and down the hallway. I’ve been at this so long I’m surprised I haven’t worn a path into the old wooden floors by now. I glance up at the antique clock ticking away on the wall, my stomach churning with nervousness. I have lost track of how long Sal’s been gone, but I know it’s been too long. I’ve been trying to reassure myself that he can handle whatever he encounters out there. I mean, he’s a hitman for the mafia. Well, at least he’s a former hitman for the mafia. He’s got enough kills under his belt to make him way more dangerous than anyone else he runs into. That’s got to count for something, right?
Still, I can’t stop worrying. I know it’s unhealthy, but I can’t help but feel incredibly anxious and fearful when he’s not nearby. I worry for his safety. He may have recovered quickly enough from that bullet that swiped his arm and that blow to his face, but he’s still so reckless and courageous that it scares me. I know this is probably just run of the mill business for him. A day of reconnaissance and ass-kicking is probably just another day at the office for a tough guy like Sal. But I still can’t keep myself from obsessing over all the things that could go wrong.
And apart from worrying about Sal, I also worry about myself.
It’s crazy. As soon as he leaves the room, I feel absolutely compelled to follow him, to cling to him like he’s a life preserver and I’m floating adrift in the open sea with sharks circling under the surface. When he’s gone, I don’t even feel like myself. I feel broken and afraid, a shell of who I used to be. I mean, before all this happened with Blake and my father and Geoffrey Mink, I considered myself a pretty independent, tough lady. If there was a spider in my apartment, I took care of it. If some rude guy was harassing me at work, I handled it. If my landlord tried to pull something over on me and charge extra one month, I stopped him in his tracks and told him exactly where he could stick that extra charge. Of course, underneath all that toughness, I have always been vulnerable. Touchy, even. But until now, nobody has managed to get under my skin far enough to reach that part of me. And now that Sal has chipped away at the brick walls around my heart, there’s no going back.
I know I’m falling for him.
Whether it’s stupid or brash or whatever, I can’t stop this train from rolling down the tracks. This is my reality now. Pacing in the hallway of a broken-down safe house, waiting for the man who saved me to return in one piece from whatever risky adventure he’s off on out there in the world.
At the click of the front door, I stop pacing and freeze, my eyes going wide with fear. Is that Sal? Or some stranger trying to break in? Maybe it’s that nosy Officer Kennedy back to snoop around while Sal’s not home.
I crouch down and creep over to the window, parting the blinds just enough to peek out. My shoulders relax when I catch a glimpse of the car in the driveway. Sal’s car. Thank god. I hurry to the front door to meet him, grinning ecstatically. Every time he returns to me in one piece, it’s cause for celebration in my book. But my smile quickly fades when I see the grim look on his face. I reach up and caress his cheek, my anxiety rushing back.
“Hey, what’s wrong? How did it go?” I ask. He sighs.
“It went okay. I’m fine. I handled the situation. But Eva, we have a new problem and I’m not sure how to phrase it to you so I’m just going to say it,” he begins, his voice dangerously serious. Sorrowful, even. “The man I interrogated tonight informed me of another deadly plot orchestrated by your bastard half-brother.”
“What? What is it? What did Blake do this time?” I demand, wringing my hands. “Is he coming here? Did he somehow find out I’m alive? Oh god.”
“No, no. It’s got nothing to do with you this time. As far as I can tell, Blake still believes you’re dead,” he says quickly.
“Then what?” I exclaim.
“It’s your father. Did you know he was gravely ill?” Sal asks.
My heart skips a beat. “Yes. Well, no. I knew he was some kind of sick, but I didn’t know how bad it was. Is it bad? Oh, it’s bad, isn’t it?” I ramble, biting my lip.
Sal nods. “Yes. He’s in the hospital. Has been for some time, apparently.”
“The hospital?” I breathe, scarcely able to comprehend it.
“In a coma,” he adds softly. I look up at Sal, horrified.
“That’s… that can’t be true. He was sick, but he wasn’t that bad when I saw him. I know it’s been a month, but he can’t be in a coma,” I say, shaking my head.
“It’s true. And that’s not the worst of it,” Sal says. “I need to prepare myself. Follow me while I explain.” He walks briskly across the house to the bedroom, where he starts stripping out of his clothes and changing into an all-black outfit, then hurriedly packs up a bag with weapons. So many weapons that it makes me wince to see them. As he gets ready— for what, I don’t know— he explains. “Blake is impatient. He wants your father dead sooner rather than later.”
“What? But Blake… Blake was raised by my father. They’re close. He got everything, the picture perfect life, the yachts, the cars. He had everything I could never even dream of, growing up,” I retort, confused. “Why would Blake want to hurt him?”
“Because he cares more about money than family,” Sal says simply. “He can’t wait for your father to die so he can swoop in and take all his assets. Besides, in a family like theirs, I imagine Blake spent much more time being raised by nannies than by his own father.”
My mood darkens, thinking of Blake taking so much for granted. My mother and I scrounged for everything we ever had, working hard, skipping meals, trying to make something of our lives. We did everything we could, just so I could go on and slowly work on becoming a nurse.
The money my father had would have solved almost all of our problems, but it’s more than that. It isn’t just the wealth, it’s what being a real family could have done. I could have had someone when mom passed. I could have grown up with two parents who loved and spoiled me.
Bitterness grips my heart until I realize that I like who I am, and if my father had been in my life, everything would have been different. There’s the butterfly effect, but then there’s a man being in my life since I was born, the ripples touching every single aspect of my personality, of my world.
And if I like who I am, then I have to accept that I got the better end of the deal.
“So what is going on?” I press him.
Sal stops and looks at me apologetically. “He’s planning to have your father killed tonight. A
t the hospital.”
“What?” I burst out, feeling like someone has kicked the air out of my lungs. I fall back to the bed, weak in the knees. “That’s ridiculous!” I might not want to change the past, but to kill someone just for their money...
To kill his own father?
“Is it?” Sal says, raising an eyebrow. “Eva, he already hired someone to kill you.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t know me. We’re strangers. As far as he’s concerned, I’m a perfect stranger who’s threatening his shot at inheritance,” I reason.
“Are you defending him?” Sal says, looking at me sidelong. I frown at him.
“What kind of question is that? Of course I’m not defending him. I’m just appealing to logic, here,” I reply, putting my hands on my hips.
“Look, I’m telling you the truth, but I don’t have time to stand here and try to convince you of how evil your brother is,” he responds.
“Half-brother,” I correct bitterly.
“Either way, he’s got a hit out on your father, and considering the fact that he’s a fragile old man in a coma, I don’t think he has much of a shot at defending himself from the attack,” he says. “So I’m going to the hospital. To protect him and stop that hit from happening. But I need to hurry. You stay here and keep your head down.”
“What?” I shout. “No! You’re not going to the hospital alone.”
“Yes, I am,” he says firmly. “It’s not safe for you. Eva, this isn’t Geoffrey Mink we’re talking about. This is another man. Perhaps even a team. Willing to murder a comatose old man for money. You cannot come with me. You’ll stay here.”
“Like hell I will!” I shoot back, throwing up my arms. “Whether or not this hit goes down, my father is lying in a hospital bed. If Blake doesn’t kill him first, his illness will probably end his life before too long. I am not going to miss this chance to see him before he dies.”
Abducted: A Mafia Hitman Romance Page 14
