“My head of security wants to confer with you, would you also come with me?”
I could feel Adriano and Doc bristling at the disrespect of taking orders from this man. I mentally willed them to remember Bianchi’s Stormtroopers and just how many of them surrounded us.
“Sure,” Doc said through a clenched jaw.
Adriano stepped forward. “Lead the way, Mr. Bianchi.”
That’s how I wound up hunting through Parker’s house alone, looking for Eli and January, glad to be alive and terrified to find them injured or worse. Stumbling on them in that jungle glasshouse, Eli sopping wet and tending to Archie, January naked in the pool with Emilia, Parker floating dead beside them. It was like a hallucination.
Eli and I did what we could for Archie, told him Bill was close then sat staring at January and Emilia. As relieved as I was to see her, I didn’t want to interrupt what was happening. It looked too profound to cheapen by calling out to her, demanding her attention. Besides, it was enough to know she was there, and Parker was dead.
***
Eventually, Doc arrives,wild-eyed and manic. I try to stop him as he rushes toward the pool, but Emilia sees him and hisses like a cat. “I’ll kill him,” she screams. “I’ll kill him!”
Doc comes to a stop, confused as shit and I grab him around the shoulders. “Leave it, man. She needs space.”
“But…” Doc spots Parker’s body. “She did it, huh?”
“She did.” January pulls Emilia closer, turning their bodies to smile at me and Doc. “Em needs me right now, but I love you and I’ll be with you soon.”
Doc lands on his knees on the side of the pool. “Tits, baby, I love you so much. I love you more than anything.”
“I know,” January says. “It’s all going to be okay.”
A few minutes later, there are more footsteps. Bianchi arrives with Bill, Adriano, and a battalion of Stormtroopers. At that, even Emilia seems to realize she and January need to get out of the pool. I hate Bianchi’s eyes on January’s naked body as she climbs out of the water, but she holds herself like a queen, not avoiding anyone’s gaze as she accepts Doc’s T-shirt.
“Emilia needs a lot of support,” she tells Bianchi.
“Of course,” he says, still checking out her nipples. “My medical officers have arrived; I’ll have her looked over.”
A dazed Emilia is led away by a Stormtrooper, and January is finally free to come over to us. Wrapping my arms around her is what I imagine winning a Superbowl is like.
“I love you,” I whisper in her ear. “You’re it for me.”
“I love you too,” she whispers back. “I want to go home so badly, but I guess we can’t.”
“No, baby. Not by a long shot.”
It’s strange to think there’s a protocol between criminals, after all, we’re not the police or emergency services, but in some ways that makes things even stricter. First, Archie is strapped up and taken by Bill to the hospital. “He’s in a bad way but he’ll live,” is Doc’s prognosis. Next, Parker’s body is removed from the pool. I watch as they drag him out like a sack of potatoes, before loading him onto a gurney and wheeling him away—maybe to be sliced up and fed to the pigs, if Bianchi is still doing things that way.
“Cathartic, isn’t it?” Doc says in a dreamy voice. “Watching him go.”
I couldn’t agree. It’s too surreal to process. More cathartic is watching January talking to Bianchi, her shoulders held back and her head high. My warrior queen. The mother of my child.
“What are they talking about?” I ask Doc.
“Dunno. Did you notice Bianchi’s guys are stripping this place bare?”
I shrug. I don’t give a fuck what they take. “I couldn’t care less about any of Parker’s cursed bullshit.”
Now as the sun starts to rise, Doc puts my shoulder in a sling. If I had it my way, we’d be stealing Parker’s helicopter and be halfway back to Velvet House, but Bianchi still wants us here and I don’t need Eli to tell me that maintaining that relationship is important going forward.
Soon the five of us are being ordered into a huge conference room. January, Eli, Doc, Adriano, and I sit at the table in our filthy clothes as Stormtroopers serve us coffee.
“Wonderful,” Bianchi says, taking a seat at the head of the table. “Now, we must discuss next steps.”
Eli, looking as tired as I feel, downs a latte in one. “Whatever you’d like, sir.”
