“Come on, Jay, what is it?” He nudged me. “You can tell me anything. The good, the bad, and everything in between. I can take it.”
Shelving the topics I couldn’t talk about until we were alone, I settled on a benign one . . . benign to third-party ears at least. “It’s just that . . .” I made myself look at him before continuing. “It’s just that you’re the first man I’ve ever been with.” The first man I’d fallen for was the one I was running away with. According to the world’s opinion, I was being careless and naive, but nothing about how I felt for Rylan felt like either of those things.
“And you’re the last woman I ever want to be with.” He tipped his forehead against mine.
“We’re young.” I knew most of my peers would be partying and messing around for another decade before settling down.
A gentle smile moved into place. “The longer we’ll have to be together.”
“You barely know me.” One month and a handful of encounters—that was it. I’d spent a hundred times more hours with my bodyguards than Rylan, yet I’d never experienced this kind of gravitational pull with anyone else.
“I know enough,” he replied. “And I’ve got the rest of my life to get to know the rest.”
One by one, he crossed concerns off my list. The concerns I’d wanted to voice the past couple of times we’d been together, but I hadn’t felt like it was the right time to bring them up. Apparently I deemed the “right time” as being after a firefight that had left five dead and right before we ran away to never come back. Perfect timing.
“You’re on one side, and I’m on the other,” I said next.
His head shook once. “There are no sides where we’re going. And there are no sides when you love someone.”
“We just met.”
Rylan’s smile went higher on one side. “And it was about god damned time.”
His answer made me smile. I moved on to my last concern. “This . . . scares me.”
His hand tightened around my shoulder as he nodded. “It scares you because of the way you feel. Because you have something to lose now.” His other hand came up to form around my cheek. “You can’t have love without fear. They go hand in hand. The decision you have to make is if it’s worth it to you. Is the love worth the fear that comes with it?”
When I considered the fear I’d felt for the past month, it didn’t compare to the overall state I’d lived in for most of my life. I’d feared for my life, the lives of those I cared about, and Rylan’s life. I’d feared we’d be responsible for inciting a bloody war, and I’d feared what would happen if I chose to stop seeing Rylan. I’d lived in a state of fear for eighteen years, but for the past month, I’d felt like it had its bony fingers around my neck. That was how tangible my fear was, but he was right—I felt it because I loved him. The fear wouldn’t have been so intense if the love wasn’t. The fear wouldn’t have felt like a tidal wave about to overtake me if the love didn’t. The fear wouldn’t have felt like it could break me if the love didn’t. But Rylan’s question wasn’t if I loved him—it was if my love for him was worth it.
“Well?” he asked after a minute.
Settling my head into his chest, I wrapped my arm over his stomach. “I’m not going anywhere. It’s worth it. It’s worth anything.”
“Good.” Rylan’s lips pressed into my forehead. “Because I don’t just love you. I need you.”
“How do you know you need me?” I asked, remembering our first meeting and what he’d said. “How do you know it’s a need and not a want?”
“That’s simple,” he said as he relaxed into the seat. “Because I can’t sustain without you. Not in the ways that really matter, at least.”
I smiled. “Good answer.”
He was silent as the cab slowed. I’d been so busy going back and forth with Rylan, I hadn’t noticed where we were headed, but I’d been right—we were nearly on the outskirts of the city. Nothing around but a couple of overgrown parking lots and long-abandoned buildings.
“Where are we?” I asked, peeking out a window.
“The place where freedom begins.” Handing a few twenties to the driver, Rylan glided out of the door and pulled me along with him.
As soon as we were out and the door was closed, the driver sped away like he couldn’t wait to get out of there. I couldn’t blame him. This place was even worse than the warehouse district.
“I never thought freedom would look so glum,” I remarked, seeing nothing but weeds and crumbling concrete.
“It might be glum now, but just wait until tomorrow. Freedom will look pretty damn great in twelve hours.” With a glint in his eyes, Rylan grabbed my hand and led me through the maze of weeds and crumbling buildings.
He moved fast, and I wasn’t sure if he was in a hurry to get where we were going or to get away from what we were leaving. For me, it was equal parts of both. After rushing past a few blocks, a person propped on the edge of the hood of a car came into view. I broke to a stop. When the stranger saw us, he jumped off the hood and waved.
“Don’t worry. He’s one of those two people we can trust,” Rylan said.
I studied the young man as we approached him. He looked closer in age to Rylan than myself, and his hair was so light, it almost matched mine. Fair skin, sharp features, and a hint of swagger in his step—he was definitely from the Irish side of things.
“Because he’s earned it?” I lifted an eyebrow at Rylan.
His eyes rolled to the sky. “We grew up together in Ireland. A Costa tried to put a bullet in the back of his head. He trusts me, I trust him.” He shrugged, nodding at the approaching man. “He’s more like a brother than a friend.”
“That’s a nice car he’s got,” I said, studying the classic car gleaming in silver. What looked like a couple of gas cans were beside it.
“A ‘68 El Camino. Totally cherry.” Rylan let out a long sigh. “But it’s not his. It’s mine.”
Appraising the car with different eyes, I nodded. “Nice ride.”
A sigh just as long, but tortured sounding, came from Rylan. “Yeah, I know. Too bad we’re going to burn it.”
“What?” I said, guessing that was what the gasoline cans were for. “Why?”
“Because tonight, you and I are going to die.”
I broke to another stop, my eyes widening.
Rylan’s expression softened. “We’re not going to actually die. We’re just going to make it seem like we did so your family and my family don’t spend the rest of our lives trying to track us down.” He pulled me into his arms and combed his fingers through my hair, calming me instantly. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend half of my life looking over my shoulder.”
I nodded against his chest. “But how will they think we’re dead just by burning your car? Won’t they expect to find bodies too?” One thing clicked into place after another. When I glanced back at Rylan’s car, I noticed something I’d missed at first. “Oh my god. Rylan, please tell me those aren’t people in there . . .”
When his friend was a few meters away, Rylan held out his hand, pausing him. Rylan formed his hands around my face and looked at me straight on. “Those aren’t people anymore—they’re bodies. Nothing more. Bodies that are going to help us escape.”
I swallowed. “They’re . . . dead?”
“They’re dead,” he said slowly.
“You didn’t . . . please don’t tell me . . .” My hands covered my mouth as another wave of nausea overcame me.
“I didn’t kill them or have them killed,” he filled in, his eyes never leaving mine. “They were already dead when we got them.”
“How do you get a couple of dead bodies?”
“A lot of money,” Rylan answered.
“What kind of a person sells dead bodies? What kind of a person buys them?”
“A desperate one,” he replied, as calm as I wasn’t.
I couldn’t look at the car stuffed with bodies and I couldn’t look at Rylan or his friend, s
o I stared at the ground. “I just don’t . . . I’m not sure . . . I don’t know . . .”
Rylan’s hand fit around my face again, but he didn’t press me to look at him. “I know this is a lot for you to take in. I know it feels wrong and immoral, and you’re right, Jay, it is.”
My eyes flashed to his.
“But this is the only way we can make a clean break. We have to let them think we died so we can live.” He paused to let those words set it. “You know what will happen once your father finds out what happened at that warehouse and who you fled town with. He won’t rest until every pebble has been turned over and every fox hole inspected. He won’t stop looking until he finds us, dead or alive. This way, he’ll find us dead sooner rather than later. You wanted a plan to escape. This is it. Are you still ready for it?”
I made myself look at the bodies in the car. From this distance, I couldn’t make out any features other than that the one in the driver’s seat was male and the one in the passenger seat was female. Those people were dead, we were alive . . . Did buying a couple of black-market bodies to keep two people alive justify burning them?
No, it didn’t justify that . . . but I felt the same way as Rylan. A desperate person doesn’t consider justice when they’re trying to keep themselves or their loved ones alive. In my experience, justice couldn’t keep a person’s heart beating.
“Let’s get this over with,” I answered finally.
“It’ll be over soon, and just like the rest of it, we can put this behind us too.” Rylan led me toward his friend and clapped his hand. “Jay, meet Xander. Xander, meet Jay.”
Going with the theme of keeping the introductions short, I waved and said, “Hi.” If Rylan trusted him, I knew I should too. But something about a guy who could be a part of smuggling two dead bodies, stuffing them inside of a car, and torching it all made trust a difficult thing to muster up.
“Nice to meet you, Jay,” Xander replied.
“Josette,” I corrected him. “Only Rylan gets to call me Jay.”
Xander lifted his hands as Rylan chuckled.
“Everything set?” Rylan asked him.
We all started toward the car. As we got closer, I diverted my eyes. I didn’t need these faces haunting me too.
“Everything but icing the cake and lighting the candles,” Xander replied. When I glanced at him, my forehead creased in confusion, he shrugged. “Also known as drenching the car in gasoline and throwing a match at it.”
My eyes closed as my jaw clenched. This was the price of our freedom. The price to be together. The price to escape the life I hated. Two stolen bodies and one car burned to a charred, nearly unrecognizable mess. As Rylan and Xander grabbed a couple canisters of gasoline and doused the car, I realized something.
“The bodies might burn beyond recognition, but you know our families will take dental impressions to ensure these two were us, Rylan. They’ll find out they don’t match ours.” I may have been sheltered, but I was still the Blue Krait’s daughter. If I didn’t know dental impressions were the only thing that could identify a burned-to-bits mess, I didn’t deserve my last name.
The plan had been so close to perfect . . . but almost perfect wouldn’t keep us safe. Almost perfect was as good as no plan at all because it resulted in the same thing—being hunted for the rest of our lives.
“Good thing these bodies’ dental impressions match ours then,” Rylan said, upending the last of his canister on the hood.
“How?” I asked. “How can their impressions match ours exactly?”
Rylan handed his empty canister to Xander. “Make sure you get rid of these.” After wiping his hands off on his jeans, he stared at the bodies inside of his car. “There are some perks to having organized crime in your blood.”
“Those being?” I couldn’t imagine a single one.
Rylan motioned at the bodies then flashed me a wide smile as he chomped his teeth. “Connections.”
“I’m sure I don’t want to know.” I wondered how much money and how many favors he’d had to use to get someone—an oral surgeon or dentist no doubt—to painstakingly carve and drill each tooth in those bodies’ mouths to match Rylan’s and mine.
“Probably not,” he said, holding up a pack of matches. “You want the honors?”
“The honors of setting fire to two strangers’ bodies and your car?” I crossed my arms. “I don’t think so.”
Rylan tore a match from the pack and held it out. “The honor of setting a match to our past.”
Wasn’t that exactly what I’d wanted to do for so long? Light the proverbial match, drop it, and let it all burn? Here was my chance. The chance to say good-bye to the past and hello to the future.
Taking the match, I struck it, watched it burn for a moment, then tossed it toward the car. A ball of flames surged from the car instantly, so searing hot it sent us back a few steps. Despite the heat and the smells and the sight, I made myself watch. I watched for so long, the fire seemed to be losing steam by the time Rylan squeezed my hand.
“We need to get going. Every minute still counts at this stage.”
I stared at the woman everyone would think was me. In that moment, in those flames, I could almost see my face in hers. I wasn’t sure if that was a good omen or a bad one, but I didn’t have time to think about it.
“What are they going to think when they find them . . . us?” I swallowed, looking away from the fire.
“When the Costas find out what happened, they’ll assume it was the Morans. When the Morans find out, they’ll assume it was the Costas. They’ll be so busy hunting each other, they won’t have time to go a few layers deeper to find the truth.”
“You hope,” I said.
The car was there, a female and male body with our dental impressions were there, but Rylan and I both knew that if someone wanted to dig deep enough and long enough, the truth could be unearthed. Maybe not the hows or the whys or the wheres, but the truth that we were still alive wouldn’t stay buried unless what he was saying was true—that both sides would be too busy fighting each other to search for what had really happened.
“I know,” he stated, turning my face so I could see the conviction in his eyes.
Biting my lip, I nodded. Nothing in life was certain, our escape and freedom included. I could live with that. I’d have to live with that.
“Xander.” Rylan stopped in front of him and pulled him into his arms. The two men thumped each other’s back. “Thank you.”
“Hey, you saved my life. It was only fair I return the favor.” Xander slugged Rylan in the arm then glanced at me. “I’m sorry I only just got to meet you, yet we have to good-bye.”
“Good-bye? He doesn’t know where we’re going?” I asked Rylan.
He shook his head. “Not only is it safer for us if no one knows where we’re going, it’s safer for him too. Nobody can hurt him if he doesn’t know anything.”
Xander held out his arms like we were playing a game with Monopoly money instead of lives, but that was when I realized Rylan’s and my life weren’t the only ones at risk—Xander’s was too. He’d helped us escape—had played a pivotal role in it—and if anyone ever found out, he’d wind up at the bottom of the lake like so many had before him.
“Thank you.” My gratitude for what he’d done and what he’d risked had me embracing him like Rylan had.
When Xander pulled away, he winked before grabbing the gasoline canisters. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure people say nice things at your funerals.”
“Better make sure they don’t expect you to say anything then,” Rylan called after him.
Xander’s reply was a wave and a laugh as he disappeared into the darkness.
“Where’s he going?” I asked.
“I’m guessing he’s going to sink those canisters in the lake then catch a cab home.”
“So now where are we going?” My eyes trailed to the flaming car. “Since our mode of transportation is currently engulfed in flames.”
Rylan was in the middle of clearing his throat when a car door slammed shut behind us. I spun around and saw the last person I thought I’d ever find at a scene like this. She stood outside of her car, smiling at me with a mixture of emotions in her eyes.
When I closed my eyes and reopened them, she was still there. “Mrs. Bailey?”
“Hello, Josette.” She took a hesitant step my way, her eyes widening when she saw the car burning behind us.
“What are you doing here?” Surely she couldn’t be the second person Rylan had called. She’d contemplated killing me . . . how did that constitute trustworthy?
“Jane is helping us,” Rylan explained. “She’s the only other one I could trust.”
My head whipped in his direction. “Your father hired her to kill me. How could she be the only other person you trust?” I tried to keep my voice down, but from the look of her face, she’d heard every word.
“My father threatened her, with her husband’s life, if she didn’t kill you. There’s a large difference. And in case you’ve forgotten, she didn’t kill you. She’s stayed with you all of these years, even after what happened, and she was the one who got me in to see you even though she knew if we were caught, her life would have been the penalty. And if they find out that she helped us again tonight, it would also cost her her life.” Rylan looked like he wanted to pull me to him, but he let me keep my distance. “How is that not proving she’s worthy of our trust?”
I heard everything he said and I believed it . . . but I was confused. So confused not just about Mrs. Bailey, but all of the situations surrounding my past life. I was too confused to try to work up a rational response and too confused to argue back. Instead, I clasped my hands behind my head and paced in small circles hoping something would eventually make sense.
“Josette?” Mrs. Bailey broke through the silence, moving another step my way. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”