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“Don't look to your mother for help.” The look her father gives her in that moment will haunt her forever. “I know about the man you're seeing."

  “The man I'm seeing…?” Her words fade between them.

  Does he mean…?

  Oh God…

  “No, Dad, no, it's not what you think… I-I was just—”

  Her brain, her throat, her lungs, are all too cramped to speak, to explain.

  “Emmett Irving came to see me at work.”

  Emmett? No... he wouldn’t have… he wouldn’t dare tell Dad everything... He wouldn't dare...

  Her father fishes for something in the back of his jean pocket. When he finds it his stare, if possible, grows darker. He whips it out, yanks Becky's hand toward him and slaps it in her trembling palm.

  “The man… the man you are seeing…"

  Becky looks down, blurry eyed. The images in the photograph take shape, color splashing across the photograph as her father's words ring out like an alarm.

  "He was sent here to kill me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE TRUTH FORCES the ugliness of reality down Becky’s throat like a captive at the mercy of his captor.

  The picture lays flat in her palm, shaking like a leaf in the wind. Dread weighs down on her, chaining her heart to the ground and she finds her words caught on her tongue. There is an explanation. There is a misunderstanding somewhere between the lie of Colt being her lover and being a killer. She just has to find it and to do that she has to be calm, rational.

  Everything she is... or used to be before.

  She licks her parched lips, coming back to the present moment and realizing her parents are staring at her, hard and unforgiving.

  “Rebecca… Explain yourself," her mother says.

  She’s on trial and the judge and jury have already convicted her. She pushes past her father, releasing herself from the small hovering circle they’ve formed around her.

  “I know that man, yes… He… uh… he needed my help.” She hates how weak she sounds. “I helped him. That's all. It's not what you think.” She chuckles softly though the last thing she feels is any sort of mirth.

  Her father turns to her still very much seeking, waiting. “How did you meet him, Rebecca?"

  “I… well… I kinda stumble into him… He was hurt and I helped."

  “Helped? How?”

  “He told me not to tell.” She drags her hand through her head, swallowing the panic that keeps dimming and flaring in her. “I know it looks bad. I know I did something behind your back and now—especially now—it seems like it can mean something but Colt—”

  The name blazes a black fire of hate in her father's eyes. It stops her cold.

  “Colt?” he asks. “So it's Colt. Colt and you are lovers? Is that what you’re telling me? You have become lovers with your father's killer?”

  She doesn’t recognize her own father in that moment.

  “No he isn’t… Dad, I…” She jumps to free herself of words that are caging her, but nothing surfaces.

  Colt isn’t a cold-blooded murderer. He isn’t...

  A criminal, yes, but a murderer? Why hadn’t he killed her to get to her father then? Colt had plenty of opportunity to kill them all. But he didn’t.

  “Did you bring that man here?” He doesn’t wait to ask again. “Did you?!"

  “I found him here."

  Her mother’s gasp pushes her father's rage over the edge. “Here?! In my home! Why, Rebecca, why didn’t you tell me? Goddammit!"

  “It-it isn’t… it's not that simple. He was dying he was shot, I found him in the attic and he needed help. He didn’t hurt me… he never meant to hurt… He told me this gang—"

  “Dear God...” Her father crumples the picture in his hands before dropping it. “Carolyn, it’s him. He’s the one who broke into my office, I just know it."

  “Broke into your office? Dad?” Becky moves closer but her father's look pins her in place.

  “The break in—the night you went to that party—it was a message. A message that Mr. Kulich is sending someone to me. To finish the job."

  “Why would Mr. Kulich want to kill you?” Becky’s small voice pushes.

  His eyes don’t leave Becky. “Sometimes your life becomes expendable in this line of work whether you’re on the right side or not. I was no longer useful to his organization and… Colt as you call him—"

  “No...” Becky refuses to believe any of this, shaking her head. “No that can’t be—"

  “Colt Lawson,” he speaks over her in a hiss, stepping toward her, “is Vladimir Kulich's enforcer. He's a hit man, Rebecca. For the mob.” He crushes the photograph with his shoe. “He was sent here to kill me and probably the rest of this family, do you understand?”

  No I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it.

  Her mind races to play catch up, trying to connect the word ‘killer’ to the man who saved her. But the more she tries the more impossible and unreachable the desire becomes.

  “I don't understand…” she whispers, her voice falling apart, her whole being falling apart. “Why would he…? It doesn't make sense... None of it makes any… sense."

  “It doesn't have to. It's the truth. Colt Lawson played you, Rebecca. You got in the way and now he's probably on his way to finish the job. Shit! Carolyn. We have to get out of here." He looks firmly at them both. “Where’s Toby?” he asks her mother.

  “He’s... he’s still sleeping in his room.”

  “We're leaving. NOW."

  Becky has never seen such a look pass her mother's face before. It’s a nightmare coming to life and she’s the one to put it there.

  “I'm sorry.” Becky moves forward. “I'm so sorry… He lied… I thought… Please, Dad.” She goes to reach out for his arm but he yanks it away.

  “We need to go. We don't have time for this."

  But she doesn’t hear him. All she hears is her own naivety taunting her. She pictures the hundreds of times she could have warned her parents, the hundreds of times she should have known something was off...

  This all lays on her shoulders. It’s a burden that’s going to break her.

  She’d been used.

  Again.

  She’d been foolish.

  Again.

  “This is all my fault..."

  “Rebecca, get Toby from the bedroom."

  She moves on automatic, her feet pushing her forward up the stairs. She knocks the door open with her open hand and makes her limbs submit with every shaky step they refuse.

  Toby is sitting up in his crib, a smile on his chubby face. “Juice.” His two little teeth peeks out. “Juice, Bee-bee."

  She picks him up, hugging him to her side and inhaling his baby scent. His warm little body, innocent and beautiful, breathes against her and her insides clench. Her baby brother could have been harmed because of her. Her Toby dead because of her stupidity and self-centeredness.

  “I'm sorry,” she whispers into his hair, not being able to feel anything but remorse and regret. “I’ll protect you, I promise. Nothing will ever happen to you. You believe me, right?” Her teary expression faces him as he beams up at her. She caresses his cheek. “I swear on my life,” she says, kissing his forehead, “nothing bad will happen to you. I'll die first.”

  “Rebecca, we're done. Come on!” her father calls from the living-room. She hears them rustling for their coats. She grabs Toby’s blanket and Mr. Bear with her free hand, adjusting him on her hip as his tiny fingers latch onto her pullover sweatshirt—

  What was that?

  Unfamiliar and booming, it tears her concentration from Toby. Every hair on her body stands up.

  Sounding off in her small house like a shot gun she hears her mother's muffled scream and her dad's yell echo something she can’t quite make out.

  Footsteps, heavy in their march, stampede across the hard floor. She pauses a second before she reaches the doorway.

  Oh no…

  They’re here.
>
  Men with guns.

  They. Are. Everywhere.

  She can only see two of them but it might as well have been an army. They’re big like giants and they’re standing in her living-room like oak trees that have been uprooted and thrown into the middle of her... world.

  She takes a step back. The floor creaks underneath her.

  No, no, no… Did they hear that? Please, God, don’t let them find me…

  She watches, closely. Their eyes are solely aimed on the rest of her family.

  If she can just get to a phone, call for the police, they might just make it out alive. Suddenly she remembers the phone in her father's study.

  If I can slip past the wall to the next room… maybe, just maybe.

  She backpedals, covering Toby's mouth and muting his small gurgles as cold shakes possesses the rest of her. “Shssh,” she whispers soothingly into his hair. Backing up into the wall she steps to her left.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you."

  Chapter Fifteen

  AN ICY SHIVER SHOOTS down her spine.

  Becky hears him shift, leather creak, followed by the whisper of his voice that might as well have been thunder roaring, “Move. Now.” His command pierces her like a bullet.

  She makes her body turn. Cupping Toby's head she presses into his chest, shielding him from the gun. The weapon is close, maybe a foot away, but that isn’t what frightens her. Before she can convince herself of what to do she braves herself and drags her eyes up.

  The man is a stranger; someone she is sure she’s never seen before. Eyes that sting as cold-as-ice they penetrate her will to remain composed, but she doesn’t look away, doesn’t back down.

  No… This can’t be true… It can’t…

  Becky frowns as instinct takes over. She won’t do anything that will jeopardize her family further. She suppresses the shiver that keeps whipping down her back and stares back, finally placing her sight onto the eyes of a killer.

  Colt Lawson.

  Hit man to the mob.

  “Move.”

  He jerks his gun in the direction of her family. When her response doesn’t cooperate with his demand he levels her with the same gaze he’s been hitting her with for the past thirty seconds. A look that slaps across her face over and over, jerking her mind back inside her brain. She gulps clutching Toby tighter and stares back, fighting the nausea that’s crippling her motoring functions.

  She doesn’t budge; she feels broken.

  So he moves.

  Abrupt, like an attack—only worse because it’s upfront, meant to scare her.

  “I said move.” His blue eyes glint as they dart between hers, daring her to go against him.

  How is it possible? How is it possible to care for someone so much, be almost consumed by them to the point of insanity in one perfect moment and hate them in the next breath? She doesn’t know how—all she knows is when she stares back at Colt she hates him with every fiber of her being.

  She steps back and watches closely, almost making sure she does it right, afraid if she stumbles he will have an excuse to use his gun. His glare makes her eyes water. She turns to break it.

  Her family sits huddled together on the floor in the middle of the living-room, clinging to one another. Sitting in front of them her father wraps his free arm around Becky and her mother presses against her so hard she feels the line of her rib bones.

  “Rebecca,” her mother sobs, a new onslaught of tears replacing the others.

  “It's okay.” She hates how petrified she sounds but she has to be brave. She has to get them through this. She knows Colt. At least some small part of him. If she can reach him, negotiate some sort of bargain—anything to get her family out of the mess she created. She has no choice. If she hadn’t been so self-obsessed with the past, with herself, she would have acted like a normal person when she found an intruder in the house.

  Her mind made up she turns to her father whose stare is battling between the two brutes fenced around them. He must have felt her gaze because he turns, meets her wide glassy eyes. He gives her the most reassuring smile a father can give then. She smiles back, holding him in place as she pleads for him to see her forgiveness, but she knows now is not the time. The time for such things will come later.

  She has to believe there is a later… It’s the only way to find the courage to do what she needs to do next.

  She nods finding her father's hand under the jumbled patches of flesh and bone that holds on to him. Toby has fallen asleep in her arms. His breathing is level and there is wet on her collarbone from his drool. She levels a breath, working the kinks out of her system, right when she meets Colt's darkened eyes. They seem to never leave hers. She can feel him on her, tending to her actions, waiting for to screw up, step out of line. She isn’t sure what for exactly, but he can watch her till his eyeballs drop out of his sockets. She is never going to let him get to her.

  Never again.

  She cases him out as well, stroking Toby's back, quieting her own fear with every move. Colt, half-lidded, enclosed in a mask that makes Fort Knox look like it was put together by straw and glue, smirks. The corner of his mouth pinches up right before it falls, even deeper and harder than it was before.

  He nudges his head to the side, a small movement that translates a strict order when both behemoths jump to obey. She guesses they’re able to read his mind because one goes to lock the front door and the other goes to the back. Colt scans the area, leaves them for second to check the stairs, then comes back and inspects each one of them before landing back on Becky.

  “Is there anyone else in the house?" Her answer is a flare of her nostrils and a blink of steel. “Answer the question."

  Fuck you!

  “No." Her answer is low, ringing in disgust. She has to swallow fast. Her mouth tastes so sour and dry she thinks she’ll vomit right there on the spot.

  The two henchmen return. “The house is secure," the skinny man with short blonde hair says.

  “Get their car. Bring it around the corner," Colt orders.

  The other larger brute, with shoulder-length dark hair and a short beard, shakes his head, hesitates a bit.

  Her fear is clouding her and it has to end. She needs to do this now.

  “Colt." He doesn’t seem to hear her, tucking his gun into the back of his jeans just as the dark-haired man draws his out from where it’s hidden at his side. “Colt,” she repeats, watching Colt disappear into the kitchen. She darts a look at the bearded man, wondering if he will take her verbal liberty as a sign of conflict that needs immediate dealing with.

  But his lethal glare isn’t on her...

  Dad... They’re going to kill him. They’re going to kill him in front of us.

  “Colt,” she says, her lungs squeezes in pain. “I need to speak to you."

  Colt comes back from the kitchen with a pen and pad, tosses the other guy a message with his eyes that she’s too frightened to read. He doesn’t consider her as he scribbles something down.

  “What?” he finally asks, after an eternity of silence.

  “Can I…” She clenches her jaw together to fight the bite back. “…talk to you."

  He gives the piece of paper to the dark-haired man, who folds it, tucks it in his coat pocket and leaves through the back door, the blonde man still looming over them like a guard dog.

  “Talk.” Colt puts the other piece of paper in his leather jacket, raises his head when she says nothing. “What’d you want?"

  “Alone, please.” God, this is going to be harder than she thought. She just hopes she has the strength to do it.

  “No."

  “I need to ask—”

  “Ask me."

  “I'd rather if we were… Please… It's personal.” She tries her damnedest to soften her voice, to trigger a memory in him.

  Return and end this living nightmare.

  But nothing flickers within him, not even the subtlest of gestures pass through his features.

&nbs
p; “You wanna ask me something, do it now.” He folds his hands over each other, placing them against his midsection and remains that way, waiting. “Make it quick."

  Now or never.

  She gulps down the rise as more streams of nausea threaten to overcome. Her ability to speak is becoming more and more a challenge the longer she tries to think and rethink her plan. Her eyes skim the skinny blonde man before settling on Colt.

  “Wh-Whatever you’re going to-to do,” she says, “do it to me. J-Just to me.” Her teeth chatter, her nose burns and she feels the first tear form in the corner of her eye. "L-Leave them out of this, Colt. Don't hurt them... J-Just take me…do whatever you're going to do with me… me only."

  The tears are building up, blurring her sight, making her see things because as she speaks she thinks she sees a hint of something come and go in him. A shadow of something along the lines of feeling; warm, soft feeling that can almost melt the cool, hard blue of his eyes. But it’s gone so fast she is sure it’s a trick to play her.

  He appraises her, his gaze undeterred in its pursuit. Like always he does what she least expects and comes next to her. “Why’d you think we’re here?" There is no mistaking the sarcasm in his question.

  He’s goading me; he has to be.

  She won’t rise to the bait. Only a fool makes the same mistake twice.

  “I know why you're here."

  “Do you.” His eyes glance at her father, holds, then comes back to her.

  “Yes.” Her hand comes up on its own accord, but Colt dodges her grasp stepping away. “Please, I'm begging you."

  “Enough.” The one word silences her. Her heart feels like it has a race horse galloping in it. “Give the baby to your mother."

  “Listen, Mr. Lawson, take me,” her father finally speaks up. “Please, leave my family out of this."

  Colt casts him a scowl dark enough to make the Devil blush. “I think that’s something you should’ve considered a long time ago, Mr. Appleton."

  “Mr. Lawson, we both work for the same man. I’ve been loyal to Mr. Kulich for years, you have to know the great services I have provided for him. This shouldn't be... P-Please,” his voice cracks, “please, there has to be another way."