by S. Massery
I shake my head. “I’m not quite ready to play the victim,” I say. “I’m okay for someone who’s had a hell of a few days.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, reaching up and twisting my blonde hair between his fingers. “It’s barely been thirty-six hours. You’ve survived a lot.”
My grip tightens on his hand when he starts to get up. “Griffin?”
“Yes?”
The man’s words float back to me. The Angel of Death, love. You remember that when you’re closing your eyes next to him at night. I don’t know what he meant, but I know, in my soul, that he was referring to Griffin.
Asking him is on the tip of my tongue. And yet—there’s something in his dark eyes that makes me want to live in blissful ignorance a little bit longer.
“I trust you,” I say. I shouldn’t, because of our history. I shouldn’t, because he’s let me get hurt more than once—but with him standing in front of me, having survived the night with a dozen men hunting him, it’s easy to believe that he’ll win in the end.
His smile lights up the room. My heart skips—and that’s how I know I’m in trouble.
10
GRIFFIN
I jog up the stairs, heading straight for Wyatt’s office. It’s empty. Exhaling, I make my way up another level, into the attic.
It looks like a bomb went off up here. There are bullet holes in the ceiling, across the walls. Two of the four windows are blown out, letting in a breeze that’s surprisingly cool for mid-April. Dalton and Zach are lifting the cracked glass out of the window, tossing it in a trash can. With the ungodly racket they’re making, I’m surprised I couldn’t immediately tell that they were in the attic.
“You really did a number on this place,” Dalton grumbles. He’s particularly sour because he likes to clean his weapons up here, even if the attic is where the spiders lurk and the dust is an inch thick. There’s a table in the corner scattered with various cleaning supplies, and I’m halfway impressed that some of them appear new.
“Good job with the window,” I say, sticking my finger into one of the bullet holes. “We could probably pry some of these out and hope they aren’t shattered. Run ballistics.”
Dalton shrugs. “We know the asshole who’s behind it, so we may as well just run with that.”
Zach scoffs. “Santos has been dead for three years.”
He ran us ragged across Eastern Europe and the Middle East for years. He was literally a ghost—which is what Il Fantasma translates to—as he sold weapons to anyone who could pay the price. He smuggled anything and everything into and out of countries that were on lock down.
Scorpion wanted him brought to the United Nations for trial… but we could never get close enough to ID him, let alone catch him. He only came close to Zach once, and Dalton watched him walk into a building right before it exploded.
“There has to be something else,” I murmur. “Something we’re missing.”
“Mason will help,” Zach says. “As soon as it’s an acceptable time, we’ll call him.”
I snort. Acceptable time—Mason wakes up at five o’clock in the morning and runs six miles before breakfast. There’s a considerable time difference between Amsterdam and Las Vegas, but I’m willing to risk his wrath.
Zach and Dalton come closer as I pull out my phone and call him on speaker.
“Wondering when I’d hear from you,” Mason says.
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m here with Zach and Dalton. We’re in Amsterdam.”
He sighs through the phone. “You act like I don’t keep track of every single one of you.”
Zach chuckles. “Stalker.”
“I heard that.”
Dalton laughs. “Griffin almost got his ass fried,” he tells Mason. “Someone has a serious grudge against him.”
“Sure, laugh about it now…”
“It’s okay, Griff,” Mason says. “Last time it was Jackson, now it’s you. Sooner or later, one of those goons will fuck up and need our help.”
I grin at Dalton’s face. “If only you could see their expressions,” I say. “Dalton looks horrified by the idea of meeting a girl worth dying for.”
Zach tilts his head. “Is that what she is?”
“Of course.” I shift on my feet. “Why do you say that?”
“Haven’t you only known her for two days?” Mason asks.
My face heats up. “No,” I mutter. I have a sudden urge to hang up on him. “I’ve known her for a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“I—” I groan. “Jesus, a long fucking time, okay?
Mason sighs. “You called for love advice from the master of love. I get it.”
I snort. “Shut up, would you? We captured one of those assholes. Guess who he named as their boss?”
Mason is silent. Then, in a dry voice, he says, “There are so many people you piss off on a regular basis, Griff, it’s really hard to even narrow it down.”
“Think: dead,” Zach says.
“Fucking hell, Santos?”
Dalton chuckles. “That was easy.”
“Il Fantasma haunted us for far too long. Dalton, you said you saw him die.”
Dalton shifts on his feet.
When he doesn’t respond, Mason continues, “We should double check on that whole dead thing. Give me a few hours, I’ll see what I can dig into.”
He hangs up, and I look from Zach to Dalton. “We should leave,” I say. “I have a bad feeling about staying here any longer.”
Dalton nods and pulls out a cigarette. He crosses to the last broken window and lights the cigarette, exhaling smoke. “Well, since the generator is shot, we don’t have cameras, and this is a known location, I’d say you’re right.”
“Okay. Let’s go, then.”
Dalton and Zach exchange another look, and Zach scratches the back of his neck. “Listen, man, I have some obligations back in the states.”
Ah, hell. “Don’t worry about it. I’m grateful you guys were able to come in the first place. Are you hitching a ride home with him, D?”
Dalton shrugs. “I either get strong-armed onto the plane with him, or I work up the nerve sitting in the airport for a week.”
“It’s gotten that bad?” I frown.
He shrugs again, exhaling smoke and stubbing out his butt on the window sill.
Zach leads the way down the stairs, all the way to the first floor. Part of me expects Hadley to be held hostage by a man with a knife, and my heart starts beating faster—until I lay my eyes on her.
She’s at the kitchen. Cooking.
My heart keeps galloping in my chest, but for an entirely different reason. Her blonde hair is wet and braided, and her clothes are clean. Short linen shorts show way too much skin for Zach and Dalton to be here, but I can’t tear my eyes away to see if they’re checking her out, too.
I walk into a chair.
The thing screeches across the floor, and I think I give Hadley a small heart attack. She jumps and spins in the air, her hand going to her heart.
“Jesus, Griff,” she says, exhaling. Her eyes swing to Dalton and Zach, then back to me. “I keep picturing something bad happening. That didn’t help.”
I nod. “I know, we were feeling the same way. We’re packing up and heading out.”
She lifts her chin. “I made quesadillas,” she says. “I was starving.”
“Again?”
“Well, I threw up what I ate at the diner, so…” She turns back around, to the stove, and my lungs stop working.
“Hadley,” I say. Stay calm, I tell myself. “These symptoms…”
She turns and looks at me. “That’s why I need to go to Paris,” she says. She abandons the pan and walks toward me, putting her hands on my chest. “Help me.”
I find myself nodding. Who am I to refuse?
“We’re going to Paris,” I promise.
She drops her hands and backs away, shooting me a smile. “Thank you.”
“We’re going to get you to
the apartment and then show ourselves out,” Zach says to her. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”
She extends her hand, like she’s going to shake his, but he grabs her and wraps her in a bear hug. She squeaks in surprise, then wraps her arms around him and pats his back.
When Zach releases her, Dalton comes forward and hugs her, too.
“You guys weren’t this nice to Delia,” I say under my breath.
Hadley shoots me a look. “Delia? An ex-girlfriend?”
Zach laughs. “Not by a long shot. Jackson’s wife.” He shrugs. “We kind of gave her a tough time. But if you had met her when we met her, you would’ve given her a hard time, too.”
Her eyes widen.
“Mafia princess,” Dalton mutters.
She rounds back to me. “You know a mafia princess?”
I laugh. “She gave up that title when she married Jackson. I’ll tell you the story sometime. They’re honeymooning, hopping islands as we speak.”
Zach rolls his eyes. “And they suckered me into staying in my penthouse in New York City in a few weeks,” he adds.
Dalton hits him in the arm. “You’re never there, jackass. Have you ever even seen the place?”
Zach’s ears turn red. “I’ve seen pictures,” he mumbles. “It’s just a safe place, you know?”
“Yeah,” Hadley says. “This was supposed to be a safe place, too.”
“They followed you guys here,” Dalton points out. “That’s on Griff.”
I cross my arms. “You’re blaming me for all of this?”
“You could’ve lost them in the city,” Dalton says. “Just admit that you compromised this place.”
“I needed to get Hadley somewhere safe before they started shooting at her,” I argue. “You’re going to say that wasn’t the right call?”
“Alright,” Zach says, cutting off Dalton as he opens his mouth, “hindsight is twenty-twenty or whatever the kids say these days. Let’s just box up that quesadilla and hit the road.”
She follows me into the garage and climbs in the car. I start the engine and back it out, and we idle next to the Jeep waiting for Zach and Dalton to get finished closing up the house.
“You’re okay?” I ask.
She glances at me. “In what way?”
“Mentally? Physically? Emotionally? All the ways, I guess.”
We watch Zach and Dalton come out of the garage and pull the door closed. They give us a thumbs up and hop into the Jeep, and I back the car down the driveway. Once we’re on the road, she sighs.
“Emotionally? Freaked out. Physically—well, you know. Mentally… I don’t know what to think. You came back, but you didn’t really come back for me. It was just… convenient. Am I just baggage?”
I turn and look at her. Her head is ducked, and her fingers pick at her nails. I cover her hands with one of mine. “Stop it. I would’ve come back sooner—” I swallow the lie and go with a truth, instead. “It wasn’t convenient. I’ve been avoiding everyone in Bitterwood, not just you. Being away… I didn’t want to bring back the nightmares.” I didn’t want to cause the nightmares, either. I terrified myself sometimes.
I glance in the rearview mirror. The guys are hanging back, staying just close enough so they don’t lose us as we turn off of the main highway and toward downtown Amsterdam. She straightens as we get closer, crossing bridges over the canals toward the historical district. I’d managed to score a little apartment—emphasis on little—that overlooks the water.
“How did you get this place?” she asks.
I drum my fingers on the steering wheel. Everything is amplified: the cars behind and in front of us, the biking people, even the boats we pass. My nerves are shot. And yet, I can relax a bit as I remember how I happened onto this particular apartment.
“Someone owed me a favor,” I say. “They couldn’t pay, so I said this place for a year or two would do.”
Her eyes are huge. “You get paid enough that you can take an apartment instead of cash?”
I laugh. “Yeah, well, that’s the job. You’d be surprised how some of these people find my number. But they call, and I answer. It’s how I operate.” Operated. I’m not sure if Hadley has inspired new retirement or what.
“So the guy is alive?”
“He lived,” I say. I don’t particularly want to talk about my work. I point to her lap, where half of her quesadilla still sits on a paper towel. “You didn’t finish your food.”
“You’re worrying too much,” she mutters. “Where—?” She stops as I slow the car and pull into a driveway, then down a short ramp into the underground garage. “Holy moly. You live here?”
“I do,” I say, grinning.
My phone starts ringing as we climb out of the car. “Anders,” I answer.
“It’s Zach. You’re all clear, there was nothing suspicious happening around here as far as we can tell.”
“Okay. You’re headed back to the airport?”
“Yep,” he answers.
“Thanks for coming,” I say. “I owe you a beer or five.”
He chuckles. “Definitely more like ten, but who’s counting?”
“I appreciate you guys.”
“Over and out,” Zach says before the call disconnects.
“They’re leaving?” Hadley asks.
I swing our bags over my shoulder and take her hand. “Zach has to get back to Chicago, and I’m sure Dalton is eager to return home, too.”
She nods, smothering a yawn with her free hand. We go to the stairs and I pause, looking at her. “You good?”
She rolls her eyes. “Stop.”
We make it up a flight and a half before she puts her hand against the wall and bends over, gasping.
“Shortness of breath is a symptom,” I murmur, dropping the bags and rubbing her back. “Try to slow down.”
“I hate this,” she says. Her hand presses against her heart. I put my fingers on her wrist and count her feather-light pulse. She’s a hummingbird, beautiful and quick and all too fragile.
“I hate it for you,” I say. “I wish I could suck the cancer from your blood.” I raise her wrist to my mouth, my teeth grazing her skin.
She watches me with a weird half-smile on her face. “Now you’re a vampire, huh?”
“I can be, if you’re into that kind of thing.” I wink, eliciting a laugh from her lips. It’s quickly becoming my favorite sound.
We continue up the stairs, and I’m starting to regret the third-story apartment. Sure, it has a great view, and I don’t have to pay rent, but Hadley pauses again on the landing between the second and third floor and guilt burrows into my stomach.
“You can go ahead of me,” she wheezes. “I used to be in shape. Would’ve raced you up these stairs just for the hell of it.” She lowers herself onto one of the steps above me and shakes her head. “I didn’t understand what was happening. Nothing tasted good. The stuff I did eat, I either threw it up or… well, you could guess.”
“It isn’t your fault,” I say automatically.
“It is. I was scared that it might be the cancer, so I didn’t go to the hospital like I should’ve.”
I want to ask her how she was diagnosed, but she looks away. A wall goes up between us. So instead of asking the questions I need answered, I hold out my hand. “We’re almost there,” I say.
She slides her palm against mine, fingers wrapping around my wrist, and I tug her to her feet. “We better be,” she laughs. “I just need a decent night’s sleep, and I’ll be good as new.”
I don’t tell her that I’m about three seconds away from having Mason dig up her medical records. She says it isn’t bad, but she seems to be deteriorating in front of my eyes.
She walks up the staircase ahead of me and pauses at the top, next to a metal door. I get up next to her and lean over her to unlock the door. I secretly love her tiny inhale, the way she turns her face toward me.
Too soon, the door is unlocked and I’ve pushed it open, waving her inside.
Her mouth drops open.
The front door is right across from the floor to ceiling windows that overlook the canal and houses on the other side. Beyond that, trees and houses and water. The windows slide back, allowing access to a balcony. The living room is small but bright, with only a couch, television mounted on the wall, and a dining table near the windows.
She goes to the windows like they’re a magnet.
“This is worth it,” she says. She turns back to me briefly, motioning me toward her.
I drop the bags, lock the door, and go to her side.
“This view makes it worth it. Being in the hospital and getting the worst news of my life,” she shudders, and I put my hand on her shoulder. “I don’t really know how I feel about all the killing—I mean, it’s terrifying and bad, you know? So beyond that aspect, and beyond spending a night on the floor of a panic room…”
“You’re glad to be here?”
She gives me a megawatt smile. “Yes. Exactly. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I say.
“You haven’t been here,” she starts, “which means we don’t have supplies. Food. Right?”
I chuckle. “I wish I could say I thought to have someone deliver food in advance, but… Not that quick on my feet.” I don’t tell her that her presence throws me off my game. Still, I cross to the side of the room and press a button. The glass slides back, and we step onto the balcony. She breathes deeply, resting her forearms on the railing, and smiles at nothing.
The sun sets while we stand there watching it. It casts brilliant golds and reds throughout the sky. She’s so close, our arms keep brushing, and a new tension builds between us. The easy silence slips away, and I’m aware of everything: the way her breathing has become shallower, her weight shifting on her feet.
How many times have I laid next to her in bed wishing I could kiss her?
How many nights have I watched her drift to sleep and breathed through the ache of not being able to love her the right way?
I take a deliberate step closer, until our arms are pressed together. No more almosts. No more what ifs. Relief floods through me at the contact. She reminds me of home, of comfort, of happiness. The first happiness I may have ever had, as innocent as it was.
