Among the Flames (Kisses and Crimes Book 3)

by Natalie E. Wrye

The monster car was clearly souped up, and whatever distance we were building between it and us was eaten up with every mile. The grey skies began to release a light shower of rain. I motioned towards the freeway as the first few drops of a building thunderstorm trickled down, and Grimm took the high-speed road in the direction of my hand, swinging the wheel left at the last minute, diverting our path so hard that our black truck nearly teetered on two wheels, leaning almost to the tipping point as it hit the asphalt with a thud, scarcely avoiding the aggregated mass of pedestrians and parked cars just outside of it.

  I could feel Sienna’s fingernails digging into my skin.

  I looked around, believing for a moment that we’d lost the sleek blue SUV, but as soon as relief found its way into my lungs, it was swept away by the sound of the persistent truck closing in.

  It roared on our heels. It recovered stretches of road on the freeway’s straightway, and just as my two hands reached for the front driver’s wheel, my body went crashing forward, sailing into the passenger seat.

  Sienna screamed… as my right arm and shoulder hit the passenger side door with a bone-rattling crunch, bouncing off the window as I struggled to keep my entire body upright. Dazed, I blinked once—twice, practically peeling myself off of the black dashboard with ham-fisted finesse. I grunted as Grimm’s eyes, usually passive, went wide with panic, and the Navigator steered directly forward to smash us again, this time side-swiping the back wheels as the tail of our SUV went swinging before righting itself again, as Grimm did his best to hold our steady position. In that instant, hurting and all, it took everything in me not to grab for Grimm’s gun in the glove compartment, load a full clip and empty it into the tinted windows of the car on our flank.

  But I couldn’t risk missing. Couldn’t risk putting a bullet where it didn’t belong.

  I knew I needed to take the wheel. Literally.

  I grabbed for it again, and the only driver and bodyguard I’d ever had looked at me. His eyes wandered to my throbbing ribs and right side.

  I warned him with one word—his name, and the elder man finally backed off. I held the wheel steady as he unbuckled his seatbelt, sliding his way out of the seat before he dove to the back. I replaced the cushion where he just sat with my body, settling in, pressing my foot to the gas where I adjusted my rearview mirror, finally setting the sadistic son-of-a-bitch in the other SUV in my sights.

  I tapped the rubber steering wheel with heavy hands.

  “Try me, you fucker. Come on. Try me.”

  “Gio…”

  Sienna’s hand clamped over my pain-sensitive shoulder. The Navigator was speeding up, preparing to ram into the back of us. The rain made the road slick. Steering out of its way at this high speed was dangerous, and if I didn’t take the hit, we could hydroplane from trying to avoid it.

  The rainshower splatters on my windshield did nothing but heighten my unease, and before I could think too long about it, I hit the brakes, slamming them.

  Our tires squealed. Smoked kicked up from the ground underneath the wheels, as the rain continue to beat overhead. To prevent crushing its front completely, the dark Escalade veered right into the middle of transient traffic, quavering on its top-heavy tires, weeble-wobbling its way into the far right lane. With its two left tires threatening to leave the ground, I found the opening I needed, and I side-slammed the tottering truck with ours, smashingly directly along the line of it. The very top of the speeding vehicle gave way, rolling rightward, and as we all watched with wide eyes, the entire utility vehicle began to turn over, tumbling head over wheels to giving the large vehicle the push it needed to be bowl over.

  The crash of a thousand glass shards against concrete added to the cacophony of quickening rainfall and screeching tires, and the SUV toppled once, twice, three times, doing somersaults down the highway.

  We left the crashed car behind us in a wave of water and crushed steel.

  Twenty minutes later, we cruised into the airfield with a simultaneous sigh. Jumping out of the front seat, I ducked beneath the shower, ripping open Sienna’s back door. Pain shot through my shoulder as I reached it around her shoulders, escorting her out.

  Grimm grabbed my suitcase, and together the three of us ran through the cold summer rain, hauling ass towards the small plane set in the middle of the runway.

  There, Jessica was waiting for us.

  She took a step back when she saw me. “You look like you’ve been through Hell.”

  “Thanks, Jess,” I said, reaching the final step to the private cabin. “Way to tell me that I look like shit.”

  “Like that’s new,” she commented over my shoulder. “What happened?” She reached out.

  I shrugged back. “It’s fine.” I cleared my throat. “Grimm, can you tell the captain that we’re almost ready to taxi? Jess, talk to the flight attendant for me? Make sure we have the preparations we asked for.”

  Her mouth set in a straight line, Jess nodded and turned away from me. Grimm, ragged but seemingly relieved, followed her towards the cockpit.

  I lead Sienna towards the back, taking the suitcase with us. I planted the black bag in an empty seat, sitting beside Sienna.

  The private plane we’d settled in was steeped in hues of beige and gold. There were luxury amenities everywhere and yet when I looked around the cabin, there was only one part of that I cared to look at. And I looked at her so long I thought I’d never stop.

  I wondered: How had I ever made it through each day without her?

  She ran her fingers lightly down my arm, probing with her fingers, wincing at my pain.

  “It might be dislocated. We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “I’m fine,” I replied. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay, but you…”

  “Santiago,” I snapped softly. “I’m fine.”

  Sienna glared at me, saying nothing. Her eyebrows knitted together out of frustration or anger. Maybe both. But she never stopped touching me, sliding her fingers along my own until she finally moved to intertwine them with mine.

  I nearly jumped out of my seat when she slipped her hand in my palm to hold it.

  “What’s wrong?” she bolted, sitting up.

  “Nothing. I just… need a minute.” She frowned deeply, and I tapped the small dimple in her chin. “It’ll just be a minute. Don’t worry…” I said, the words thick on my tongue. I kissed her furrowed forehead. “I’ll be back.”

  I slid into the aisle, leaving the suitcase behind. I nodded to Grimm as I walked to the front of the plane, closing the curtain behind me, and as he stood outside the cockpit, he nodded back, his wizened face just as somber as his name.

  “Ready to leave, sir?”

  “Yeah, Grimm.” I hung my head, barely meeting his eye. “Let’s go.”

  We opened the side door of the private jet, exiting. The rain fell in sheets now, drenching us. Grimm held out an umbrella and I rejected it, rounding the aircraft ahead of him, making a beeline to the car waiting on the other side as we both sloshed over the grey asphalt and under an even grayer sky.

  I tried not to… but I couldn’t help but look back.

  One glimpse was all it took. The second I turned, I was a goner.

  I watched the small plane taxi onto the other side of the runway, speed up and take-off, taking with it my beautiful past and my unfulfilled future.

  Like Smoke

  SIENNA

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. We have to pull off now or the pilot says we won’t make it. The storm is only growing stronger.”

  If I closed my eyes, I could hear her now. The cutesy flight attendant’s mascara-lined lashes stood at end, open and wide. She glanced frantically out the window, from time to time, and as she peered out, my gaze followed hers, believing there was a mistake.

  No. Knowing there was a mistake.

  Where the hell was Gio?

  His “minute” had turned into ten. The rain no longer pitter-pattered against the windows; it pounded… and every intermit
tent beat was like the pulse of my own heart. Wild and erratic. Uncontrollable.

  My legs were shaking, my foot quaking as I tried my best to stay calm, wait for Gio. The attendant looked back at me with irritated eyes, and before she could throw another nasty glance, I was on my feet. I couldn’t take it anymore. I pushed up from my feet, stalking into the empty aisle. I closed the distance to the bathroom within seconds, opening it… and nothing.

  He wasn’t there.

  My stare swiveled.

  He wasn’t hiding in the rear of the plane. And unless he had magically turned into bath tissue, there wasn’t a single living back there, waiting for me. Nothing but empty air and silence.

  I broke the quietude with my fingers, as I slammed the bathroom door shut behind me, barreling back into the aisle where I was met by the annoyed attendant. She looked worried. No longer about the storm… but about me. She placed a hand on my arm.

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry… but we have direct orders. We have to fly you out of here.”

  “Me?” My head rotated on a swivel. “Don’t you mean ‘us’? There’s a few of us here. And if you’ll give me a second, I’ll just find my friends.”

  I tried to push past her, but she stopped me, squeezing my arm with one gentle hand. It was a practiced touch. She had done this before, I was sure. Most likely when guests had panic attacks… when passengers found themselves alone, abandoned in the middle of empty airfields…

  I looked into the pretty woman’s eyes, prepared to brush her aside, when she clasped the top of my shoulder, her brown irises soft and sympathetic.

  “Look, there’s nothing out there for you. They’re gone. Now, we have specific directions we have to follow. We’re taking off,” she said emphatically. “Now buckle your seatbelt, miss. We’re going to be in for a bumpy flight…”

  She lied. The flight back to New York was fine, disturbingly smooth. In fact, it was so smooth I hadn’t felt the flight at all. I hadn’t felt anything for three days after.

  And even now, retelling the story in my barely-there small and shitty studio, I still couldn’t feel anything. That was okay. Numb was better than pain. I could handle numb. Numb muted the sharp pangs of rejection I felt, remnants of Gio’s bitter betrayal. I embraced the numbness, held onto it for dear life because every time it wore off, it was like enduring another barrage of heartfelt bullets, an ambush of emotion that threatened to bleed the life out of me, soul and all.

  I was numb when I finished the story, my voice dull and seemingly deadened… even to my own ears. I stood up from my side of the love seat, heading towards the kitchen.

  Angie called after me. “And he just left you all of this?”

  “Yup.”

  “Sitting here in the suitcase?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Angie whistled. “Wow. So, the deal was never off. He did steal the money from the senator.” She flicked a couple of hundred dollar bills. “All five million.” She looked up. “But if that’s the case, why not trade it? Why not trade for the bigger prize from the FBI?” She shrugged a shoulder. “And just where the hell is Audriana Fletcher?”

  I removed a steaming pot of tea from Angie’s stove. “I don’t know. There’s enough money in there to start a life over. False documents in my image. I think… that’s what he wanted me to do. He provided a consolation prize… for essentially staying the fuck out of his life.”

  I sat beside Angie with a steam-filled mug. I sipped the tea slowly.

  “I don’t know.” Ang shook her head. “Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through to just pass the money to you—give it away. It seems there was always a plan… but what the plan was, we just don’t know it yet.”

  I ran my hand through my hair. “Guess I’ll have to ask him… Oh, wait,” I paused dramatically. “I can’t do that. He’s gone.”

  Angie clasped my knee. “I’m… sorry, Si. I know this guy meant a lot to you, and if it helps… maybe he’s not really gone. Maybe he’s on a break.”

  I scoffed. “A break that includes not answering my calls or texts.” I shrugged slowly. “For the first time, Ang, Giovanni was exactly who he claimed to be… Salt. A man without scruples. Willing to say or do anything to get what he wants.”

  There was no consoling me. I chose to feel nothing before acknowledging that I felt anything for a man who’d gotten into my head… my bed… and ultimately deserted me. After a few hours, Ang finally gave up the fight, kissing my cheek and disappearing. The expression on her face was wracked with guilt, but I had no time to help her pain, not when I was busy trying to avoid my own.

  In Angie’s absence, I read the note that Gio had left me, hidden in the suitcase maybe fifty times. My eyes were burning from looking it all day, and by the time dusk had come, the letter was wrinkled, ripped inside my trembling hands.

  It was as if reading his words would somehow make him reappear, make him return. I thought of how many times I had committed his messages to memory, how the simple desire just to see him suddenly made him substantiate.

  Wanting something—someone—this way was utterly exhausting, and my rational mind just couldn’t come to terms with what my heart had already known.

  I never felt this way, never experienced the purity of emotion that came from wanting someone’s presence so much that everything ached. My soul cried out from thirst. Gio’s aura—everything that made him him—was the only thing that quenched it, and I didn’t know if the prospect of such a need filled me with a sense of wonder… or profound dread.

  I was sure it was both…

  And yet the knowledge that he could lie as easily as he could combined with the thought of the money Giovanni had seen, touched or dealt honestly made me feel ill.

  Though we’d met as New Yorkers, Ang and I had both grown up in poorer sections of Puerto Rico, far from the gorgeous beaches that rich foreigners came and lounged on. The idea that men like him walked around, rubbing elbows with politicians and soul-suckers of the like, didn’t settle well with my stomach, and the more I thought about him, the more comfortable I became with the thought of Javi putting Giovanni away.

  But who was I kidding?

  When a person came into your life and filled a hole you didn’t know was there until the day they showed up, you didn’t send them back to where they came from. How could you? When they’d seen everything… The good and the bad. The ugly and the magnificent. I saw the scars on Giovanni’s soul and he felt the stitches on mine.

  He stripped me, tore down every shield and loved me, not in spite of my imperfections but because of them. I had no defense, behind which to hide. I’d never been more open with a man than I’d been with him, more vulnerable. Bared.

  And he wanted me all the more. Or he seemed to, at one time…

  I fell asleep on my couch at midnight, Gio’s stolen money still in my hands and the man himself still on my mind. I woke up only to recheck my front door locks, when something Angie said earlier stuck out at me.

  How gone was Gio really?

  He had left me, sure. Didn’t answer my texts and calls. But there was one method left I hadn’t tried. I grabbed for my phone. Poking the glass, I tapped on the brightest green emblem on my screen, opening it. My screen shone white-blue. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I scrolled, looking for the sight of his name, glancing through innumerable messages before coming to his profile, where I clicked with my index finger, opening up a brand new page.

  It was there I found the little green icon next to his name—blinking.

  It was official. He was still active on the app.

  I chewed a thumbnail that no longer existed. Suddenly angry, I typed the quickest text I’d ever made, my thumbs stumbling over a mess of misspelled words. I hit “Send,” shooting the message to him without a second thought.

  I nearly threw the phone. Mad by how easily I’d broken down, I started to really come apart, placing my head into my hands, willing the pain to go back where it came from and never come out again.


  But then something happened. My phone, face-down in a slew of pillows on the loveseat, buzzed. The screen flashed once. I flipped it upwards, looking at it with squinting eyes, letting out a shaky sigh that vibrated down my spine and back.

  Gio had seen my text…

  And replied.

  He Can Only Hold Her

  GIOVANNI

  Five hours past nightfall, on the fifth day.

  And I still felt her on me.

  The midnight air in New York felt heavy, thick. The bad weather had followed from Washington, and huge droplets of rain fell heavily from the heavens, warm and wet—much like the tears that had been in Sienna’s eyes the last night I spent with her.

  The night we made love.

  I downed the rest of my whiskey, tapping my fingers against the glass as I looked behind my back, taking in the rest of Tino’s bar with weary eyes. It was secluded, empty for a Thursday, but the solitude was welcomed. I hadn’t slept in days.

  I stalked the streets of Manhattan that night, and even when Grimm urged me to leave, flee the country for the last few days, there had always been some excuse, some loose end to tie up.

  It was only a matter of time before I got caught.

  The accident in Washington had only bought us a little time. The driver and two passengers had barely survived the car crash from the freeway. Dented and demented, smashed to smithereens, the three people in the Navy Escalade never had a chance to report back, never had a chance to tell my client what we were up to… or bring us back to them to face the consequences.

  They had almost died, been beaten unidentifiable by the road on which they crashed. It was a fate I’d suffer sooner or later if I didn’t follow Grimm’s advice.

  But I couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  Until Sienna finally followed mine…

  She hadn’t left New York.

  Her danger was minimal. The client hadn’t known that the mark was… her, but all the same, the note I’d left in Sienna’s suitcase was clear.

  Disappear, it had said. Disappear, Santiago… and never look back.