Mad Love

by Drake, Tabatha

  “What makes you think I know where they’d go now?”

  “According to my sources, you were on your way to pick him up very recently.”

  I play dumb. “What sources?”

  “Not your concern. Just get it done. The Boss has already run out of patience with this matter and she doesn’t want them causing problems next week.”

  “What happens next week?”

  She opens her mouth to answer but the stairway door opens down the hall.

  Enzo Zappia steps into the hallway with a wide grin and a brown briefcase at his side. His jaw drops as he hops over the dead bodies like a giddy child on his way toward us.

  I look at Myra. “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “He’s my client,” she says, turning on her heels. “Efficiency, Archer. If I’m going to waste time hunting our own employees, I might as well make a little money while I’m at it.”

  My eyes fall to Elijah again. She sold him. She fucking sold him.

  Enzo stops in front of us and laughs as soon as he sees Elijah in the elevator. “Oh, now that…” He sighs. “That is a beautiful sight. Well done, Ms. Myra. My father will be very happy to see this. Should perk him right up.”

  “It was my pleasure, Mr. Zappia,” she says.

  He flashes a flirtatious wink. “Enzo, please.”

  Myra ignores it and stares at him, patiently waiting until he takes the hint. He holds out the briefcase and she snatches it from him.

  He grins at me. “Hey, Allen. No hard feelings, right? I was kind of a dick before but that’s business. You understand.”

  I hold back the urge to crush his face. “Entirely.”

  Myra lowers the briefcase to her side. “Archer, please carry the package to Mr. Zappia’s car.”

  The package?

  He’s a fucking person.

  The twin of the woman I love. I couldn’t see how much they resembled each other until now. The same long eyelashes. The same nose and cheekbones. His hair is a dark chestnut. I suppose that’s Lilah’s real color beneath the fire-red dye…

  “Archer.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, shaking out of it.

  I lower down to my knees to pull Elijah off the floor. His blood coats my hands and it chills me to the bone. This is Hart blood. Lilah’s blood. It easily could have been her in my arms right now.

  Enzo extends his hand to Myra. “It’s been a pleasure.”

  She doesn’t take it. She eyes me instead, watching with a squinted gaze as I gently lift Elijah onto my shoulder.

  “Come back up here when you’re done,” she says to me. “We still have work to do and I can’t hold off law enforcement for much longer.”

  I nod as Enzo steps onto the elevator. He chuckles to himself, carefully avoiding the pool of blood beneath us.

  Myra stares at me, unblinking and cold, until the elevator doors close.

  Enzo leads me outside to a black sedan parked behind my trailer. My lips twitch with amusement. This asshole actually came alone, though I suspect he didn’t have much choice considering how many of his men Lilah slaughtered all by herself.

  “Here…” Enzo pauses behind his car. “Toss him in the trunk.”

  I walk past him and open the backseat instead.

  “Hey! I said the trunk. I don’t want to get blood on the upholstery.”

  I lower down and slide Elijah off my shoulder to lay him inside.

  “Hey, Allen! You stupid or something?”

  I spin back around toward Enzo. He stares at me with an annoyed, twisted expression as I roll my hands into white-knuckle fists.

  “Give me your phone,” I growl.

  “What?”

  I jab him hard in the jaw and he falls to the ground like a damn rag doll. While he cries out in pain, I search his pockets for his phone. I quickly find it in his suit jacket and throw it across the parking lot.

  “What the—”

  I silence him with a hard kick to the gut. His clothing tears in my grasp as I grab him and jerk him off the ground. He struggles but he’s no fighter, coughing and gasping for air through his bruised solar plexus.

  I toss him into the trunk and slam it closed. The car rocks up and down as he bounces around inside and shouts for help.

  My phone rings in my pocket. I answer without looking.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Her voice is calm yet pointed.

  I scan the hotel windows, searching for her spying eyes. “Taking out the trash,” I say.

  Myra kisses her teeth. “You’re making a huge mistake, Archer.”

  “Noted.”

  “You love her, don’t you? I can see it all over your face.”

  I inhale a deep breath. “Even if I didn’t, I’d still do this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because fuck you and your ugly shoes.”

  She cackles. “You know, my mother told me I was wrong about you. That my instincts were off, and you weren’t fit for this team.”

  “She was right.”

  “I guess so.” I hear her burning cigarette paper. “Enjoy the quiet while it lasts, Archer.” She lowers to a whisper. “It’s about to get very loud…”

  I drop the phone to the ground and smash it beneath my heel.

  Chapter 21

  Lilah

  I stop on the front porch.

  Wind chills my skin. Insects buzz around me. Water slaps against the dock across the lawn. It’s the same as it always is out here but the inside of the house won’t be the same ever again.

  My ankles fuse to the wood beneath me, refusing to take another step.

  Dante pauses as well, his legs just as stiff and cold as mine are, and we stand together in the darkness.

  Lucy opens the front door, her eyes wide with worry as she studies our wounded faces. “What happened?” she asks.

  Dante inhales but the air slips right back out.

  She looks behind us, growing more terrified. “Where’s Elijah?”

  The sob strikes me down and I drop to my knees. My hands break my fall, but I struggle to hold myself up as tears spill onto my blood-soaked fingers.

  Whispering voices fade in and out above me. I can’t make out the words through my own gasping breaths but whatever they are, they make Lucy walk back inside.

  Dante lowers himself down to sit beside me. His arms wrap around my waist and he pulls me in, holding me against his chest with unyielding strength.

  “I’ve got you, little sister,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

  Chapter 22

  Lilah

  Then

  I killed a man.

  Put a gun against his head. Pulled the trigger, now he’s dead.

  It’s not how it is in the movies. There was no crescendo of music. No dramatic break of tension. Just a few pounds of pressure, a bit of recoil, and then... he was on the ground.

  “Good job, baby girl. Tomorrow, we’ll get you tatted-up!”

  As much as I hated Mercer calling me baby girl (and the fact that he said it with his hand firmly planted on my ass), I really feel like I did a good job. I killed a man and received praise for it. Some nameless man I never saw before. I killed him... and it felt good. I felt powerful. I felt important.

  I protected my family. Even Gramps would be proud, right?

  “Hey.”

  I flinch beneath the steaming shower head. “Dammit, Eli...” I say with an annoyed gasp.

  He chuckles from behind the curtain. “Did I scare you?” he asks.

  I turn the water off and wipe it from my eyes before extending my arm through the curtain for my towel hanging just out of reach.

  “A little,” I answer.

  Elijah puts the towel in my hand. I unfold it and look down at my bare, ink-less chest. Tomorrow, I’ll have a cobra tattoo. Just like Dante’s.

  I quickly cover myself before opening the curtain.

  “Thanks,” I say, combing my fingers through my hair.

  “You okay?” El
ijah asks.

  “Yeah. Just jumpy, I guess.”

  He nods. “So, how’d it go?”

  How’d it go?

  He says it so casually like I just ran an errand in town.

  “It was...” I pause, unsure how to answer it without him thinking I’m crazy.

  Am I crazy? Should it bother me more than it does that I just committed murder for a little money? But it wasn’t only for that. It was for us, so our family could stay together. Elijah understands that. He’d understand me if I just said what I was thinking out loud.

  “Amazing,” I whisper. “It was unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.”

  “That’s what Dante said, too,” he says, his eyes lacking any judgment whatsoever.

  “Mercer said they’d have another mission for me in a few days.”

  I pick up a second towel off the counter next to individually wrapped soaps and tiny bottles of generic shampoo. A Chicago hotel room tonight. Tomorrow night? We don’t know.

  But that’s part of the job.

  I begin patting my arms dry. “Have they assigned you to anything yet?” I ask.

  Elijah shakes his head. “Not yet, but Dante told them I was good with a needle. Mercer said they’d be no shortage of nicks and cuts for me to practice on. Seems like they’ll make me a medic, or something.”

  “That sounds cool.”

  “Yeah, it’s...” He smiles. “It feels right.”

  I nod. “It does.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks. “With all of this?”

  I take a breath to really think about it before answering. Am I really okay with this? Am I really okay with being a contract killer at seventeen?

  Maybe. Maybe not. But the alternative was unacceptable.

  “I have to be,” I answer. “Are you okay? With all of this?”

  He hesitates. He knows he can say whatever he wants to me. My twin and I have agreed and disagreed plenty over our lifetime, but we’ve never been too scared to say what we’re thinking.

  “I’m okay if you’re okay,” he finally answers.

  “I’m okay,” I say.

  “Then, I’m okay.” He stands a little taller. “And now we have Dante back, too. That’s all that matters to me.”

  “Agreed.” I smile. “We always said we’d stick together. If this is how we do that, then I’m in. I don’t care what I have to do, what I have to... become. As long as you guys are there.”

  “Agreed,” he says.

  “I don’t know who I am without you, Eli.”

  He chortles. “Now you’re just getting sappy.”

  “No, I mean it,” I say. “If you weren’t here right now, I don’t know who I’d be or what I’d do. You’re a piece of me, one these snakes could never touch. And...” I look down as I remember the thrill of a gun in my palm. “I want you to be there to remind me of who I am if I lose sight of it. All right?”

  Elijah squints, though I know he understands. He’s the only one who would understand.

  He pushes my tattered hair behind my ears and cups my cheeks. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says, his voice rigged and confident. “Ever. And neither are you. All right?”

  I swallow around the lump in my throat. “All right.”

  Elijah pulls me closer and kisses my forehead. I rest my head against his chest, feeling instantly at home again.

  Feeling safe.

  Maybe for the last time.

  Chapter 23

  Lilah

  Now

  I wake up the next morning in my own bed with no memory of how I got here.

  There’s a glass of water on the bedside table. I stare through the clear liquid, making out the familiar faces in the picture frame behind it by the lamp.

  Me and my brothers when we were teenagers. Bright eyes and smiling faces. Young and full of life.

  We didn’t know any better back then.

  I bury my head in my pillow for another hour or so before pulling myself out of bed.

  I hear the two of them talking but their voices quickly fall as soon as they hear my feet on the stairs.

  Lucy meets me at the bottom and offers a kind smile. “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey…” I repeat, stepping around her.

  Dante sits in his chair at the kitchen table with a full plate of breakfast in front of him, but he hasn’t touched a bite of it. There’s a fresh bandage on his forehead, haphazardly placed over the cut on his left eye. I can’t help but think what Elijah would say if he saw it.

  “Are you hungry?” Lucy asks me.

  I shake my head. “No,” I say, plopping into the chair across from Dante.

  “Coffee?”

  “No.”

  I don’t mean to sound rude. I know she won’t take it that way, but I still offer her an apologetic look. Lucy smiles again with understanding, quickly embracing the care-taking role. We did the same for her after her father was killed. It makes sense that she’d step up now.

  She fills a glass of water and sets it down in front of me anyway before taking the seat next to Dante.

  I look at the empty chair beside me. Elijah’s chair. I still feel like his feet will come skipping down the stairs at any moment. Strangely, I never want that instinct to leave me.

  “We left him there,” I say, though I don’t mean to.

  The words slip off my tongue before I even realize it. But what’s done is done.

  Dante stares at the table. “We didn’t have a choice.”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “Lilah…” He deflates. “It was either him or all of us. He told me to get you out and I did.”

  I’m sure that thought will help him sleep for the rest of his life, but it does little to comfort me.

  Lucy rests her hand on his shoulder and another pang strikes my gut.

  I left Archer there, too. I have no idea if Myra spared him at all. I probably never will.

  What’s done is done.

  My ears twitch at the sound of tires rolling up the gravel driveway. Dante leaps out of his chair as I do, both of us beelining for the first weapon in sight on our way to the front door.

  “Lucy, stay here,” he says, gripping his pistol. She nods and does as she’s told, clinging to the kitchen table with both hands.

  We rush out onto the porch and I breathe a sigh of relief. The motor home comes to a stop near our garage with a black sedan sloppily cinched to the back of it.

  “It’s Archer…” I say, relaxing.

  Dante holds his weapon a little tighter and slides a bullet into the chamber.

  “Dante—”

  He takes wide strides off the porch. I follow close behind him all the way to the trailer door.

  Archer takes one step out and throws up his hands. “Hold on…” he says. “I come in peace.”

  I pause, my eyes instantly drawn to the blood on his shirt beneath his jacket. That wasn’t there before…

  Dante points the gun at Archer’s face. “How did you know we were here?”

  “That’s a long story and I’ll be happy to explain it, but first…”

  Archer gestures to the black car behind the trailer.

  I take a step back and move a little closer, catching sight of something in the window.

  A body lies on the backseat.

  Elijah.

  Dante joins me and lowers his gun to his side.

  “I thought he deserved a proper burial,” Archer says, slowly dropping his hands. “With his family.”

  I lock eyes with him before my vision blurs with tears. He doesn’t blink. He just stares back at me with that urge in his eyes, the same urge that I feel to run into his arms right now.

  Dante steps between us, breaking our eye contact. “Were you followed?” he asks.

  Archer shakes his head. “No.”

  “Were you followed?!”

  “No,” he says again, calm and steady. “I went several hundred miles out of my way to be sure.”

  “Hey! Get me out of he
re, you son-of-a-bitch! I’ll fucking slit your fucking throat, you British piece-of—”

  We pause and look toward the trunk as the rapid-fire slurs continue.

  Archer reaches into his pocket for the car keys and tosses them at Dante. “For you,” he says. “The man who ordered his hit.”

  Dante catches them and moves to the trunk.

  I stand still and stare at Archer as I recognize the muffled voice inside. My heart races with revenge and grief and love — all at the same time. Archer risked his life to bring Elijah back here… and he risked a hell of a lot more capturing a damn Zappia, too.

  He meets my eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss, Lilah.”

  My lower lip trembles.

  Dante pops the trunk and the shouting stops. For the first time in days, my big brother smiles.

  “Hey, Enzo,” he says.

  “Aw, shit.”

  I walk over and stand beside him. Enzo’s beady eyes flinch in my direction. I take pleasure in his sweat-covered, panicked face.

  “Warm enough in there for you?” I ask.

  The harsh summer sun beams down at him as he squints in anger.

  “Hang in there, Enzo.” I glance over my shoulder at the lake behind us and reach up to lay my hand on the trunk door. “We’ll get you cooled off soon.”

  “Wait, wait—”

  I slam it closed on him and he starts screaming again.

  Dante turns to Archer and walks back over to him by the car. They stare at each other for several moments before Dante finally nods.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  “You’re welc—”

  Dante punches Archer in the nose.

  I gasp as Archer falls back against the car. His hands fly to his face, cradling his already busted nose. My instincts tear in two, leaving me frozen between my brother and my lover. I expect Dante to keep pounding on him, but he steps back instead and walks away to join Lucy on the porch.

  Archer stands upright and nods as blood trickles down his lip. “I guess I deserved that.”

  “Why?” I ask.