Whiskey Flight

by Violet Howe

  “And how would you do that, Victor? Even if I could set aside everything I know and everything you’ve done—which I can’t—do you honestly think I’d just take off and live on the run with you? Be hunted down the rest of my life?”

  “You wouldn’t be hunted down. I made a deal with the feds. I turned for you. I gave them what they wanted, and in exchange, I get to leave the country and live out my life as a free man. I’m asking you to come with me.”

  My mind spun with his words as rage shook me. I couldn’t believe I’d ever found him attractive.

  “You think I would just leave my family, my home, my country, and everything I’ve ever known in my life to be with you? Are you insane? Why would I do that?”

  “What about the vows we made? Huh? We pledged to spend our lives together. Does that mean nothing to you?”

  My mouth dropped open in disbelief. “Are you delusional? Your entire life was a lie when you stood there saying those vows to me. Does that mean nothing to you?”

  “I meant every word I said in those vows. I love you. I honor you. I cherish you.”

  “There’s no way you could honor me while hiding what you did. You have no honor.”

  He stood, his jaw suddenly tight and his eyes flashing anger, and I took a step back, reminded of how precarious my situation was.

  “From the moment I met you, I tried to get out,” he said through clenched teeth. “I did everything I could to sever ties and find a way to be with you. To be the man I was when we were together. That’s me, Danielle.” He pounded his finger against his chest. “That’s the real me. The man you fell in love with is who I am in here.”

  He took a step toward me, and I took another step back. He noticed and retreated with his hands held up in surrender, his voice raw and breaking when he spoke.

  “You think I had a choice in who I was? I was born into that life. Everyone I knew lived that life. My father, my uncles, my cousins. It was how I was raised; it was all I knew. There was no other option for me, don’t you see? You don’t get to decide what you want to be in a family like mine.”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t make it right. And it doesn’t excuse you for dragging me into that life unknowingly. Unwittingly. You presented a lie to me. You allowed me to fall in love with that lie. To marry that lie. You had all the information, and you withheld it. I knew nothing about that life.”

  He exhaled slowly, and I knew he was exerting great effort to remain calm. “I didn’t want you to know anything about that life. I didn’t want you to know that side of me. I wanted to protect you from it.”

  “Well, you failed.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry, sweetness. I really, truly am. We can still make this work, though. We can leave, right now, and we can figure it all out.”

  “I don’t trust you. I can’t believe anything you say. I don’t even know if you’re telling the truth now. If you made a deal with the feds, why are you traveling with goons who beat people up?”

  “First of all, they acted in your defense. We had no way of knowing who this man was or why he was at your door. But as to why they’re with me, these are the men closest to me. We grew up together. They’re loyal to me, not my uncle or the family. They turned with me, and for that, I’ll protect them and provide for them.”

  “And you expect me to believe the feds just let you out of prison and gave you a plane so you and your closest friends could fly down to Florida to pick me up? That makes no sense.”

  Seth moaned, and I tried to go to him, but Victor blocked me, stepping to the corner of the bed to stare down at Seth.

  “Who is this cop to you?” Victor asked, looking back at me. “Why are you so concerned about his health?”

  “Why does he have to be someone special for me to be concerned about his health?” I asked, fearing what Victor might do if he knew who Seth was and what he meant to me. “He’s a human being, and I value life. Something evidently we don’t have in common.”

  “You called him Seth earlier,” Victor said, his eyes narrowing as he put the pieces together. “Is this the infamous Seth? The one you left behind?”

  My eyes must have betrayed the truth because he gave a quick nod and then looked at Seth.

  “Are the two of you together then? Did you go running back to him when we fell apart?”

  A sinister quality had crept into his voice, and I knew I needed to get him on the defensive again. To get him back to pleading.

  “No. You called and told me my life was in danger, and I was scared. I had a choice of running alone or being with someone I trusted to protect me.”

  He turned his head slowly to look back at me, and I shivered at the coldness in his stare.

  Had I really pledged my life to this man? Had I really thought we had a love unlike any other? How had I gotten so swept up in the whirlwind of passion and romance that I’d been unable to see his true colors?

  Every instinct I’d had then had told me he was the one, but every instinct now warned me that I was in danger, and he wasn’t to be trusted.

  He glanced at his watch and frowned. “Unfortunately, we’ll need to continue this discussion on the way to the plane. The two of you have cost me quite a bit of time on this little goose chase to find you, and we’ve fallen behind schedule. I’ll arrange for medical help for your friend as soon as we’re gone.”

  A nagging question stood out in the maelstrom of my mind, and I asked even though I feared the answer would only make things worse.

  “How did you find me? How did you know where I was?”

  “He has a tracker on your car,” Seth said, his voice so thick it was almost a groan.

  “Oh, my God! Seth, are you okay?” I pushed past Victor and knelt at Seth’s side, not even caring about the consequences. “Are you all right?”

  He ignored my questions as he tried to push himself up to sitting, which was nearly impossible given the way his hands and feet were tied. “No one followed us, and your cell phone was off. The only way he could have found you is if he was tracking your car.” He took in a ragged breath and released it with a grunt that turned into a cough. “He’s probably been tracking you this whole time. Watching you.”

  I turned to face Victor, who stood at the foot of the bed staring at me.

  “Is this true? Do you have a tracker on my car?”

  “My actions had put your life in danger,” Victor said calmly and without emotion. “I had to do what I could to protect you, to keep you safe.”

  The anger returned as I stood. “So, you’ve had people tracking me? Watching me? My God, when does this nightmare end?”

  “Your importance to me made you important to others, and knowing there were other operatives at play, I put measures in place to ensure your safety. If the order was given to make a move on you, I needed to defend you against that order or at the very least, warn you about it, as I did earlier tonight. It was for your protection, sweetness.”

  “She’s asked you not to call her that,” Seth said, and I marveled at his ability to speak with an authoritative tone as he sat hunched to one side with his hands and feet tied together.

  Victor looked past me to Seth with a polite smile, but his eyes flashed with anger. “While I certainly appreciate the time and effort you put into keeping Danielle safe tonight, I’d also appreciate you butting out of what is a private conversation between me and my wife.”

  “Ex-wife,” Seth and I both said in unison, and Victor’s jaw muscle flexed in response.

  His phone rang in his pocket, and he stared at me through two full rings before he reached for it. “I have to take this, and then we have to go.”

  The warm, pleading supplication in his voice was completely gone, replaced by a dispassionate and commanding matter-of-fact tone that sent a chill down my spine.

  Time was running out.

  Ten

  Victor walked toward the vanity on the other side of the room as he took the call, and I knelt by Seth again, my tears coming so quick
ly I had no time to block them.

  “I’m so sorry,” I cried in a whisper.

  “I’m the one who should apologize,” Seth whispered back. “I said I’d protect you, and I failed.”

  “No, it’s my fault. I never should have dragged you into this, and I’m going to get you out of it, I promise. Victor said if I go with him, he’ll send you medical help.”

  “No,” Seth growled. “Don’t you dare leave with him.”

  “I have to. It’s the only way I know they won’t harm you.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You going won’t stop them from doing whatever they’re gonna do to me. It only puts you in more danger.”

  My tears gushed forth as I struggled to keep my voice down. I glanced back at Victor, who was still on the phone and speaking in a hushed, but angry, voice. “He made a deal with the feds, which means he can’t kill you, right? He said he can leave the country safely and if I go—”

  “Listen to me. He didn’t make any damned deal, and you know that as well as I do, or you wouldn’t be worried about me. If I don’t call Tristan in the next few minutes to check in, he’s going to swarm this place. You just have to stall. Keep them here, okay? Don’t leave with him, babe. Promise me?”

  “We can’t wait any longer,” Victor said as he walked back toward us. “We have to go.”

  “And you’ll get him help, right? You’ll call an ambulance for him?”

  With a brief nod, Victor shoved his hands in his pockets. “He’ll be seen to once we’re clear of the area.”

  “Why can’t you call for help now?” I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand and stood to go to Victor, willing to plead, to beg, to do anything to ensure Seth would be safe. “He helped me out tonight, Vic. We can’t just leave him here bleeding. Please, let’s cut the zip ties and call a doctor before we go, okay?”

  When I got no response, I moved closer, sliding my arms up his chest and around his neck, ignoring the repulsion in my gut. He stood staring down at me, unmoving and with no discernible emotion in his eyes.

  Trying my hardest to be convincing, I softened my voice and leaned in. “This has all been a lot to process, Vic. I need time to wrap my head around everything. I’m willing to go with you. I’ll listen to what you have to say, and I’ll try to forgive you, but I’m asking this one thing from you first. I’ll have enough guilt leaving my family behind, won’t I? I can’t abandon my oldest friend and walk away without knowing he’ll be all right. Surely, if the feds allowed you to come all the way to Florida to get me, they can wait a few minutes longer until we know Seth gets the help he needs.”

  He still didn’t react, so I molded my body to him, moving my hands to the back of his neck as I stretched up on my tiptoes to press my lips against his.

  For what seemed like an eternity but was likely only seconds, he remained still as a stone statue, but then something primal kicked in, and with a deep guttural moan, his mouth began to ravage mine as he twisted his hands in my hair and then moved them up and down my body like a man starved of physical touch. I fought with myself to allow him to continue, and bile rose in my throat as his tongue plundered me and his lips bruised mine.

  “God, I’ve missed you, sweetness,” he murmured as he moved to bury his face in my neck, sucking and nibbling at my skin. His hands cupped my buttocks, lifting me against his hardness and damned near making me vomit. “It’s been so long.”

  Seth coughed behind me, and I couldn’t hold the ruse any longer.

  I tried to wriggle free of Victor’s grasp but didn’t dare look at Seth.

  “I missed you, too,” I said, breathless from my efforts not to scream or puke. “But let’s not lose our focus. You said we need to get going. Let me call someone to come help Seth, and we’ll be on our way.”

  Victor was breathless, too, his eyes dark with desire and his lips swollen. He held onto my hips with both hands, unwilling to let me go completely, and I watched as the desire became veiled with suspicion.

  “Are you playing me, my love?” He reached to trace his thumb across my bottom lip, gently at first, but then rougher as he pushed it inside my mouth. He swiped it across my tongue and then moved it to his own mouth, sucking at my saliva before pulling his thumb free from his lips with a loud pop. “That could be both cruel and dangerous. To take a man who’s been locked up for two years, deprived of the one thing he desires most, and then dangle it in front of him.”

  Memories of our bodies entangled flashed unwanted in my mind, and I shuddered at the thought of how intimately he knew me and how unclean that made me feel.

  “Maybe she’s just concerned for your safety,” Seth said. “And her own. You’ve been ranting all night that her life’s in danger and that you need to go, so she might like to be somewhere safer for this little reunion. Or perhaps it’s modesty. I never knew her to be one who wanted an audience when we were together.”

  Victor stiffened at Seth’s reference, and I wanted to throttle Seth for stoking Vic’s anger when it was so imperative to keep it at bay.

  “Hey,” I said, laying my hand along Victor’s cheek as I pressed myself against him again. “You boys can trade barbs back and forth if you want, but you’re wasting time that we don’t have.” I brushed my lips softly against his. “I’m still angry with you, you know? You can’t think I’m just gonna hop right back into bed with you in the first ten minutes. You said you’d make all this up to me, and I expect you to at least make an effort at it before I give myself to you again.”

  The words felt vile in my mouth, but they seemed to placate him, and he kissed me again, more tenderly this time.

  Seth cleared his throat behind us. “Hey, I hate to interrupt such a tender moment, but I was just thinking that it might go a long way to ease her fears and help her trust you if she could verify what you’re saying. I mean, if you made a deal with the feds, then that should be something she could confirm, right?”

  Victor pulled away from our kiss and directed his gaze at Seth. “Arrangements at the highest levels aren’t made public knowledge, but I’m certain you knew that when you made your suggestion.”

  “Maybe not public knowledge, but it could likely be verified by a well-connected law enforcement officer.”

  “Meaning you?” Victor said with a smirk.

  “No, I’m just a lowly deputy, but I know people who would be able to verify this sort of thing. You know, to put Dani’s mind at ease. If you’d untie me and return my phone, I’d be happy to make that call for the two of you. Seeing as how you and your friends are here with legitimate permission, it shouldn’t pose any risk to untie me and let me make a call, right?”

  I knew Seth was trying to stall, doing whatever he could to goad Victor and delay our departure, but I feared his plan would backfire. Seth was only alive because Victor wanted to convince me he had changed. If Seth pushed him too far, then Victor might decide it didn’t matter what I thought, in which case, Seth and I both would be in far greater danger.

  Victor released me and walked over to stand in front of Seth. “If there’s anything I’ve learned about law enforcement officers from my time outside and inside a prison cell, it’s that anyone can be bought for a price. I have no way of knowing who you’re truly working for, and having just gotten my future back, I don’t intend to trade it away so soon. Especially not by trusting someone with an obvious vendetta.”

  “Vendetta? What do you mean?” I asked, moving myself between the two men.

  “Don’t you see, sweetness?” Victor smiled as he spoke to me, but his eyes never left Seth’s. “We’re dealing with a man scorned. You left him all those years ago, and I got the prize he’d been denied. He’s never had the honor of calling you his wife. You told me how he tried for months to reach you after you severed all ties. He was unwilling to let you go, and of course, I can understand why. I’m certainly not willing to give up, but then again, I know better than he what I stand to lose. You did tell me, did you not, that the passion and sexual chemistry
we shared made your past experiences pale in comparison.”

  I looked back at Seth with an apologetic frown as Victor twisted my words into a dagger to plunge into Seth’s pride, but his bloodied and swollen face showed no reaction at all.

  “Stop,” I said to Victor. “You’re being cruel, and I don’t appreciate you using me as a pawn to hurt someone.”

  “It’s okay,” Seth said. “I understand why he wants to make this about me. If I’d screwed up as badly as he has, if I’d lied to you and betrayed you on that level, I’m sure I’d want to deflect attention away from myself too.”

  A rap at the door startled me, and I turned as Victor called out, “You have the key, don’t you? Come in.”

  The man who’d held his knee in my back entered and gave Seth’s phone to Victor. “It’s lighting up with texts. I guess he was supposed to call somebody and missed the time frame.”

  Victor scanned the text conversation and then looked at Seth.

  “Well, haven’t you been the busy one this evening?” He turned to the man and nodded. “We’re about to have company. Have Nicholas pull around front. Paulie can drive her car with him,” he said, nodding toward Seth. “Danielle will ride with me.”

  “No!” I protested, my panic rising. “You said you’d leave Seth here. That you’d get him help. If you have a deal with the feds, then what does it matter if the cops come? You can just tell them, right? You tell them that you have a deal, and they’ll let you go. I mean, um, they’ll let us go.”

  “I’m sorry, Danielle,” Victor said. “It doesn’t work that way. The deal I made was for me to disappear. My name and my dealings with the federals can’t be revealed to anyone. You have to understand what lengths I’ve gone to just to be with you, my love. I’ve exposed immensely powerful people who would kill to get their hands on me, literally, and if we alert members of law enforcement, well, then we risk a paid member of the force selling us out.”