Skin Game

by Ann Aguirre

  “Safe house, my ass,” she muttered. “Who does it belong to?”

  “I find it best not to dig too deep in certain matters,” he said from the doorway.

  “Nobody will find us here. There’s no landline, no water lines, and enough gas in the generator to last us a week if we go easy on it and make use of candles. How are you feeling?”

  “Better.” She pushed out of bed and found herself weak, dangerously depleted. “At least I missed the migraine when I passed out.”

  “Always looking on the bright side. How’s your leg?”

  “Hurts. But I’ll be fine. Is there anything to eat?” She took a step and her knee nearly buckled on her.

  Rey moved so fast she almost missed it. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, another beneath her knees, and lifted. Kyra had rarely been carried, but she found she rather liked it. “I’ll get you settled in the living room. You need food.”

  “Do I ever,” she agreed. “I could eat a raw ox.”

  “We’re fresh out of ox, but I think I can fill you up.”

  Her mouth curved into a smile. “You know you can.”

  He caught the double entendre as he headed to the kitchen, after settling her in a worn, brown armchair. “Woman, please.”

  “I aim to.” Was she actually flirting with him? Kyra enjoyed the mock-pained expression he wore as he rattled the pans.

  “You do,” he said quietly.

  Inexplicable warmth surged through her. Despite the ridiculous number of obstacles they faced, she felt almost giddy. She’d never gone through teenage crushes, but surely she had the mother of them all now. Just looking at him made her chest feel tight, like the bluebird of happiness could peck its way through her sternum any minute, just because he smiled at her.

  Jesus, you’ve got it bad.

  While he cooked, she admired the blue-black sheen on his hair, spilling down to his shoulders. With his hard face, he looked savage, completely at odds with his domestic task. Kyra drank him in. It wasn’t just the way he looked or the way he touched her. No, his magic went deeper still. Until she met him, she hadn’t realized how much she missed having someone always on her side, no questions asked.

  Ten minutes later, he brought her a plate. She glanced down at it in surprise because he’d arrayed a choice of grilled cheese, M&Ms, and potato chips—to be washed down with an ultra-sweet Coke. Better than anything else, the menu assured Kyra that he really understood. He’d made more healthful choices for himself, fruit instead of chips and candy.

  “Good?” he asked, after she took a bite.

  At some level, she understood he wasn’t asking about the food. “It’s perfect.”

  They ate in companionable silence. Kyra found herself uncharacteristically shy, unable to meet his gaze. Now it mattered too much what he thought of her. Instead she studied the living room, done in brown plaid. There were no pictures on the wall, nor any discolored paint to show there ever had been.

  “Nobody lives here,” she said then. “It’s just a place people hide.”

  Rey didn’t dispute it, merely continued with his meal. Since he didn’t want to talk, she did the same, devouring every last M&M on her plate. As soon as she finished, she felt better almost at once. Kyra stretched and bent down to check her bandage.

  “It should be clean,” he told her. “I took care of it while you were sleeping.”

  He was right. Kyra didn’t bother swapping the gauze, as it only had a little discoloration and the wound was draining nicely as it sealed up. “No red streaks, no swelling. Good work. I might think you treated gunshot wounds every day, doc.”

  “I’ve dealt with my share. We were lucky he hit you in an extremity. I wouldn’t have risked a torso shot.”

  “And I’d be incarcerated right now,” she said glumly.

  Her dad had told her more than once what would happen if the authorities got their hands on her. First it would be tests, and then more tests. Then she’d disappear into some government-run facility, never having any say on where she went or what she did. Her gaze hardened. They’ll have to kill me first.

  To her surprise, he shook his head. “No. I’d have found a way to get you out of custody after you received proper treatment.”

  That sounded oddly like a promise, a commitment. Kyra didn’t know whether she was thrilled or terrified. “By jumping bail?” she guessed.

  “It wouldn’t have gotten to that point.” Rey wouldn’t elaborate on what he might’ve done, however.

  “How long do you plan on staying?”

  He smiled. “You’ll see.”

  As it turned out, they lay low for three days. She’d never known anything like it. In fact, in most senses, Kyra would have to call their stay at the hideout a vacation. Rey insisted that they needed to give the cops time to get bored with the investigation and call off the dogs. He seemed sure that if leads didn’t turn up within twenty-four hours, the police moved on, even if the case was still technically open. Since she’d done her best to minimize contact with authority figures, she couldn’t argue with him.

  More to the point, she didn’t want to. He wouldn’t even tell her what state they were in, insisting it was better she didn’t know. Gradually, she had started to suspect his secrets might outstrip hers, given what she already knew of him. But for now, she refused to let the outside world intrude. Once she recovered somewhat and rebuilt her reserves, then she’d worry about finding Mia.

  Mia, who specialized in retrieving funds from people who shouldn’t have them. Mia, who investigated wrongdoing for a living. The irony of what she intended didn’t escape Kyra, but if anyone could reverse engineer the process, it was her best friend. If she convinced her it was a matter of life or death, explained the situation fully, she was sure Mia would help. She wouldn’t like it, and she would be risking a great deal—her entire reputation, in fact—but Kyra had no doubt Mia would come through.

  They listened to music on an old radio until the batteries gave out. They napped, talked, and made love with a gentleness that often left her weeping. He was so careful of her leg that she almost felt breakable in his arms, not because of his vast strength, but because of her great vulnerability to him.

  Each time he touched her now, she rocked with a quiet little earthquake of the soul. Because he could. Out of the billions of people on the planet, all of who were prospective marks to her, targets from whom she could steal, he could wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her hair. She would have felt impossibly exposed, if she hadn’t sensed that he soaked in the contact as much as she.

  On the fourth night, they lay curled together in the relatively narrow double bed, sweat still damp from lovemaking. His fingers stirred, stroking her back. Kyra put her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. That was something she’d never have done before Rey; she enjoyed the release good sex provided, but she never wanted any emotional entanglements afterward. And she’d always paid for her encounters with a splitting migraine because she took her lovers after the workday was done, after she’d already stolen what she needed to work.

  Taking more via sexual contact often left her incapacitated the next day, moaning with an icepack on her head, but sometimes she needed to feel someone’s hands on her enough to take the risk. Against all odds, she’d found someone she could be with . . . be normal with. In his arms, she was just a woman. It felt . . . phenomenal. And that meant despite a lifetime of self-defense, she had to let him in. He needed to know the whole truth of what he’d gotten into with her, if he was going to stay. Kyra’s heart thundered in her ears.

  “I need to tell you something,” she said.

  Then the front door creaked open.

  Reyes shoved her away and rolled out of bed naked. Balancing on the balls of his feet, he crept toward the door, placing himself between Kyra and the man who’d taken up the contract in his stead. Nobody should’ve found them, period, let alone this fast. Something was wrong.

  If they hadn’t been awake, he might
not have heard the lock pop and the faint groan of the hinges. In the other guy’s shoes, he’d have used WD-40 on a structure this old, if he’d intended to make a quiet entry. That gave him hope. However good his opponent might be, Reyes was better.

  He stilled. No time to search for a weapon. That would only make noise. If he listened, he could discern a good deal about his enemy before they engaged. Behind him, Kyra held herself quiet, not even seeming to breathe. No gasps or cries of panic, even though she had to be scared. Good girl. He willed her to stay that way and not offer herself up as a target.

  Visualizing the layout of the house, he pictured the intruder’s path. Just inside the front door sat the living room with couch and chair. Past that, the kitchen lay straight ahead. The invader would be able to tell they were in the bedrooms, which lay to the left. The first door on the right was the bathroom, and on the left, a smaller bedroom with two twin beds. They’d claimed the master bedroom at the end.

  The tread told him a number of things about the guy he’d be facing. First, he was big, maybe as big as Reyes, and he’d been trained to move quietly. He was undoubtedly armed, but he thought he was going to catch them in bed. The guy was halfway down the hall now. Over his shoulder, he signaled Kyra to the other side of the bed. Reyes melted to the left of the door, back flush against the wall.

  She slid out of sight as the guy ghosted into the room. Reyes lashed out, going for an open-hand hit to the throat, but his prey spun right. In the faint light, he could only tell that the man was nearly his height with buzz-cut dark hair, gun in his right hand.

  Reyes spun, snapping a kick to his wrist and the pistol went flying. A curved knife slid into his left hand, and a bone-white smile flashed onto his face. Fuck. He’s ambidextrous. That’ll make things tougher.

  They swayed with battle readiness, waiting for the other to make a move. This guy had some patience; he was scop ing out Reyes’s stance, hoping to learn something about the way he fought. But he wasn’t giving anything away himself.

  In a lightning-fast move, the killer slashed. He jumped back too late. Reyes felt the hot trickle down his chest, but he didn’t look to see how bad it was. In retaliation he lashed out with a right uppercut, followed by a brutal left hook. The other man grunted, taking the hits like nobody Reyes had ever fought before, and he responded with an attempted stab to his kidney. If that strike had connected, it would’ve been a kill shot.

  Reyes launched himself then. He had to take the knife away. They slammed into the wall. Leaning in, he used his weight to dominate, ignoring the shallow wounds all over his body. He slammed a knife hand into his enemy’s throat, and his other hand took control of the man’s left. He applied force to both locations, digging into the soft tissue. The asshole wheezed, but he didn’t let go of the blade. Instead he slashed blindly at Reyes’s forearms, and he felt each cut. His arms grew slippery with blood, making it hard to hold on.

  The other guy got an arm between them, smashed an elbow into his chin, and he saw sparks. Reyes let himself yield, as if overbalanced by the hit, and then he flipped as they fell, bouncing against the bed onto the floor. In the drop, the knife clattered away.

  There wasn’t much room to maneuver between the bed and chest of drawers. For long, tense moments, they grap pled, each trying to land a chokehold. This son of a bitch was strong, and he knew what he was doing. For the first time, he genuinely feared failure, not because it would mean the end of him, but because it meant the end of her.

  Fear gave him strength. He wasn’t just fighting for pay. He was fighting for home and family—well, the closest thing he’d ever known to it, anyway. Reyes slammed the bastard’s head sideways against the metal legs on the bed frame. In the same motion, he jerked a drawer from the dresser and smashed it downward. Wood splintered everywhere, breaking the guy’s face wide open. Blood spattered, but he still wasn’t done.

  He twisted, weakly, then the hit man’s leg lashed out and caught Reyes square in the crotch. Pain and nausea surged through his entire body. Every instinct told him to roll onto his side and guard his balls from further harm, but he couldn’t. Reining the urge to puke, he took a right cross to the stab wound. Knuckles ground down, making him feel every searing flash of agony.

  Blood loss was making him slow and sloppy. Somehow Reyes found himself on his back, an elbow on his throat. He held the other man away from him with pure brute force. He had to escape this pin.

  “Why won’t you die?” the other man muttered in an unforgettable tenor, tinged with a Southern drawl.

  “Van Zant?” he asked, disbelieving.

  VZ was one of the good ones, relatively speaking. The weight on his chest lifted a fraction; he used the distraction without shame or hesitation. In a smooth motion, he bucked and brought his knee up, slamming the other man’s head down onto it. The next second he was kneeling on top of his chest, both hands around the other man’s throat.

  “Get off me, Reyes.” The Alabama Ace tried to sound defiant.

  Fuck, that wasn’t good. He heard a soft inhalation from the other side of the bed. Kyra had noticed that recognition. There would be questions. Right now, though, he had something else to worry about.

  “If you give me your word,” Reyes said softly, “I’ll let you walk out of here. But you have to swear you’ll leave us be.”

  “Can’t,” he choked out. “I took the job, right? You know my work ethic.”

  Unfortunately, he did. If he let VZ go, he’d keep coming until one of them was dead. First, he needed to know something, however. Reyes tightened his hands around the other man’s throat. By now he would be seeing stars, oxygen growing short. Still he struggled. “How’d you find us, V?”

  “Monroe gave you up,” Van Zant gasped, clearly enjoying the taunt. In their circles, everybody knew Monroe was the closest thing Reyes had to a friend. “Twenty large, and he sang.”

  That son of a bitch. Reyes closed his eyes, putting the blazing betrayal aside for the moment. He couldn’t deal with it right now. With regret, he bore down, feeling the other man’s neck give. His breathing choked out into a death rattle, and then ceased completely, leaving him dead meat on the floor.

  Reyes found a lamp and flicked it on to survey the damage. In the physical sense, he had eight slashes that needed tending. In the emotional sense, Kyra was huddled in the corner, regarding him out of shattered eyes. From her look, he might have just raped and butchered her grandmother.

  “He knew your name,” she whispered. “Why did he know you?”

  He felt wounded, weary, and sick, in no mood to go into this with her. Reyes hoped his expression didn’t give away the sick fear eating at his insides. She shouldn’t have found out like this. In self-defense, he brought the walls up, though she’d breached them weeks ago.

  Even to himself, he sounded cold and remote. “We don’t have time to talk right now. We need to clean this place up, bury the body, and get out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you until you answer me.” Naked and wounded, she matched him for pure ice. Her shock and pain fused into a diamond-hard rage, making her dangerous.

  There was something fierce and feral in her tumbled hair and gold-sparked eyes. The gun he’d knocked from Van Zant’s grasp—a Beretta as it turned out—came up in Kyra’s hands. Apparently she hadn’t relied on him to win the fight, and she’d quietly located it during the scuffle. She could’ve shot them both at any time.

  It was a little unnerving to realize that while he was fighting for her life, she was making contingency plans. He had no doubt she would have put a bullet between VZ’s eyes if Reyes had lost, and she looked equally capable of doing it to him. No two ways about it—this sure as hell wasn’t the situation in which he’d envisioned making a full confession to her. He hoped he survived it.

  “I’m not kidding. Talk.” Kyra cocked the gun to show she meant business.

  CHAPTER 23

  “Can I put something on first?” He stood before her naked and blood-smea
red.

  Kyra held the gun steady, refusing to reveal her nausea and heartache. “One article of clothing, and make it quick. I’m not feeling very patient.”

  In answer Rey found his jeans and slid them on, going commando. She wished he’d have a mishap with the zipper. No such luck. He sank down on the corner of the bed, keeping his hands where she could see them. He had a number of cuts that needed tending, but if she didn’t like his answers, Kyra didn’t care if he bled out.

  “Serrano hired me,” he said baldly, confirming her worst fears. “One of his guys contracted me to find you.”

  Anger blazed through her like a star going nova. Goddammit, she should have known better when he turned up for the second time, but he’d talked such a good game about fate bringing them together. At the time, it hadn’t made sense that anybody tracking her would be able to get ahead of her, anticipate her movements. She’d thought it had to be coincidence.

  By some miracle, she kept her voice level. Excess emotion would reveal how much he’d gotten to her, how much this hurt. “How’d you find me, asshole?”

  “People remember your car. I stayed close on your trail until you hit Louisiana. You spent a few days in town, so I finally caught up with you. First thing, I put a GPS tracker on the bottom of your vehicle and then followed via updates to my phone. You got into town so late that I had a chance to scope out the bars. I picked the one I thought looked most likely and got lucky.”

  “How come you didn’t just kill me outside the bar in Eunice? You had a knife.”

  “Serrano wanted the money back,” he answered, toneless. “I wasn’t supposed to proceed until I found out where you stashed it.”

  “But you decided to fuck around with me for a while first. I bet you play with your food before you eat it, too.”