by Chloe Liese
The engine’s sound grew to a roar, then cut abruptly from somewhere fifty feet over my right shoulder. Voices made a commotion and the sound of metal being slapped on metal rang in the night. A few of the officers trained their eyes and guns toward it.
“This is for Billy!” the voice yelled. A thud, then the distinct beep of a timer. The motorboat engine roared to life again and began to fade.
That got Nella’s attention. I took the moment to shove her back sharply, and she tipped, rolled down the angled gangway onto the boat just as someone bellowed, “Get down!”
The sky lit up in an explosion of flames and sound that kicked me back to the asphalt. Another explosive crash, and a wall of hot light blinded me. I army-crawled along the ground as my head pounded. Finally, I scrambled upright. The whole vessel snapped flames and billowed smoke as the contraband ammunition caught quickly and fired. Somebody dragged me back as shrapnel and projectiles flew from the boat.
“What the fuck just happened?” I asked. “Wait, did he say Billy?” I turned and tried to shake the ringing out of my ears. “Did you see the boat, what was on it?”
The officer grinned at me. He was one I knew—I recognized him now under the dock lights. “Four leaf clover. You aren’t the only one willing to work with Uncle Sam.”
“You mean, this was it?”
He nodded. “Can’t say much more, but it was all coordinated. We’re getting incoming radio now with each cell and individual raid completed.”
The ringing in my ears dulled enough that I began to hear just that, the click and burst of voices, radioing confirmation to the officer who’d led this specific operation. Some names I recognized. Others I didn’t. My head was pounding, and concentrating on the radio communiqué became too much.
I groaned and massaged my head, which was throbbing from where it had made impact with the pavement. Watched the boat glow like a funeral pyre tall on the water. Then I remembered Teo saying it was time to blow shit up, and the possibility that my baby brother had corroborated with the Irish side as well as the feds made me want to vomit then drop into a dead sleep. But it had worked. I couldn’t believe it. It had actually worked.
The officer hoisted me up and shook his head. “Heck of a family feud to be in the middle of.”
I managed a nod and scrubbed my face as he clapped my back. “Let’s get you down to headquarters.”
Never in a million years had I thought I’d be asking to be taken to jail. “That’d be great.”
Twelve
Nairne
Nearly four weeks ago, I’d watched Boston fade to a splash of tiny lights and coastal shadows, hoping I was making the right choice. Nella was insane—that much was obvious. And she wanted Zed, all to herself. If she couldn’t have him, she’d have Zed nearly beaten to death. Such violence struck me as diametrically opposed to her need to possess him, but framed by the lens of sociopathy, I understood the method to her madness. To Nella, this was exactly the way the world should run—revolving around her wants and desires, with no consideration of anyone else’s welfare, even if they were someone as important to her as Zed. He didn’t need to be whole or healthy to be satisfactorily hers. He just needed to be hers.
Instinctually, I knew taking her words seriously was the right move. I’d learned the hard way before that underestimating someone’s madness could cost you dearly. Didn’t mean it made leaving Zed in the dark easy. In a moment of genius, I’d scribbled our safe word, hoping that he’d find it first and know it was me, telling him I was all right, that we were all right. And I’d had to leave it at that.
Nella had made me unreachable. Ripping out my SIM card and demanding immediate departure meant I couldn’t get a new mobile until I was in the UK, and after I did, it wouldn’t be the same number Zed, or any of the Salvatores for that matter, knew. That said, I wasn’t completely stuck. I had Zed’s, Teo’s, Brando’s and Gianno’s numbers memorized. I was just too cautious to even try to involve and possibly endanger any of them. I had no clue how far Nella’s reach was, or what she might do if she found I’d contacted any of them about Zed. I’d settled for telling Gianno I’d made a switch to a UK mobile after my move, and had kept our conversations steered to our personal relationship and far from discussion of Zed.
But nearly one month of silence was painful, and who knew what Zed thought. And then I’d torture myself, imagining him hurting and confused by my abrupt and enigmatic departure. I’d pick up my mobile, type in his number. Then I’d delete each digit slowly, berating myself for indulging my need to know he was okay, only to risk that he’d be horribly hurt because of my carelessness.
When I’d gotten to London, I’d taken the first few days to settle in, as my boxes came via air mail. But after that, I’d started panicking, worrying, sitting around with no work to do and thinking the worst about Zed. So I’d sweet-talked a professor into letting me start even earlier than we’d agreed, filled in for a pregnant researcher for whom working with live viruses was unsafe. The study was tapering to an end, but I got to run a few weeks’ more trials, then complete her report before I began my own work. I was glad for the excuse to keep myself busy as I fretted.
As always, my studies and research were my sanity keepers in an existence that otherwise felt unpredictable and painfully arbitrary. I bent over my microscope, examining a genetically attenuated strain of Escherichia coli bacteria wiggling across the slide.
“Wee buggers,” I muttered. The study was exploring the possibility of engineering a vaccine for E. coli, so I was assessing the test strain to see if it could carry a sufficient number of antigens that would make it effective. The results so far weren’t promising.
The only other person in the lab who also apparently didn’t value a summer holiday looked over at me through his goggles. Christopher, was it? I was terrible with names.
He dabbed his nose with the inside of his elbow and looked at me. Smiled and slid his goggles up to his forehead. There was something unsettlingly familiar about him. As if he reminded me of someone I already knew, and I couldn’t figure out who it was.
He smirked. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
I froze. “From where?”
“From here. I’ve been working with you for nearly three weeks now.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve been a bit preoccupied. Remind me of your name, please?”
He stood back and pulled off his gloves, then dumped them in the biohazard bin. “It’s Christophe.”
Damn it, I’d been close.
“Care to have lunch with me?” He stepped to the sink and started scrubbing his hands.
My stomach growled right as I was about to say I hadn’t an appetite. He peered at me over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. “Now you can’t even lie about how hungry you aren’t.”
I dropped my eyes and went back to my microscope. “My stomach talks a lot, but I’m all right, thank you.”
“Femme têtue,” he grumbled.
Stubborn woman, he’d said. I stopped and glanced up at him. “Je parle français, Christophe.”
The water shut off and he turned, drying his hands while wearing a wry grin. “Perfect,” he continued in French. “Then we can enjoy a beautiful meal speaking a beautiful language.”
My stomach growled loudly again, and it made both of us laugh. I gave him a stern stare as I pulled off my gloves and tossed them. “Just as friends.”
“You’re so confident I was looking for something more?”
“No.” I shook my head as I leaned away to wash my hands. “I just like to be very clear with any man I have a meal with. Not a date.”
Christophe pulled off his lab coat and leaned a hip against the work station. “A rare and wondrous thing—a woman who speaks plainly.”
I was using my arm crutches and I had to do a little fenagling to get my lab coat off. Christophe came around and pulled it down my sleeves. He felt warm and close and it didn’t seem just friendly.
When I craned my neck to look at him, h
e was staring at me intently. He had hazel eyes that reminded me of Teo’s and unruly brown hair. He was handsome, but I knew it in a sort of abstract sense, like looking at a well-done painting that was aesthetically pleasing but empty of emotion. When I looked at Zed, it was seeing an evocative masterpiece.
“You had to tell me you weren’t interested.” He sighed. “Now I’m dead set on convincing you otherwise.”
I laughed and threaded my hand through the cuff of the arm crutch again, then tossed my lab coat on the stool. “Don’t tell me, you’re one of those men who wants whatever he can’t have.”
His eyes glimmered as he pulled the door open. “Apparently it runs in the family. I’m a direct descendent of Le Marquis de Sade.”
“Now you’re just trying to intimidate me.”
“Is it working?”
I laughed as we stepped onto the lift. “Not one bit.”
“Even with a scientific understanding of metabolism, I have to say I’m flummoxed. I don’t know where you put it.” Christophe dabbed his mouth and tossed his napkin aside. His eyes slipped along my body. “You’re very slim, and you ate more than me. You’re still eating.”
I shrugged and smiled as I took another bite of my pasta. It wasn’t anything close to Zed’s homemade. “My appetite’s erratic. I eat when I’m hungry, and I don’t when I’m not.”
He smiled, switched languages as he set an elbow on the table and leaned in. “How do you know French?”
I took my time chewing. “My au paire. She spoke to me in French until I was school age.”
Christophe shook his head. “Your vocabulary is too sophisticated. That cannot be all of your exposure. You’ve lived in France.”
Drinking water bought me time. On principle I didn’t discuss the Dark Days, particularly with virtual strangers. “My friend’s Parisian.” Switching to English made me feel like it gave me footing in the conversation. “We speak French to each other, and I’ve got a flair for languages.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re lying, and now I’m curious why you wouldn’t just own up to having lived there.”
The waiter came with our tab and I snatched it before Christophe could. I set cash inside it and scooted my chair back as I avoided answering him. “I’ve told you where my French skills came from. Your choice not to believe me.”
Christophe frowned at me, then said something, but I didn’t hear it. My complete focus was on the television inside the restaurant, where a face I knew as well as my own filled the screen.
“Oh, my god.” I shot up as quickly as I could and walked into the pub. When I got to the bar, I asked them to turn it up. The man making drinks shook his head but put on captions for me.
Zed looked like absolute shit. Dark circles under his eyes, a bump on his forehead, and a brush burn over it. He had a suit on that looked dirty and rumpled, and he was being shielded by a wall of security as he left a police station.
“Oh, I heard about this. Came on the news early this morning.” Christophe was close behind me and I inched away from him, toward the screen, trying to read the words. Raid. Criminal takedown.
“What time?” I asked weakly.
He scratched his chin as he thought. “I want to say around four or five? I was running on the treadmill and it was all over the networks. Largest federal raid of the mafia all along the northeast coast of the US. Apparently, there was a massive explosion, too. A bomb that was retribution from the Irish mob for the assassination of their leader a few months ago. The stuff of fiction, non?”
My heart raced. Five at the latest this morning, he’d first seen the news. Now it was two in the afternoon. Seven hours. Was Zed on a plane out of the city? What if he was hurt? A little banged up and exhausted, but he’d looked all right. I had to call him, because if the raid was over, that meant Nella was in jail, and that meant he was free.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. My voice was thin, and I felt dizzy. I shook my head and tried to clear the stars that danced in the corner of my vision. “I have to go.”
Christophe’s hand gripped my upper arm. “You look faint. Sit.”
“No, please.” I tried to wrench myself free, but his grasp was tight. “I’m just…I need to go.”
Christophe scraped a chair back. “Sit, ma chere.”
I started feeling more lightheaded. I dropped down after all and took deep breaths as I held my eyes shut. When I opened them, Christophe was watching me curiously.
“Who is that man to you?”
I ignored his question and rubbed my temples. “I feel better. Let’s go back to the lab.”
He shook his head. “You still look pale. Sit a minute more, then we’ll talk about leaving.”
His highhandedness didn’t make me smile like Zed’s did. It was oppressive and pushy. “I’m always pale. Now, please let me stand.”
With a sigh, he helped pull back my chair. I stood, feeling clear-headed, and walked out of the pub. When I got outside, I leaned against the wall and pulled out my mobile.
“You’ll excuse me, Christophe. I need to make a call. I’ll see you back at the lab.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at me. “I’ll wait. I don’t feel right leaving you when you’re unsteady. I’ll be right over there.” He gestured toward a bench down the street. “Come find me when you’re done, and I’ll escort you back.”
I was already halfway dialing Zed’s number and agreed absentmindedly. “Fine, thank you.”
My hands shook as I brought my mobile to my ear and heard the line ring. Once. Twice. The third time, a ringtone nearby sounded, and I startled at the coincidental timing. The line rang again and once more the ringtone went off.
Rainstorms. Wet earth. That sharp clear scent that filled the air. A familiar hand clasped over my phone and clipped it shut. Eyes like the sea, weary, and glowing.
I gasped and couldn’t see past tears. His hand grasped my jaw and he kissed me. Teeth clacking, tongues tasting. I moaned into his mouth. He fisted my hair and kissed me harder, until our foreheads met, and he pressed his lips softly to mine again.
“Ciao, fragolina. Miss me?”
Thirteen
Zed
I’d tortured myself, watching her lunch outside with some pretty boy fucker who dressed like he followed fashion trends a little too closely. He leaned her way often, intimately, and when he sat back, and undressed her with his eyes, I nearly threw my espresso across the street.
I was down a few blocks from where her research building was, planning to surprise her after I got a little caffeine in my system and a fresh dress shirt that wasn’t covered in gunpowder and Nella’s perfume. How that scent still clung to me, after three hours in the police station, then marinating in seven hours of stale airplane air, was beyond me, but it did. Like the stink of her corruption, and its twisted imprint on my life.
Nella had played it perfectly, encouraging Antonio’s hit on Billy, then locking the boss up before he could rat her out, all while playing innocent. Knowing it would engender chaos and distrust. She’d sold him out and been stupid enough to think she wouldn’t get caught in her own web of deceit.
I wanted to be sorry she was dead, that I was indirectly responsible for it. When I’d shoved her off, I’d only been thinking about surviving, getting out of being at gun point. But I couldn’t deny that knowing she was gone was a deep, unquestionable relief. I was bitter and spent from nearly a decade of straddling two worlds, culminating in a whole month of anxiously not knowing when or if my defection would get me anything other than caught and killed before I could be free, let alone reunited with Nairne.
Nella had tortured me by taking Nairne away. Separating us. Pawing me around like a mouse the cat just couldn’t decide whether to devour or liberate. Now that I was finally going to live, outside the confines of that existence, I was stunned from the manipulation. Burned the fuck out. And pissed. Because this was where it got me. Sitting alone in a poorly executed English version of a trattoria, covered in
explosive particulates, starved for a woman who hadn’t dropped me a line in nearly a month and was enjoying an al fresco meal with another man.
Grappa in one fist, espresso in another, I’d fumed. I needed the alcohol to quell the rage in my system and the caffeine to keep me vertical after an all-nighter. Nairne looked so fucking good. She’d walked with her crutches from down the street, and while her legs were always a little slow to follow her lead, she had a grace and rhythm to her gait that was new to me.
She obviously was strong and healthy, and I was happy for her. But fuck, nearly a month with nothing, no explanation. And then after last night, nearly dying and then answering questions about shit that I never wanted to think about again, I had to catch her sitting with some guy who wasn’t horrendously ugly or over sixty. Which meant he was a threat.
When she’d slipped inside the pub and then come out looking upset, fumbling for her phone, I’d dared to let myself hope it was to call me. Then it was, and I’d momentarily forgotten how hurt and confused I was about her silence and that fucker’s proximity to her. I could have answered her call, but the look on her face, the worry and emotion, had me sprinting down the street until I could see the sun turn her hair copper and catch a downwind breeze that carried her flowery ocean air scent.
After that was hazy. I’d kissed her and felt my body blaze awake. Tasted her and remembered what it was to possess that mouth, to grope her lean waist and haul her flush against me. When she’d moaned, it evoked a flurry of memories of that sharp tongue. The shit she gave me the very first time I saw her. The challenge she’d lashed my way outside Henderson’s telling me that she’d never be mine.
She’d always been mine. To love and protect and cherish.
