by Nicole Fox
“Where did he go?” he shouts, silencing her cries.
Amber, nearly in tears, says, “H-he went into the b-bathroom.”
I can’t fault her for telling, but I wish she hadn’t. Stepping into the view of the bar, I point my gun and squint one eye, firing twice. The man holding Amber stumbles backwards, two circles oozing blood from his chest. Amber screams and collapses, rolling into a ball.
“Fuck!” the man shouts, clutching his chest. When he raises his gun to shoot, I fire again, this time hitting him in the heart. His arm falls limp at his side and his head droops. A moment later, he’s dead.
The other man in the room turns to his partner, shouting his name. “Rick!” When he sees that he’s dead, he grabs the old lady from the ground and pulls her to her feet, holding her close. A human shield. The fucking coward.
The first shot he fires my way is off, but the second is closer. Too close for comfort. I dive behind the bar and press my back to it, catching my breath. The room is filled with screams and shouts, but I block it out, listening for the other masked man. I glance to my left and see a shiny napkin dispenser. In the reflection, the man is approaching, gun drawn.
Moving quickly, I throw myself to the other end of the bar and pop my head out, gun drawn. He leans over the counter where I was, ready to shoot, and that gives the woman in his arms enough time to squirm away. She runs to her husband, and I point my gun at the assailant, firing once. He collapses in a slump, the hole in his head leaking onto the counter.
The customers have all cowered into the corners, holding each other, watching. Amber looks at me with terror on her face. That confidence from before is gone. Distracted, I almost miss a third man running from the kitchen down the hall. Towards the bathroom.
Lucy is still in there.
He’s a few steps ahead of me and I’m terrified that I won’t be able to close the gap. I spring forward after him, rounding the corner just as the man crosses through the open door and comes face-to-face with Lucy. I hear her scream, and my world narrows to just that noise.
If he touches her, I’m going to make him suffer.
But I don’t get that chance. She screams again, he lunges forward, and a moment later, there’s another loud pop. The man stops in his tracks, knees buckling. He holds onto the wall as he slides down to his knees. Lucy’s face is peppered with speckles of blood, and she drops the gun, stunned. She did it. She fucking shot him. I’m stunned and impressed and relieved and on high alert, all at once. A million thoughts race through my head at the same time like a swarm of bees.
“Lucy,” I say, but it’s like she can’t hear me. She stares back at the man, watching as he clutches his bleeding chest. He gasps infrequently, mouth opening and closing aimlessly. She doesn’t look at me when I call her name again.
She’s in shock. I don’t have time to comfort her right now, not with this man bleeding out at my feet. Instead of dealing with her, I grab the man Lucy shot and tear his mask off. He doesn’t look familiar. I have no idea who he is, but he clearly knew me. Time to find out why.
Without hesitation, I press my gun against the oozing hole in his chest. He cries out in pain and struggles to pull away. “You’re going to die here on this floor,” I tell him, leaning in close. “Either you make this easy on yourself and tell me what you know, or I let you bleed out and suffer longer.”
He squints and looks up at me, disdain on his face. “Fuck you,” he spits. His blood lands on my shirt.
Taking a slow, controlled breath, I push the barrel of my gun against him harder, causing him to whimper again in agony. “I’m not going to offer you mercy again. Who sent you?”
He doesn’t reply immediately. I twist the gun deeper. He groans and finally says, “I don’t know his name. Some rich motherfucker that wanted you gone. Didn’t say why. Just that you’d be with a blonde girl. He paid us twice what anyone else would have. Said that if we couldn’t get you, someone else would. For a price that high, anyone would be willing to take a shot at you.”
I look to the side, cursing. This is just what I need right now. More distraction. More problems on my plate. Whoever this person is, he knows about Lucy, too. I wonder if Konstantin got the drop on Mr. X’s hit and sent out his guys to stop me before I could execute the job. If that’s the case, we need to get the hell out of here, immediately. More men could be coming to finish what these bastards started. I stand up and put my gun in the holster, grabbing the one Lucy dropped, too.
“Let’s go,” I say to her.
She looks through me, somewhere far away. I can see the panic has her in its claws. When I try to move her, she doesn’t even react. Frustrated, I lift her off the ground and throw her over my shoulder. She doesn’t resist in the slightest. I turn to exit the bathroom. The man’s voice stops me. It’s a low, sick laugh.
“What happened to mercy?” he rasps.
I pivot back around slowly to face him. It’s obvious that he won’t last much longer. Not even paramedics could stop the bleeding from his chest and stomach. But his eyes are hopeful. He wants me to put him out of his misery. I could do that. But I won’t.
“I don’t show mercy to anyone who lays a hand on me or my woman.” I draw my gun and fire once into his foot. His screams echo against the tile as I leave.
We make our way out to the car. I settle Lucy into the passenger seat. In the distance, police sirens go off. They’ll be here any minute.
“Buckle up,” I order her. To my surprise, she listens. When we’re both ready, I pull out and whip the car around, peeling off in the opposite direction. We have to get out of town. If there are people coming after me and Lucy, I need to get off the grid for a little while. Disappear. And I know the perfect place. Somewhere Lucy will be safe.
But for how long?
Chapter Nine
Roman
“Lucy.”
She doesn’t look at me. All she does is stare straight ahead, shuddering occasionally. Her lack of response is unsettling.
“Lucy, look at me, goddamn it.” The sharpness in my voice makes her head snap towards me, and I see that little girl inside of her. The one I met in the alley yesterday afternoon. She’s scared, in shock, and trying to process what she did. I can’t imagine how hard this is for her. But we don’t have time for this right now.
“You need to pull yourself together,” I tell her. “I can’t have you freaking out right now.”
It seems to go in one ear and out the other. For a moment, she says nothing. She only stares at me blankly. Then her face slowly contorts into a pained expression. Her eyes water and she folds in on herself. She wraps her arms around herself, rocking back and forth.
“I killed him,” she whispers, over and over again. “I killed him. I killed him.”
I reach a hand out, trying to comfort her, but it doesn’t seem to help. I don’t have time to pull over, so I squeeze her shoulder. It’s supposed to be reassuring, but all Lucy does is repeat the same sentence over and over again.
“He was going to kill you, Lucy. You did what you had to do.”
Suddenly, she pops up, eyes wild. “I’m not you, Roman,” she exclaims, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t just kill people and pretend like it’s nothing! That man was a person! He had a family and friends, and I killed him!”
Before I can get in another word, she doubles over and begins sobbing again.
I knew she wasn’t ready for this. I thought, stupidly, that she could handle this life. That look in her eyes when she told me about Abram Konstantin made it seem like she could handle anything. She was unassuming, and that was what made her passion better. Nobody would expect that rage from such a little woman.
But now that she’s like this, I can tell she was never ready. She had the drive, but not the iron stomach. Not the steel nerve it takes to actually take someone’s life. She hasn’t built up a resistance to it yet. She’s not disconnected like me.
I should’ve stopped him.
Had I been a fe
w seconds faster, I would’ve been the one to shoot him and Lucy would only be dealing with the fact that another man died before her eyes. I could’ve spared her from this. I could’ve stopped this panic attack from hitting her so hard. And if she’d gotten hurt? If she hadn’t been able to pull the trigger; if that man had gotten his hands on her? I don’t know what I would’ve done, but it wouldn’t have been pretty.
“The blood,” she whispers, shaking her head. “The blood. He bled out. It’s my fault. It’s my fault he’s dead.” Her ramblings devolve into simple phrases. She says them over and over, like a broken record. I’ve never seen someone lose it this badly. I know I shouldn’t care—she’s my prisoner, after all—but it’s like a knife in my gut seeing her get this bad.
“Lucy, look at me.” My voice, surprising even me, softens. “Please.”
She sits up and wipes her nose. “What?” Her voice is barely above a whisper.
“That motherfucker isn’t worth all this. He isn’t. He was some low-level thug. Some rich asshole’s little bitch. Someone that was going to hurt more people if you hadn’t stopped him.”
She looks at me with confusion. “How are you any different, Roman?”
Her response stuns me.
I know she’s going through this trauma, but that question is a slap in my face. It takes me a minute to find my voice. “Because I don’t murder just anybody. I would never come after you, or any woman. I would never involve so many people. I’d never use an old lady as a fucking human shield!”
My knuckles tighten around the wheel at the memory. That bastard could’ve gotten that elderly woman killed, if I’d had no morals about shooting hostages. If I were someone else, she might be dead right along with him right now. An innocent old lady, bleeding out in a diner, alone and scared.
“He did that?” she asks.
“He pulled her off the ground and used her to take the bullets for him. He was just like the one that attacked you. A spineless fuck that had no issues killing anyone he had to. I’m nothing like that.” I say the last sentence through gritted teeth, my jaw clenched hard enough to make it hurt.
Her eyebrows soften and she nods. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s fine. I just need you to calm down. Don’t lose your mind over some piece of shit. You stopped him before he could hurt other people. It doesn’t feel like it, but you did a good thing.”
She scoffs and wipes her face. “A good thing. There’s nothing good about murder.”
She’s headstrong, and I know she probably won’t question herself or her own beliefs without being prompted. So, I say, “You sure? Even if it’s to stop someone from doing something horrible to others?”
Her eyes cut towards me and she’s glaring. I know my question got to her and she doesn’t want to answer it. Instead, she presses her lips together and shudders. I can see another wave of panic coming, so I quickly say, “I thought the same thing as you. I thought all killing was bad. Black and white, no room for gray.”
She sucks in a deep breath and looks at me. “What changed?”
“I ...” There aren’t many times when I find myself at a loss for words, but right now is one of them. I swallow hard. “My family was killed.”
Her eyes go wide. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Roman.”
“They were killed in brutal ways, too. Terrorized before they died. And when I found out that it wasn’t a random break-in, that my uncles did it, I ... I lost my mind. I didn’t know what to do. I had so many emotions. I was angry. More than anything, that’s what I felt. Anger. When the shock wore off, I knew that there were exceptions to be made for every rule. Killing included.”
She looks at me like I’ve told her the most horrifying story in the world. “You mean, you ...”
“I killed them, yes.” I’ve never admitted this to anyone, but it feels right. I want her to see the kind of person that revenge creates. If she knows what I went through and who I became because of it, maybe then she can decide if she really wants to help me with this. It’s not an easy road, and I came out worse for it, but that’s life. This is what I chose. It’s up to Lucy if she’ll choose this as well.
“That’s horrible, Roman. I’m—I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. You just need to know that revenge isn’t always easy. You lose a part of yourself when you dedicate so much of your time to one terrible thing. To one terrible purpose. Watching your enemy. Learning them. And after you kill them, you’re still left with that grief. It doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. The only thing that changes is that the sorry sack of shit that you took care of isn’t in the picture anymore.”
She nods and hugs herself again, a lock of blonde hair slipping from behind her ear and framing her face. Like this, she looks so much younger. So much more innocent. It’s not fair, all of the shit that’s happened to her. She shouldn’t have to be making these kinds of decisions. But that’s life.
It takes the most innocent people and fucks them up.
That’s how the world goes.
The rest of the ride is quiet. Lucy’s panic attacks become less frequent until she’s left leaning against the window and watching the streets pass by. The house I’m headed to is a bit out of the way, but it’s safe there. Nobody knows that I own it. Unassuming, low-key, and distant. It’s the safest place I can think of.
We pull into the neighborhood twenty minutes later. I decide to park in the garage; that way, no one gets a good look at us. I have blood on my shirt. I don’t need any of the neighbors asking what’s going on. I’ve had enough trouble for one day.
Inside, I pull off my shirt and change into a fresh one, tossing the bloodied one in the garbage. Lucy sits in the living room, her eyes on the blank television. “You okay?” I ask.
“No,” she says simply. “But I’m doing better. I guess.”
“It’s hard,” I say, sitting next to her. “But that shock will go away.”
She looks at me with glassy eyes. “I’m afraid that when it does, I’ll lose my humanity.”
Almost reluctantly, I pull her into my arms. She fits perfectly against me. “You’re not going to lose your humanity, Lucy. You’re not emotionless. That’s what makes you a good person. What would worry me more is if you felt nothing. If you shot that man and kept going like it was nothing.”
“Like you did?” She looks up at me with those wide eyes and I can’t deny her. She’s right.
“Yeah,” I mutter, looking away. “Like me.”
“Sorry,” she says. “That was bitchy of me.”
“No, it was right. You were right. You do this enough and it takes a piece of you and you never, ever get it back.”
“I just need a break,” she says, sighing deeply. “These past few days have been so much. First in the alley, then in the motel, and now the diner. It’s all so much. I just wish I could have a second to catch my breath before the next gunshot goes off.”
I smile slightly and brush a hand through her hair. “As long as we’re here, you’ll be safe. You can relax.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought last time, too.”
“I mean that,” I insist. “This is where I come when I really want to be alone. When I need to escape the rough situations out there. When I’m sick of fucking talking to Mr. X. I disappear here for a few days and get my head back on right.”
Lucy nods and relaxes against me. “I guess everyone needs a place to unwind. This is a pretty good one to pick.” She yawns, deep and loud, and closes her eyes. Eventually, neither of us speak. I listen to the sounds of her breath growing deeper and deeper. Finally, she’s asleep. I debate whether or not I should move her up to the bed. It’ll be much more comfortable, but she seems happy here.
Eventually, I lift her up from the couch, scooping her into my arms. She stirs, but stays asleep. When I make it upstairs, I put her on the king-sized bed and watch as she sinks into the mattress, comfortable. Mu
ch more comfortable than she was against me.
Something about the way she sleeps is beautiful. The worry lines in her face soften out and she looks like she’s never had a bad thought in her head. She’s smaller, daintier, and it makes me want to be gentle just being around her.
An unusual feeling stirs in the pit of my stomach, followed by dread. I know what that emotion is. It’s been years since I’ve let it in. Years since I’ve let anything close to it pop up. The last thing I need is feelings for Lucy to cloud my judgment, but I can’t ignore them and pretend that they’re not there.
Lucy is fucking incredible.
She’s not afraid to defend herself. She’s stood up to me more than any other woman would ever dare. And the way she felt in the bathroom of the diner, her body vibrating as she came, was something I don’t think I’ll ever get out of my mind. She’s more than the nosy woman in the alley when I first met her. She’s something else entirely, something that I want to claim as my own.
But I can’t.
Fuck, I can’t.
I can’t entertain those kinds of thoughts. Having feelings is what leads to disappointment and heartache. And more than that, it leads to distraction. Letting her help me is already a big enough distraction on its own. I don’t need to be confusing my lustful emotions with something deeper.
It was just the sex. That’s it. That’s the reason I’m doubting myself and questioning my feelings. The sex was enough to confuse me, but in a few hours, I’ll have a level head again.
Instead of worrying about what I’m feeling for Lucy, I need to come up with an exit strategy. She knows and I know that after this assignment with Konstantin, that’s it. There’s nothing that can happen for us. My line of work is too dangerous, and she has to get back to her life at the diner she works at. She has a grandmother to take care of. I can’t babysit her or work her into all my assignments.
