8
1045 Words
I can’t look at him. My face is on fire, I’m as stiff as a board in his arms, and I can’t risk looking into those dark, burning eyes, because I’m afraid of what I might see reflected back at me.
“Take a breath. Then unsheathe your fingernails from my arm. Then tell me why you’re freaking out.”
I blurt, “Because you’re the most dangerous man in Boston
—”
“In the world,” he interrupts mildly.
“—and I’m about to die—”
“We’ve already been over this. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“—and you admitted you’re a liar—”
“Hmm. There is that.”
“—and you’re holding me in your lap and sniffing my neck and…and…”
“And?”
I swallow hard, still not able to look at him, my pulse flying at a breakneck speed.
Then his body tenses.
He deposits me back onto my side of the seat with an expression like he just smelled something rotten and barks at the cab driver, “Pull over.”
The taxi screeches to a stop at the curb. Liam turns his head and pins me in his burning, unblinking gaze.
He growls something in a language I don’t understand, then continues to glare at me.
I say, “Um…”
“Get out.”
My mouth drops open. “You’re letting me go?”
“No. I’m throwing you out.”
Reaching around me, he opens the door and pushes on it, so it swings wide on its hinges. Then he retreats to his side of the car and stares straight ahead, his jaw hard and his energy that of barely controlled thermonuclear rage.
I have no idea what’s happening.
But this isn’t the time to wonder about a notorious gangster’s unexpected mood swings.
This is the time to run the hell away.
I launch myself out of the cab and do just that, disappearing into the night as if it swallowed me.
5
J U L E S
“I don’t get it.”
“I don’t either, Fin, but I’m telling you,
that’s what happened.”
“He had you and then he just…let you go?”
“Yep.”
Her brow crinkles. Seated next to Max on the baroque blue velvet love seat tucked into the corner of our favorite murdermystery-themed dive bar, the Poison Pen, she’s chewing her lip and frowning, white knuckling another bourbon as she watches me pace back and forth in front of the wooden coffee table separating us.
Max is watching me, too. But it’s more of a “you’re a bonehead” look than Fin’s worried one.
She mutters, “You should’ve stabbed that fucker in the eye when you had the chance.”
“I didn’t have the chance, Max, that’s what I’m saying!”
She’s clearly dubious. “I dunno, Jules, it sounds like you two had quite the long talk. There must’ve been one second in between all that yammering when you could’ve shivved that son of a goat herder and made the world a whole lot better in the process.”
She pauses to give me an accusing stare. “I mean…Liam Black?”
I turn and pace the other direction, wringing my hands distractedly. “We agreed it would be best if I kept the identity of the marks a secret. I pick the targets and research the job, you handle electronics and surveillance, Fin handles logistics and transportation. The details of each of our tasks we keep to ourselves in case one of us gets caught.”
Max snorts. “Yeah, I know the rules. I just assumed our whole ‘steal from the rich and give to the poor’ girl gang ethos was about fat old billionaires who beat their kids and cheat on their taxes, not leaders of mafia syndicates.”
Sipping her bourbon, Fin says absently, “Super-hot leaders of mafia syndicates.”
“His hotness is irrelevant,” says Max.
To which Fin replies, “It was relevant when you were ogling him at the bar and your panties were curling off you like burning paper.”
“I didn’t know who he was then. I’d never seen a picture of him.”
“As if it would’ve mattered.”
Max sniffs. “Excuse me, but I’d like to think I’m a little more discerning than that.”
“Maybe you are, but your coochie has a mind of her own. Let’s not forget that cute musician who couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag.”
“He was harmless!”
“He was clueless.”
“An air-brained guitarist is not the same thing as the head of a multinational criminal empire!”
“My point is that when it comes to hot men, your vadge can’t be trusted. If Satan had tats and a strong jaw, you’d f**k him.”
Max says flatly, “This from the woman who falls in love with every leggy redhead who knows how to bat her lashes.
No matter how conniving.”
Bristling, Fin says, “Tess wasn’t conniving. She was… clever!”
Max mutters, “Clever enough to make off with all the money in your bank account.”
I have to stop this little spat before it can devolve into allout war. “Girls! Please! Can we focus for a minute on the situation?”
Max huffs, Fin scowls, and I swing around and pace back the other direction. “Okay. First things first. How did he find us?”
“Don’t look at me,” Max says defensively. “The cameras at the warehouse and all around the drop zone were out. I did my job.”
“What about around the field where we offloaded the truck?”
“Yes,” she says with exaggerated patience, as if speaking to a child. “Those were out, too.”
Fin says, “My side of the house is buttoned-up, too. I took all the usual precautions.”
“There has to be a leak somewhere. A hole we didn’t plug. Maybe someone saw us break into the warehouse and followed us from there?”
- Writer
