“This is about a piece of pussy?” I roared with anger. “You think that’s worth getting Shaw and Liv murdered? If that Russian Jew succeeds, I will hold you personally responsible. I will ruin you and your redneck Dixie Mafia empire, you got that?”
Joe coughed in the background before he hawked phlegm through his mouth and it wet some place in his trailer park. I couldn’t imagine his country ass living in a decent place.
“My boys and I will be there. We know they plan to attack ‘em at the mall because we have it on good suspicion they are going shoppin’. It’s a high end place and we are gonna stand out like a broken thumb but I promise you no harm will come to Shaw or Liv—”
“Fuck Shaw. He’s got that Povikov on his side. You only have one person to protect and that’s Liv. I won’t tell you how but she’s a relative. Not a close one but my second cousin is her goddamn aunt. If I don’t protect her then I will face a whole hell of a lot trouble, and not just from my brothers. I will feel this shit all the way from Belfast because they will send men to kill me.”
Joe blew smoke from his end into the cell phone. “Well, you know we have a special relationship, Carter. We’re kin in the fact that we’re both Irish—”
“No, boy, we ain’t kin.” My voice turned to ice. “You’re some American loser whose family has been here for generations. You probably ain’t even pure—got all that nigger and Indian blood in your veins from years back but deny it. Me, I’m one hundred percent Irish. I came off the plane, I know my family crest and all the generations that came before me. So you and I ain’t nothing alike. But if you don’t protect Liv, we will have somethin’ in common. I swear on the Mother of Christ that I will kill you before someone does the same to me. You got that?”
Joe was quiet for a minute. “Yes, sir.”
“Good now I don’t know what kind of deal you made with Povikov but remember that our deal comes first. If you don’t, you’ll have hell to pay.” I hung up and began to unpack my shipments.
Tonight, I would be lucky if I got to sleep before the sun rose in the sky.
I felt a bit guilty but after wearing out Shaw all night, I was ready to go shopping.
It was true, I felt a little sore but nothing I couldn’t handle while cruising through some of the top designer boutiques in Nashville. Something told me this would be the last time I’d be able to pick up anything remotely designer so I was ready to go before Shaw was.
He climbed out of bed, naked as the day he was born with a semi-erect cock and a hangover that was causing him trouble but I almost entirely ignored him as I put on my makeup, dressed in a pair of cargo shorts and a black halter top, finishing off my look with a pair of black Doc Martens and a black beanie cap. I didn’t care how upscale The Mall at Green Hills was, everyone turned less snooty when they were being presented with cold hard cash.
My outfit may have stuck me out a bit but clothes could be changed. There was nowhere between here and where we were going that I could get a new hairstyle or color. Not to mention I wasn’t that crazy about settling in Mexico. If I was gonna hide, I wanted to hide in plain sight, and that meant stayin’ in my own country, thank you very much. They could kill us across the border as fast as they could kill us here so what difference did it make where we stayed? The whole point was to be safe, point blank.
Now all I had to do was convince Shaw of this.
It didn’t take him as long as I thought it would to get dressed but as he slipped on a pair distressed jeans that were neither too baggy nor too fitted, and slid into a black Papa Roach t-shirt, I realized we looked just like any other ordinary couple spending the day at the mall.
As we made it out to the Charger, I said, “I don’t want to risk a second night here. After the mall, we get our ass on the road and don’t stop until we get to New Orleans. I’ve already mapped it on Google and it’s a seven and a half hour drive, give or take but if we gun it through Alabama and Mississippi, we can probably get there sooner.”
He stared at me, and tossed me the keys. “Did you leave anything in the suite?”
“Nope, my dirty clothes are in my handbag. I’m going to put them in the trunk for the time being. None of them are wet so there’s no chance of mold. Did you—leave anything in the suite, I mean?”
“Yeah, I did because you decided until now to tell me your brilliant plan. Give me your card key.”
“I left it in the suite. I thought you’d get the hint when you saw me put my dirty clothes in the plastic bag they provide for soiled items.”
Shaw smirked, shook his head and walked back into the hotel.
I unlocked the Charger with the remote and climbed in. It had one of those plastic, smart keys that you couldn’t even use to key someone else’s car. But it also had Sirius radio and I clicked through the stations until Grace’s “You don’t own me” played and left it there.
I couldn’t sing for shit but that didn’t keep me from crooning along to the song. Sometimes, I wondered if I had to tell my own personal G-Eazy, aka Shaw, to stop acting like such a caveman all the time. I was smarter than him, book wise, but he’d beat me on the streets anytime. He just knew how they worked and what to do. I was no vestal virgin to street life but sometimes I wondered if I depended on him too much.
What if, God forbid, he was murdered? What would I do then?
I knew exactly what I would do. I would run to my aunt in Nevada, and she would make everything okay. There was a reason why my father stayed in and out of prison. Callahans were known for their tempers, and we wouldn’t allow anyone to push us around. We didn’t ask—we took what we wanted. Regardless of my education, I wasn’t too different from my dad.
Yeah, I could have fucked Shaw ages ago but I wanted to make sure I had him wrapped around my finger. If I made him wait long enough, I could count on him being loyal. He may have been a Shaughnessy in name only but they respected their women and never cheated.
Povikov couldn’t have been that big of an influence over him. I refused to believe he would let that douche bag tell him anything and allow it to stick. The guy was a prick and one of my biggest customers at the club. Well, he and his whole fucking family outside of his wife, Yelena, who had a stick shoved perfectly up her flat, bony box-shaped ass.
What Nathalia, his daughter, got off on lap dances for was beyond me but she liked us to masturbate together and then eat me out so it wasn’t all-bad. I didn’t consider myself a lesbian—bisexual maybe with the right chick—but a mouth was a mouth and if she liked eating me out, who was I to turn her down? The thousand dollar tips she left behind were exactly the reason I dealt with her bizarre behavior because whether she knew it or not, she was ultimately contributing to my get-away fund.
Speaking of the twisted Povikov family, while having changed the station to Octane and listening to From Ashes To New’s “Same Old Story,” I would have to have been blind, deaf and dumb to not pick up on the meatheads that were several cars away from ours. They looked like the usual Russian suspects with names like Boris and Yuri.
What the fuck?
How did Povikov find out where we were? We still had to go shopping but I wanted to get in and out. No way was I starting a war in a mall when I wouldn’t even think about putting a gun in my handbag. It was big enough and I was an ace shot thanks to my dad and Shaw but that wasn’t the point. The moment violence was let loose in a public environment, local law enforcement stepped in, and like the dumb ass yokels they were, they’d bring in the FBI.
Shaw and I had enough trouble without being involved in some kind of investigation. The FBI would find our asses in a couple days—tops—no matter how many disguises or fake IDs we had on us. Hell, this car alone might as well be a beacon that said, “Come and get us!”
Shaw tapped on the window and I jumped in my seat before opening the trunk for him. He loaded his stuff and closed it before he hopped back into the passenger seat. “Babe, what’s got you so spooked?”
I tried not respond to his callouse
d hands holding my face so gently but one tear fell regardless of my strength to hold it in. “I thought I saw . . .” I trailed off as I looked into the rearview mirror again.
Shit!
The car was gone and I didn’t even get a chance to make out the model. Just one of those trucks that had been modified with large tires to fit in with the local rednecks. Hell, I hadn’t even noticed if it was black, midnight gray or dark blue—I’d been too wrapped up in the fact that we’d been made.
“Liv, are you listening to me? You thought you saw what?” he asked me, his voice rising.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Just my mind playing tricks on me is all. Let’s shop and get the hell out of dodge. I’m not used to getting comfortable in any city until we know we have some backup.”
“Fine, let’s go then.”
Unlike most guys who if they were as tough and rumble as Shaw was, he actually bragged about loving to shop.
For anything.
Clothes, cars, shoes, electronics—you name it, he loved something new to buy. It was a good thing too because we split up as soon as we headed inside Green Hills. I stayed toward the more girly stores like Victoria’s Secret, 7 For All Mankind, True Religion, Michael Kors, Coach, Burberry, and White House Black Market.
The whole time I was being followed, I tried to brush it off because it was easy to duck into an Express or Bebe until they passed and I would head in the opposite direction.
After an hour and a half, I was officially done. I’d been a size four or six my entire life, depending on the store and the fit so I knew what stores a size six would fit better than a size four and the opposite.
I took out my burner and placed a call to Shaw.
“What’s up, babe? Getting a couple pairs of sneakers at the moment?”
“Have you spotted any tails on you?”
“No. I’d damn well know if I was being followed.”
“I am, and despite making three trips to the car, I know someone’s following me—”
“Dixie Mafia?”
“Joe’s too stupid to do anything like that but he’s not that dumb. He’d call Povikov in a heart beat just because Annabelle ran off and he doesn’t know where she is.”
“Listen, I’ll get us some lunch. Anything in particular?”
“As long as I can eat it while driving though I am craving Chinese food,” I said as I walked toward where I’d parked our car. While at 7 For Mankind, I’d changed into a pair of dark blue boot-cut jeans, and a cute distressed hot pink top that was damn near see-through. I’d also gotten rid of the beanie and stuffed it into the same bag my clothes had been purchased with. That was the only way I’d been able to throw off the tails but it wouldn’t work forever. The moment they saw me sitting in the car, they’d know.
“Listen, I’m gonna bring the car around and park in the red zone in front of the mall. Get our food to go and meet me out here in fifteen minutes. That’s figuring the time we have before we get made.”
Shaw sighed over the phone. “All right. I’m grabbing a burger and fries but I’ll get you some dim sum, okay?”
“You’re the best, baby.”
“Is that it?”
“Oh yeah, you’re great in the sack.” I ended the call and fiddled with the radio yet again until I came across Beyoncé’s “6 Inch” featuring The Weeknd. God knows I didn’t feel like waiting, and the fifteen minutes it took for Shaw to come out of the mall felt like a year in my lifetime.
I could admit to being a coward. I wasn’t ready to die yet. I hadn’t even really lived my life. Yes, I’d done some freaky shit that went well beyond my good girl, Catholic upbringing but I’d never intentionally hurt anyone. Hell, those two bent cops in Boston would still be alive if I didn’t think they were going to kill me in a heartbeat without zero fucks to give.
Everything in my life had been done by instinct, and I trusted mine fully. I didn’t even realize I was listening to an Ella Jade song until I saw Shaw walk out of the mall with a handful of bags.
I tossed them in the backseat with mine while he held the food, got back in the car and took off as soon as he was seated.
“You sure everything is okay?”
“No, I’m not. I just want to get on the freeway and put as much distance between us and Nashville as soon as possible.”
Shaw chewed on a fry. “Then you want to get on the I-59 heading south—”
“That’s the long way. The short way is to use I-65 heading south and then we merge with the I-59 going south.”
He rolled his eyes. “They’re doin’ a bunch of construction on I-65. The I-59 might be a bit longer but it’s also clear. So, which one do you wanna take?”
“Christ! Just get me to the goddamn I-59 already so I can shake this tail.”
“What tail?” He looked behind us and shrugged, completely oblivious.
“The tail in that ugly dark blue monster looking truck three cars back. That’s them. They were never after you to begin with. This is all about me, Shaw. That’s why he only hired two men to come. For some reason, he wants to see me on a metal slab badly,” I replied, more to myself than Shaw.
“Who?”
“You sound like a fucking owl. Povikov, that’s who. Carter wouldn’t come after me. He didn’t lose anything he couldn’t replace . . . besides our families are distantly related. The Callahans and the Carters go way back. Back to Northern Ireland. Both families were hard-core Real IRA supporters and what not. I’m not sure when the families split but we’re talkin’ distant relations. Nothing within in the past three or four generations or so,” I explained as I maneuvered the car in and out of traffic without driving too fast or obvious.
“So how do you know Carter wouldn’t come after you?”
“Because I just do. My aunt—the one in Nevada—she’s got connections and they extend across the United States. His own brother would come after him if he laid a hand on me.”
“Which one?” Shaw mumbled as he took a bite of his burger. “It’s not like they’re a small family or anythin’ like that.”
I touched the back of his head and rubbed his neck. “Aww, don’t worry your pretty little head about it, just get me to the freeway already.”
“Speaking of that, it’s coming up in zero point four miles and you’re in the wrong lane.”
“You could have said something beforehand, you know.”
I quickly maneuvered the car into the right lane and took off on the freeway, entering traffic on I-59 going south doing seventy before I merged to a middle lane. Last thing I needed was to get stuck behind someone on a Sunday afternoon drive even though it was Saturday.
I pushed the car between ninety and one hundred for at least fifty miles while Shaw looked out for cops and highway patrol. I didn’t breathe easy until the tail could no longer be spotted and we briefly entered Alabama before cruising right into the state of Mississippi.
That was when I finally could enjoy my lukewarm dim sum after we briefly pulled to the side of the road and Shaw took over driving duties.
“I’m doing the speed limit here. No way in hell I wanna get stuck in a Mississippi jail. We should have grabbed someone’s Tennessee plates so we could blend in. Having New York plates is like begging a cop to pull us over,” he muttered under his breath.
“Well then city boy, I best believe you oughta get a move on so we can get out of this state and into Louisiana pronto. We can spend the night and decide what we’re gonna do from there.” I bit into a pot sticker and even though I didn’t have any sauce to go with it, I moaned at how good it tasted.
“What do you mean? I thought we had a plan—go to Mexico. We can drive right across the border in Texas—”
“Are you mad?” I stopped eating and swallowed the food in my mouth. “My cousin lives in Baja Mexico. You know what state sits above Baja? California, you fuckin’ idiot. I am not going through cartel country if I don’t have to. We stay in the States until we can cross over in California.”
“And you don’t think that’s pushing our luck?”
“Okay, white boy. If you think you’re tough enough to cross hundreds of miles in Mexico without getting us shot, stabbed or carjacked then by all means, cross over in Texas. Me? I like my head where it is, thank you very much.”
“I just think we’d have a better chance if we left the States.”
I shook my head sadly. “If you were that much in a hurry to get out of the States, why didn’t you head north when we left Boston? Canada is another country last time I checked. Not only that but it’s modern and they speak English and we could blend in because there are a lot of people who look just like us.”
“Why do I get the feeling you just don’t want to go to Mexico?”
“Because, Shaw, I don’t want to go to Mexico. I’d feel safer with my family in Nevada than there. It’s too dangerous just to be in a place that’s constantly sunny and cheap. What do we do when we run out of cash? Are you gonna start selling dime bags of coke on the streets? Run into the wrong guy and find out you’re selling in a cartel’s territory that takes serious offense against shit like that?”
I tried to calm myself down but nothing seemed to work. “I just want you to think, Shaw. There are plenty of other places we can go. Mexico is not our only option. We haven’t committed any crimes and the cops aren’t looking for us, just a couple of Boston Povikov Bratva members with delusions of grandeur. The Kitaev Bratva controls the whole west coast and southwest. No way is Povikov going to go against Erik Kitaev. It’d be suicide.”
“How do you know so much about all of this? Last time I checked, they don’t teach this shit in college. Last I heard Dimitri Koslakov controlled the western states.” Shaw glanced at me for so long, I thought he was going to run us off the road.
“Well, times change and Koslakov pissed off some major heavy hitters. He’s on the run, and not exactly focused on business since Kitaev put out that bounty for the bastard killing his father.”
Run (Run Duet #1) Page 9
