Morning Star

by S. Massery

  We’re idiots.

  That’s the only thought in my head as I meander down the boardwalk. Marco and his cousin are out of sight, but that doesn’t mean they’re gone. It just means I’m terrible bait.

  I contemplate yelling or jumping up and down. That would probably be a tiny bit too obvious for Dalton’s taste.

  Somehow, I’ve come to trust him.

  Maybe it was after he shot Frank from a thousand yards—or maybe farther, I don’t actually know. Maybe it was when he rescued me from Javier and Marco’s home. Or maybe it started even earlier than that; he foiled their attempt to sell me.

  Sell me.

  I ignored reality for months, but I’m beginning to think Dalton was right: they would’ve put me on a truck with drugged girls and sold me to the highest bidder overseas.

  “Grace.”

  I spin toward the sound of Marco’s voice. He steps out of a store, sunglasses perched on his nose.

  Two years younger than Marco and two years older than his sisters, I never quite fit in with the Argento prince and princesses. He was cruel, even as a child. When I was thirteen, he told me that he’d be the first one to touch me or he would cut off the other boy’s fingers.

  I didn’t listen. At sixteen, two days after my first kiss, an index finger was delivered to my doorstep. The boy disappeared, and Marco became more possessive. I almost told my dad, but the finger vanished from my house. It was as if it had never happened.

  But I’m not crazy.

  The way Marco is looking at me now, I wonder if he’s remembering the same thing.

  “Why are you coming after me?” I ask.

  He shakes his head, disappointed. “You think I’d let you go?”

  I shrug.

  “Never.” He stalks forward, reaching for me. His thumb digs into my stitches. It brings me to my knees, right in the middle of the freaking boardwalk. No one does a damn thing as he leans over me. “You’ve been mine for a while, Grace. Why fight it?”

  I grit my teeth. “Because you’re a monster.”

  “You told me to go after what I want,” he snarls. “And I realized I wanted two things: power and you.”

  I swallow.

  “Get up.”

  He drags me to my feet.

  We go a few steps before I say, “You probably don’t want to take me.”

  He sneers at me. “Why’s that?”

  “Because I gave Morning Star evidence that could have you thrown in jail for the rest of your life.”

  He pauses, searching my face. “Evidence?”

  I lift my chin and pretend that I’m not terrified. This could not work. He could know about it or think it’s not true, doctored. “Did you know your dad had records of you breaking the law? Did he use it to keep you in line?”

  “This ploy won’t work,” he mutters. He pulls me along faster.

  My heart picks up speed as we approach an intersection. Once we get off of the boardwalk, I’ll be out of Dalton’s sight.

  “How much did you pay for those weapons? A hundred grand?”

  He freezes. “What?”

  “The guy with the beard,” I say. “It looked like you were in the middle of nowhere.”

  “How the fuck—?”

  “We have evidence,” I reiterate. “Back off, Marco, or he’ll go to the feds.”

  He pales, but then he chuckles “Circumstantial at best, Grace. You turn over anything to the police and it’ll disappear before they can get an arrest warrant.”

  “Maybe in Miami,” I allow. “But we’re outside of county lines. I’m pretty sure your reach doesn’t extend all the way up here.”

  His lips press together in a straight line.

  “Thought so,” I say, smiling sweetly. “This is goodbye.”

  “I go to jail, and you’ll be dead inside of a week,” he promises.

  “You go ahead and try. What about when you’re back in Miami? How untouchable do you think you’ll be then? Maybe someone just needs to bring you back.”

  I stare at him. He puts his hands in his pockets and ambles away. And then he nods at his cousin, who walks toward me.

  A knife glints in his hand.

  Of course Marco wouldn’t get his hands dirty.

  The cousin leers at me. When he jerks forward, shock flitting across his face, my hands automatically come up to catch him. He collapses at my feet, a neat little hole burned through the back of his shirt. Blood comes out in spurts, coating his back in a matter of moments.

  He gasps, gurgling like fluid is in his lungs.

  It probably is.

  “Dalton!” I yell. I drop down to my knees, putting my palm on the wound and pressing as hard as I can. He didn’t have to kill him, for God’s sake…

  The cousin makes awful noises as life leaks out of him.

  It’s only when he’s still that Dalton is there, lifting me in his arms. He doesn’t even try to get my legs to work—I’m scooped up like I’m a baby, cradled against his chest. My hands, stained red, curl uselessly in my lap.

  “This is what we do,” he tells me, walking away.

  Someone screams behind us, but I can’t make myself look.

  “He wasn’t going to kill me,” I say into his throat.

  “He had a knife and he was coming at you. What was he going to do? Make you go somewhere? Take you around the building and into a car, where he’d cart you off?”

  “I told Marco I had the evidence, just like you said.”

  Dalton unlocks the Jeep and opens it, setting me in the passenger seat. He reaches in the back and hands me a rag. It has black grease streaks on it. I wipe my hands, shuddering.

  “He was right in front of me,” I say. “And you just…”

  “You’ve seen death before,” Dalton says. He cups my cheek and forces me to look at him. “Don’t go soft on me, Grace.”

  “You killed—”

  “And the Argentos have done far worse,” he snaps. He pivots me so I’m fully in the Jeep, then slams the door.

  When he’s in the driver’s seat, we both sit in the silence for a moment.

  “They’re going to catch you,” I say. “The police. Someone is going to tell them our description and come looking for us.”

  He grunts. “I doubt it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because…” He bites his lip.

  “Dalton.”

  “I was in the building behind you,” he snaps.

  I shake my head, not comprehending what he’s saying.

  “You—”

  “I was behind you.” In a lower voice, he adds, “I didn’t have a shot anyway.”

  Someone else shot Marco’s cousin. Someone else murdered him to protect me. Someone else is here, in Jacksonville, Florida, watching us. A weird type of guardian angel.

  “Who was it?” My voice cracks.

  Dalton starts the Jeep, pulling the foil-wrapped flash drive out of his pocket. He stuffs it into the glove box in front of me before putting the vehicle in drive.

  “Dalton.” I can feel myself tipping toward hysteria. My dad trying to kill Dalton? Understandable. Dalton shooting the cousin? Okay. A stranger protecting us?

  “I can’t tell you,” he finally says. “I don’t know who—”

  “That’s such fucking bullshit,” I snap. “You don’t even have a guess?”

  “We need to get out of here.”

  I slam the rag to the floor. “We need to stop being caught so off guard. We had a plan, and it pretty much epically failed.”

  “What do you want to do?” He eyes me. “I’m at your mercy, Grace. I don’t mind admitting it. I don’t think I’d actually felt anything for a long time—not up until the moment I decided to get you out of that basement storage room. Then I felt…”

  He lapses into silence, exhaling sharply. I think, for a split second, that he won’t—or can’t—finish that thought. But maybe I just don’t have enough faith in people, because he chews on his lip for a moment before finishing his
sentence.

  “Alive.”

  I turn toward him. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  There’s a path in front of us. My feelings toward Dalton are shifting constantly, but one thing keeps standing out. He may think he’s a bad guy, but he’s not. He’s the dark knight that I’ve been looking for my entire life. And I can’t just let that go. I can’t let the Argentos or my father jeopardize absolutely everything just because they can.

  Nope. It’s time to take a stand. Fuck them. Fuck everyone who’s ever tried to tell me what to do or how to be.

  “Let’s go ruin some lives.”

  It’s a five-hour drive back to Miami, and I killed the conversation in five words. He doesn’t answer, so I lean back and think of ways to bring down the Argentos.

  There are so many routes to take.

  Javier and Marco are two different beasts. My father is another, and I don’t know whether to trust him to take my side. As Javier said not too long ago, he was the one to make Sal who he was. He turned Sal Jones into someone to be feared… and then gave him a habit that made him more controllable.

  “We’re going to need backup,” Dalton says, glancing at me.

  “What?”

  “For whatever you’re plotting. You’re scowling, by the way.”

  I touch the skin between my eyebrows. “I’m not.”

  “You just were. It was kind of cute, like when a baby gets angry.”

  “Oh my god.” I shake my head and hold back a laugh. “Who’s your backup?”

  “Uh…”

  That can only mean one thing: secrets. It makes me feel better to know that I’m not the only one holding my cards close to my chest. It makes me feel… understood. In the weirdest way possible. Like he could step into my shoes and be like, Oh, yeah, this is familiar.

  “You’re an enigma, Dalton Kavanaugh.”

  He jolts. “You know my last name?”

  “That surprises you? Colin mentioned it once,” I mutter. “We’ve got a long drive. At least we can trade stories about our past to kill the time.”

  He clears his throat. “Okay. You first.”

  I think back to my childhood. “My parents were the ideal couple.”

  He grunts in response.

  “They laughed a lot. Danced around the kitchen with dishcloths slung over their shoulders and soap water on their hands. It’s the first few memories I have, really.”

  “What changed?”

  I watch the water flash through the hills and houses in the distance. “Dad changed.”

  He met Javier Argento when I was four. They became fast friends: two men in their late twenties, just trying to conquer the world. Unlike other families, Javier built his from nothing. His mother was a seamstress, and his father was a farmer. I met them once, on a quiet estate just outside of Ft. Lauderdale. They seemed nice.

  I didn’t understand how someone like Javier could be born from someone like them. The look in his eyes came from hardship, and I just couldn’t see anything but peace when I met his parents.

  Dad started to change slowly. The more power they got, the deeper into the darkness they sank. And the more darkness he absorbed, the more he let it out on my mother.

  I lied to Dalton earlier. His love affair with alcohol began well before my mother ever left us.

  “My dad disappeared,” Dalton says. “I secretly think he up and ran away, sick of watching my mother fall in love with someone else.”

  “Does she?” I ask. “Love the new guy, I mean.”

  He shrugs. “He seems good to her. They don’t yell, as far as I can tell. I don’t find bruises on her skin.”

  I find myself nodding along with his words. “Seems like you and I would’ve had similar childhoods if I had left with my mom or if you had stayed with your dad,” I comment.

  He surprises me by reaching over and putting his hand on my thigh. “I’m weirdly comforted by that.”

  “You joined the Marines when you turned eighteen?”

  He grins and pulls his hand away. I snatch it back, holding it hostage in my lap. I flip his hand, palm up, and run my fingers over his skin. He has rough callouses. Scars on his hands and wrists.

  “I did,” he says. “I had to get out of that house and avoid becoming something of a spectacle.”

  “You’re saying…”

  He grimaces. “If my mother had her way? I would’ve gone to Harvard and be working on Wall Street.”

  I snort. “I can’t picture that.”

  “I’d be a stuck-up suit.” He laughs. “The very idea is nauseating.”

  “Agreed. So, no college for you.”

  “I took online classes while deployed. Learned a few languages on my own while I was at it. Zach taught us sign language.”

  I shake my head. “You’ve mentioned a few names, but I think I need a better explanation.”

  “I served with Caden and Colin in the Marines. Caden is the one who died, and Luca is his brother. After the Marines, I was recruited by Scorpion Industries, a military contractor. They funded a shit ton of training, put together a crew, and sent us off to help the US Army in various locations overseas.”

  My eyebrows are probably touching my hairline.

  He tips his head to the side. “Of course, there were the off-books missions, too. The ones that we’re not really allowed to talk about.”

  “Illegal shit?”

  He smiles. “Probably, yeah. I never asked.”

  “So who’s our backup?” I hold up his phone. “Who we gonna call?”

  He takes a deep breath. “Zach was our explosives specialist. Griff took care of medical shit. Jackson—” He shakes his head. “He did tactical crap with Wyatt. And then Mason was our tech guy. You talked to him.”

  “Right.”

  “That was it. Six of us.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What?” He glances at me.

  “So, six people against a whole family?”

  “Five,” he hedges. “Wyatt isn’t in the picture.”

  I tilt my head, because he seems a little guilty when he says that. I wonder if it’s just another death he can’t handle or acknowledge. “Was it your fault?”

  “What? Absolutely not.”

  “Then why do you look…” I point at his face. “I don’t know how to interpret that.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I just… have a theory.”

  “You’re not going to share your theory?”

  “Not yet,” he says, shifting. “Tell me more about this plan of yours. Since you obviously have one.”

  “We just go and act normal,” I say. Now I feel like the shifty one. He blinks at me, so I say, “You know, go to work and go home and—”

  “No. That’s an awful plan. You want to pretend nothing happened?”

  “Well, when you put it like that—”

  “Yeah, you’re definitely not marching back into your father’s house. He’d lock you up and throw away the fucking key.” He’s yelling, and I don’t think he realizes it. “Or, he’d just summon a fucking minister and have you married straight away. What the fuck, Grace?”

  “Okay, okay.”

  His eyes go to the rearview mirror, and he swears under his breath.

  “What?”

  “I’m pretty sure Marco is following us.”

  I straighten. “Excuse me?”

  “It was just a glimpse,” he says in a low voice. “I’m pulling off at this exit.” To himself, he mutters, “There’s no way he should’ve been able to find us. Call Mason, would you?”

  I grab his phone and dial, biting my lip as it rings.

  “Hold your horses,” Mason says. “I’m lining up a room as we speak.”

  “New plan,” Dalton grunts. “We need to lose our tail.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “How’d we manage what?” Dalton spits.

  Mason is silent for a minute. I have a feeling he’s used to joking around with them, and Dalton is too s
tressed for it to compute.

  Finally, Dalton snaps his fingers. “I got it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where are transmission waves blocked?”

  Mason sighs. “Well—”

  “Rhetorical question, dude,” Dalton says. “Talk to you later.”

  He swings the Jeep in a U-turn, hitting the gas. The engine roars as we fly down the street.

  I stare at him. “What?”

  “Eh, just trust me.”

  “That sounds convincing.” Unfortunately for me, I already do trust him. Long before I should’ve. And this mysterious stroke of genius doesn’t have me worried…

  Maybe that’s the biggest mistake.

  22

  DALTON

  We pull into an animal hospital, and Grace immediately balks.

  Guess trust only goes so far.

  I take the handgun out of the center console, checking to make sure it’s loaded before I tuck it into the waistband of my jeans. I untuck my shirt and cover the weapon, then circle around and guide Grace out of the vehicle.

  “Come on,” I say. “When’s the last time you had service in a hospital? It’s because of all the machines.”

  “Yeah, except the gun—”

  “Only gonna use it if I have to,” I say. “You’d be amazed at how far a little charm will go.”

  “You’re not charming,” she mutters.

  I ignore her. We walk in, and I explain the situation—that we just want to hang out in their x-ray room until I can figure out where this tracking signal is coming from.

  The receptionist is… resistant to that idea.

  Grace closes her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose, as I pull out my gun. I don’t even point it at the receptionist. I just show her, frowning as she raises her hands in surrender.

  “We need to get back there right now,” I demand. I swing the door open and force my way into the back area, followed closely by Grace and the receptionist.

  “To the left,” she murmurs, pointing. “You need protective—”

  “I’m not fucking x-raying anything,” I mutter, grabbing my phone from Grace’s back pocket. There’s still service. “Can we fire this thing up?”

  “Dalton—”

  “Shush, Grace.” There’s a frantic feeling building in my chest. “Let me just try to help you.”