Conviction (Wated Series Book 2)

by Lance, Amanda

  I pushed myself away, careful to roll up his sleeve as gently as I could without hurting him. Two months in an arm cast had done its damage; the scabs from a wound I couldn’t identify refused to heal, making his skin look particularly pale. The muscles there had atrophied slightly as well, making the inside of his elbow look sunken in and hollowed out.

  “It’s okay.” Whether he said it to me or him, I wasn’t sure.

  “It doesn’t look okay.” I rolled the sleeve back down. Even in the murky sun, it looked as though he could burn. “Did you take it off yourself?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, the doc in Churchill did.”

  I looked up at the mention, nearly forgetting at we were on the move to somewhere. “Where are we going, anyway?”

  “Marseilles.” He smiled

  “Marseilles? As in France?”

  “I hope that’s okay.”

  “Okay?” I smiled. “Better than your arm okay.”

  He laughed. “It’s fine. It just means I’ll be out of commission for awhile.”

  I lit up at the prospect. Did this mean no more smuggling? A hiatus from criminal activity? “Are you referring to a break from illicit activities? As in ‘a lack of illegal acts’? Because if you aren’t, tell me right now so I don’t get my hopes up.”

  He smiled, brushing away the hair from my neck. “Illicit activities? Well, I was hoping not. But that other stuff…”

  “How long?”

  “How long what?”

  “How long are you taking a break?”

  He shrugged. “Forever?”

  I was flabbergasted, above and beyond the word. Of course a million reasons could have brought the decision on, and without specific details I was still reluctant to get excited about the idea.

  “What?” he asked. “You don’t believe me?”

  “It’s not that,” I tried to point my phrasing, “I just—why?”

  He laughed, true and full in that way I appreciated so well. It made me laugh too, though I wasn’t sure why. “Why? Really, Vicious, why? You want a list?”

  My eyes rolled. “Humor me.”

  He reached out his hand and began counting out the points. “One: Ben and Elise wanna have a safer house for the kids.”

  I nodded; I had already figured that one.

  “Two: with the Albanians there will probably be more trouble-makers--maybe more Albanians—” He stopped at my expression, but I stood fast and crossed my arms over myself, remaining vigilant to not let him persuade me until I was confident about this new arrangement.

  “Three: We all have a decent amount of money to do something with ourselves that ain’t so dangerous, and with all the heat, we kinda don’t have a better option.”

  I sighed. “Is that all?”

  He shrugged. “I guess Yuri is thinking of doing something legit.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “I also can’t live without you…so there’s that.”

  I smiled though I tried not to. “Uh huh.”

  “I shoulda quit this racket the day I met you.”

  I wanted to argue, to put up a fight. There was a part of Charlie that was untamed, animalistic, and I had loved that about him as much as he loved the unknown of his work, the thrill it gave him. If he gave that up and ended up regretting it, would he resent me?

  “I—I don’t want you to do something just because of me,” I tried. “You should live whatever kind of life you think will make you happy long-term—”

  “Are you kidding me? When you were lying in my arms as dead as anything, all I could think about was target practice.”

  “What?”

  “I was pissed at you. If you could aim better, then there woulda been enough bullets in that Albanian’s revolver to end me, too.”

  I was wordless.

  “Bein’ without you is worse than any death I can think of.” He laughed into my hair.

  “Wait, h-how do you know what happened?” I looked at the floor, “How do they—”

  Charlie’s brow furrowed for a second. “Reid saw what happened from one of the stands in the trees and called us over. Moron figured out you weren’t part of a conspiracy.”

  So if nothing else, I had proved myself to the guys after all, even if I had nearly lost my life in the process.

  “Oh.”

  “Oh?”

  I shrugged. “What says ‘thanks for saving my life twice in a 48-hour period’? Fruit basket?”

  He grinned and shook his head.

  “I could always give him Melinda’s number…”

  “God, I’ve missed you.”

  I settled myself back in his arms, tucking myself under his chin. “So we can go away together, no more breaking the law, no more hiding?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then will you do something for me?”

  His chuckle was low and soft against my earlobe. “I think it’s more like ‘what wouldn’t I do for you?’”

  “Marry me.”

  “What?”

  “Marry. Me.”

  “How hard in the head did you get kicked?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Un-huh.” He rolled his eyes at me. “Now I get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “What this all is…”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I’m still in that hospital, and all of this is one of those coma dreams.” He tapped the side of his head but flinched at the memory of pain. “All makes sense now.”

  “Charlie Hays!” I hit him gently in the chest. “Do you love me?”

  “More than I ever thought I was capable of lovin’ anything.”

  “Then let’s get married.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Completely. We love each other, and if we’re married, then you’ll never have an excuse to not tell me the whole truth again because of spousal privilege.” I pushed my nose against his. “And you and the whole rest of the world won’t ever doubt again that I belong to you.”

  He grinned at me. “You really wanna marry me?”

  I nodded eagerly; barely able to contain myself. “Only if you think you can tolerate me for a lifetime.”

  When our lips touched, reunited after so long apart, it wasn’t like when we were on water, there was no weightlessness between us, no floating. It was more like sparks, something flaming and taking flight in the both of us at the same time, like seeing fire for the first time.

  We took liftoff.

  ***

  Shortly after, when the heat of passion had cooled off just enough for us to not burn one another, I called Melinda on a disposable cell phone. Calling anyone else would have been suspicious and ran the risk of having a traced line, but since I rarely communicated with Melinda via phone, I was somewhat confident. Regardless, no one was willing to deny me anything, particularly this one request.

  “Hello?”

  “Melinda, hi. It’s Addie.”

  What followed was a loud squealing sound that even Charlie flinched from as I pulled the phone from my ear.

  “Uh, Melinda?”

  “Addie, oh my god. Is it really you? Are you okay? Where are you?”

  I laughed. Always so dramatic. I knew I would miss her. “I’m okay. I can’t tell you where I am, though. Listen, I only have a second. I need you to call my Dad—”

  “Whoo! He’s freaking out—”

  “I know, that’s why I need you to call him.” I gave her the number and made her repeat it back to me once, twice.

  “What do I tell him?”

  “Tell him I love him, I’m okay. Better than okay, a-and that—” Charlie stared at me with his kaleidoscope eyes, a foggy blue under the hazy of sun. I knew I could look into them forever. “Tell him I found what I forgot.”

  Whatever she scratched on the paper with stopped. “Huh?”

  I laughed again. “He’ll know what it means. Do you have that?”

  “Uh, yeah, got it. I’ll do it right now.”

  “Melinda,
thanks for everything. I mean it.”

  She sighed. “You will tell me everything someday, Battes.”

  “Of course I will.” I laughed. “Roommate code.”

  After I hung up the phone I was smiling, but I couldn’t ignore the funny look Charlie gave me.

  “What?”

  “Roommate code?”

  “Yeah, I owe Melinda some explanations. Actually—” I paused, stopping to think it through, though it might help Dad sleep through the night, he still didn’t have the entire story, which I more than owed him.

  “Charlie, how long until we make port?”

  “Hard to say.” He shrugged. “A week or so. Why?”

  “I should talk to my family.” He looked down at the phone then back to me, obviously confused. “Not just to tell them I’m safe, I mean, but like, really talk to them.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  “Speaking of talking…” I smiled. “At some point I should say thanks to Reid. And—”

  “You wanna thank him?”

  “He did kind of save my life…”

  Charlie laughed, throwing his hands in the air. “And he just kinda started this mess.”

  I shrugged. Maybe Charlie had a point, but things had worked out and since we were healthy and together again, wasn’t it better to start with a clean state? Forgive and move on?

  “Okay, but we finished it.”

  “It won’t be finished until we figure out who gave us up and take care of ‘em.”

  “The point is that maybe it’s okay to forgive—”

  “Forgive?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  ***

  The days passed lazily. And between sketches and sessions of love-making, we played the ‘what now’ game, spouting lavish and outrageous possibilities. We discussed ideas involving European museums, hot air balloons, and the renting of amusement parks, skiing Swedish mountains, and the odds of me not killing myself in the process. But as soon as we were on dry land again it seemed like a tangible plan would have to come to light sooner than I wanted to.

  “So what now?” I looked into the great distance that was Marseilles. It was more beautiful than I had imagined, and I had spent hours doing nothing more than just that.

  “Whatever you want, you can go back to school—”

  “Something tells me I wouldn’t be very welcome there, and anyway, I know you wouldn’t be.”

  “That’s a good point…”

  He smiled at me wryly. “You know there’s a lot of schools in France.”

  “My French is more than lousy.” I circled my arm around his.

  He slowly leaned in close, and just as I thought he might kiss me, the direction of his mouth turned to my ear instead. “I might argue with that.”

  As I turned bright red I managed to nudge him away. “I’m serious.”

  Taking my hand in his, he twirled me back to him. “Whatever we do end up doin’, I promise you’ll be happy.”

  “We,” I leaned as far as the tips of my toes would take me, “We’ll be happy.”

  Epilogue

  I dug my toes into the sand, creating a scoop when I let them emerge, nails coated in milky white sand. I smiled at the way the sun made some of the grains shine, if I looked at them just right, like little diamonds.

  Not far beyond them, crystal blue waves crashed on the shore. Today they were blue, but like certain kaleidoscope eyes, they could appear different shades of green or deceive altogether at night, looking dark and alarming. I had decided our first day here that I liked this color blue the best, maybe because of the way it contrasted with the sand, or because of how it brought out Charlie’s eyes. Either way, I tried not to put too much thought into it, and just enjoy the view.

  The pier just beyond the bend was empty aside from two deck chairs, between them a limp fishing pole. I laughed at myself, like a lot of things that required patience, I was not a very keen fisherman. I did, however, enjoy spending countless hours on the sand or in the nearby hammock watching Charlie trying to perform the same feat. Clearing my head of the vision, I tried to return my attention back to the task in front of me. The occasional breeze was trying to dog-ear my stationary, but I was determined to finish my letter to Dad before that happened.

  Dear Dad,

  Since my last letter, the rain has stopped and the river has receded enough so the market can reopen. We were there earlier today so I’ve gotten my fix of papaya and coconut milk for a couple of days…

  As much as I loved the constant fresh fruit, it was marginal compared to my appreciation for the Maldives’ lack of extradition policy. Here, I could freely call and write home as often as I pleased with no consequences. I took advantage of this benefit on a regular basis, calling Dad, Melinda, and even trying to get a hold of Robbie at base every now and then.

  Getting to France had been the easy part; the rest, of staying there in a semi-legal fashion and keeping under the radar, were different stories. We stayed in a tourist-ridden part of Marseilles where almost everyone spoke English, and with my abundance of free time, learning enough French to get by seemed easy. In those first couple of weeks there were logistic issues concerned with transferring international accounts and making up fake-IDs, applying for visas and getting in touch with loved ones in the States. By the second or third conversation on the phone, though, Dad sounded somewhat convinced that I was not only alive, but well, and exactly where I wanted to be.

  “Careful, Vicious, or you’re liable to burn.”

  It was impossible to hear him sneak up on me on the sand, and, like always, he caught me by surprise. Charlie would come up from behind me, wrap his arms around me, and dig out his own spot in the sand. I was used to this by now, though I enjoyed it just as much every time.

  “Says the guy who hasn’t been wearing sunscreen.” I reached over and tried to jab at him with the end of my pen, but he wrangled it out of my hand before I got close. His left arm had regained its strength in almost no time at all and I was happy that despite its new scars, it was just as strong as ever.

  He hit his head against the back of my shoulder. “Ain’t it your job to remind me ‘bout these things?”

  “Well,” I wiggled just a little further back into him, “maybe I like the tan.”

  “I should have known.” I didn’t suppress my giggle while he invaded my neck with kisses, closing my eyes and giving in, as I was beginning to learn wasn’t so bad after all.

  We were both still laughing when he pulled away. “Where have you been, anyway?”

  He sighed against me. “Yuri was on the line. Wanted to brag ‘bout some big win in Monte Carlo.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Figures.” I folded the letter back on itself and under the clipboard so the wind wouldn’t take it. “Any sign of Reid?”

  Not long after arriving, Reid had taken off from Marseilles, disappearing without a word. Whether or not he intended to come back had been left as an open ended question; one that honestly, no one was going out of their way to answer.

  “Nope.” He shook his head. “Good riddance.”

  I stretched long, sinking my toes back under the sand and my hands around Charlie’s neck. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Maybe not. But I’m sure as hell not goin’ to look for him.”

  “I think it’ll be okay. Besides, absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

  Charlie’s laugh bounced on the breeze. “In that case we might forget what he looks like before we start missing him.”

  I looked at him from the corner of my eye. There wasn’t the slightest bit of the rage there while he spoke. And while I knew it was there, and would probably always be there, it was a relief to see him harbor some control over his emotions instead of the other way around. “Hey.” I nudged him. “I’m really proud of you.”

  His eyebrow arched.

  “I’m serious.” I laughed. I didn’t emphasize it further, but we both knew what I was referring to.

  Charlie stretched his arms
overhead, then forward. “I’ve always been amazing, Vicious. It’s just a shame it took you so long to see it.”

  His false humility made both of us laugh. “It must be the sun.”

  He turned his attention back to me then but I had gone back to staring at the waves, the way they overlapped here made it difficult to tell if they were coming or going. “I’m thinkin’ it was something else.”

  We kissed again, both of our feet tangling in the sand. Though I was hardly coherent beyond that. His hand meshed into my hair, his nose pressed against mine.

  “Can’t we stay here forever?” he asked when we parted.

  I groaned, “We could, but I promised Elise we’d be back before the baby came.”

  Charlie shook his head. “Not even here yet and that kid is a pain.”

  I laughed. “We should return to the real world at some point. Now that my student visa went through, I can finish school—”

  “Until then, my pretty wife—” He smiled his Charlie smile, and just as I thought he would kiss the slope of my collarbone, he planted his lips on my ear instead. “Did you know I can outswim you?”

  “Not on your life, Charlie Hays!” I wiggled out of his grasp and made a run for the waves, laughing while he launched himself after me.

  Acknowledgements

  Gratitude and thanks to the good people at Limitless Publishing. As always, you guys rock my socks.

  Special recognition to my editor Toni Rakestraw, who I’m pretty sure, should just be nominated for sainthood at this point.

  Additional cheers to Robin Harper at Wicked by Design.

  Oh yeah, and thanks to the family for all that like, support and stuff.