Deuces Wild

by Christina C Jones

  I wanted to assure her that it would, but pragmatism wouldn’t let me. I wanted to tell her that if anybody in the system could make the Belroses go away, Naim would figure it out for me.

  But… there was the chance that he couldn’t.

  So instead of saying either of those things, instead of making promises I couldn’t keep, I pulled her into my arms. It was quick – just enough to communicate that I had her back, and then we pulled apart.

  “Dinner is in three hours,” she said. “And we have to get to Marseille, which is an hour-long flight. You should get ready.”

  “I already am,” I told her, glancing to make sure my clothes weren’t dirty or something. “We can head out.”

  To my surprise, a smirk slid across Alicia’s face as she shook her head.

  “No, you’re not. We dress for dinner.”

  &

  “I don’t feel right about this. Feels like something is… off,” I told Alicia as we walked up the stone-paved path of what she’d always referred to as a compound. Now, I saw why.

  The entire house property was surrounded by forestry, and then once you got closer, a gate fit for a castle – which was the architecture style. Light gray, ivy-covered brick made up the exterior of a house that seemed too huge to even call a mansion.

  I was already dreading what we’d find on the other side.

  “I’m the wrong person to seek comfort from, if that’s what you’re doing,” she muttered, smoothing the fabric of her dress over her hips as we stopped in front of an imposing-looking door. “Every fiber of my being is screaming for me to run in the other direction. You’ll have to soothe yourself.”

  Shitting myself is more likely than finding any of this soothing.

  Above us, armed guards manned what I could only describe as turrets, ready to shoot us down if we moved wrong. I didn’t feel relaxed, and I damn sure didn’t feel confident, but we were here now. There wasn’t any turning back.

  Without either of us knocking or ringing a bell, the front door swung open. I honestly expected to have a gun pointed in my face, but instead I was presented with a harmless-looking, obviously wealthy based on his clothes, older man.

  Beside me, Alicia stood a little straighter, shoulders back, hands clasped behind her. “Monsieur Belrose. This is Cree Bradley, my dinner companion for tonight. Mr. Bradley, this is Etienne Belrose.”

  I extended my hand to greet him, but his cold blue eyes were locked on her. “And you are, bien-aime?”

  At first, his question confused me, but then her eyes narrowed as she stared right at him.

  “Alicia Pelletier.”

  He grinned.

  Maybe it was a test.

  “Ah, one of my wandering Roses. Please… come in. Dinner is waiting.”

  Once we’d stepped inside, he finally shook my hand – initiating it, since I’d put mine down. I was reluctant to accept it, but didn’t want to throw anything off, so I went with it.

  I squeezed harder than I had to though.

  Just because I could.

  I got a nice boost of enjoyment out of his pained wince before I let his hand go, then followed to what I assumed would be a dining room. On the way through, we were stopped before passing another threshold, and forced to wait while a set of armed men checked us for weapons. The rough handling didn’t faze me, but watching them get more handsy than necessary with Alicia, in her fitted black wrap dress that couldn’t hide anything if she tried… that made my palms itch to smack somebody.

  As if she could tell what I was thinking, she glanced up, making eye contact. She said nothing, but I knew what the look meant – she was urging the calm that would keep us from getting our asses shot.

  For a change, she was the cool-headed one.

  After they were satisfied that we weren’t a sufficient threat, we moved on. Out a door that led to a huge courtyard full of immaculately groomed rose bushes, down a pathway, and into a different door. I kept glancing at Alicia, wanting to be sure she was okay, but her eyes were straight forward, focused as we kept moving.

  We turned a corner, finding a set of doors flanked by men dressed as butlers. They opened those doors for us, welcoming us, finally, into the dining room.

  Or, as I discovered as soon as we stepped in… into a trap.

  My shoulders tensed immediately at the sight of Paloma Santiago, wearing a self-satisfied grin. Beside her sat Dacia Pelletier, looking much cleaner – much healthier – than she had in that picture from the casino. With her hair pulled back in a single braid, she looked strikingly like her sister.

  “Quel est ce?” Alicia asked, her voice deadly calm, her eyes trained on Paloma.

  “Une réunion de famille,” Etienne answered, in a jovial tone that made my palms even itchier. “De rien, ma chère."

  Alicia’s head snapped in Etienne’s direction, pure rage in her eyes. “This is not honorable, monsieur. Whatever happened to the code that you insisted upon? I am supposed to be able to request a private audience with you at any time – safely. I contacted you because I have a grievance with this woman. And to warn you that she has a grievance with you.”

  “But you are family,” he insisted. “There is no honor in betraying one another.”

  “Then we both know that Paloma is devoid of anything even resembling integrity. And she is not my family. She had my father murdered for money and status, and she is responsible for whatever state my sister is in. She is currently conspiring against you, with the assistance of Maxim Bisset and Sebastian Gray. This… woman… is guilty of many things.”

  Paloma laughed. “And my dear, so are you. Before you arrived, Etienne and I were admiring your long resume as a Rose. You were quite prolific – particularly skilled in a seduction/evisceration combo that the Roses who came behind you aspire to. Tell me… does your…very handsome dinner companion know what you’re capable of?”

  “I’m well aware.”

  “Oh, are you?” Paloma smirked. “Maybe you were with her, when she killed that poor Rose, what was her name… uh… Brielle? I’m sure you’re aware that she’s a wanted criminal in the States, as we speak. Do you see, Etienne? She comes to you with lies about me, to cover the fact that she destroyed valuable property.”

  This bitch…

  Before I could speak up to deny her allegations, Alicia stepped forward. “It’s really too bad for you, Paloma, that you have no proof… But I do.”

  “That’s nonsense,” Paloma snapped. “Etienne… darling. Who are you going to believe? Me or her? She walked in here with an American police officer. That should be proof enough.”

  Alicia scoffed. “Proof of what? Bad taste in men? I suspect that might be a quality I picked up from you, dear stepmother. The fact is that you need to be rid of me and my sister. It wasn’t handled properly then, so you want to do it now. But I will not let you. I’m here for my sister, and that is all. I have no intention to take anything else.”

  “I will decide that,” Etienne said, pulling himself back into the conversation. “You say you are here for your sister, nothing else… prove it. Kill the American.”

  Kill the Amer—oh, shit. That’s me.

  Alicia laughed. “I will do no such thing, because this is bullshit. You will not compel me to hurt someone just because your whore says so,” she added, throwing a barb that I hadn’t even picked up on, but apparently landed.

  While Dacia sat there staring into outer space, Paloma jumped up from her seat, screaming. “Etienne! You will allow her to speak to me this way?! Make her choose!”

  “Choose,” Etienne droned. “Your sister, or your lover?”

  “I will not,” Alicia maintained, head high, shoulders back, eyes forward.

  Meanwhile, I was looking around, wondering exactly how the hell we would get out of here. Maybe we could get past the guards in the room, but after that we had to worry about a whole building full of goons coming after us.

  Why the hell did I walk into this?

  My eyes landed on Etie
nne, whose placid expression had turned to anger with Alicia’s refusal to choose. He reached into his pocket, and I was ready to dive to intercept whatever he was pulling out, but then I realized… it was just his cell phone.

  He pressed a few buttons on it, seemingly checked out of the conversation.

  “Etienne!” Paloma shrieked again, only for him to raise his hand, telling her to be quiet.

  That’s when I heard the music.

  Classical music. Slowly, steadily, increasing in volume until it filled the room. I didn’t understand the point, but then he started walking towards us.

  “Nothing like a little Chevalier de Saint-Georges to soothe a disagreement, right?” he mused, wearing a smile that made my uneasy feeling from earlier shoot through the roof. He approached Alicia – way closer than I liked – then leaned a little to say something in her ear.

  Something that made her snap back into that stance from earlier.

  Chin up.

  Hands clasped her back.

  Chest proud.

  … waiting for instructions.

  “Do you see this man?” Etienne asked, pointing her in my direction.

  Immediately, I was struck by the absence of light – life – in her eyes.

  “Oui, monsieur.”

  “Détruire.”

  I didn’t have to wonder what that word meant – I could pretty easily assume it was something along the lines of “kill”, based on the way Alicia instantly came at me, with “eliminate this nigga” type energy. The first few blows were easy to deflect, like she was testing the waters, seeing exactly how much power she had to put into it. But then, once she realized I wasn’t going to immediately drop, something shifted.

  It was not like the little sparring we’d done in her apartment.

  I fully believed she was trying to kill me, and I wasn’t trying to die, but I also wasn’t about to hit her – not if I could help it. I considered that maybe I could simply keep dodging long enough to tire her out, but she quickly put that idea to bed, with a well-aimed kick to the ribs that I didn’t defend against in time, and sent me staggering backward into the dining room table.

  Before I had a chance to recover my footing, she was on me, dragging me to the floor to climb on top of me, hands aimed for my neck. I caught her by the wrists as the tablecloth came sliding down with us, bringing cold glasses of ice water crashing down around us.

  She didn’t care.

  There was… no life in those eyes. No Alicia, no Ace, none of that. This was whoever she’d been before… everything. Before the Whitfields, before the women she worked with, before Penelope, before… us.

  The killing machine she didn’t have to be anymore.

  I summoned all of my strength to flip us over, so that I was on top now, narrowly avoiding a knee in the balls as she fought to work herself away from me.

  “Alicia, stop this,” I demanded, already knowing the shit wouldn’t work, but I had to try something. Of all the ways I’d imagined this ending, this was a scenario that hadn’t even registered as worth considering, because it was crazy.

  I had to snap her out of it.

  Against my better judgment, I released one of her hands, snatching up a glass of water that had landed in a way that left it half full. That was all the time it took for her to clock me right in the jaw, but not before I managed to hit her with a full face of water.

  That blow to the jaw dazed me honestly, but the shock of the cold water made her take a second too – long enough that I was able to grab her again, pressing her wrists to her chest. She bucked against me, trying to get up, and if it wasn’t for the mess from the table, she would’ve. My saving grace was the fact that her feet couldn’t get any leverage on the slippery floor.

  This couldn’t last forever though.

  I had to do something to get her back.

  “Robots can’t get wet!”

  Even with what was happening, I had enough self-awareness to understand how silly it sounded. Actually… it was embarrassing. But at that moment, looking at her soaked face reminded me of that night in the tub, of the words I’d jokingly given her to remind her what she was.

  Human.

  Not whatever this was.

  At first, her face scrunched in confusion, but then I said it again and she blinked, hard. Her eyes narrowed, as if she were trying to figure out why it sounded familiar.

  “There you are,” I muttered. “Come back to me.”

  “Que dis tu?” she asked, wearing enough of a baffled expression that I understood she was asking for an explanation.

  “I’m reminding you that you’re not a robot. You’re wet. You’d be malfunctioning.”

  Another hard blink, and then finally, she was looking at me like she knew who I was. “I… why are you on top of me like this? What’s going on?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but a loud crack ripped through the air at the same time. In the immediate aftermath, while my ears were still ringing, I looked to Alicia to find her eyes open wide in horror, bright red flecks of blood splattered across her face. My eyes went lower, to the fast-growing red stain spreading across her dress – so red that it was obvious even against the black fabric.

  Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.

  She sucked in a breath though, then let out a scream that almost seemed louder than the gunshot as my grip on her wrists finally gave away. I used the strength I could pull to avoid falling directly on top of her, rolling toward the side as our positions switched, with her on top of me.

  “Cree, no. I can’t… stop fucking bleeding,” she demanded, hands shaking as she pressed her hands to a wound that was… somewhere. I couldn’t tell. All I felt was pain.

  There was more yelling – not from her, from other people, but my ears and eyes were too blurred to make any sense of the chaos. Alicia looked around, frantic as she pressed down on me.

  “Wait… where did they go? Where did they take Dacia?” she asked aloud, not actually asking me, but still.

  “Go,” I managed to croak. “Find her.”

  Her eyes came back to me. “What? No, I can’t leave you here like this,” she declared, as gunfire rang out somewhere else in the distance.

  “You…. You said it yourself,” I reminded her, groaning as another wave of pain hit me. “You made it too far to leave without her. Go. I’ll be fine.”

  “They shot you.” Alicia looked down at wherever I’d been shot, then back up at me, shaking her head. “You won’t be fine. Not unless you get some medical care. I uh… I need to wash my hands, and uh… make sure the bullet isn’t still—”

  “Just give me my phone. I’ll call an ambulance. Go. Find your sister.”

  “Cree, I—”

  “Go!” I growled, mustering up a little power to push her away. That seemed to be the encouragement she needed, because she fished my phone from my pocket and pressed it into my hands.

  “I’ll be… I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay? Do not die on me. On Loren. On the baby. Okay?”

  With a long blink, I nodded. “Yes. Yeah, okay. Okay. Go.”

  She hesitated another moment longer, but she and I both knew the longer she waited, the more likely it was that she’d never see Dacia again. With one final, long look, she stood up, hurrying off in a direction only she knew.

  I took a hard gulp, trying to catch a breath that was particularly evasive. After a moment, I gave up, lifting the phone anyway to unlock and call for an ambulance.

  In a bit

  In just a moment.

  After I just close my eyes for a second.

  &

  I didn’t want to leave him there.

  At all.

  But to have come so far, and still not even have exchanged a single word with my sister… the thought was untenable.

  But then again, so was the idea of not bringing Cree back home.

  Still, with his blessing, I’d made my choice, even it was an impossible one. The compound was huge, and I had no idea where they’d gone. Bu
t I sent up a quick prayer that this would pan out in my favor, then headed for the residence wing, which was just off the dining room they’d led us to.

  The prayer worked.

  They were coming out of Etienne’s bedroom, at the end of the hall, bags in hand.

  They – meaning Etienne and Paloma – looked horrified to see me, and I could imagine why. I was covered in Cree’s blood and I was very, very angry.

  I probably looked like a monster, which meant they were looking at a reflection.

  Before I could make it to them, security guards came rushing out, toward me. I quickly disarmed the first one, using his own weapon to put him down before I did the same thing with the other four, in a course of action that took thirty seconds, at best.

  And now… there was no one between us.

  “Which one of you shot him?” I asked, fully expecting an answer. When no one did, I fired the gun once, making all of them, including Dacia, jump. “Tell me. Now.”

  “It was me,” Paloma declared, just before she pulled Dacia in front of her and whipped out a gun of her own. When he saw that, Etienne took off, back into the bedroom, but at the moment I didn’t care.

  This was a family matter.

  “You come in here, messing up everything I built. Why couldn’t you just stay gone?”

  “Because you paraded her in my face,” I growled. “Was that the goal all along? To use her to entice me back here? Why else would you bring her to the Whitfield’s hotel?”

  “That was goddamn Maxim,” she shot back. “He didn’t know better – wanted to show her off. But don’t worry – he and Sebastian have already paid for their mistakes with their lives. Etienne called me as soon as he got off the phone with you. He thinks we should make amends. And now, I have both little birds in hand. I was going to kill both of you, but… I think my plans have changed. What an incredible story it would be, for my long-lost daughter to have returned home. After all… I do need an heir.”

  My nostrils flared. “And what about me?”

  “You? Oh, you died,” she said, then fired in my direction, forcing me to dive out of the way. I wanted to return her fire, but the chance that I might hit Dacia held me back.