Game

by London Casey

  We eased down together, but we didn’t move. We slowly and softly kissed. I never took the time to appreciate a woman’s lips before. Or the taste of a woman’s tongue. Or how she kissed. Or the feeling of two hearts racing as our chests touched.

  I blinked and realized I was getting emotional. At the same time I saw a stray tear escape from Shayna’s eye and run down her cheek, collecting with a diamond bead of sweat.

  I brought my hand to her face and wiped it all away.

  “I love you,” I said.

  “I love you too, Finn.”

  Nothing felt so good.

  I kissed her again and then there was a loud THUD at the bedroom door.

  “Are you done yet?” Cormac’s half drunk voice yelled.

  “Ah, fuck,” I whispered, smiling. “He heard us.”

  “Good,” Shayna said. “Go talk to him. Just don’t get into a fight again.”

  I pushed myself off Shayna. “That I can’t promise, sweetie.”

  I lifted my jeans and stared at the naked woman on my bed. I could go blind and I’d still be able to see her beauty.

  An idea came to me.

  The riskiest thing I could possibly do, considering who I was and where I came from. But to save Shayna, to save the life that was potentially inside her…

  I was going to go above Fiore… and put my life on the line.

  ~

  “What happened? She… Shayna showed me her tits?”

  I gritted my teeth and gave a nod. “Yeah. You don’t remember?”

  “Goddammit,” Cormac said. He put the coffee mug to his lips and drank. It was black coffee, almost thick as mud. Each sip seemed to bring him more to life. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Put it this way,” I said, “if you did remember, there was a good chance I would rip your eyes out of your head.”

  Cormac raised an eyebrow. “Hm… I bet they’re nice. Can I see them again?”

  “You fucking…”

  “I’m joking, brother,” Cormac said.

  I let a few seconds pass. There was a bottle of aspirin on the table, tipped over, pills scattered. I wasn’t sure how many he’d taken by now. Hell, he could probably take the entire bottle and eat the damn container and it wouldn’t help the headache he had. I could almost literally see the veins in his head throbbing.

  “Hey,” I said. “I’ve only seen you like this once before.”

  Cormac looked me dead in the eyes. And his eyes went red.

  Ah, fuck, he was going to cry again.

  “Today was the day,” Cormac said.

  “What day?”

  “The last day I saw her alive.”

  My stomach sank. I felt like someone punched me. If today was the last day Cormac saw Carrie… that meant we were…

  “Christ, it’s that time again,” I whispered.

  We were five days away from the anniversary of her death. It hadn’t even dawned on me.

  “Aye,” Cormac said. “Remember, Finn? I saw you two and I had that fight in Reno. On the way back…”

  “I remember,” I said.

  “Do you? Huh?”

  “I fucking remember.”

  Cormac pushed the coffee mug out of the way and pointed at me. “I don’t t’ink you do…” The Irish anger was building. “You don’t… you always spend the day with me, brudder.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Fiore had Shayna attacked. Someone tried to… tried to force himself in her.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Cormac said.

  “That’s what I’m dealing with, bro. I would never forget. Not Carrie. Not what she did for me. What she gave us, Cormac. Okay?”

  “I’m not angry with you. I’m angry…”

  With Shayna?

  Cormac pointed a finger to his own chest. “I’m angry with me.”

  “Why yourself?” I asked.

  “You moved on.”

  “Moved on?”

  “You love that woman in there. Christ, Finn, from the second I saw you two together. That was goddamn trouble. She put her life on the line without knowing you, brother.”

  “You took me to that fight,” I said. “I should be mad at you for all this.”

  Cormac grinned. “Fuck that. I believe in fate. You know that.”

  “I know. Too much.”

  “Hey. I got nothing but fate. Fate took Carrie from us. Why? I don’t know. Maybe she was there with me when I got bashed in the fucking head behind the arena that one time by that crazy guy, huh? Maybe she lessened the blow and I survived. How many times do you have a close call on the road? Some asshole runs a light or speeds by or something. It’s all fate. Maybe Carrie was meant to bring us together for this and then watch.”

  “How do you think that makes me fucking feel?” I asked. “I’m in love with someone else. And it’s different, Cormac. The way I feel about Shayna. It’s goddamn different.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “What I had with Carrie was true.”

  Cormac grabbed my hand. “I know, brother. I would never doubt that. I’m telling you that I’m okay with it all. You go and love her. You make her everything you want. I’m mad at myself for not seeing that sooner. For not pushing you. For not finding it out for myself.”

  “You will. You’re a good man.”

  “I’m a fate man, Finn. It’s all fate. Live today, die tomorrow, it’s all fate.”

  “So getting dead drunk and driving…”

  “Aye. That was stupid. But fate brought me here. She was with me, Finn.”

  “You really are a crazy son of a bitch, Cormac.”

  “Aye,” he said. “Now go love that woman.” He grabbed his coffee mug and drank some more. “Oh, Finn?”

  “What?”

  “If yer not going to love her the right way, then at least let her show me her tits again.”

  I made a fist and showed it to Cormac. Then I started to laugh.

  I had to laugh.

  Everything was so wrong, so fucking bad, I just had to laugh.

  Cormac laughed and the world felt at ease again.

  It was the last time I ever heard Cormac laugh.

  ~

  I slipped my arm around Shayna and pulled her close. “We should go for a ride.”

  “What’s your plan?” she asked.

  “Something risky.”

  “Which is?”

  “We go to Fiore’s family,” I said.

  Shayna froze and looked at me. She knew what that meant. It was a very dangerous move to make. Going above Fiore meant I was basically stabbing him in the back. But maybe someone else could talk sense into him or get him help.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’ll go for a ride and talk. Cormac is going to sleep off the rest of his booze. I’ll take you to my old stomping grounds, okay? The old gym and stuff.”

  “Okay,” Shayna said with a smile.

  I started to move and she grabbed my wrist. She looked at me. “What?”

  “I wasn’t lying.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The way I felt,” she said. “When Fiore was here. With the test.”

  “So the test was positive?”

  “No. It was negative. But the way I feel…” Her cheeks flushed.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  I grabbed a bag and threw some clothes together just in case she and I decided to get a little wild at the old gym.

  We left the bedroom and Cormac was on the couch, sound asleep. A coffee cup on the table, half empty. He was the only guy I knew who could pound eight cups of coffee and fall asleep. There was a fire in the fireplace. The cabin actually felt really cozy. Really at home. I paused for a second and started to see it all happening. Me and Shayna living in the cabin without worry or fear.

  Cormac let out a growling snore and then coughed.

  “He sounds like an animal,” Shayna said.

  “I’m pretty sure he is part animal,” I said.

  We got outside to the truck and a sudden strang
e feeling went through my body.

  I couldn’t explain it. I felt watched. I felt like a gun was pointed at me. I felt like the world was about to explode. Shayna grabbed the door handle on the truck and I jumped at her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “The truck. I think it’s wired.”

  For some reason, what Fiore had said to me before came crashing back.

  “So don’t fuck anything up. I wouldn’t want anything to explode, you know?”

  What had that meant?

  Did Fiore somehow think I’d go to his family?

  My paranoia was going crazy.

  “Walk to that tree there and wait,” I whispered. “Okay? Let me go check something out.”

  “Finn…”

  “Just listen to me.”

  I waited for Shayna to walk away and I dropped to my knees. I looked under the truck, not sure what the hell a bomb would look like. Or what I would do if I found one. I touched a few things that all seemed to be part of the pickup truck.

  The feeling hadn’t gone away yet.

  I rolled to my stomach and looked under the truck out to the woods.

  That’s when I saw a black vehicle approaching.

  “No,” I whispered.

  I started to push myself back, but a second later, the entire cabin blew up.

  38.

  (Shayna)

  I turned my head for a second.

  I saw a black SUV slowly creeping forward. The man behind the wheel had something in his hand with a red blinking light. It took me a second to register what was about to happen.

  I had seen something similar many times.

  A bomb detonator.

  I managed to turn and jump behind a tree. I didn’t need to see the guy press the button. But I felt it. It was like the entire ground shook with fury. I expected to have shards of the truck - and Finn - come flying past me. But I didn’t. It was an explosion, the ground rumbling, then crackling.

  When I jumped up and turned, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  The cabin was destroyed. Whatever they had used basically made the cabin implode. Which seemed like a genius move considering it was in the woods. That meant the rest of the trees wouldn’t catch on fire, and the smoke that rose up from the cabin was so minimal that anyone who saw it would think it was just a regular fire. Someone burning their trash or something.

  But the entire cabin was gone.

  I put my hands to the tree and waited for Finn to appear.

  That’s when I saw the movement under the truck.

  Finn was under the truck!

  He had protected himself from the bomb. He thought the truck had been bombed, but it was the cabin. The cabin he had built for someone else. The cabin he had wanted to share with his entire family.

  My heart instantly ached for him. All of his dreams were now gone and dead. Because of me. Because of what I had done.

  I stepped back from the tree as Finn slipped all the way under the truck. He was hidden. He didn’t come out and save me. He didn’t race to me and hold me and tell me it was going to be okay.

  Finn had just gotten rid of me.

  And why not? I was the reason his cabin was in rubble.

  I took another step back. I was on my own. I needed to run.

  Run! Shayna! Run!

  One more step back.

  Something rammed into my ribs, making me cry out. A hand then covered my mouth.

  “Don’t fucking try a thing.”

  ~

  Zander had me.

  That was my initial thought.

  Zander had come again, found me again, and now he had won.

  Two men in suits and black masks raced by me. They went right by the truck. My eyes went wide and I hoped to see Finn make his move. He was a master at it.

  Finn didn’t move. He remained hidden under the truck.

  The two men charged into the rubble of the cabin. They then both stopped at the same time. They looked at me - at the man behind me - and they gave thumbs up.

  “Confirmation?” the man holding me yelled.

  “Yes!” one of the men said. “There’s not much left, obviously. But it’s him.”

  “You got lucky,” the man whispered into my ear. “You came out just when we needed you to do so. We were going to call you, Shayna. Lure you out. What the fuck were you doing out here?”

  The hand slid off my mouth. I took a few breaths, hoping for Finn…

  “Wait,” I whispered. “What’s happening?”

  “Ah, you’re in shock,” the man said. “Let’s go for a ride then.”

  The two men waved their hands from the rubble. “Want us to bring a souvenir?” one of them yelled.

  “No,” the man behind me yelled back. “You’ve got confirmation. Finn is dead. That’s all we need.”

  Reality crashed down on me. It was like a boulder to my gut. I hunched forward and felt ready to throw up.

  Finn wasn’t dead. Finn was under the truck, hiding.

  Finn wasn’t in the cabin when it blew up.

  Cormac was.

  That meant…

  Cormac was dead.

  ~

  The door opened to the SUV and I froze. My knees locked tight as though my kneecaps disappeared. I stared at the man in the back of the SUV.

  It was supposed to be Zander, right? He was the one after me. He wanted to get me, hurt me, probably kill me even. After all, I had taken an engagement ring from him. He had offered his own sick version of protection. I had really fucked him over by leaving, by ending up with Finn, and not to mention everything was a giant lie. My intuition had been to find my sister and save her.

  “Hello, Shayna.”

  “Fiore,” I whispered.

  “Climb in. We need to talk.”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  I felt the gun press against my ribs.

  “No, you don’t,” Fiore said. “Get in the fucking vehicle.”

  I climbed into the back of the SUV. I sat there and stared forward at the remains of the cabin.

  My eyes filled with tears.

  Not for Finn, no. But for Cormac. The poor guy was dead. For what? For nothing. He didn’t deserve that kind of death. He had come to the cabin, drunk, to be with his best friend. To be with a man he considered a brother. He had been sleeping on the couch, sleeping off the booze.

  Now he was dead.

  Just. Like. That.

  I wiped tears away and took a shaky breath.

  “It’s okay,” Fiore said. “It was all meant to be like this.”

  “No,” I whispered. “It wasn’t.”

  All the men returned to the SUV. The driver had been the guy who grabbed me. The two men who surveyed the rubble sat in the passenger seat and crammed next to me, respectively.

  “I can’t trust a man like Finn,” Fiore said. “He was a great fighter and he’ll be hard to replace. But what he finally gave me is what I’ll remember him by.” Fiore then reached a hand and touched my stomach. “Right? Do you still feel it?”

  That was my saving grace, for the moment.

  So I nodded.

  Fiore had no idea the wrong man was killed. He had no idea that Finn was still alive and hiding.

  “Good. Good, Shayna.”

  “What are we doing now?” I asked.

  Fiore smiled big. “First, we’re going to go make a lot of money. Do you know how?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I booked a fight for Finn. And there’s way too much opportunity to bet for him to win. But I put a lot of money on him not winning. No matter what. And since a dead man can’t fight…”

  My stomach felt sick. “Oh.”

  “And once we’re done making all that money, Shayna, we’re going to go visit someone.”

  “Who?”

  Fiore smiled even bigger. And he gave away something I never saw coming.

  “We’re going to visit Zander.”

  39.

  (Finn)

  I hate
d to do it, but I couldn’t fucking move. For a second I thought about pushing back and climbing out from under the truck at the front. Then I was going to crouch down and make my attack when the guys came by. But then I heard one of them say something about finding the body.

  I was the body.

  They were looking for me in the rubble of the cabin.

  So I stayed under the truck.

  When the two guys made the discovery, they assumed it was me.

  My heart was ripped from my fucking chest. I stared at the two men as they gave thumbs up, waved, made confirmation that I was dead. They weren’t fucking looking at me though, were they? They were looking at Cormac. My brother. My boy. My best damn friend in the world.

  I made fists and put them to the ground. I pushed hard, lifting myself up a little. Small rocks tore into my knuckles. I wanted to rush out from under the truck and attack. Someone had killed my best friend. My brother. The only man I knew that would give his life for me.

  And he just did.

  Because the two men walked away from the remains of my cabin.

  I slowly turned so I could see out from under the truck. I had to be careful not to push my luck and get caught.

  I saw someone with Shayna.

  She was at a big black SUV and was forced into the vehicle. The other men climbed inside and the vehicle started to leave.

  Watching that SUV drive away was hard.

  Who had Shayna? Who would do this to my cabin?

  There were only two people.

  Zander. Or Fiore.

  I got out from under the truck and stood up. I brushed myself off of the dirt and dust. I didn’t want to look back at what used to be my cabin. My hands were tight into fists and I stared. I thought. I tried to seek logic.

  You know the logic, Finn. You fucking know it…

  “Fiore,” I whispered.

  That’s the only thing that made sense.

  Was it coincidence that Shayna was out of the cabin when it blew up? It felt too planned. Like someone wanted Shayna out and me inside. Whoever blew it up thought I was still inside. They saw Shayna standing at the tree. They didn’t see me because I was under the truck, checking it for a bomb.

  Why would Zander want Shayna alive?

  Maybe he wanted to take her and punish her. Torture her.