“Obviously. But if she died here it will be the Canadian officials you’ll need to pay off.”
Silence. I use it, let it tell me what I’m trying to think about rather than consider a dead body any longer or the amount I’ll have to pay to hide it. Fury or love? Some guise of it anyway.
I don’t know.
“Your plane’s ready when you are,” he says. “It’s waiting.”
I look back at the room we’ve just left, sneering at everything, and then walk for the elevator so I can get ready to travel. One thing’s for sure, I’m not going to understand anything until I get her back in my hands. And that means I need to start searching.
Two conversations with security are had. One tells them to load the bitch up so I can get her back to New York, and the next tells them to start tracking where the fuck my Alice is. Maybe when that’s achieved I can find answers. Until then, I’m just a mix of rage and feelings, and I’m seemingly unable to deal with either.
Chapter 2
Ally
“Get the fuck off me,” I shout, kicking.
I struggle and wrangle, trying to get enough strength together to get away from them, but another one comes in from the side. Something hits me hard, buckling me over, and then something else hits my head.
Before I know what’s happening, I’m being hauled into the back of a car.
Skittering sideways the second I’m inside, I rush for the other door ready to unlock it. Another man slides in before I get the chance. I focus forward, unable to do a damn thing. This is it, isn’t it? This is where I am. Not running anymore. Not able to escape like I hoped. I’m just sandwiched between two guys, still wary as hell of Temple himself, and caught.
Fucked.
The car starts and the engine roars us away, kicking up dirt and dust in our wake. I stare at the debris as we power back through it in the opposite direction, part watching the other car that was with them as they blast back in the direction I came from.
It’s finished.
I am.
I listen as a phone call comes in. Someone tells Temple that Franco will be back in two days. He’s to take me to the penthouse. Keep me there. I sneer and keep staring forward, not caring or giving a damn about anything anymore. If I thought I could take all these assholes on, I would, but I’m far from stupid, and if this is the end of me, if I’ve got nothing left to fight with and nowhere left to hide, I’m going to save every inch of fight I’ve got left for the one man that truly deserves it.
Franco Greene himself.
I’m half smiling at the thought as we keep driving. What does it matter anymore? It doesn’t. And maybe I am a little crazy now, or a lot. It’s not surprising, is it? Where I’ve been, where I’m going, who I was back then tied in with the time I’ve spent with Malachi and who knows what the hell I’ve become.
Malachi.
I frown and look at my hands in my lap, still feeling the absence of him. He’s not here with me anymore – not inside me like he was. He was for a while in the plane, but not now. My eyes close at the thought, nose slowly pulling in air to see if I can at least smell him on me. Nothing. My lag has gone. Distance does stop it, it seems. There’s no scent of the winter snow or the aftershave he wore. There isn’t even the potent smell of musk that seemed to linger in the air around us. I can remember our song, though. It seeped into me somehow while I was with him, spread across me and wrapped me up in a blanket of … I don’t know. Not care that’s for sure. Possessiveness maybe.
But he’s not here.
We are not one.
I’m alone. Again.
Time goes on. The car rumbles along and phone calls are made in front of me. I can’t hear the response to the words spoken. But I do know they’re talking about my kind of life when we lived back here. Shit talked about other people in other places. Talk of killing people and deals that should not be being made. I don’t care about any of it. I’m just trying to keep calm and focus on the thought of killing Greene. Nothing else to think about, is there? No point trying to work out how Temple even knew it was me back at Malachi’s, or how he found us out in the snow. They’re the Greenes. Anything's fucking possible with their influence and control.
Brent and Brandon keep coming into my head. Their faces when they were young, the way they hung onto me as I dragged them across fuck knows how many states to get to Whit in the hope of help. He was the only one there was back then. Everyone else was too close, and I didn’t know who to trust anyway. I didn’t even know if I could trust him until we got there, but we had nothing. No money, only the clothes on our backs, and no home.
My eyes open at the thought, gaze taking in the outskirts of Dallas as we keep travelling. It’s not far from here. Our house was nice enough. Five bedrooms. Gabled front. Wood slats and a set of swings out back. A fucking lie given the crap Daddy got himself into, but it served its purpose.
Momma used to read to the boys out there. She’d talk of the future and college, getting degrees so they could get out of there. Didn’t mean anything to me at the time. School didn’t. Future didn’t. Didn’t need to. I was young, too busy getting myself involved in running the streets on Devil’s night, and ready for life in that moment around me.
Who knew it was all about to be taken away from us.
Sighing at the thought of it all, I find myself thinking about the extremes Malachi provided. The wealth, the way he spoke – that air of grace about it – and the filth that seemed to drip so well from his money bred lips. What the fuck is he in reality? It’s like he should have been on those streets with me, running them and enjoying neglected beginnings rather than the clear privately fed start he had. Contradictory. He’d have made a better mechanic than whatever he’s supposed to be. A simple life, one filled with fixing things and a good woman to make him some food each night.
