by Nicole Fox
Then a knock comes from the door, which is strange enough to make me sit up in shock. He never knocks. Not once since we’ve been here has he knocked. He just unlocks the door and walks right in.
“Uh, hello?” I ask, wondering if Gabriel’s gone and this is somebody new. My chest crushes tightly at the thought.
“It’s me,” Gabriel says, and I let out a sigh of relief.
“Oh. Um, come in.”
He walks in holding a tray with a bowl of soup, a chunk of crusty bread, and a single red rose on it. He places the tray on the bedside table and then offers me the rose.
“I won’t say sorry,” he mutters, not meeting my eye. For a crazy moment he looks like an embarrassed boy. Then that image disappears and I see him for what he really is, which is even more shocking than the knock: an Italian mobster trying to apologize—in his own way—to his Irish prisoner. “But things can be civil between us, eh? There’s no need for this … Will you just take it?”
I do, and then slide it through my tied-up hair, being careful not to stab myself with the thorns. Gabriel smiles at me, and then makes as if to leave.
“Wait,” I say to his back. “Can you stay? Just while I eat?”
He pauses, mid-step. His jaw tightens, which is somehow clear from the back; his neck muscles shift. “I’ll stay,” he says after a long pause.
I take the tray and eat my soup and bread, washing it down with a bottle of water. Gabriel sits and watches me eat the same way he did that first day, but now he seems different, less like a mobster and more like a man. The stem of the rose fits snugly in my hair, brushing against me every time I move, like a reminder that, though he’s a violent killer, there’s still another side to him.
Once I’ve finished the soup and put the tray aside, we both just sit there. I wonder if he can sense the energy between us the same way I can. I’m just waiting for him to make a move on me, the same way he’s made a move on me every day since we came here. I know what Alma and Father would say: he’s taking advantage; he’s confused me. But I don’t feel confused, and I don’t feel like he’s taking advantage of me.
“What are you thinking?” I ask, when he remains silent.
“Nothing in particular,” he replies. “Why, Colleen? What’re you thinking?”
“Do you really want to know?”
He shrugs, spreads his hands. “What else is there to do around here?”
I can think of a couple of things … that’s what I want to say, but I can’t bring myself to form the words. That’s something flirty, dangerous, outrageous women would say, and they wouldn’t even blush like schoolgirls as they said it. I swallow, interlacing my fingers.
“I’ve been thinking about how I feel freer now than I have for a long time.”
“Free?” He looks around the room doubtfully. “Really? How’s that? There’s a lock on that door.”
“I know,” I say. “But that’s nothing new, not really. I’d rather have a lock on the door than a lock on my life, and—” I pause, wondering if I sound stupid.
“Go on.” He sits forward, elbows resting on his knees. He’s wearing a shirt and suit trousers, the sleeves rolled up, looking smart and attentive and so handsome, I could scream.
“At least I have the freedom to …” I lower my gaze. “To explore, I guess.”
“To explore?” Then he makes an hmm-mm noise. “I get it. At least here you get to be a woman. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes!” I sit up, seizing on his words, and then sit back down when I realize how loud I just shouted.
He grins at me, shaking his head. “But you’ve still got your mother in you, Colleen. I can see that as clear as day. She must’ve worked some pretty damn good magic on you. What did she do?”
I laugh bitterly. “She should’ve gotten a dog instead of having a daughter,” I mutter. “I think she would’ve been happier then. Alma never really saw me as a daughter, or as a friend, come to think of it. No, she saw me more as a doll to dress up and control and dance around the place. She was only ever happy when I was doing what she wanted me to do. I remember one time when I was little, I went out into the street and played volleyball with my friends. I didn’t have those friends for long.” I look up, biting my lip. “I know how this must sound. The spoiled rich girl complaining that she didn’t get to play street volleyball.”
“Well, I don’t think that one person’s problems rule out anybody else’s.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I ask.
“Nice? Am I?” He laughs gruffly. “I’ve never been called nice by any lady, not once.”
“What do they usually call you?”
“I don’t want to talk about other women,” he says, worrying at his knee, picking at his trousers.
“I won’t get jealous!” I snap, though I think I already am jealous. It seems ridiculous that Gabriel could be with another woman, kiss her, hold her; it seems ridiculous and yet it should not, because this man is my kidnapper! I need to remember that, but it’s difficult when he’s sitting there with that tight jaw and those intense eyes. “What about you?” I ask, when he just stares silently into nothingness.
“What about me?”
“How was your childhood?”
He laughs, this time even more gruffly. Then he stands up and paces to the window, staring out into the slowly falling snow. “This isn’t some Oprah TV show, Colleen. I’m not about to start pouring my heart out, because there’s nothing to pour out. A childhood is a childhood; that’s all there is to is. Stop, and you end up back there. That’s what growing up taught me. Keep moving forward, no matter what.”
“So you never want to settle down?”
He throws his hands up. “What is this?” he says, spinning on me. “What exactly do you want?”
“You!” I scream, and then catch myself. I collapse onto the bed, roll over, bring my knees up, and stare at the wall.
I feel him on the other side of the bed, staring down at me; his gaze sears into the back of my head. “This is such a confusing mess,” I whisper into the silence.
“Yeah.” He chuckles humorlessly. “I think that might be an understatement. What do you mean, you want me? Want me how?”
“I just … I don’t know. That’s the point!”
“I know what you really want, Colleen.”
He climbs onto the bed next to me and then moves up close, his pants pressed against my ass. His penis is hard, like it always is for me, rock-hard. I don’t think I’ve ever felt his groin without his penis being hard for me. A thrill runs through me, and I subtly shift my ass, rubbing it up and down his crotch. Then he slides his hand around my belly and down my pants, down my underwear; naked fingers touch my pubes, and then move lower to my clit, which aches horribly, amazingly, unbearably at his touch.
Stop, I say, but I don’t say it, can’t say it. For the first time in my life, a man is touching my clit, but not just any man. Gabriel’s touch is sure and dangerous and frightening all at once. He presses his finger down on it and then rubs it, softly at first, but then he quickly gets faster, until all I can hear is my frantic breathing and all I can feel is the scorching heat between my legs.
“Oh …” I moan, and then bite down so hard on my lip that I draw blood. “Oh Gabriel.”
“You’re going to come for me,” he whispers, close to my ear, now sliding another finger onto my clit. He’s so close to my hole, and I’m so wet, wetter than I’ve ever been. “Do you understand?”
The heat gets even more intense, the pleasure even more unbearable. I rock softly with his movements, up and down, his fingers grating against my clit, rough and hard and possessive; it’s like I’m pinned here, his breath caressing my ear. I just float on it, sit atop the searing pleasure and focus only on the way it feels, the intense pressure of it. I feel like I might explode; my entire lower half is pent-up, ready to release. My toes curl and, before I know it, I’m not moaning quietly anymore; my moans fill the room, along with his breathing.
That’s when it hits me: he’s enjoying this more than me; he’s taking pleasure in giving me pleasure. He could do this all day.
“Oh God …” The orgasm approaches so suddenly, I almost scream. I bite down again; more metallic blood fills my mouth. “Gabriel, Gabriel …”
“That’s it,” he says warmly. “Do it, Colleen. Fucking come for me!”
“I—I—I—”
Everything is about to release—my whole world, it feels like—when a car backfires right outside the window and, downstairs, something shatters. For a second, I lie there, confused, as Gabriel leaps to his feet. How did the backfiring car make something downstairs shatter?
Then I roll over and see Gabriel taking out his pistol.
“What’s happening?” I ask, my sex so sore it hurts, his stolen touch a phantom against my lips.
“We’re under attack,” he says matter-of-factly. “Stay here.”
Chapter Eight
Gabriel
“And stay down,” I tell her, holding my pistol at my side as the bastards fire more rounds into the downstairs window. “No—get under the bed. Hide. Don’t fucking move.”
I leave her there, running from the bedroom into the adjacent bathroom and then opening the window a sliver. Immediately, ice-cold air rushes in, but I ignore it and glance down into the sleety, glistening garden. A white van is parked at the end of the driveway, three men standing just below me with shotguns and pistols. They’re all wearing masks, gloves, and long-sleeved sweaters. They could be anybody.
“He’s up there!” one of them roars, making to fire up at me.
I react without thinking: shoot down at him, my bullet carving through the top of his skull cleanly, chunks of blood and the fabric from his mask falling away as he collapses to the ground. I fire another shot, catching the second one in the upper thigh. He curses and stumbles to the ground, but then fires back up at me. I duck down just in time, covering my face on instinct. Which is a damn good thing, because glass lashes against my hand; it would’ve been my eye had I not covered up. I check my hand quickly: small cuts, nothing to worry about.
Then I leave the bathroom and run into the next room—another bedroom—and fire from that window. I miss because the injured bastard shoots up at me, giving the other man enough time to run back toward the van. He opens up the back and takes out a heavy machine gun, the sort which will completely destroy the house and everything in it. I run again, this time returning to the bathroom, and then duck down just long enough to make them wonder. Then I jump up and fire—the man’s wrist explodes bloodily just as he’s about to start firing the machine gun. He lets out a roar and drops the weapon, and then makes as if to grab his friend from the lawn.
I fire twice at him, hitting him again in the knee and narrowly missing his head, and then I duck down and sprint downstairs, taking the last four steps in a giant leap. I kick open the front door and fire at the man on the ground, catching him in the arm and making him drop his gun. I run to him quickly and stamp my foot down on his bloody arm, stopping him from picking up his weapon, and then aim my gun at the man near the vehicle. I fire, but he’s quick; he darts inside and closes the van door, my bullets thumping against the metal. I pick up the fallen man’s pistol and fire more rounds into the van, and then it growls to life and screeches away, leaving one dead bastard and one half-dead bastard.
I watch the driveway for a long time, foot crushing into the man’s arm. Then, when I’m sure the prick isn’t returning, I kneel down and bring the gun to the man’s head.
“The fuck’s wrong with you?” I growl. “Do you have any fucking idea who I am? Do you have any fucking idea who I work for, you stupid fuck?” I slam him across the chin with the butt of the pistol and then grab his mask and wrench it from his head.
A plain-looking man stares up at me, around forty or maybe fifty, with a bald head and a squashed face. His eyes are wet from the pain, and his lips tremble like a woman’s. He glances at his fallen friend, swallows, and then stares up at me. “I don’t want no trouble.”
I push the barrel of the pistol into the soft part of his chin. “Doesn’t that seem like a fucking stupid thing to say after what you just did, eh? You don’t want no trouble? How the fuck can you say a thing like that when you just rolled up three-deep to ambush a man?” I press with the barrel even harder, digging the metal into his skin. “Now listen here, you can either tell me who you work for or I’m going to have to make you tell me.”
“You think I’ll talk?” The man laughs hoarsely. “You’re crazy!”
His accent is New York, which doesn’t tell me much, and I can’t tell if he’s Italian or Irish or Polish or what. He could even be working for one of the African American gangs as a hired goon.
“I’m not the crazy one, you dumb fuck. You’re the one bleeding out in the freezing cold, telling me you’re not going to talk. But we both know you will, eventually. If you’re in this game, then you know that much.”
The man curls his upper lip and then spits. Or at least tries to spit. But because of the angle, he ends up dribbling down his cheek. “I’m not saying a fucking word!” he growls, spit flying everywhere now.
“For fuck’s sake.” I sigh and holster my pistol, and then grab him under the armpits and drag him across the lawn inside the house. I take him into the kitchen and sit him down, and then cuff his hands behind his back and his feet together underneath the chair. He looks like a trussed-up Christmas turkey.
Then I go outside and bring the corpse around the side of the house, out of view of the street, not that there’s anybody on this street to give a damn. Thank fuck this safehouse is so isolated.
Returning to the man, I level my gun at him. “Who do you work for?” I ask simply.
He shakes his head, but even that movement weakens him. Blood pours continuously from his wounds. “No,” he says. “No fucking way.”
I smack him across the face with the back of my free hand and then grab him and set him upright when he almost falls over. I bring my face close to his, my voice far grimmer and angrier than I realized I was. Three men, coming to kill me … but that’s nothing new when you get right down to it. All my life, men’ve been coming to kill me. Then it hits me: Colleen. These men can gun for me all they want. That’s the life; that’s business. But gunning for an innocent woman who’s never hurt a fly in her life? That’s some fucking bullshit right there. I smack him again, this time letting him fall to the floor.
He coughs blood and stares up at me with the eyes of a man who thinks he’s going to kill me one day.
“Men always think they’re going to get revenge when they’re in your position,” I tell him, righting him again. “You’ve always got revenge, so there it is; you think you’re going to somehow get out of here, heal up, and pay me back for this. But this is the end of the line for you unless you start talking.”
“You’ll kill me anyway,” the man whispers.
Holding the gun to his head, I pat his pockets down. There’s nothing in there except for a small butterfly knife. I toss it across the room and take a step back. “If you tell me what I want to know, I’ll let you go. You have my word. If you know who I am, then you know that people say plenty about me, but they’ll never say I’m not a man of my word.”
“What do you think happens to me I talk?” He coughs, low, as more blood stains his clothes. “What then? Do you think my employer will be as—ha—as understanding as you?”
“I don’t give a fuck about you or your employer. I give a fuck about men trying to kill me. That’s all. Now, you might think you’ve got all day to talk and talk and say nothing at all, but that’s not the way this is going down. You’re going to say something I want to hear in the next couple of minutes, or that there wall is going to be covered in your brains.”
He swallows, his face going even more deathly pale. “You’re a sick bastard.”
“I’m a sick bastard?” I laugh viciously. “If you came here, then you know there’s a lady u
pstairs, a lady who has no part in this.”
“What?” The man growls out a chuckle. “Has big bad Gabriel Moretti fallen for the Irish slut—”
I leap forward and press the pistol into his seeping wound, twisting it so that he lets out a roar of agony. For some reason, when he insults Colleen I lose control of myself. It’s like he pulls a trigger, and the trigger fires me; I press the barrel even harder, until an inch of it disappears into the wound. The man’s world is hell right now, I know, because this sort of shit has been done to me before. That’s the life: torturing and being tortured.
“Fucking talk,” I snarl. “I won’t ask again.” I twist the gun savagely; blood stains the metal.
