24
I had four hours until my next class. I planned on hitting the gym for a Tae Bo session, a quick shower after, and then back to school to get some research done in the library on post-WWI design, a revolutionary era in women’s fashion. I threw my handbag on the table and headed back to the front door to twist the lock shut.
Sipping on the last of my raspberry iced tea, I reached out toward the lock, but the door burst open, and I went flying, falling on my back in the middle of my apartment. Ice exploded from my cup, pitching on the wood floor, clattering, sliding.
“Knew it was you! I knew it!” a man’s voice hurled at me.
My eyes blinked and focused on a heavy set, leather-clothed man. Knobby nose, thin lips. His skeleton patch. Motormouth from Med’s club.
“What the hell?” I sputtered, crawling backward like a spider who’d been newly uncovered, scooting back from the rising tide of evil before me. My back slammed into a leg of my dining table.
“I saw you on the street. My sister lives up here so I come up when I can to hang out with her and her kids. We were at this hippy coffeeshop in Bucktown yesterday and I saw you. Something about the way you walk, swishing that tiny ass, your smirk. You were with some black haired bitch who wouldn’t shut up. I followed you here. Today, I went to that coffeeshop again, thinking maybe I’d spot you. Just to be sure it was you. And yeah, you showed up, but this time you took off your sunglasses. This time I was sure.” He lunged on top of me, his smoky breath heaving on my face.
“Get off me!”
“No, no, no. That’s not how this is going to go, Reen.”
“Motormouth! We started out together. You were just a grunt when I showed up. We put up with their shit together.”
He laughed. A dry laugh. A you-know-better-than-that laugh. My heart shriveled at the sound, my stomach curdled.
When Med had first brought me to his club, Motormouth had been a prospect, wide-eyed and eager to please. We’d struck up an easy going friendship, a friendship that Med picked up on and was suspicious of. He had forbidden us from any form of contact.
Motor released me and sat up. “Yeah, we started out together all right. You, me, and Rosie. Remember Rosie? Maybe you forgot her here in your new life.”
Rosie was Motormouth’s girlfriend. She was a pretty Asian American girl who danced for a living and enjoyed partying with the club. She was also a single mom to a young boy. Motor adored her. She was a sweetheart and we’d become good friends, my one bright spot in those years with Med.
My right hand flexed over my thigh, and the large white-blue moonstone ring I wore stared back at me. Rosie had lent it to me to wear one night out when we’d gotten all dressed up, then insisted I keep it.
“No, Motor. I haven’t forgotten Rosie. ”
His eyes hung on mine. Cloudy grey blue, pinched and worn. “She’s gone, Reen. And you did that. What do you care, huh? Now you got yourself a new friend to take her place.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You took off, and Med blamed Rosie. Said she’d helped you out seeing as how the two of you were buds.”
“She didn’t help me. I hadn’t even planned on running off. It just happened.”
“Just happened, huh? Well, that didn’t matter none to Med. Rosie was connected to you.” He nodded his head, a faraway look in those murky eyes. He was reliving it, and it was stinging him all over again. “There was a party, and he gave her away.”
“Gave her away?”
“Yeah. When we were in California, we met these bros from a new chapter up in northern New York. They ended up coming back with us to Kansas and stayed to party before heading home. Med was furious that you’d taken off. That night we were all playing a crazy game of poker, and he used her as a chip. He lost her.”
“Lost her?”
“Yeah.” His voice was seeped in misery. “With that fucking grin on his face. You know the one.”
“I know the one,” I breathed.
“He gave them my Rosie.” He brushed a hand across his mouth. “She wasn’t my old lady. Kept insisting we were good as we were ‘cause she was still planning on leaving Kansas and going to Vegas to find work. That night she didn’t get what was going on. She was high and just didn’t get it, laughing out in the parking lot as they took her with ‘em.”
“Motor—”
He gnawed on his lips. “Went out of my mind—”
“And Ricky?” Rosie’s son was five years old now.
Motor’s eyes closed for a moment. “I don’t know.”
My hand flew to my mouth. I reached out and touched his arm, and in a flash of movement he grabbed my hand, twisting hard. A streak of pain exploded in my wrist, my elbow. I gasped loudly, my body wrenching to the side, my shoulder screaming.
He hoisted me up against him, and pressed his stubbly face against the side of my cheek, sniffing deeply. “But I found you. I did.”
“Motor—”
“Baby, I can’t let you go.” He shook his thick, curly brown hair back from his sweaty face.
“Don’t do this. Don’t be like him.”
He shoved me, and I went flying against the dining table. “You left a fat mess behind you. Nit and Jan dead. You got to answer for that. I mean, shit, what the fuck did you expect, huh?” His voice got higher, drilling into me.
He planted his hands on his waist, his jacket hanging open, his gun visible on his side. I was sure he also had two knives at his back, as always. Motor had a knife collection. He was always sharpening them, choosing different blades to carry according to his mood for the day. He’d once introduced them all to me and Rosie. He’d named one Sadie, the other Heidi, one Jesse, another Mo. I’d pretended to be interested.
“Reen, baby, if I bring you in, that’s gonna mean big rewards for me. Things have been really shitty for me lately.”
Such a gentle, sad voice paired with such cold, lethal words. I gritted my teeth to remain still against the shivering that was taking over my body.
“Look, chicky.” Motor’s favorite nickname for women brought me back to reality. “You got out, you had your wild ride, your good time, okay, but now you gotta go back where you belong.”
Back where I belong?
I didn’t belong there, and I didn’t belong to them, to Med.
No way in hell.
When I was little, I dreamed of having a Barbie Townhouse I’d seen on a television commercial. That dollhouse was really expensive, and I knew I’d never ever get it, but I still liked daydreaming about having it, where I’d put it in my room, what it would be like to play with. Now, my adult wish for freedom and a life on my own terms had actually come true. It was no overpriced plastic tower that I constantly daydreamed about. The dream had become real, and I was living it. It was mine.
And no one was going to take that away.
Especially now.
Motor eyed me. He needed me in line to score points. Like my mother had needed me in line to get on with her life and make herself happy. Like Med had needed me in line so he could have his way. Again, I would be a pawn in someone else’s game? And what I wanted, what I craved, would be meaningless, unimportant, a joke?
No. Not again. Not me. Not now. Everything was different. I was different. Forever different.
Motormouth shoved past me, heading for the table behind me. He went through my purse, tossing the contents onto the polished wood surface into a messy heap. The strip of black and white photos of me and Finger hovered at the edge of the table. Motor made a face as he opened my wallet and took out what little cash I had in there.
I held my breath, my mouth dried, my heart banging in my chest. My eyes darted to the strip of photos. Fuck.
I hadn’t gotten rid of the photographs like I knew I should. I loved them too much. We were kissing, laughing, making faces at each other, having fun. In one we were pressed cheek to cheek, eyes closed. They were beautiful. I’d only wanted to save something tangible of us a little bit longer. I missed him all the time. Why couldn’t I keep just one thing? Just one?
Motormouth tossed the wallet, and it banged on the table. The strip of photos hopped up, catching his attention. He plucked it up off the table, his shoulders lifting. He spun around and faced me, my photos in his hand. “What the fuck? This is him, ain’t it? That kid from the Flames? The one that we—He’s the one who got you out?” He stared at me, standing taller. “Scrib had asked around town, and the delivery guy told him about seeing a guy with scars. We figured it coulda been him, but we didn’t tell Med nothing. Didn’t want to start a war with him freaking out the way he was. So we agreed to keep that shit quiet for the time being. But Scrib was right.” Motormouth’s bloodshot eyes blazed like one hundred watt lightbulbs glaring at me in the dark. “He comes and sees you? You with him now?”
I said nothing, remaining still.
“Just you wait, you goddamn whore.” He turned to the shelves on the wall at the side of the table and dug his hands into my books and papers, sweeping my color-coded folders into the air. Patterns and designs wafted between us. Glass candle holders went flying. Papers floated, books thudded to the floor, small painted bowls I’d made in a pottery class smashed into bits and pieces.
Crash. Crash. Crash.
“Stop it!” I screamed.
He shot me a hard look, his eyes shimmering.
“Please, Motor. Please!”
“Please, what?” He kicked through the mess he’d created on the floor, barreling over to my dresser, touching every object, every perfume bottle there, tossing whatever was in front of him that didn’t hold any appeal or worth. A wild bull in my crystal house.
Smash.
“Come on, Reen. Someone’s gotta pay for killing Nit and for stealing from us. You want your lover boy to pay?” He waved the photo strip in the air. “‘Cause I can make that happen real easy.” He shoved the pictures in his pocket. “Yeah, Med’s gonna love these.”
“No. You can’t tell him.”
“Then come with me.”
My throat tightened. I couldn’t get words out.
His chest rose on a breath, his face was ruddy, his nostrils flaring. He grabbed the hand painted porcelain box from my night table, flipping it open. My heart stopped.
Justin’s brass compass was in his grubby fist. “What’s this, an antique watch or some shit? This has gotta be worth a few.”
I launched at him, reaching for the compass. “Don’t take that! Take whatever else you want. Not that.”
He shoved me off him, and the porcelain box went flying, smashing into pieces on the floor.
“No! That’s all I have left of—”
“Of what?” his voice raged, a fierce rage. Bitter and heartbreaking. “Of what, Reen, huh?” A sour smile contorted his lips, and he threw the compass down and bashed it with his heel.
I slumped to the floor, pressing my fists to the side of my head.
“Now you got nothing left,” he muttered. “Just like me.”
But he was wrong. So wrong.
“Don’t do this.” My chin trembled. “Med doesn’t want me anymore. I’m just another girl. One of hundreds. I was trash around there at the end, you know that. There are always new ones to take your place. He has new ones now, doesn’t he?”
“You weren’t nothing special, you know. Just another hole, another set of tits and ass. But he had this crazy thing for you, and that’s what counts. You’re the one who got away.” He let out a short chuckle.
“He doesn’t need—”
He lunged at me, his fingers digging into the sides of my face. “I need this, bitch. I need it.” A chuckle escaped his mouth as his hands spanned my hips and slid down to my ass and my stomach flew up to my throat. He pulled me in against his body and rocked me against his erection. “And I sure as fuck need some of that. Oh, I’m finally but finally gonna get me some of that. Everyone else did, but me. He wouldn’t let me at you that night, would he? That fuck. Holds a grudge like nobody’s business.”
He undid my belt, my pulse thudding in my neck. The leather slid and snapped from the buckle. The familiar clink of the metal. A knell of doom.
I pulled in my stomach muscles, steadying myself.
Never again. Not ever.
Not now.
I’d gone to see a doctor the other day. With my hectic schedule, I hadn’t noticed that I’d skipped periods and felt off. I thought it was anxiety and fatigue, not eating right. And now, here I was, almost three months pregnant. I was in awe, I was in shock. I was elated, I was terrified. And I wasn’t going to let Motormouth take my precious family away from me or destroy it. Everything was down to me, right this very now.
“You know what I need?” I whispered into his sweaty throat, my hands sliding around his thick belly.
He laughed. “Oh, fuckbunny, I got an idea or two or ten.” His mouth nuzzled my neck, his teeth sinking into my skin.
Yes.
I relished the pain, that pain that signaled assault. Annihilation. That I knew.
Bring it the hell on.
He shoved my jeans down my hips, untucking my shirt as he went. “Now shut the fuck up, get on your knees and open that mouth.”
I pressed my chest against his, my hands rubbing his lower back. “You sure that’s what you want?”
One hand squeezed my ass, the other, a breast. “Yeah, that’s what I fucking want, and that’s just for starters. Now get down, dammit!”
Lifting the edges of his jacket, I closed my hand over a thick handle at his back. In one quick move I slid one of his knives from its holster and jammed the blade deep between his ribs.
He didn’t have a return remark this time. Only his eyes bulged, the whites showing, a strangled hiss of air. He staggered and dropped to the floor at my feet. A choking cry.
The blood, the blood seeped everywhere.
Everywhere blood.
My throat burned the moment I saw him sitting at the bar.
He noticed me immediately, his light colored eyes flaring then narrowing as I approached him. Recognition. Suspicion. In a graceful yet tight movement, his head slanted and he brought the thin dark cigarette that burned between his fingers to his mouth and inhaled deeply, his piercing eyes on me. The Mercenary Prince of the Night.
“Turo.”
Those eyes glinted with a dark sort of amusement. He exhaled the fragrant smoke and sat up straighter. “Ashley.”
My heart banged in my chest, my stomach churning with acid. I ignored the discomfort. “Could I talk to you?”
“Please do.” He pulled out the chair next to him. I sat down.
“Aaron—” He gestured at the bartender who immediately set a bulbous wine glass before me and filled it halfway with an amethyst liquid.
My eyes met Turo’s and my insides knotted. He was waiting, he was fascinated. I was making my debut on the stage. “I need to ask you for help.”
He said nothing. Only brought his wine glass to his lips and drank. My words hung in the air between us, fading quickly like mist.
Turo placed his glass carefully on the bar top. “You’re coming to me for a favor?”
I needed help from a professional. I couldn’t go to Tania. Absolutely not. I’d love to run to her and burrow myself in one of her tight hugs and snuggle on her sofa with a cup of tea and a blanket and pretend none of this had happened.
But it had happened. And I was a realist.
I couldn’t contact Finger. He hadn’t called me or texted or anything since he’d given the signal that day. And anyway, wherever he was, odds were he was too far away to be able to dash over to Chicago and deal with a dead body for his secret girlfriend. Furthermore, I didn’t want him to have his hands dirtied with Smoking Gun blood. I didn’t want him implicated in anything that would ruin his career, his life.
I’d never met Turo before, but I’d seen him from afar once or twice when he’d picked up Ciara at the store, waiting for her across the street, a solemn statue of a man. Tonight I’d found him at his favorite restaurant in Bucktown. A trendy Mediterranean-French type bistro with low lighting and lots of candles in small wooden lanterns. Ciara had mentioned to me that they met here every Thursday night for a drink and meze before going out for the evening. Thursday night was their night. It was early and I knew Ciara worked late on Thursdays, so I took a chance and went to the restaurant. He was notoriously punctual and Ciara was always racing to meet him on time at their various rendezvous. She usually failed miserably. I desperately needed her to fail tonight.
“Try the wine,” he said.
Taking in a tight breath, I raised the delicate glass and sipped. His heavy gaze remained on me as he exhaled a long, long stream of smoke, immediately crushing his cigarette in an ashtray. He peeled the glass out of my shaky, damp hand and set it back on the bar.
“This is between you and me. I don’t want Ciara to know,” I said, savoring the smooth wine in my mouth. Its silky warmth was civilized, soothing, and loosened the knot pinching my insides.
He leaned into me, his expensive citrusy Italian cologne filling the air between us. Ciara showed me the bottle once at Barney’s. I’d been impressed. “Ciara doesn’t know a lot of things,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”
“I was being followed.”
“Past tense? Do you know him?”
I would avoid that question for now. “He broke into my apartment today.”
Turo’s face stiffened. “Did he rob you? Do damage?”
“He tried. He tried to do damage to me,” my voice broke.
“Ash—” A warm hand gently cradled my chin, an arm went around the back of my chair. “Ash, look at me.”
My body shook, and he took me in his embrace, but it only made me colder. “Tell me now. Whisper it in my ear,” he said against my hair, his breath warm against my neck.
“I killed him,” I whispered, making my nightmare real.
“You killed him?” His lips brushed my earlobe, and a shiver raced over my skin.
“Yes.”
He pulled back from me and laughed.
My shoulders stiffened. “What’s so funny?”
“Ciara gets upset by a fucking spider, forget the roaches.” He drank more wine.
“Good thing Ciara wasn’t at my place today then.”
He stared at me, a glimmer in his eyes, his tongue slowly swiping at his generous bottom lip. He handed me the glass of wine again. “Why did you call me?” he asked.
I took a small sip. A fleeting hint of chocolate and berries perfumed my strained senses, warmth raced through my chest.
“Say it, gorgeous. I want to hear you say it.”
I set the wine glass down, pushing it away. “I need you to clean it up.”
“You need me to clean it up,” he repeated, his very keen gaze sending a sharp jolt through my veins. He was thrilled to hear those words come out of my mouth.
“Yes.” I was crossing a line, and we both knew it. Brazen acknowledgement, tacit understanding.
“Why didn’t you call 911?”
“Plenty of reasons,” I replied.
He leaned his head down to mine, and I inhaled his warm breath. Wine and a fragrant tobacco, the sophisticated side of corruption.
“Then you’ve come to the right man,” he said, his voice a smooth baritone.
“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”
“You appreciate my professional talents?”
“I admire them from afar.”
A smile broke out over his lips. He gestured for me to come closer, but I only lifted an eyebrow in response. “How did you do it?” he asked.
“He had knives on him. I grabbed one and stabbed him in the side with it.”
“Good girl.”
“So, can you take care of this for me, or are we just chatting over vino while my flooring gets soaked in the other red stuff?”
He let out a chuckle. “Of course I can.” He poured more wine for himself. “I won’t ask what you’re hiding. That wouldn’t be professional of me. And I am a professional. After all, that’s why you came to me, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
He tucked his hand inside his jacket breast pocket and took out his cell phone. It was one of those newer ones, a really small model and thinner than any cell I’d seen before. Must have cost him a mint. He tapped a button.
“Hey,” he said into his phone, his voice curt. “Meet me in Pilsen with your toolbox. Now.” He gave him an address, a block over from my apartment.
Turo snapped his slim phone shut, the dull clap making me flinch.
“You know my address.”
“Of course I do.”
I let out a breath, but the dizziness still swirled in my head.
“Give me your keys.”
I handed him my keys.
He flipped them over in his palm and tucked them in his jacket pocket. “I’ll call you when it’s done. You stay here. Have dinner. Dessert. This might take a while.”
“Isn’t Ciara meeting you here?” I asked.
“I’m going to call her now to cancel.”
“I ruined your evening. I’m sorry—”
“Oh, no,” he said. “You just made it infinitely more interesting.”
He turned and gestured at the bartender, a very handsome model-type dressed in a tight black T-shirt outlining his perfect body. He was almost too pretty. “Aaron, my friend is staying for dinner. Whatever she wants—the works—on my tab.”
“Absolutely, Mr. DeMarco.” Aaron nodded at Turo and placed a long card of a menu on the bar top in front of me.
I glanced down at the beautifully designed menu edged in bronze trim, but it might as well have been written in Chinese.
“I don’t think I can eat,” I said.
“When was the last time you did?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Aaron, get the lady the arugula and mesclun salad with feta and the steak frites. Medium rare. And whatever else she’d like.”
“Coming right up.” Aaron vanished, taking the menu with him.
“Turo—”
“You like the wine? It’s a very fine Cabernet from Argentina.” His voice was relaxed. Just another night out with a woman. I tensed, expecting his hands to settle on a shoulder, my back, my arm. Thankfully, the touch never came; the weight of his gaze was heavy enough.
I said what I knew he wanted to hear, “The wine is very nice.” I wouldn’t be drinking anymore though.
“Stay here, eat, and relax.” He leaned in even closer. “I’ll call you, let you know when you can come home,” he whispered in my ear, that icy shiver racing over the back of my neck once more.
“You have my number?” I asked.
He slid on a dark overcoat. “Oh, I’ve had it from the beginning, Ash.”
Sweeping past me, Turo was gone.