Assassin's Baby (A Bad Boy Romance)

by Amber Branley

  He landed with a thud and most likely a broken rib, but was onto his feet in a matter of seconds; quickly enough to escape a gunshot from a surviving guard. He leaped into the air and sent himself spiraling into the den where he landed on carpeted floor and barricaded himself inside the room by locking the door. Then he stood to his feet and aimed the pistol towards the door. He himself stood out of view from the door to prevent himself from bullets that would no doubt burst through it.

  They did, and fast.

  The door within a matter of seconds was hardly there anymore. It was covered with bullet holes and Miles quickly began to panic before bursting out the window of the den and landing on the shards of glass that covered the front porch. A man came out of the front door and aimed a rifle at Miles but wasn’t fast enough, Miles shot him through the stomach and then rolled off the porch and into the shrubbery.

  It was a trap, alright. Gulliver hadn’t even been in the house.

  But where?

  He ran to his car, miraculously uninjured, and drove quickly through the night. As he made his way down Sunset Boulevard toward the Palisades, he phoned Alexandra. She answered on the fourth ring, “Baby?”

  “Yeah, are you okay?” He asked.

  “Yeah, what’s wrong?”

  Miles tried to hide the panic in his voice but had a hard time doing so. He continually checked his rear view mirror to see if he was being followed, but it seemed like the coast was clear. Besides, it was almost impossible to tell if you were being followed in Los Angeles due to the high traffic. And if he was being followed, it would be easy to lose them. It’s hard to keep track of cars in a city so dense with them.

  “I’m looking for Jones, honey, the man who ordered my head on a platter. I want you to make sure the doors are locked in your apartment and stay away from windows. I don’t think they’ll come after you, and besides I doubt they’d know how to find you. For all they know, you’d be at home in Malibu. Jesus, I’m so glad you still had a couple months left on that lease…”

  “Baby, I miss you, and I’m scared.”

  “Honey, trust me… You’ll be alright.”

  “I’m scared for you.”

  “Don’t be, I’ve had to deal with this kind of thing before,” he lied.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay? Where are you?”

  Miles hesitated for a moment. He hesitated because of one reason – the sound of his wife’s voice. It was trembling. She was scared for herself, and for good reason. There was someone in the apartment with her, someone ordering her to find out where he was. He didn’t know what to say in a situation like this, but he knew he’d be coming there to rescue her.

  “I’m on Hollywood Boulevard,” he lied again, “Looking for Jones. I’m going to turn around and head to his house in the Palisades.”

  Miles hoped this lie would be delivered to the men. He wondered how many were there. He hoped his lie would make some of them thin out and take off toward Gulliver’s Palisades home, but he couldn’t count on it.

  “Honey? I love you,” he said.

  He hung up the phone and parked on a side road in Westwood. He reached back and pressed the seat’s button. It sprang upwards and revealed a heavy set of artillery. He would need a lot of firepower for this, potentially, but he hoped he wouldn’t. Alexandra’s home set on a hillside which was perfect for hiding in. He tried to remember if there was a good view from her back window from the hillside, but he couldn’t remember since he’d only been in her apartment a few times. He was wondering if he’d have a good spot to snipe from.

  He drove to her neighborhood and parked a good distance away. It wasn’t easy avoiding eyes on him in this densely packed street, because there were plenty of cars driving by, and even people outside on their porches. So he kept his rifle hidden beneath his coat, along with the other guns he brought with him.

  They just fucked with the wrong guy. They come after me, it’s one thing, and it’s enough to kill them. But they come after my wife, it’s a whole ‘nother ball game. I’m going to make them wish they were never born. I’m going to blow them away.

  Miles made it to Alexandra’s shack and hunkered up slowly in the hills. The brush was thick and prickly, and he didn’t try to hide himself. No one would be looking for him, because they expected him to be heading towards the Pacific Palisades by that point. He hunkered down, finding a wonderful vantage point with a clear view through her kitchen window.

  He aimed the rifle and looked through the scope, waiting to see someone’s head move. But no one ever came, and as he thought more about it he wondered how tangible this idea was. Shoot one man and then what? Once a man came into view and he blew his head apart, what then? The others would undoubtedly panic and scurry to grab Alexandra and off her. He didn’t even know how many men were in there.

  He crawled back down the hill, cursing to himself, and then went up the back steps to her house very slowly. He dialed her number on the cell phone, fingering the grenades he held in his jacket.

  “Hi honey, where are you?” The strained voice returned.

  “Take me off speaker phone.”

  “You’re not on it.”

  “Do it for a moment, I need to say something private to you.”

  “Okay…”

  Apparently the men had silently told her to do so. They didn’t know for sure that Miles knew they were in there, and they didn’t want to blow the surprise. So they told her to act normal, as if she were alone. They trusted her not to lie about his whereabouts, if only for a moment.

  Alexandra pressed the button to take him off of speaker phone, “Yes, honey?”

  “Your window, is it open?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sitting in the loveseat next to it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now stay calm, what I’m about to tell you is going to change the outcome of everything. Do you understand, baby? I’m standing on the back porch with a grenade in my hand. I’m going to kick through the glass of the back door and toss it inside. I need you on the count of three to quickly jump head first out the window. Your fall should be softened by the dirt hillside below you, and breaking an arm is a lot less scary than what’s going to happen to you if you stay in there and let those men kill you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, on the count of three.”

  “Okay, honey…” Her voice sounded stilted and full of panic.

  “One, two, THREE!”

  Miles relied on pure trust. He trusted Alexandra that she jumped out the window. He trusted that he wouldn’t blow her to smithereens. Surely she’d known how serious he’d been. Upon the scream of three, Miles kicked through the glass door of the balcony and tossed two grenades inside, as far as he could throw them. For good measure, he tossed a third. He heard a single shot ring out before the grenades exploded, and then he was blown back down the steps by the force of the blast.

  He rolled down the steps on his back, head, and shoulders. After struggling to get up for a moment, he hesitated and stretched back, cracking his neck, “Fuck’s sake…”

  Then, remembering his wife, he hurried to the front of the building to check on her. Sure enough, she’d listened. She lay whimpering between two cars that had debris landed all over them. Dust as well. She was cut up slightly, covered in tiny scratches, but not from the explosion. It was from the thick bramble she’d landed in. Although it had hurt her, it had probably also saved her; being thick and cushiony. He held her in his arms and kissed her, and then hurried her back to his car before speeding off into the night.

  THIRTEEN

  Back at the Malibu home, bags were packed and an old trusty truck belonging to Miles was loaded full. They were leaving town quickly, to where Alexandra didn’t know – but Miles knew, and he was ready to get there. They’d need reinforcements since things had escalated quickly. Jones would be sending multiple men for him now, and they wouldn’t be as easy and unprepared as the last ones.

  “Where
are we going?”

  “You know how I have no friends?” Miles asked, “Well, I used to. And we used to all be pretty damn close.”

  “Okay…”

  “We’re going to meet the old gang.”

  “The old gang?”

  “I used to be in a biker gang with a pretty big group of guys. We were big time. Then we fell apart after an incident, but I’ve been in communication with some of them over the last few years. We’d been drifting apart for a long time before the breakup, with us all going our separate ways in life and all, and especially my profession choice.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Gulliver’s going to be sending a lot of men after me, which puts you in danger as well. We’re going to need my boys to help us out. I can handle myself, but in a situation like this… Sometimes I need a helping hand; and I can’t think of anyone better to help than the old gang.”

  “Do they know we’re coming? I’m so confused and scared, Miles.”

  “Baby, relax. We’re going to be good. And yeah, I called ‘em when I was in the bathroom; they know.”

  They drove north up the coast toward Ventura County, where the gang had a compound in the hills. It had been theirs for years, and it was Miles’ old home… In another life. He’d left the gang years ago for multiple reasons. One, he was tired of being around others. Two, he was ready to further his career as an assassin – and the gang was hindering his privacy, his free time, and his mental state.

  There’d been too much gun violence, too many close calls with the police, too much risk running weaponry. It wasn’t going smoothly, and for that reason much of the gang had broken up. But there were still remainders who stayed behind, and they’d have helped Miles at the drop of a hat for anything he needed. He cruised at a steady pace down the coast until they reached the county line, and then he took a sharp right and winded through the valleys until he made it to the outskirts of town.

  It was at this moment that Miles and Alexandra noticed headlights behind them – headlights which had been behind them for quite some time. Miles skidded to a halt in the emergency lane and reached back for his shotgun. He held it up to his chest as his wife stared in fear.

  The car stopped behind them some twenty feet. Then the door opened after five minutes of waiting. Along with the driver’s side door, the passenger door swung open as well. Two men got out from both sides, and began to approach the truck at equal paces on both sides.

  “Get down,” Miles said softly.

  He burst out of the truck. The man approaching the driver’s side began to raise his arm, but he was too late. He was caught with the buckshot and sent blasted backwards where he fell onto his back; dead.

  The man approaching Alexandra’s side raised his rifle and fired. The bullet burst through the passenger side’s back windshield and Miles hopped into the bed of the truck as he cocked the rifle and let another spray blast out of the barrel. It sprayed through the man’s neck and he was dead on impact. Miles checked the bodies for identification and found nothing. He went to the back of the car and checked for the license plate; but it had been removed. He fumbled quickly through the glove box of the car, but there was no insurance. There were no leads.

  He got back into the truck and drove onward, silently. Alexandra began to wonder secretly what kind of marriage she’d gotten into. She began to wonder if the love at first sight had just been imagined. But as she stared at the hunk of a man in the driver’s side, she knew it wasn’t imaginary. She had fallen head over heels for this man, and she wanted more and more. He was going to fix this; he was going to keep them safe. Whatever happened, she would be okay.

  Because there were many bad men she’d seen in the past day….

  But none of them were as bad as her hubby.

  **

  When they got to the compound it was a good forty five minutes later. Miles had left the scene of the crime quickly and hadn’t spoken about it. There was nothing to say, and nothing to explain. The both of them knew that men were coming after them, and it was just a matter of time before the next ones got there. Miles pulled up the blacktopped road and parked in front of the compound, which was basically a large warehouse. The big garage door was opened and there were fluorescent lights inside.

  Alexandra could make out a pool table and a bar that sat within the compound, and there were men that began to form around the door, all of them wearing leather vests; many of them smoking cigarettes and holding bottles of beer or glasses of dark liquor. They got out of the truck and Miles hugged more than ten burly, dirty, and greasy looking men. They were all dangerous looking, much like Miles; but nowhere near as polished as he could be – nowhere near as rich, or at least they didn’t show their wealth.

  And then it was Alexandra’s turn to be introduced. Miles had her shake a good dozen hands and gave her a dozen names that she soon forgot. Her memory wasn’t the best at that moment with everything going on. It went through one ear and out the other. All she could think of was how crazy this all was… It wasn’t that long ago that she’d been comfortable, if a bit depressed, in her Hollywood shack of an apartment. And now?

  She was the bride of an ex-biker, current assassin, ex-military badass. And he was on the run from men trying to kill him. And he was now introducing her to his old biker gang, who looked even more dangerous than he did.

  Jesus Christ. Is this a movie I’ve somehow managed to find myself trapped inside?

  And what a movie it was, she thought. As she shook hands and felt hugs from muscular arms, she was welcomed warmly into the compound and given a cold drink. It was a much needed taste of alcohol; the buzz helped her to chill out. She sipped on the sweet drink as she watched her husband play pool with his old comrades. A lot of talk went on and a lot of backs were slapped. Many laughs were had as Alexandra sat there on an old worn-out leather couch, taking it all in.

  She wasn’t the only woman, but she was one of the few that were there. They stayed in the sidelines and seemed pretty rough around the edges. They looked like they’d been around the block. She was finally introduced to them by their boyfriends, and she noticed that they were referred to as “old ladies”, save for one, who Alexandra took to be the one night stand of the night. She was twenty or so, and she struck Alexandra as a stripper. She blew bubbles and sipped vodka and got wild with the boys around the pool table, flashing her tits and acting so trashy that it made Alexandra smile and feel uncomfortable simultaneously.

  She walked to the garage door which was still comfortably open, and looked up at the stars. There wasn’t as much light pollution as there was in Los Angeles, and Alexandra thought the night sky was beautiful. Around the warehouse there were some old rustic looking cabins. It was quite the compound, and she wondered how the men had afforded it – but being bikers and dealing in turn with illegal things, she supposed they were all pretty well off.

  Later in the night the men drank and smoked and Alexandra joined in on the fun, but watched her intake. She didn’t want to be out of her head, or anything, because bad things were on the horizon, and guaranteed to happen.

  It could be a minute from then, the next day, or the day after. She knew it was coming, and judging by the pistols clamped to the biker’s sides and the rifles slung over the bar, so did they. She hung onto Miles as they made their way through the clubhouse and watched the joy spreading across his face.

  He looked at home here. She’d love him for the quiet and confident bad boy he was, but now he seemed to be coming out of a shell around his own people. He looked like he belonged in this place. She’d never been around people of these sorts; good hearted criminals who happened to be filthy rich, and she’d have never guessed that they were rich to begin with. Based on the way they dressed, they all looked like they’d just rolled out of bed and thrown on twenty year old leather attire to cover their greasy, inked up bodies.

  “Girl, you got yourself into a mess, don’t you?” A grizzled older member pulled Alexandra aside
with a gentle hand. He raised his glass to toast and they clinked theirs together, “But don’t you worry, hear me? Because we’re the baddest fuckers on this side of the state line. We’ve got contacts down in Mexico, we’ve got ‘em up in Northern Oregon, and we’ve got plans to relocate far up the coast if need be. We can be out of the state in a day, and we’ve got the firepower and ammunition to last us.”

  He was drunk, and slurring. But despite that, he appeared able to hold his alcohol. He looked like he’d been through hell and back. He was an old-time biker. Grizzled, graying, wrinkled skin that had been burned one too many times by the sun. It looked like a worn out baseball glove. Patches of age spots lined his forehead and his cheeks were covered by a fraying, frizzy beard.

  Miles nudged the man and began to laugh, “You scaring my woman, Pony?”

  “More like reassuring your woman, young man.”

  “Well tell me you at least properly introduced yourself.”

  “You know I ain’t good at introductions.”

  “Well let me assist you with that,” Miles chuckled, motioning to Alexandra, “Honey, this is Pony. He’s the oldest member of the club. Before we were born he was a member with his daddy, and his daddy before him. When shit hit the fan numerous times over the years, Pony always stuck with the club. He never backed out. He wasn’t a quitter, like myself and many others.”

  “But now you’re back, son,” Pony said.

  “Now I’m back, it seems.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Alexandra said. They shook hands and Miles pulled her away.

  They walked around the large club house and Miles introduced her properly to others. Alexandra heard conversations of crime and murders, but none of the men talked about them like they enjoyed it.