His words are cut short by the pop pop pop of rapid gunfire.
A rainstorm of bullets shoots through the air, the front window of the restaurant shattering in a waterfall of glass.
Cade’s thick, muscular body is on top of me faster than I can even blink. We fall together behind the hostess pedestal. He grins at me even though the gunfire hasn’t stopped. “I told you I was going to be on top of you before the end of the night.”
“You are unbelievable!” I scream at him over the sound of the gunfight taking place ten feet from our heads. “We could die right now and you’re still only thinking about sex!”
He leans closer to me, nuzzling my ear with his lips. “Not just sex. Sex with you.”
I feel his cock hardening in his pants and my heart starts to beat a little faster. “Get off me,” I hiss.
Cade grins at me. “Nah, I think I’ll stay right here.”
“I said get off me-“ A bullet nearly grazes my ear and I shriek.
“You still interested in me getting off of you, sweetheart?” Cade asks me with a stern look.
“Ugh!” I reply, squeezing my eyes shut.
Maybe if I shut my eyes I’ll wake up in a minute and realize this is all some kind of nightmare.
A nightmare involving a sexy, tattooed, foul-mouthed guy.
No, not sexy.
He’s a goon. A henchman. A murderer.
A sexy murderer…
I hear more screaming and people are stampeding to get out of the restaurant.
“What are we going to do?” I ask Cain.
“If I could figure out who’s shooting, I think I could probably give you more of a plan!”
“Is this your family doing this?” I ask him.
He looks at me uncertainly. “I’m not sure.”
More bullets. More screaming. Then the gunfire stops.
The air smells like gun smoke and like…blood. It smells like blood.
My stomach drops and suddenly I’m happy for the weight of Cain’s body on top of my own. It’s somehow calming my nerves.
“Stay here,” Cain whispers to me.
For once, I take direction. I have zero intention of going anywhere right now. How could I?
I hear Cain’s footsteps trail into the main part of the restaurant. They’re slow and practiced. Then I hear people screaming again. But they’re screaming in the absence of bullets.
Someone lets out a strangled cry like a wounded animal and then I hear it.
I hear someone screaming my father’s name.
“TONY! No, no. No.”
I’m suddenly standing up with no memory of getting there. I’m walking into the restaurant.
I’m standing behind Cain.
I’m seeing my father on the ground, several women shaking his shoulders.
But there’s blood. So much blood. All over him. It’s pouring out of his chest, right where his heart should be.
His face is greying. The life is flowing out of him and onto the floor.
I’m screaming but I don’t know how I’m screaming. I don’t know how I’m doing anything, actually. I don’t know how I’m still upright. How I’m still alive.
And then I’m falling.
Then Cain is catching me and saying things to me, words that I don’t understand. He has to repeat them. He repeats them as he holds me. I see his beautiful, chiseled face and I know he’s telling me something important. But I can’t hear him. I hear nothing.
It’s not until he has me in front of him on his motorcycle, until he’s equipped me with the helmet again, until he’s speeding away from the restaurant and threading the bike through gridlock New York City traffic that I finally hear what he’s said to me.
“Elizabeth. We have to run.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
CAIN
This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Not tonight. Not like this.
I hold on tight to Elizabeth, my arms wrapped around her body as I rev through the streets of New York. I’m happy that she’s short and that it’s easy to see over her head.
I drive by pure instinct alone. This is the thrill that I live for. This is how I think. Motorcycling is a meditation for me. And my lifelong training on the back of bikes is finally coming in handy.
We pull out of the city in record time, and we’re flying once again into the outskirts of New York, the houses slowly getting larger, the leaf-covered lawns getting progressively wider, the wealth increasing.
And then it falls off into real rural territory, and I can finally breathe. Not a lot, but just enough.
After what must be an hour and a half but with my adrenaline feels more like two minutes, I finally see the candle-lit window I’m looking for. I take a hard right, kicking up dust from the dirt driveway, and pull up to the white farmhouse. I cut the engine and the noise of sheep awoken from their slumber fills the perfect night air.
The moon is full and casts such strong light my shadow falls to the ground in crisp, perfect relief. I put my hand underneath Elizabeth’s underarms. I realize she’s shivering.
“Lizzy. Lizzy!”
She blinks at me. “Where are we?”
“You’re in shock,” I say to her. “I need to get you inside, but above all else, I need for you to trust me. Okay? Got that?”
She nods but I know she’s not hearing what I’m saying. I realize she’s not going to be able to walk. She’s shaking too much. I sweep her off her feet in her wedding dress and carry her up the groaning wooden steps. I knock three times on the door with the toe of my now-scuffed dress shoes.
I have to do that three times before I hear floorboards creaking. The door opens, and an old, wizened man with bushy white eyebrows answers the door in a threadbare robe.
“Cain?” he asks, incredulous.
“I need sanctuary,” I say to him.
He rubs his eyes and opens the door. “Come on in.”
I step inside the dated, old-fashioned living room.
Robert turns on the gas lanterns scattered around the room, and I lay Lizzy down on the red velvet sofa. She’s wearing my leather jacket, but she’s still shivering. I take off my tuxedo coat and lay it over her.
“Blankets. Tea. Hot water,” I say to Robert.
He leaves the room without a word. I turn to the empty, soot-stained fireplace and set to work building a heat source. I roll up my sleeves and throw dry wood into the brick-lined space, finding a dusty matchbox on the mantle to help things along. I hope to God that Robert has had someone out to inspect the chimney. If we all die of smoke inhalation after surviving a drive-by shooting then I guess God has a sense of humor after all.
Survive a cascade of bullets. Die by neglect of routine home maintenance.
It only takes me a few minutes and the fire is pumping out enough heat to reach Lizzy. She has her eyes wide open, and her teeth are chattering.
Robert returns and sets a tray of tea on the coffee table. “Might want to get her under some hot water. Would wake her up quicker, I think.”
I nod and sweep Lizzy up into my arms again.
“Bathroom?” I ask.
Robert points at the ceiling. “Up the stairs and to the right. The taps are reversed so the hot water is where the cold water should be and the cold water-“
I don’t wait around for him to finish. I take the rickety, carpet-covered stairs two at a time. The bathroom is tiny, but there is a claw foot bathtub. That’s all I need. Elizabeth’s teeth are still chattering. I turn the tap on and test the water. I don’t want it too hot.
I turn back to Lizzy and try to take my leather jacket off of her, but she’s got her arms tightly crossed over her chest. She’s not budging.
“You really are a stubborn one, aren’t you?” I lift her up and into the bathtub, aiming the showerhead at her face. Her makeup trails off her skin and onto her formerly perfect white dress. The cloud-like fabric gives the effect of soap bubbles filling up the tub.
As the warm water pours down her body and seep
s through her dress, her teeth slowly stop chattering. After a few minutes, I leave her long enough to go get the tea from downstairs. Robert is sitting on the couch, looking into the fire.
I’m nearly to the stairs again when he speaks. “You weren’t followed, were you?”
“No,” I reply. “I know we weren’t.”
“Good,” he says.
That’s all he has for me right now.
I head back upstairs and Lizzy has that fire back in her eyes.
I hand her the tea and move the shower head so the water isn’t drowning her anymore. I hand her the teacup and she takes it.
“Thank you,” she says, her voice hoarse.
“You owe me a leather jacket,” I reply, sitting next to the tub on the floor.
“Alright,” she says, her eyes still dead and staring straight into nothing. “Can you give me a few minutes? I need to get out of this wedding dress.” The water is still hitting the shower wall.
“I’d prefer to stick around and help you get out of it,” I say with a grin.
“Still joking about sex right now. You really are unbelievable.”
“Habit,” I say. “I’ll get you clean clothes and put them outside the door, alright?”
I walk into the guest bedroom. There’s a quarter-inch-thick blanket of dust coating all of the hard surfaces of the room. I search through the dresser for size-appropriate clothing. I pull out jeans and a flannel shirt that look like they’ll fit Elizabeth well enough. I shake out the dust and re-fold them, neatly placing them on the floor.
Downstairs, Robert is stoking the fireplace, the iron clearly heavy in his arthritic hands.
“Let me do that,” I say, and the fact that he doesn’t protest tells me everything I need to know about his condition.
“She’ll be alright,” Robert says.
“How do you know that?”
“I see it in her eyes. She’s a fighter.” He sighs and folds his hands on his lap, staring at me. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”
“Yeah, well, the timeline was sped up a little by a gunfight breaking out after my damn wedding.”
“Do you know what’s happening?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No, but I’m hoping I can figure that out while I’m here.”
“Care to have me join this conversation?”
I look up and see Elizabeth walking down the stairs, her hair twisted up into a towel.
“Have a seat,” I say. “Do you want some more tea?”
“I’m fine standing,” she replies. “And no, I just want to know what in the hell is going on.”
I exhale. “I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, and I’m really not sure where to start.”
“Well, let me help you out. You said you didn’t expect this so soon. So you should start there. When did you expect my father to be killed in cold blood?”
I groan inwardly. She was listening at the top of the stairs. Of course. I can’t blame her for that. It’s exactly what I would do if I were her. “Elizabeth, your father wasn’t supposed to die. I was trying to protect him. I was going to get him out.”
She looks shocked. “Get him out? You’re telling me…no. No way. No way.”
I was waiting for this. I knew that once she knew what her father was doing, she would be upset.
“You’re telling me that my father was an informant?”
I nod slowly. “Yes. He was. He was going to go into witness protection, and you and your sister were going to go with him.”
She shakes her head violently. “My father wasn’t a snitch.”
“I wouldn’t really use that word, but your father was trying to get out of the mafia life, Elizabeth. For you. And for your sister.”
Elizabeth is shaking. “Wait a second. You knew that my father was an informant and you knew this was coming. So what is this crap about you wanting me to go to college? Huh? You knew that I was going to have to rip up my life and move somewhere else? How could you know that and not tell me?”
“Your father wasn’t being taken into hiding for another year, Elizabeth. I thought you could use the time you had to get a head start-“
“Hold on,” she says. “I’m so furious I’m missing something here. If you knew about my father, and about witness protection, then you’re a part of this too. You – you work for the feds. You sold out your own family. To the feds. You are the feds. How could you do that?”
“They paid better,” I quip, trying to smile at her. But of course, Elizabeth isn’t having any humor right now.
“You are unbelievable.”
“I’m unbelievable? Are you serious? You were yelling at me three weeks ago about how I did everything my family wanted to, without question, and how that was a bad thing. Now I’m telling you that I work for the good guys and you’re telling me that’s not okay, either?”
“You betrayed your family. I would never do that.”
“Yeah, I know. You would have been the world’s first ninety-year-old Italian restaurant hostess if you had it your way.”
Elizabeth’s eyes go wide and her mouth clamps shut. She turns to face Robert. “Good night, whoever you are.” And with that, she stomps up the steps. I hear a door slam, more footsteps, and the creak of an old mattress.
“Oh, to be young and in love,” Robert says quietly, chuckling to himself.
“We are not in love,” I say, flabbergasted. “She hates my fucking guts.”
Robert stands up and smooths out his threadbare bathrobe. “I stand by what I said. You both could use a good night’s sleep and then we can talk about all of this in the morning.”
It’s not until Robert is all the way upstairs do I realize that I’ll be sleeping on the sofa.
Just perfect. My first night of married life and I’m already in the dog house. Unbelievable.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ELIZABETH
It takes me forever to fall asleep. I pound the lumpy, uncomfortable pillow into a million different shapes, but none of them actually make me settle into slumber.
Because every single time I close my eyes, all I can see is my father’s face as he died. Right in front of me. All that blood.
I don’t even have it in me to cry.
When I finally do drift off, my dreams are filled with doors that close just as I’m about to walk through them. I see my sister through window-filled hallways, but she can’t hear me through the glass. At some point, Cain joins me in my dreams, holding my hand the way he did the night he took me to the library.
We walk together down a hallway with blood red walls. There’s a window at the end. Just as we reach it, the glass shatters and gunfire sounds from the white, bright space beyond.
“Elizabeth,” Dream Cain says to me. “You have to wake up.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and shakes it. “Elizabeth! Wake up!”
My eyes fly open in the dark bedroom. I’m totally disoriented. I have no idea where I am.
Cain is actually standing over me, shaking my shoulder. It wasn’t a dream. “Get up. Now. There’s no time to explain.”
“What-“ The sound of gunfire enters my brain. That wasn’t a dream, either.
I hop out of bed and Cain shoves my clothes towards me. I took them off last night after I was sure everyone was asleep, cuddling up only in the bra and underwear I’d had on under my wedding dress. I pull on the jeans and flannel and Cain hands me a thick coat that I’m certain will fall to my knees. He opens the closet and pulls out a pair of boots, tossing them on the ground.
“Those are way too big,” I protest absurdly. Like it matters. I hear the splintering of wood as something heavy batters the front door downstairs.
The old man is standing in the doorway holding a gun that is nearly as big as he is.
“You’ll have to go on foot,” he says. “I’ll hold them off. I promise.”
Cain throws open the dresser drawer and a second later, there’s something wooly being thrown in my direction. I catch a pair of thick, balled up soc
ks in my hands. These will make the shoes fit better. I fumble with them but manage to pull them on as best as I can.
“Go out my window. There’s the back porch roof right below it. You can shimmy down the drain pipe.”
Cain claps him on the shoulder and they exchange a look that I can’t quite read.
“You’re really not coming with us?” I ask.
“You need to go,” the man says. “Run.”
Cain pulls me down the hallway and pushes me in front of the window. I pull open the sash and duck my head out. “I don’t think I can climb down that.”
More gunfire and yelling.
“You don’t have a choice, princess.”
I step tentatively onto the curling asphalt shingles. The night air is bitterly cold, and the moon is so bright it almost feels like daylight. I hear Cain behind me, still in the bedroom, moving something heavy.
He must be barricading the door.
Shouts and the biggest round of gunfire yet propel me over to the far corner of the roof. I feel something vine-covered through the boot and hope this is the drainpipe.
The vines cut my hands as I hang on for dear life. Cain is suddenly right above me, his blue eyes reflecting in the moonlight. “Drop to the ground.”
“I can’t,” I say, frozen to the pipe.
I hear pounding on the bedroom door.
“Now, Lizzy!”
I fall to the ground, landing in a relatively soft bush.
Cain scampers down the drain pipe like it’s nothing. He jumps to the side, missing the bush entirely and lands neatly on his feet. I take his hand.
“We gotta go,” he says.
A second later, the back window shatters and a bullet whizzes by Cain’s head.
“Run!”
I don’t have to be told twice this time.
We tear off into the night toward the thick forest.
I’m running as fast as I can, but the heavy boots are holding me back. Cain is still in his dress shoes and tuxedo but it doesn’t seem to be slowing him down any. The night air is cutting into my lungs, an icy blast that burns as I pant.
“Stop, wait!” I call to Cain.
He turns around with an almighty roar and lifts me up like he’s carrying me across the threshold.
Hit and Run: A Mafia Hitman Romance Page 5
