by Hamel, B. B.
“Of course,” Fish says. “You killed one of my guys. You think it’s going to be easy, walking away from this?”
There’s a flash of anger in Fish’s eyes. I shrink away from him but Rowan doesn’t react.
“I know men like you,” Rowan says after a short pause. “I know you don’t want attention. It’s bad for business. You’ve already got troubles, lost a dealer recently. You want to keep floating under the radar. But all these killings suggest something’s up with your drug outfit. I’m guessing you’re having other problems on top of the legal and the last thing you need is the cops sniffing around your shit even more.”
Fish just smiles politely. “Go on,” he says.
“Here’s my offer. I have pictures of your little house plus some other little inferences about this meth business you have going on. I put it all into an email and I’m ready to send it over to the Pine Grove cops right now if I have to.”
“Blackmail, huh?” Fish asks, sighing. “You’re pissing me off.”
“Or,” Rowan continues, “you can agree to let the two of us go. I’ll destroy what I have on you and we can part on square terms. I’ll never come back to Pine Grove. Hell, we’ll leave the country.”
Fish tuts and shakes his head. “Rowan, Rowan. Why would I take this deal? I could just kill you now and be finished with it.”
“Maybe,” Rowan says, “but I suspect you don’t want to do that. You don’t need the scrutiny.”
“You’ve already caused me scrutiny,” Fish hisses, suddenly angry. “And now you’re blackmailing me. I should just cut your throat and fuck your stupid bitch right here and right now.”
I stare at Fish, shocked. His whole friendly demeanor suddenly shifts and he’s practically vibrating with rage. Rowan, to his credit, doesn’t take the bait.
“You can try,” he says. “But you’ll lose more men. You know what I am, Fish. You know what I’m capable of. I’m sure you spoke with my previous employers and I’m sure they told you what I’ve done. Maybe you can take me down sooner or later, but not before I bleed you dry.”
Fish practically shakes with rage before he takes several deep breaths. He visibly calms himself and when he’s finished, his mask of rage is replaced again by the friendly little smile he started with.
“You’re right about talking to your old bosses,” he says. “You’re right that they spoke highly of you. But you still owe me.”
Rowan leans forward. “I have ten thousand in cash in my truck. Take the money and let us walk.”
Fish looks surprised. “You have that much and you didn’t give it to me?”
“It’s my emergency fund. Paying you back didn’t feel like an emergency until right now.”
He lets out a laugh. He seems genuinely delighted by that.
“Okay then,” he says finally. “It’s not even half of what you owe, but okay. You give me the cash and you destroy your evidence and I’ll let you walk.”
“Stay here.” Rowan gets up.
“You’re going to leave her alone with me?” Fish asks.
Rowan grins. “That’s my truck right there.” He nods at it through the window. “I’ll see you the whole time. You touch her, I kill you.”
Fish sighs. “So barbaric.”
Rowan walks off toward the door. I shrink away from Fish as he turns to me.
“So,” he says. “You’re with the guy that murdered your dad, huh?”
I nod sheepishly.
“Fucked up,” he says and grins. “Pretty fucked up.”
I don’t look at him and I will the minutes to pass. He doesn’t speak again until Rowan returns with a bag. He dumps it in Fish’s lap and sits back down.
Fish opens the bag and nods. “I’ll take your word that it’s ten thousand,” he says.
“Good. We through here?”
“Never come back to Pine Grove,” Fish says. “If I have any issues with my business or if I hear whispers of your name, I’ll send every fucking guy I have after you until I stomp your life out under my goddamn boot. Understood?”
Rowan smirks. “It was nice working with you, Fish.”
Fish rolls his eyes and stands. He stares down at us, shakes his head, and leaves the diner. A second later, the guy sitting at the counter stands and follows him out.
I’m shaking like a leaf. Rowan reaches out and grabs my hand. “Are you okay?” he asks. “I’m sorry you had to sit next to him like that.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m okay. Is it really over?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I think it is, though.”
I nod once and bite back tears. He squeezes my hand harder. “Come on.”
We get up and he leads me off. He never did get his cheeseburger. He pauses only to drop a few dollars at the cash register to pay for our food before we slip out and head to his truck.
We get inside, he starts the engine, and he pulls out into traffic.
We don’t go to the motel. We don’t go to the cabin.
He gets on the highway and we point west.
We drive for an hour in silence before he finally breaks it.
“Are you sure you want to do this with me?” he asks softly.
“I’m sure,” I say.
“Good.” He looks over at me. “I’m in love with you, Allie. And I’m going to take damn good care of you.”
I bite my lip hard. Those are the words I’ve been wanting to hear, maybe for my whole life.
Nobody’s ever loved me like this. Nobody’s ever wanted to take care of me.
“I love you too,” I whisper.
He nods and keeps driving, the truck pointed west, the truck moving fast. Every second we drive is another second further away from Pine Grove and another second further into our future.
This man, my beautiful monster. He’s the one I need, the man I’ve always dreamed of having. Even if we came together in the worst way imaginable, none of that matters now.
I love him. I love him so much my heart nearly breaks.
We drive together and finally, finally, finally, I’m free.
14
Allie
Two Years Later
I look out over the sunlit courtyard and stretch a little bit, sipping my coffee. The red-roofed buildings with their white stone fronts circle around the little block. I can hear kids playing and a dog barking somewhere nearby. Chickens and birds chirp as I lean up against our front door with a smile on my lips.
I breathe in the air and slowly let it out. For some reason, I think of Pine Grove and the house I left behind. That place was so quiet and beautiful, but we were so secluded.
Here, we’re right in the middle of a suburban neighborhood not too far from Madrid’s city center. I can see the big buildings from where we live if I really want to.
But mostly we stay in our little corner of the city. We don’t need much else.
I sip my coffee again, strong and dark. The kids are yelling at each other and I realize that I can understand them pretty easily. I didn’t think I’d get used to speaking Spanish but I picked it up pretty quickly. Rowan’s still struggling a bit but he’s more stubborn than I am.
I nod at a neighbor, an old woman. “Good morning,” I say to her in Spanish.
“Good morning,” she says back with a smile. I remember when we first moved in, she wouldn’t look twice at me. I was just some foreign girl that could barely speak her language.
Now though, I feel like I’m finally settling in here. We’ve lived in this building for a little over a year. After we left Pine Grove, we drove back to New York. Rowan did some work and made some money. I never asked him what the jobs were and he never said. It was just unspoken between us, I guess.
Once we had the money, we drove around the States for a few months. But as soon as we hit California, we bought a plane ticket to Spain and we never looked back.
Life is strange and simple here. It’s like anywhere else, with customs and social structures and we’ve had to figure it all out,
but nobody knows who we are. We’re just nobodies here, just some foreign couple, and we like it that way.
We’re anonymous. And in a way, that’s real freedom.
“Morning.”
Rowan joins me out on the front stoop. He yawns and stretches, shirtless in the early morning light. I look at his body and feel a stirring in my chest.
“Morning,” I say. “Shouldn’t you have a shirt on?”
He grins at me. “Sorry. Too distracting?”
“You’re going to make the old ladies talk.”
He makes a face. “They’ll talk either way.”
“Good point. But now they’ll talk about you.”
“And how much they wish their husbands look like me.”
I laugh a little and he sits down next to me. I lean my head against his shoulder and he puts his arm around me, hugging me close.
“Do you have to go in today?” I ask him.
He nods. “Yep. Diego pushed hard.”
I sigh. “Okay. I’ll be bored without you.”
“I doubt it. Go see what Martina’s up to.”
“Mmm, I don’t know. She’ll drag me to some café and try to get me drunk.”
“So? You’ll love it.”
I grin. “Yeah, I know.”
He laughs gently and kisses me. Martina is a girl that lives nearby, around my age. She likes that I’m American and is always dragging me all over the place, trying to get me to drink too much. It’s a lot of fun, honestly. I can pretend to be a normal person with her. I can have the kind of fun I was never allowed to have when I lived back in Pine Grove.
Rowan got a job at a printing shop. They mostly put out textbooks in English and I think they only hired him because he can spot any glaring issues. Mostly he works the machines though, making sure they don’t jam up, that sort of thing. It’s manual labor and tedious but it pays okay.
I work tutoring people in English like pretty much every other English-speaking American woman that lives in Madrid. The pay’s very good, fortunately, so we live pretty comfortably. Even though we’re outsiders and not eligible for a lot of things, we still make enough to get by. Madrid’s pretty expensive but we manage.
We’re not rich. We’re not rolling in cash. Rowan’s not doing any jobs that bring in thousands of dollars at a time anymore and I think he’s happier for it. We don’t talk about his life before we met all that much, but I know it’s something that weighs on him.
I try not to let it get to him too much and he tries to keep me happy when I think back to my old life. We take care of each other, every day and every night. He makes me feel better than I’ve ever felt before, physically and emotionally.
And it helps that he’s insatiable. Especially since coming to live here. It’s like there’s something in the air. He says it’s the language, it’s so romantic that he can’t keep his hands off me when he hears me speaking Spanish.
I think he just wants to get me pregnant.
“You know, one of these days, we should get married,” he says to me.
I laugh a little. “Yeah, one of these days.”
“Want to do it tomorrow?”
“Maybe next week.”
He grins and kisses me. That’s a running joke we have. He says we should get married tomorrow, I make him push it off. But we both know one day I’ll agree. And we both know he’s dead serious about it.
“So you want to have some little Spanish babies?” he asks me. “They’ll be more Spaniards than they will be Americans.”
“Good. Americans are pigs.”
“True. The worst.”
“Uncivilized. And so loud.”
He laughs. We’re talking like the old Spanish ladies, another joke we love.
I kiss him again and he stands. “You hungry? I’ll cook before I head out.”
“I’d love that.”
“Good.” He disappears back inside and I turn to watch him go, still reveling in his body.
I turn back to the neighborhood and sip my coffee. I can hear him moving around in the kitchen behind me in our tiny little place. He’s a good cook and he knows I can’t turn down breakfast from him. Even though he might be late or now he’ll have to rush to make it on time, he still always makes sure he cooks something for me every day.
He’s the kind of man I never dreamed of having. He’s passionate, kind, considerate, dominant, protective. He’s everything contained in one big gorgeous body. I don’t care if he has a dark past. I don’t care if we came together under horrible circumstances.
One day, when we have enough saved, we’re going to open a café together. He can cook and I can serve. He doesn’t know it yet, but we’re going to make sure his dream comes true.
We escaped our old life and we’re here now. We’re free together.
I love my man, my husband. I love my Rowan, and that’s all I need.
I get up and head inside to help my husband cook.
THE END
* * *
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