41. Eleanor
41
Eleanor
Minimizing the consequences
I scramble off the bed where I was sitting cross-legged in the middle while Mac tried to pace his hard-on away. I’m not 100% sure what the implications of what I just heard are, but I know that things have officially detoured from the plan we discussed. “So, Rossi isn’t going to the warehouse?” I ask.
“McCloskey was supposed to tell him where it was. Or the mayor. We didn’t figure he’d pull a power play—he seemed like such a yes-man to me. Mid-mission is never a good time for the reminder that people can surprise you.”
“Why did you need Rossi to go there?” I ask.
Mac grabs his keys off the dresser in front of the small TV. “It was just the fastest, cleanest way to understand Mayor Anderson’s involvement. It’s okay, there’s always another way. We’re still cleaning up this mess tonight.”
My hat and coat are the only items of clothing I’ve removed, so it’s not hard to be ready to leave. I start forcing my arms through the sleeves as I follow. “What do we do now?”
He moves towards the door. “We get you somewhere secure and I’m going to hopefully catch him at his safehouse—”
“I want to come with you.”
He turns his head to eye me, hand on the knob. “It’s better if we get you somewhere that you’ll be safe until it’s all over—”
“But time’s a factor, right? If Rossi leaves and you don’t know where he is, you lose him? I don’t want that to happen just because you felt like you had to keep me out of the action. I want to come. I’ll stay hidden, maybe in the back seat or something? Although maybe that will look suspicious… I’ll have to defer to you on that—”
He cuts me off by reaching up and cupping my cheek. “Baby, it’s not that I don’t want you there, it’s that I don’t want you to have to see this—it’s not going to be like what you saw me do last time. It’s probably going to be gross.”
I cover his hand with mine. I appreciate his instinct to protect me, but I feel like I’ve come pretty far since that first terrifying night we met. It would also be nice to see it for myself, so when I invariably start having stress nightmares about Rossi, I’ll be able to console myself with the fact that I saw him die.
“I don’t know. I’m feeling kind of… extraordinary. I want to see how it ends.”
He grins at me. “All right. Let’s go.”
Mac leads me out the door after glancing up and down the hall to make sure it’s empty. We hurry towards the stairs, and I notice he’s got one hand tucked under the back of his jacket, likely positioned near a gun. It makes me feel immensely safer, all of the sudden, and it hits me that’s an unusual reaction for me around guns.
The stairwell is empty, so we descend the two flights and it puts us just around the corner from the main lobby. I realize my heart is racing from how hard I have to breathe to feel like I’m getting air. It’s like the two stories we just climbed were up, not down. But it’s probably a by-product of anxiety over how sneaky we must look, pressed against the wall as Mac peers into the lobby.
“There are cameras in the corners of the ceiling,” he says, pointing to some obelisk looking things above our heads. They don’t blend well, but I suppose they’re not really supposed to. “I don’t want them to have us on tape, leaving at the same time, just in case. I’ll head out the back door. After I go, wait a few seconds then go out the front. I’ll come around to pick you up. Got it?”
I nod solemnly.
From my position against the wall, I watch Mac stroll across the lobby, looking down at his phone and seeming like he hasn’t got a care in the world. I nearly sigh—I doubt I’ll manage to make it look quite that effortless, though I guess I could pretend to look at my phone too… As the door closes behind him and I start mentally counting to five, something flashes in the corner of my eye.
It’s Rossi.
My stomach drops .
I know from his face that he saw Mac. And he’s going after him… And from the way he’s reaching for his own back waistband, he’s got a gun, too.
Fuck! I freeze halfway between shooting forward and staggering back in shock. For a second, I’m paralyzed with fear for the man I love. I have to do something! Mac’s in danger, he didn’t see Rossi, doesn’t know he’s there…
Something Mac said earlier echoes in my head.
There’s no way to plan for everything. Sometimes you’ve gotta think on your feet and try to minimize the consequences.
And I know what I need to do.
I need to protect my Mac.
So, I walk forward into the lobby, right into a stand of pamphlets with local attractions. It topples to the floor loudly, sending papers flying. Rossi glances over his shoulder at the noise and does a double take as we lock eyes.
“Eleanor, what was that? What are you doing?” comes Mac’s frantic voice in my earpiece.
“Minimizing the consequences.”
Rossi stops, turning towards me with a bewildered expression, so I do the most conspicuous thing I can think of—I run. I dart towards the front doors.
“Ma’am? Sir?” the receptionist calls in her high, girlish voice after Rossi.
I know he’s behind me—I can hear his heavy footfalls. But I’m out the door, almost to the parking lot. Maybe I’ll be able to beat him to the street…
I feel a grip around my hair, just as my foot hits the asphalt. He yanks me back, painfully, and it brings tears to my eyes. I yelp.
“Well, well, well. Eleanor Wilson,” Rossi mutters into my ear. He gives a sharp tug that draws another pained cry from my lips. “Isn’t it just my lucky fucking day.”
“No!” Mac roars, and I swear I hear it in stereo, in my earpiece and muffled in the night air, from the inside of a car around the back of the building.
“Sir? What are you—Oh my God. Let her go! I’m calling the police!” It’s the scared teenage receptionist—my hero.
“Don’t hurt me!” I breathe between gulping inhales, labored from the fear and exercise. I reach back to hold on, trying to relieve the burning pain in my scalp. “Ah! I… I know where the guns are! ”
“Do you?” he growls, his tone all at once condescending and cruel.
“I’ll tell you—”
“No, you’ll show me.” He shoves me forward, using his grip in my hair, ripping some of it clean out of my skull as I struggle to maintain my balance. His car is the first one parked on the left, a handicapped spot. He opens the driver’s door and shoves me in.
“I will fucking shoot you if you run.”
He slams the door and hustles around to the passenger’s side. When he sits in the seat, he’s pointing a gun right at me.
My body erupts in chills of déjà vu. I back up in the seat, putting some distance between me and the barrel. My whole body starts to shake with cold fear.
Rossi waves the gun at me. “Hands on the wheel, foot on the brake. Quickly.” As I comply, he sticks the key into the ignition and shifts the car into gear. “Drive.”
“Eleanor, stay calm. Just do what he says. I’ll tell you how to get to the warehouse,” comes Wesley’s soothing voice. I’ve never been so glad to hear anyone’s voice in all my life. I’m not alone. They’re going to be here with me the whole time.
I have to stop myself from nodding along in understanding. Rossi can’t know about the earpiece. Luckily, it’s on my left side.
“I’m going to fucking kill him, I’m shooting him from here—”
“Mac, no! Witnesses!” This time, Wesley’s voice is a bit more frantic.
A tear slips down my cheek and I start the car. I feel even more helpless, hearing his helplessness.
“Then I’ll run him off the road.”
“James, she is the one driving,” Dimitri reminds . “If Rossi thinks you are following him, he may harm her.”
Bile climbs in the back of my throat. I whimper.
“Take it offline, you’re distracting her,” Wesley snaps. Then, his tone lowers back to that calm, 911-dispatcher level. “Turn left out of the lot, love.”
“What’s the address?” Rossi barks at me, grabbing his phone from his pocket.
I repeat after Wesley.
From the corner of my eye, I see Rossi pull it up in his maps app, then look at the place in street view. “A warehouse. Should have known… If you go anywhere other than here, I’ll shoot you. If you drive any speed other than the fucking limit, I will shoot you. If you try to get the attention of any cops or other cars… you get the deal, right?”
I swallow and nod. I come to a stop at a light. “C-can I put on my seatbelt?” Just in case we get rammed by a mustang…
“No,” he says quickly. “In fact…” He leans forward in his seat and drops the glove box door. As he rifles around, I see papers, a gun, a length of rope and a knife… your standard bad-guy car emergency kit. He pulls out the roll of duct tape. “Hands together at the top.”
“Just do what he says, love. It’ll keep him calmer,” Wesley instructs. “He’s much less likely to hurt you if you do what he says.”
Shaking, I pull my wrists together at the top of the wheel and Rossi winds several lengths of duct tape around them. I whimper at the tightness, and how it cuts into my skin and prevents proper blood movement through my hands.
Rossi clicks his own belt and faces me, phone still out in front so he can ensure I’m taking the correct path. “So, how’d a fat, ugly bitch like you get caught up in all this?”
I wince. It makes sense—he’s a bully, the first thing it occurs to him to do is to tear me down. Good thing for me, I’ve pretty much internalized the fact that my body size is one of the least interesting things about me. But we’re so off script, I have no idea what to say…
“He’s insulting you to maintain the upper hand—don’t let him get to you. Tell him you didn’t know what you were getting caught up in. Give him the same speech you gave McCloskey. And go south on 539.”
I say the words; I make the turn onto the state route.
“Who is he? What’s his name?” Rossi asks.
I inhale a few times, listening to Wesley’s story and memorizing the unfamiliar word. “His name is Sergei Ivanov. He’s… New York Bratva .”
“Fuck. I knew it. I haven’t done shit to any New York Bratvas . Why’s he trying to kill me?”
“H-he wants your territory, your contacts.”
“Fuck,” Rossi curses again.
“Good job, love. He believes you,” Wesley says. “Your exit is in five miles. ”
“So, you’re, what? His little American piece? You?” Rossi asks, looking pointedly at my body. “It must be true what they say—low self-esteem makes you cunts great in the sack.”
“Don’t listen to him, baby,” it’s Mac this time and I almost choke on my relief. “I’m tailing you, you’re not alone.”
“I bet you’d take my dick up your ass real easy, wouldn’t you sweetheart?” Rossi goes on, his demeaning jeering in sharp contrast to Mac’s gentle endearments.
“He’s just trying to scare you, love,” Wesley says.
“Maybe I’ll give it a shot. Make him watch. Bet you’d like that, huh?” Rossi taunts.
“I am going to cut his puny penis off his body,” Dimitri grinds out.
“You’re doing so good, darlin’,” Mac bites out, his tone full of rage and terror that he's desperately trying—and failing—to hide from me.
I feel another tear well in my eye—not because Rossi’s words particularly hit home, but because they’re all listening. Nothing wrong with enjoying anal, if you ask me. But these three dangerous killers are all unwitting witnesses to Rossi’s attempt at humiliation, and they’re outraged for me. It makes me feel exposed, somehow, but also fills my heart with appreciation for them.
I need to show them he’s not getting to me—that I’m not scared of him or his soon-to-be severed penis.
“He’s going to kill you,” I murmur quietly, with all the conviction I’m feeling. I don’t care if I should or shouldn’t have said it, because the way his eyes widen for just a fraction of a second—showing that on some level he doubts his handle on the situation—is enough to soothe me.
“Fuckin’ A,” Mac agrees.
“He can try,” Rossi replies flippantly. “Which Bratva is he? There’s, like, 20 in New York.”
Wesley feeds me my next line. “Um, I’m not sure. I think he’s from Brooklyn?”
“Brooklyn? Fuck,” Rossi mutters, and blows out an angry breath. He pulls his phone in and starts tapping away, writing a text or an email. Unhelpfully, he doesn’t narrate it, but I’m grateful for the respite from his attention .
A few minutes later, Wesley pipes in, “Take the next left. The warehouse is a couple miles down, only building in the middle of a bunch of fields. Home stretch, love.”
“How did Ivanov know about the sale?” Rossi asks, finally looking up from his phone and glancing around us at the low, flat fields. He turns over his shoulder to check that we’re not being followed.
I glance in the rear view, trying again to see any sign of Mac. I don’t, not even a car. This road is straight and flat, so I have no idea how he could be anywhere near me. The thought fills me with dread.
“I don’t know,” I say after Wesley confirms it.
“Yeah, not surprised. ‘Eleanor Wilson’ doesn’t sound very Russian. You’re just a dumb cunt that fucked the wrong guy, aren’t you?”
“Yeah… That’s it, up there,” I say, gesturing ahead to the dark, flat building.
“Go past and pull off the side of the road up there.”
I do as he instructs, leaving my hands on the wheel and foot on the brake as the car eases to a stop. He puts the car in park and takes the keys. The rain is drizzling around us, bringing a chill in the night air, and I can see the breath of my scream as he pulls me from the driver’s seat by my hair.
“Shut the fuck up,” he says, smacking my temple with the butt of his gun.
I fall back a step, landing against the back door of the car. It dazes me, my ears are ringing, and the pain sets in slowly, in waves that coincide with my heartbeat. Then I groan, the ache growing into something pointy and stinging.
Mac yells something I can’t discern and Rossi is gripping the back of my neck with harsh fingers that dig into my skin. He forces me towards the building and I stumble along.
“Eleanor, I’m right here with you. I’m at the warehouse, too, okay?” It’s Wesley again. “You need to bring Rossi inside, through that big open door just beyond the chain link fence. There’s a truck just inside the entrance, that’s where the guns are. But it’s dark in there, and there are plenty of racks in the back half—if you can get away, you may be able to lose him.”
“Where are the guns?”
“The truck is inside,” I tell Rossi, repeating Wesley’s instructions. “Um, there’s a fence over there—”
“Why is the bay door open?” he asks suspiciously.
“I don’t know,” I say, letting a sob bleed into my voice as the pain settles into a pounding headache. “Maybe someone got here first.”
“McCloskey,” Rossi growls. He shoves me forward, using his grip on my neck for leverage, and shoves the unyielding metal into my back. “Walk. Go ahead of me.”
I trudge along through the wet grass that seeps into my sneakers and makes my toes freezing cold. We approach the fence, and he pauses. I can see a broken chain with a padlock still attached to two ends—someone cut it. The arm is flipped up and the door is a few inches ajar. He shoves me forward again through the opening. I keep my taped hands low, looking around wildly and trying not to trip over my own feet because my limbs feel strange and loose, like I don’t have total control over them.
We move towards the open rolling door, and the first thing I see is the truck Wesley mentioned. Rossi pushes me inside and looks around. It’s very quiet, and very dark.
“How do we close this?”
“Eleanor, do not let him close the door,” Mac says. “I need it open.”
Suddenly, there’s a banging noise and we both startle. It sounds like it’s coming from the back of the truck, like someone is inside hitting the walls. “Help! Let me out!” comes a muffled voice from inside. “I promise I won’t tell anyone anything!”
“McCloskey?” Rossi says, like he doesn’t quite believe it. He gestures to me to go forward until I’m just past the truck and he can get to the handle.
He lifts the latch and pulls the door open, immediately training his gun into the opening. “Boss! Thank God! How did you find…” McCloskey trails off as he sees me about an arm’s reach from Rossi. “You little bitch!”
“Funny, I was going to call you the same thing,” Rossi rasps, aiming the gun at McCloskey. “It’s ‘Boss’ again, now, huh?”
“She’s playing us, Jay.”
“Is she?” Rossi scoffs sarcastically. “I know that, you idiot. She’s still with the Russian, and he’s still a pain in my ass. I’m gonna use her, like I planned.”
“But we’ve got the guns now! Look, it’s all in here! ”
Rossi stretches his neck, following the movements as McCloskey shines the flashlight around at the crates and boxes around him. The state of it looks like someone has recently been rifling through it—lids are off, packaging material covers the floor. “That’s not all of it.”
“It’s not?” Wesley says faintly.
“It’s not?” McCloskey echoes him.
“Where are the other six crates?” Rossi asks.
McCloskey turns his accusatory stare on me. “They must have moved some of it… I’m telling you, she’s setting us up! She’s the one that gave me this address, told me to tell Kevin…”
Rossi’s face darkens and McCloskey falls back a step as his drains of color. Well, he certainly said the wrong thing. “What?” Rossi growls. “You told Anderson—”
“Shit. This is going to be bad. Eleanor, start slowly moving away,” Wesley instructs.
Before I can even try, the lights come on and everyone is blinded. I cover my eyes, lowering my head. Rossi staggers and throws his free arm over his face, the one holding the gun.
When the stars clear from my vision and it doesn’t hurt too much to look up, I can see that it’s the mayor, standing in the bay door, flanked by two big guys.
“Told me what?” The mayor glances at me, lifts a brow, then turns his attention to Rossi. “I didn’t want to believe it. Even when I saw your car, I thought to myself… no. No way. Not Jay Rossi. Not my business partner of five years. He couldn’t be trying to cut me out.”
“I’m not!”
“And yet, here you are. And here they are,” the mayor gestures to the crates inside the truck.
The two guys on either side of the mayor lift the big guns they’re carrying and point them directly at Rossi and McCloskey. I’m close enough to Rossi that it probably won’t take too much to shoot me, too—just a slight shifting of their aim.
Oh shit. Wesley wasn’t kidding. This is going to be bad.
I take a slow step back and whisper, “I love you, James Mackenzie.”