Devin

 

“So Cristoff sent you to kill me?” Devin asked, his mouth hanging open.

 

Cara nodded. “Yes, but he didn’t tell me it was you. He said to just break into the house and shoot whoever was there while they slept.”

 

“Shit. Thank God I was awake and heard you come in,” Devin said. Typically, he was a pretty heavy sleeper. So, if he had managed to fall asleep before Cara broke in, there was a very high chance she would have succeeded with her plan.

 

“I know,” Cara said, squeezing her eyes closed, and pressing her naked body against Devin’s said. “I don’t even want to think about what could have happened. It’s too horrible.”

 

Devin trailed his fingers along her spine, loving the smoothness of her skin, the smell of her shampoo, the feeling of her heart beating against his ribs.

 

“I never thought I’d see you again,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

 

“I know. Me too.”

 

Devin sighed. “I am sorry, you know? About everything.”

 

“I know,” Cara said, leaning up to kiss his chin. “Me too.”

 

“I was a different person before I met you. I barely recognize the man who made all of those decisions. The man who wanted to hurt you. I can’t even believe he and I are the same person most days.”

 

“I forgive you,” Cara said. “I realized that the moment I understood I’d never see you again. When I realized I couldn’t call you or contact you, all I wanted to do was forgive you. I wanted to go back in time and have things end differently.”

 

“No, you shouldn’t have any regrets. I’m the one who should have regrets. I am the one who screwed up. I should have told you the truth before we met with Cristoff. I should have told you the truth after we first slept together. I was just so afraid you’d leave. I didn’t think I’d survive if you left.”

 

“Yes, you should have told me,” Cara said. “But I also should have tried to be more understanding. You’ve had to lie and manipulate people your entire life. It was how you survived. So, of course, it was how you chose to deal with me. I should have cut you some slack.”

 

Devin wrapped his arms around Cara’s shoulders and pulled her into him. “You’re too good for me. Way too good.”

 

Cara lifted herself up on her arms, her eyes narrowed. “I’m not too good,” she said, crawling over Devin’s body, her breasts swaying freely in front of his face. “I’m very very bad.”

 

She kissed him and then trailed kisses down his torso until she reached down and took him in her mouth, never once losing eye contact. Devin wasn’t sure he’d be able to perform, but a few bobs of her head, and he was back in the game.

 

She started at the tip, and let her lips slide all the way down him, further and further until he was certain she’d have to stop, and then even further until her lips touched the base of him. He groaned and reached out, his hands on the back of her head holding her there for a second before she slid back off of him and caught her breath.

 

She smiled at him. “See? I told you I was bad.”

 

“You are so bad,” Devin said, laughing.

 

Then, he heard something.

 

He wanted to convince himself it was paranoia. The night had been a strange one, after all, but he couldn’t. As much as he wanted to ignore it and let Cara keep working him the way she was, he knew something was wrong.

 

He tapped Cara on the shoulder, and when she looked up, he put his finger to his lips and pointed towards the door. She immediately stood up, eyes wide, and turned around.

 

“Who is it?” she whispered.

 

“I don’t know,” he said, though he thought he knew exactly who it was.

 

If Cristoff had sent Cara to kill him, it was likely he’d also sent someone along to ensure the job was completed satisfactorily. And since it was not, that person was now showing up to finish the job.

 

Devin had heard stories of it happening before. A hit man and their target being killed because the hit man failed to complete their task, for whatever reason. He’d been naïve to think living on the island could protect him from that world. From the Morettis and the Bianchis and his past.

 

Devin wanted to get dressed, but he worried there wasn’t time. Grabbing the rope he’d used to bind Cara’s wrists, Devin tiptoed through the door entirely naked, Cara following behind him.

 

He hoped he’d make it down the hallway and into the living room only to find that the wind had knocked over one of his potted plants or that the ice machine had dropped some fresh ice in the tray.

 

However, as he turned the corner, for the second time that night, he saw a shadowy figure. Only, this time, the shadowy figure saw him, as well.

 

A shot rang out, and the wall behind Devin exploded in a puff of sheetrock. He threw his arm back to push Cara down the hallway and ducked behind the wall.

 

“Do you have a gun?” Cara asked.

 

Devin shook his head and gestured to his naked body as an explanation. Unless the gun was hiding between his butt cheeks, he was unarmed. He could hear the man moving towards them slowly, his footsteps heavy and careful.

 

Devin grabbed Cara’s arm and pulled her down the hall with him. They ran into the bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind them, and then he ran to the window, pushing it open.

 

“Jump out,” he said.

 

Cara looked at the window and back at Devin. “I’m naked.”

 

“And we’re both going to be dead unless you jump out,” he said, his body shaking with impatience. “Come on, go.”

 

Cara nodded and slid her legs through the frame and then dropped onto the grass below. Devin followed suit.

 

The air was heavy with humidity, and it was even more noticeable against his bare skin, but Devin barely had time to think about that.

 

They couldn’t very well go running around with no clothes on, and Devin couldn’t let their attacker get away. If he did, he could come for them at any point. No, he needed to capture the man so he could put an end to this once and for all.

 

Lurking around the edge of the house, Devin found the window Cara had slipped through, the T-shaped cut still in the screen. He looked through it and didn’t see the man in the living room. Quickly, hoping he had enough time, he pushed himself up to the window ledge and slipped inside the house, landing on his hands and knees, and then ran for the drawer in the living room that held his gun.

 

As he was moving towards the drawer, he heard Cara shout from behind him, and he ducked, a bullet whizzing just over his head and exploding the ceramic cookie jar that had been left in the kitchen by the cottage’s previous owner. Luckily, Devin was within arm’s reach of the cabinet. He opened the drawer, pulled out the gun, and flicked the safety off.

 

“I have a gun,” he shouted. “I won’t kill you if you stop shooting at me. I just want to talk.”

 

The man’s accent was thick and unrecognizable. “I have to kill you.”

 

Devin shook his head even though the man couldn’t see him. “No, you don’t. Trust me. We can work this out. Whoever is paying you to do this, I’ll pay you more.”

 

“No money,” the man said in his broken English. “Blackmail.”

 

“We can work with that, too,” Devin said.

 

He took a few deep breaths, waiting for the man to respond, but he didn’t.

 

“I’m going to stand up, okay?” Devin said, lifting his arms and his gun into the air.

 

Slowly, praying the man wouldn’t shoot him as soon as he rose to his feet, Devin stood up.

 

The man was short and stout, dressed all in black with a thick black mustache. He kept his finger on the trigger, but he pointed his gun away from Devin and towards the wall.

 

“Who told you to do this?” Devin asked.

 

Immediately, the man answered, “Cristoff.”

 

“I know Cristoff,” Devin said. “You don’t have to do what he says. I can help you.”

 

“But my family—”

 

“Will be fine,” Devin said. “You are supposed to kill us, so we will make Cristoff think you killed us. We’ll disappear. Cristoff will never know we survived, and your family will be safe.”

 

The man thought about this, his eyebrows pulled together. “How?”

 

“The less you know, the better,” Devin said. “You just tell Cristoff that Cara failed, and you succeeded. Tell him you came in, found us together in bed, shot us both, and then left. He will believe you.”

 

The man raised his gun, pointing it at Devin. “Are you lying to me?”

 

Cara crawled through the window, and then stood up, her hands raised. She was entirely naked, her body glimmering with sweat in the moonlight. “He’s not lying. He is telling you the truth. We know you don’t want to do this. We know you are only here because Cristoff is forcing you to be. Well, we will help you find a way out. No one needs to die today.”

 

The man’s eyes roamed over Cara’s body slowly, and Devin suddenly had the urge to kill him, despite everything he’d just said. The man glanced from Devin to Cara’s breasts and back again. Then, he took a step backward.

 

“I snuck in, found you two in bed, and shot you both. You are dead.”

 

He backed away until he was in the hallway, and then he turned and took off running, jumping through the bedroom window Devin and Cara had just escaped out of.

 

# # #

 

Cara

 

The evening had not gone at all like Cara thought it would. She’d planned to kill a man, and then begin her life of leisure in a beach cottage somewhere. Instead, she’d been reunited with Devin, had some of the best sex of her life, nearly been killed by an assassin, and was now packing up as quickly as possible so she and Devin could run away together.

 

“So, we definitely can’t stay here?” she asked, though she’d asked the same question three times already.

 

“No, I’m sorry. I wish we could, but it’s too risky. If Cristoff sends anyone here to double-check the man was telling the truth, and they see us, we are immediate targets again. We have to disappear. We have to change our names and run away while we have the chance.”

 

Devin dumped the contents of a lockbox into a duffel bag and then discarded the metal container on the floor.

 

“You should go to the kitchen and pack some food. Just in case,” he said.

 

Cara went to the pantry and dug around until she found a half-full canister of salted peanuts, a box of fiber granola bars, and two unopened bags of beef jerky. She piled the food next to her bags by the door. Because she’d just arrived on the island that day and was meant to immediately take out her target—which turned out to be Devin—she’d never had a chance to unpack her suitcase.

 

She’d hidden it in the bushes around Devin’s house. So, she was already ready to go.

 

Devin walked back into the living room with an arm full of clothes and dumped them into the suitcase, as well. The OCD person inside of Cara wanted to fold his shirts and shorts so they wouldn’t get wrinkled, but she knew there was no time.

 

“Remember when you said you wanted a quiet life?” she said. “Remember when you said you wanted to be boring?”

 

Despite everything that had happened that night, Devin laughed. “Yeah. I guess that was a pipe dream, huh?”

 

“Probably,” Cara agreed.

 

She wanted to comfort him, ensure him that things would settle down eventually. But she didn’t know if that were true. Even if they did escape the Morettis and start over somewhere, they would spend their entire lives glancing over their shoulders. They’d both killed people, and the police were probably actively searching for Cara by this point in time.

 

Certainly, after she’d failed to return any of their calls, they came to the house and, finding it deserted, issued a warrant for her arrest. She was a wanted woman. The rest of her life would be spent running from the horrible things she’d done. Devin, too, for that matter. If the Morettis ever caught wind of his survival or his location, they would send someone to kill him immediately. Cara, too. No, their lives would never ever be normal.

 

“So, do you know where we are going?” Cara asked.

 

Devin nodded. “When I came here I put a backup plan in place. A Plan B, if you will. I wanted to be prepared for anything. I wanted to be able to pick up and move on at the drop of a hat. Remember my friend in the Bianchi compound? The one who unlocked the window?”

 

Cara nodded.

 

“Well, I have lots of friends all over the place. It’s amazing the kinds of favors people can owe you when you’re in the mafia business. Erase a little debt, they owe you a favor. Give them a heads up about a potential target on their backs, they owe you a favor. I didn’t choose this place randomly. I have a contact on the island who has a small passenger plane. I’ve already called him, and he can get us off the island at sunrise.”

 

“And we can trust him?” she asked.

 

“Do we have another choice?”

 

Cara shook her head. They really didn’t. The only downside of island life is that there are only so many ways off of the island. The plane was the only way they could do so with a tiny amount of anonymity.

 

All through the night, they scoured the house, packing anything they might need and destroying anything else that would lead anyone to either of their identities. By the time the sun was coming up, the house was trashed from top to bottom, but Devin and Cara had two bags packed and ready by the front door. They grabbed them and left without turning back.

 

It was strange. Cara had only been in the cottage for a few hours. It had never been her home, but she was still sad to leave it. Even before she knew it was Devin’s, she could imagine herself there. She saw herself enjoying breakfast at the kitchen island, reading a book in the cozy sunken living room, drinking wine on the screened in porch while the sun set. It was everything she could ever have wanted. She only hoped they would be able to find something similar wherever they were headed.

 

It wasn’t unusual for people to carry luggage through the downtown area of the island, as it was a pretty big tourist area—so no one looked twice at Cara or Devin. They could have been any number of American tourists. No one would remember their faces or recall anything unusual.

 

They smiled and laughed with one another, talking casually as they strolled through the early morning breakfast crowds. Elderly couples sat at metal tables on the sidewalk, hot coffee and pastries in front of them. Locals sat on their front porches barefoot, newspapers opened to the day’s headlines. To everyone they passed, the day was no different than any other.

 

Nothing spectacular or noteworthy had happened the night before. Nothing spectacular or noteworthy would happen that day, either. Cara envied them all as she passed, though she tried not to let her expression show it.

 

They passed a mailbox, and Devin stopped and unzipped his duffel bag.

 

“What are you doing?” Cara asked.

 

“I just have something I want to put in the mail,” he said, clothes spilling out of his zipper as he dug to the bottom of the bag and retrieved a thick manila envelope.

 

“Is that a good idea?” she asked, still smiling, hoping no one was eavesdropping on their conversation. “Isn’t it a bit risky.”

 

Devin shrugged his shoulders. “Honestly, it might be. But I have to send it. It’s for Evan.”

 

Cara remembered the note Devin had handed her the night of the Bianchi hit. The one he’d insisted she send if anything were to happen to him. When they’d made it back to his house that night, she’d returned the letter to him. And apparently, he’d been carrying it with him ever since.

 

“Does this mean you think we’re going to die?” she asked, suddenly nervous. She thought they were just running away as they’d done before. But if Devin was sending the letter to his son, perhaps things were worse than she thought.

 

Devin reached out and stroked her hair, twisting the ends between his fingers. “No, we’ll be fine. But we won’t be us anymore. After today, we will be different people. New people. To protect Evan and ourselves, I won’t be able to speak with him again. This letter will tell him everything he needs to know about the house and my assets, but it will also tell him that I’ve died.”

 

Cara gasped. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

 

“I don’t want any of this,” Devin said, his fists clenched so hard the envelope started to crumple in his hand. “I want to stay here in this cottage and live with you and write to my son and build a relationship with him. I want to build a life here. But we can’t. We no longer have that option. It’s not safe for us to stay, and it’s not safe for Evan if he thinks I’m alive. If the Morettis ever got to him, and he had information about my whereabouts, they’d torture it out of him. They’d kill him. No, it’s better for him if he thinks I’m dead.”

 

Cara placed her hand on Devin’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

 

Devin gave her a sad smile. “It’s okay. It isn’t your fault.”

 

He dropped the envelope into the mailbox, and it landed on the metal bottom with a soft thud, settling on top of other letters and correspondence. The mailbox was probably chock-full of postcards with pictures of palm trees on the front and bills. The mundane things that made up average lives. And then, mixed in, was Devin’s letter. His last words to his son.

 

The thought made Cara want to cry. She didn’t, though, because she didn’t want to draw attention to herself, and she also wanted to be strong for Devin.

 

She grabbed his hand, and they walked together towards the airport and the “friend” who awaited them there.

 

Towards their new futures together.