The Choice She Made Page 14

  She turned her face up to me, her dark eyes almost black in the moonlight. “You think us shooting at them wasn’t enough to make him think he’s not going to get it?”

  “Guys like him are used to being shot at. They’re also not going to give up on their plans so easily. This might feel like a big deal to you, but this is barely a blip to someone like Tony.”

  She nodded against me. “I hope you’re right. I hope we’re not going to find Nickie’s body in a ditch farther down the road.”

  I squeezed her tight, hoping to provide some comfort. “We won’t. She’s too important for that to happen.”

  Even as I said the words, I worried she was going to call me out as a liar and fraud. I’d been wrong about getting Nickie back this time, hadn’t I? I should have acted sooner. I shouldn’t have let Tony the Hound get so close to Nickie. I should have killed Tony instead of taking down the guy who’d been holding her. I should have yelled at Nickie to run.

  So many mistakes.

  “So now what?” she asked, peeling herself out of my arms.

  I nodded to the black car. “We have a ride, at least. They’re taking her back to New York, so that’s where we need to go.”

  “And then what?”

  “I think it’s time you paid your father a visit.”

  She inhaled a breath and stiffened.

  I continued. “You said your father loves your sister, right? That he doesn’t blame her for anything, but holds you responsible?”

  She nodded.

  “So you have a shared goal at this point. He’s going to want to get her back as much as you do.”

  “He’s in jail,” she pointed out.

  “Yes, but his contacts aren’t, and he might know where Tony the Hound likes to take people he wants to hide.”

  “So you’re saying we ask for his help?” The bitterness in her voice was impossible to ignore.

  “Is your love for your sister greater than your hatred for your father?”

  “I guess it’s going to have to be.”

  “Listen to me,” I said. “We need to get out of here before someone spots those bodies. When they do, this area is going to be swarming with cops. But we can’t go trying to reach New York tonight. We need to find a motel and get some rest. We’re both exhausted and when you’re this tired, you’re going to think irrationally, and make mistakes.”

  Vee nodded in agreement.

  I hauled the body off the hood of the car, and then dragged him to the side of the road, so at least it wouldn’t be noticed right away, then I helped Vee with the second body. I debated removing the police signs but figured they might buy us some time.

  Checking inside the car, I was pleased to see the keys still hanging out of the ignition. “Looks like we’re riding in comfort from here.”

  Vee gave a tight smile, and I regretted my remark. She’d just lost her sister for the second time. This wasn’t the time for small talk.

  She seemed smaller somehow, shrunken, her shoulders rounded in and narrowed, her frame suddenly thinner. The ballsiness I’d loved about her had deflated, and I would have done anything to bring it back again.

  Without saying anything, she picked up her bag from where she’d dropped it and rounded the car to slide into the passenger seat.

  I got behind the wheel and tried not to focus on the way she was huddled into herself, her arms around her waist, her head down. Instead of doing what my heart demanded—that of wrapping my arms around her and pulling her to my chest—I focused on driving.

  Not wanting to head the same way as Tony the Hound, I turned the car around and drove back the other way. We would take the back roads, just in case Tony had people waiting around a corner with high power machine guns to wipe us out. Though I’d told Vee that he needed her, I wouldn’t put it past him to do such a thing. After all, we’d taken out four of his men now, or at least I had, though he held Vee responsible.

  I drove the gangster’s car through the night, heading in the general direction of New York. It would take us hours to get there, but there was no way I could do the whole drive tonight. The past twenty-four hours had been insane, and that was saying something, considering I was used to this way of life. Of course, usually it was an in and out job, and occasionally needing to get rid of a body. I didn’t normally end up involved with the target.

  Not normally, anyway, though there were exceptions to the rule.

  My stomach cramped, and I tried to push memories away that were threatening to resurface. It was good that I was leaving this area, though I wasn’t sure I’d be going to New York if I could avoid it. Too many people there wanted to see me dead.

  I drove for an hour, fighting my eyelids slipping shut and my head nodding from the monotony of the drive. For a while, I thought Vee was sleeping, but then I realized she was just sitting, unmoving and in silence.

  The bright lights of a motel gave an unnatural glow to the skyline. I sagged in relief. I had a credit card and a driver’s license slipped into an inside pocket specially sewn into my pants. It had my photograph, but of course wasn’t in my name. Same with the credit card. I avoided using them as much as possible, as if anyone got an idea of the name I was using on it, it would create a paper trail for them to follow. Things like the meal we’d had back at the diner were always better paid in cash, but something like a motel stay normally required identification, even if it wasn’t my own.

  I pulled the car into the lot.

  “You can wait here,” I told her. “I’ll get us a couple of rooms.”

  She nodded, staring at her hands in her lap.

  A young, skinny guy behind reception yanked his feet down from the desk as I walked in and reached out to turn the sound down on the television he was watching. He paid little attention to me as I checked us into two rooms, side by side, and handed me the keys for both rooms.

  I took the keys back to the car. Vee saw me coming and climbed out, bringing her bag with her, the guns back inside. I would take one for protection, just in case, and leave her with the other two. I hoped I didn’t have to worry about her being alone. Her current state of mind concerned me, and I didn’t want her to do anything stupid.

  She took the key from me, and without saying a word, went to her room.

  “Lock the door behind you,” I called, but the door shut in my face.

  I exhaled a long sigh and let myself into the room next door. I’d parked the car to one side, hoping it wouldn’t be spotted from the road—not that anyone was likely to drive by.

  In the bathroom, I carefully unstrapped the tape and gauze from around the wound in my arm, having to use my teeth in certain places. I winced at the sight of the wound. It was deep, but didn’t look infected. The knife she’d used must have been clean, which was a small mercy. I repeated the process with my thigh. The cut looked deeper, but again I couldn’t see any sign of infection. Both wounds could have done with some stitches, but they were healing now. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t as though a few more scars would make any difference.

  Standing naked, I heard a sound. From the other side of the wall came a thunder of water. Vee must have shared the same thought I had, and decided to take a shower.

  I turned on my shower and stepped beneath the water.

  As the water hit my naked shoulders, I couldn’t help but think about Vee next door, only a thin dividing wall between us. Was she still in the shower, washing away the grime from the day, and my dried semen from between her thighs?

  The thought made my cock twitch and stiffen.

  I tried to ignore it, but when I helped myself to some of the cheap shower gel the motel provided and began to soap myself, my hand automatically went down, foaming suds up in my pubic hair and then running the foam down the length of my cock and back again. I grew harder under my administrations, the thought of Vee never far from my mind. I put my forearm of my free hand up against the tiled wall to support myself, my forehead rested right above it as my hand worked hard. The muscles in my b
icep and forearm bunched, my ass taut, as I worked the soap up and down my hard cock. Tingling condensed from my balls, right down to my asshole. All I could see was Vee in the shower, naked, soap and water coursing down her beautiful body. I imagined her lifting her face to the water, her hands running over her breasts and then down, between her thighs. Was she thinking of me, too? Could she hear me in here? Did she have any idea of what I was doing? Was she even doing the same?

  I didn’t think I’d ever wanked to the idea of a real woman before. Normally, I’d watch porn or just think about fucking, or shoving my cock between a big pair of tits until I got off. The idea of my fantasy now being an actual person who was right next door was alien to me, and I didn’t know how it made me feel. I couldn’t process, I only wanted to reach the climax, and only thoughts of Vee would allow me to do that. I’d never seen her naked, but my imagination was surprisingly fertile on that topic.

  I remembered how she’d felt when I’d fucked her against the hood of the truck, how tight and hot she’d been clamped around my cock. I brought back to mind her passion, her urgency as she’d kissed me. It was as though she’d been hungry for me, and if she hadn’t had me, she would have starved.

  The memory of the regret I’d seen in her eyes threatened to encroach, so I switched the scene in my head and imagined her on her knees before me instead. I pictured her looking up at me with those big dark eyes, and I reached out and took her silky hair in a ponytail, wrapping it around my fist and pulling tight to have total control. In my mind, instead of my fist wrapped around my dick, I was pushing the purple head of my cock between her perfect lips, and driving deeper, forging to the back of her throat. In my imagination, she dealt with my girth and length perfectly, and I pulled out and thrust again.

  Faster and faster, my hand circled my dick, my ass bunched, as I leaned against the tiled walls of the shower. The tension built like a tightly wound spring, drawing my balls up into my body, until I finally exploded.

  I came hard, white ribbons of cum jetting onto the tiles. One spurt, then another, and another.

  The heady bliss faded as I rested, panting, against the wall. I straightened back up and washed the final residues of semen from the walls. Climbing out of the shower, I wrapped the threadbare towel around my waist. I refused to feel guilty about what I’d done.

  Though I would have liked to have slept naked, I pulled my pants back on, and threw my shirt over my shoulders, leaving it undone. I wanted to be prepared in case I needed to move quickly, and anyway, I didn’t let people see me even partially naked.

  I lay back on the single bed, its twin beside me, my arm across my eyes.

  A knock came at the door and I sat up, quickly doing up the buttons of my shirt. I got to my feet to answer the door. There was only one person it could be.

  I swung the door open and Vee stepped into the room.

  My heart pounded.

  “Do you mind if I stay in here with you?” she asked. Her hair was damp from the shower and twisted up into a knot at the top of her head, loose tendrils hanging down around her cheeks and shoulders. Her skin free from makeup, and utterly flawless, her body barely hidden in the jeans and sleeveless t-shirt. From where I was sitting, I didn’t think she was wearing a bra, and my mind immediately went to wondering if she’d bothered putting her dirty underwear back on.

  No, I had to behave. I had to remember the regret I’d seen in her eyes after we’d fucked up against the side of the truck in the parking lot. She was hurt and vulnerable, even if she always pretended she wasn’t, and I shouldn’t take advantage of that. The low throb in my cock told me otherwise, blood engorging the area so I had to adjust my position for her not to notice.

  Unaware of my physical struggle, she sighed and said ‘thanks’ and then crossed the room and threw herself down on the single bed beside mine. I walked over and lay back down on the bed I’d just vacated. There was barely a foot of space between us, only a small shelf acting as a bedside table separating the two beds.

  She twisted to her side to face me and placed her hand under her cheek as a pillow. “I didn’t want to be on my own.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to admit to her that I didn’t either.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  V

  “TELL ME ABOUT your first time,” he said as we lay there, waiting for sleep to claim us.

  I looked to him, propped myself up on my elbow, and lifted my eyebrows. “Seriously? It was a quick fumble in the dark with some boy from my neighborhood whose name I barely remember. Is that what you want to hear? It’s not exactly some hot tale of kissing my girlfriends, if that’s what you’d been hoping to get off on.”

  “I wasn’t talking about your first time having sex, Vee, though I do like the image of you making out with another girl. No, I meant the first time you killed someone.”

  My body went rigid and I looked away. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “Why? Do you feel guilty?”

  “Not at all. He had it coming.”

  “So why won’t you talk about it?”

  “Because the reason it happened wasn’t about me. I did it for someone else. It isn’t my story to tell.”

  “Okay, so just tell me how you felt when it was done.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do you like talking about death?”

  “Not the death itself. But I find it incredibly sexy that you’re someone willing to go to such extremes for someone you love.”

  There was always such a steeliness behind his blue eyes, a hardness. I supposed I shouldn’t expect anything else from a killer. Did people see the same thing in me? Was that why I never had any friends, and most people had the good sense to give me a wide berth? I guessed it was.

  “And how did it make me feel?” I took a breath. “Strong, fierce, brave, ruthless. Self-righteous and powerful.”

  “So you understand why people get addicted to killing?”

  But I shook my head. “That was only at first. Later, when all the adrenaline had worn off, I felt sick. I replayed it over and over again, how the gun had bucked in my hand when it went off, how he’d had this confusion in his eyes before he fell. The blood smeared across the ground. I replayed it so many time over the next few weeks that I thought I was going crazy, caught in some kind of time loop where I couldn’t get my brain to focus on anything else.”

  “But yet you did it again.”

  I looked up at him sharply, locking his eyes with mine. “That was different. I was forced to do that.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Forced?”

  “Yes, forced. Why do you think I went to the police? I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew I couldn’t live with my father after he’d put us through that. He was trying to get me to prove my loyalty to him, but all it did was push me even further away.”

  “That’s not what your father is saying.”

  “Fuck him. He’s a liar and a murderer.”

  “Couldn’t the same be said about you?”

  I pushed myself upright on the bed, anger raging through me. “Are you saying you believe my father more than you believe me?”

  Frustratingly, he gave a shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve only heard one side of the story. Your father told me he wanted you dead, not only because you are going to testify against him, but because you killed your mother and stole his only other daughter away. He said you betrayed the whole family. He said you hated him enough to want to take away the two things in his life most precious to him. You went to the cops for protection and asked them to hide you and your sister in return for information about him that would get him put away for a very long time.”

  I stared at X in amazement, my mouth hanging open. I could barely believe the audacity of the man who called himself my father. To create an image of me that was so sick and pass it off as the truth. That man lied for a living; no wonder he got people to believe him. How many others thought that was the truth about what happened? There were the other men in the room, who kn
ew what really happened, but they would do and say whatever Mickey Five Fingers told them.

  “That isn’t what happened at all,” I managed to say. “Yes, I went to the police and told them I would spill my guts about everything I’d ever known about his business, and the next thing I know, I’ve got U.S. Marshals at my front door, telling us to pack a bag ’cause we’re leaving then and there. But I didn’t kill my mom to get back at him. He found out she’d been having an affair for the past two years, and it was an affair I knew about. The guy my mom had been seeing spilled his guts right before my dad killed him, and told him that I knew about the affair. In my father’s eyes, this betrayal was almost as bad as the fact my mom had been cheating on him. He said I was no longer loyal to him, and I needed to prove my loyalty. He took me and my mom and my sister into this big warehouse. My mom and my sister were crying. He had a couple of his big sidekicks training guns on us and said they’d shoot us all if we tried anything.” My voice broke and I swallowed back emotion as I relieved the horrifying events. “He gave me a choice.” My voice sounded smaller now. “I could shoot my mom, or my sister. If I chose to kill neither of them, then we would all die. He knew me and my sister didn’t get on so great, but I think deep down he knew I would never choose her. He loved her, though he had a sick way of showing it. But my mom knew she’d done wrong. She’d put us all in a terrible position by betraying my dad, and it was never going to end well. I loved her. I didn’t want her to die. But I also knew that she wouldn’t want me to choose Nickie either. She would want to die before either of her children did. They would have shot us all. So I had no choice. I killed my own mom.”

  I paused, gathering myself together before I spoke again.

  “When it was done, he pulled me into a hug and clapped me on the back, said he knew I’d see sense. I’d been splattered with my own mother’s blood, while my sister was wailing over her dead body, and would hate me forever, and he actually hugged me. He told me he trusted me again, but I hated him. I hated him with a fury I’d never felt before. Looking back, I’m amazed I didn’t turn that gun on him there and then. I wanted to, believe me, I did, but it was only because I knew both Nickie and I would end up dead in a revenge killing that I managed to control myself. The first moment I got, where I could be sure I wasn’t being watched, I went to the cops and told them everything I knew, and that I was willing to testify if they arrested him.”