Outside the Lines

by Lisa Desrochers

  “Find some soap and a towel and work on those blood spots, but leave the booze.”

  “What are you doing?” she asks, alarm in her gaze as she looks at the guy in the blanket.

  “I’m not going to kill him,” I reassure her, “but there can’t be anything tying you to this. My room is just down the hall.”

  “Won’t that tie them to you?”

  I nod. “It will, but not to Rob Davidson. He’s not here.”

  She gives me a long look, then turns for the bathroom.

  I open the door and peer into the hall. It’s empty. I pick the guy up and carry him, bride-style, toward my room at the end of the hall. “This is why you shouldn’t drink in the hot tub,” I say, in the unlikely event anyone’s watching out their peephole.

  I close the door, dump him on the carpet, and check to see if he’s breathing. He is. So Adri gets her wish.

  I spend the next five minutes packing my stuff, then wipe down anything I touched with a towel from the bathroom. I take the blanket from my closet and bring it with me when I head back to Adri’s room.

  She’s managed to get the spots out to the point that someone would have to be looking for them to find anything. If I work this right, no one should suspect these goons were ever in her room, should they be discovered in mine before they wake and scamper off into the night.

  The thug I left behind is starting to stir, soft groans coming through his gag.

  Adri looks at him anxiously. “What now?”

  I trade her the blanket for the facecloth she’s using on the carpet and shove it in my pocket. “Put the blanket back in the same place you found yours, then straighten everything up so it’s exactly how it looked when you arrived. Collect all the duct tape and save it for me.”

  She takes the blanket and heads to the bedroom, throwing an anxious glance at me over her shoulder as I cut the tape on the goon’s legs.

  I haul him to his feet. “Let’s go, buddy.”

  I loop an arm around his waist, holding him tight to my side, and mostly drag him to the door. I check the hall again, and when I feel the goon haul a chestful of air, like he’s getting ready to yell through his gag, I say low in his ear, “The lady doesn’t want me to kill you, but if you make a fucking sound, when I get you to the end of the hall and she doesn’t know any better, I will. Capiche?”

  He nods vigorously, his eyes wide with terror, tears starting to leak over.

  We move down the hall, him staggering most of the way and occasionally whimpering. Again, for the benefit of any peephole onlookers, I say, “Your bride is expecting some action tonight, man. You got to sober up at least enough to get the deed done.”

  We reach my room. I thrust him inside. He drops to the floor on his knees next to Wannabe.

  I pull the tape over his mouth back. “Whose marker?”

  “I don’t know,” he blubbers. “Uncle Marty just told me he needed some muscle and there’d be a big payday.”

  I shove the muzzle of the Glock up his nose. “Who does Uncle Marty work for?”

  He pees himself in a gush. “Oh, God! Please—”

  I slap my hand over his mouth. “Too loud, buddy.”

  He holds his bound hands in front of his face. “Please don’t shoot me,” he whimpers when I peel my hand away.

  I lift my eyebrows at him. “If I get the information I need, we’ll be fine. Who does your uncle work for?”

  He drops to the carpet on his side and curls into a fetal position. “He drives a cab. Said he brought you here from the airport.”

  Christ. I’m such a fucking moron.

  “That’s it? Does he run book or launder money for anyone?”

  “I don’t know,” he whimpers, over and over.

  I breath out a relieved sigh. This is classic. Uncle Marty thought he’d score big by taking down the Delgados single-handedly and use that money and clout to buy his way into another clan. Probably the Savocas. What they never seem to get is it doesn’t work that way.

  Just as I’m about to drive my fist through the wimp’s face, I think better of it. Can’t risk bleeding on him, just in case this turns into an investigation. A maid finds them, calls the cops, that could go any direction.

  My options whir through my head like a cyclone. Best-case scenario: these wannabe thugs wake up and scamper off into the night never to be heard from again. Worst-case scenario: they tell the Savocas about Adri and we’re tracked back to Port St. Mary.

  I need to kill them to protect her. It’s the only way.

  I press the muzzle of the Glock against the whimpering guy’s temple and my finger tightens on the trigger.

  “Oh, God,” he mewls, sounding more like a seven-year-old girl than a man.

  I lower the gun as Adri’s plea echoes through the chaos of my mind. Promise me.

  Shit.

  “Remember who let you live,” I say, flipping my piece and bringing the butt down on the side of his head. The whimpering stops. I unbind the pair and collect every scrap of duct tape, then take one last sweep with the towel of anything that might have my fingerprints, grab my bag, and head back to Adri’s.

  In her room, the chairs are straightened out and everything looks pristine except the pale brown stain on the carpet that was once the entire contents of a bottle of Jameson. She hands me the ball of duct tape, and I see she’s cleaned up her cut and the bleeding’s slowing.

  I grab her bag off the floor and take her hand. “Call down to the desk and tell them a bottle from the bar broke on the carpet. Tell them you’re going out for a few hours and ask if housekeeping can come clean the carpet while you’re gone.”

  She takes a deep breath to steady her nerves before picking up the phone on the desk and relaying the request. “They said they’ll be here shortly,” she says when she hangs up.

  I take her shaking hand and tow her out of the room. We take the elevator to the parking garage, and one minute later, we’re rocketing down Lake Shore and out of the city on the Ducati. She holds tight around my waist. Despite our current danger, her thighs hugging my hips, and her body molded against my back lights my fire. I need to hold her, taste her, and know she’s real. But I don’t stop.

  “You’re bleeding!” she yells from behind me.

  I ignore her and keep driving, but I feel her hand leave my waist and tug at my jacket, where she’s no doubt found a bullet hole. It can’t be that bad or I’d be unconscious by now.

  The truth is, I’m thankful for the wind and the road and the rumble of the engine. It clears my head and gives me time to think about what I can possibly say to Adri to explain this.

  Four agonizing hours later, we’re across the Missouri border and almost out of gas. We pull into the dirt lot of a roadside motel in the middle of nowhere. I roll my bike around the side, out of sight of the road.

  I dismount, help her off the back of the bike, toss the wimp’s gun, the wannabe’s knife, the bloody facecloth, and all the duct tape in the Dumpster. “We should be okay here for the night.”

  “You’re hurt,” she says.

  Shock and concern are doing battle on her face, but I can tell it’s the shock that’s winning. She’s pale and weaves a little before catching her balance. I hold her by the arms until she does.

  “It’s nothing,” I assure her. “Come on.” I pull her to my side and stride into the hotel office.

  It’s only an hour short of dawn, so I don’t expect to find the office door unlocked. Apparently, it’s my lucky day. I stride up to the desk, where an old man sits in a wooden chair with his head lolled back, snoring like a jackhammer. I toy for a minute with getting Adri her own room, but I want to keep an eye on her.

  Hell, if I’m honest, I want a whole lot more of myself on her than my eye, but I can’t even think about that right now.

  “Hello?” I say.

  “Didn’t touch her,” the man behind the desk mutters without waking up.

  “Hello!” I say louder, jarring the man awake.

  Hi
s eyes snap wide as he sits up straight and wipes a dirty flannel sleeve across his chin. “What you want?”

  I pull a couple bills from my roll and drop them on the counter. “A room.”

  He looks at the hundreds and his eyebrows go up. “Check in is three p.m., not three a.m. You want a room now, got to charge you like you’ve been here all night.”

  “Fine,” I say.

  He slips the cash off the counter. “Got to keep the extra for damage deposit. You don’t break nothing, you get it back when you check out.”

  “You’ve got a key for me?” I ask impatiently as Adri sways on her feet next to me.

  He scans a couple of cards through the machine, hands them to us, and points to the stairs outside the door. “You’re in twenty-six. Just up those stairs. Check out is noon. You here later, got to charge an extra night.”

  I take the keys without another word and head the direction he pointed. I gesture Adri up the stairs ahead of me.

  She’s shaking, shock fully setting in. When she gets past it, she’s going to want answers. If I listen to my gut, I’d spill everything. I know it’s the only way to earn her trust and keep her. But then I’d have to take my family and go, because, above all, I have to protect Sherm.

  Wannabe’s words scroll through my mind again. But the real money’s the five hundred grand for bringing the little one in alive. What would the Savocas want with Sherm? The mystery snowballs, each question that passes through my mind giving rise to ten more.

  I look up at Adri and realize we’re at the door and she’s waiting. I slip a key into the slot, swing the door open. Inside, the space is small, with room for nothing more than a queen-sized bed and a desk. There’s a hanging rod on the back wall next to a sink. The bathroom door is next to that.

  Adri is staring at the bed as she steps through the door. I try not to think about her skin against mine, the feel of moving inside her. I try not to crave it. It’s not fair to her if I’m leaving. And I know I am. I have to.

  But when her eyes catch on mine and they fill with tears, what I know is, I’ll give her anything she wants, even if it’s answers.

  I pull her into my arms and hold her. “We’re okay, Adri. No one’s going to find us here.”

  She starts shaking harder. I hold her tighter to keep her together. I tip my face into her hair, breathe her in, hate myself for putting her through this. She clings to me as if I was her lifeline instead of the man who nearly got her killed.

  I stroke my hand down her hair. “I’m so sorry.”

  She’s never been around death and violence. She’s not part of my world. She can’t just turn off the adrenaline.

  I hold her until her shaking slows, then back away and rub my thumbs over her damp cheeks.

  She reaches for my jacket and slips it off my shoulders. My muscles tense as she starts lifting my T-shirt over my head.

  “Adri,” I warn.

  “You’re hurt. Let me help you.”

  I’d forgotten about that. I lift my arms as she pulls my shirt over my head. It sticks to the wound and she moves around behind to gently pry it away.

  Her fingers on my skin send a shudder through me. I fight to turn off my body’s reaction.

  “This is bad,” she says, her voice still shaky. She tugs me toward the bed and pushes me down. “Sit.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  She turns for the sink. “You’re a liar.”

  I can’t see her face as she says it, but there’s accusation in her tone, and I know she’s talking about more than the wound on my back.

  She comes back with a wet washcloth and a towel and settles behind me on the bed. I hold my breath as she cleans me up, not because it hurts the wound, but because it hurts my heart.

  “This is deep, Rob. You need to go to the hospital.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s bleeding,” she counters. “It needs stitches.”

  If I could reach it, I’d stitch it up myself. “It can wait till I get home. Lee will do it.”

  Her hand stops moving on my back. “Lee stitches you up?”

  “When I need it.”

  “I’ll do it,” she says.

  I look over my shoulder at her as she stands and reaches for her bag. She roots through it and comes out with a hotel sewing kit, then looks at me.

  “Do we need alcohol or whiskey or something?”

  “In a perfect world, but we can do without it.”

  Her look hardens. “In a perfect world, you wouldn’t have gone to Chicago and nearly gotten yourself killed.”

  In a perfect world, I’d be Rob Davidson and we could have had this. But I’m not. I’m Robert Delgado. I’ll always be on the run. I cemented that when I couldn’t do what needed to be done. If I’d put a bullet into Oliver Savoca’s head, there might be a chance that this would someday be over.

  But I couldn’t do it because Adri changed everything for me. My need to prove myself to Pop, my hunger for power, it all seems so myopic and insignificant now. It took Adri to show me there’s more to life.

  But trouble is going to find me no matter where I go or who I become. It was selfish of me to put Adri in the middle of it.

  She sits next to me. “Turn around.”

  It’s a minute before I feel her hands on my skin again. “Ready?”

  “If you take a stitch every half inch or so and tie each one off with a knot, that should do it.”

  A second later, I feel the sting of a needle sinking through my flesh. By the fourth, the skin is starting to naturally numb and I barely feel it. After six, she’s done.

  She washes her hands, then goes back to her bag and pulls out a few Band-Aids. “I don’t have enough to cover the whole thing, but these might help.”

  I nod and she stretches them over the freshly stitched gash.

  “We should probably try to get some sleep,” I say.

  “I’m never going to sleep again.”

  She looks totally ragged. I want to hold her so she knows she’s safe, but if she’s afraid of me, which she should be, then the last thing she’ll feel is safe in my arms. “A hot shower might help.”

  She nods and moves toward the bathroom.

  I turn out the light and shuck off my jeans as the shower turns on. I hear the pound of the water change when she steps in and imagine her in there, her hands in places I want mine to be.

  When Adri comes out wrapped in a towel ten minutes later, her blond waves trailing beads of water over her ivory shoulders, I pretend I’m asleep. But the way certain parts of my anatomy respond to the sight, I know I’m not going to get any actual sleep tonight. She flips off the bathroom light and lowers herself into the bed next to me, towel and all.

  For what feels like hours, but is probably only minutes, I listen to her breathing.

  “Rob? Are you awake?” she asks on a breath.

  “I am.”

  The mattress dips as sheets rustle on her side of the bed. “Who are you?”

  She’s braver in the dark, asking the question that I know she really doesn’t want the answer to.

  I turn my head to look at her. She’s rolled on her side to face me. The barest hint of early-morning sun filters through the shades, bathing the room in colorless light. But Adri’s not colorless. Like a pixie, the skin along the curve of her neck and shoulder glows pink. Her blue eyes shine through the gloom and pierce straight into my heart. I roll to face her and resist the urge to trace a finger along the lines of her lips.

  She’s the only person I’ve ever met who might be able to see past the façade to the man underneath. I want her to understand. I want her to know me.

  But the more she knows, the more danger she’s in. She’s already suffered enough because of me.

  I search desperately for the answer—a way for us to work. But there is no answer. Only the truth. And she deserves to know.

  Chapter 27

  Adri

  Despite the hot shower, I’m still freezing. My heart pounds s
o hard into my rib cage that I’m sure Rob can hear it in the quiet of the room. His eyes drill into mine, as if looking for the key to my soul.

  But he already has it.

  Finally, he blows out a slow breath. “I told you I killed someone.”

  I nod, afraid to speak.

  “He was contracted to kill my family. He got past my men and broke into our house. He had a gun trained on Sherm. I acted on instinct. We struggled and he shot me in the leg. I snapped his neck.”

  His eyes lift to mine and I can tell he’s thinking about the guy in the hotel. I’ve never seen a look like that on anyone’s face before. He would have killed that man.

  As if confirming my thoughts, he adds, “I’ve discovered I’m capable of killing when someone I care about is being threatened.”

  “Why was there a contract on Sherm?” My voice comes out shakier than I’d hoped.

  His jaw tightens and he lowers his searching gaze from mine. “The contract is on all of us.” His eyes narrow as if he’s trying to reason something out. “Or, at least I thought it was.”

  “Who wants to kill you?” I ask on a whisper.

  He takes a deep breath and his eyes find mine again. “Our real last name is Delgado. Our father is head of the largest crime family in Chicago. He’s currently in prison for racketeering.”

  That trial was all over Dad’s news shows for months. “Felix Delgado is your father?” I say, a shiver wracking my body. I pull my towel tighter around me.

  As if sensing my discomfort, he pulls himself to a sitting position against the headboard and lowers his gaze, making more room between us. “He cut a plea deal and gave the Feds information that also brought down the head of our rival mob, Victor Savoca. Part of his deal in doing so was getting witness protection for us kids to keep us out of the line of fire. I refused to take it at first. I’m supposed to be in Chicago running the business.”

  When he says witness protection, suddenly everything makes sense. All the evasions, the reason Dad couldn’t find any trace of them. They didn’t exist before Port St. Mary.