Chapter 29 #2
“Come on, you old piece of shit!” Kieran growled.
The engine groaned, and the smell of burning oil filled my nostrils. My body jostled with a few more wild turns, and the car started to rattle.
The interior got really dark, and I looked up to see us flying through some parking garage.
“Out,” Kieran said before whipping into an empty space, ripping the keys from the ignition, and bolting out. I scrambled up, and he flung open the back door and practically dragged me out.
“Where—”
“No,” Kieran barked, and my lips slapped shut.
A car nearby beeped, and I jumped so hard I nearly peed my pants.
“Easy, baby,” Kieran murmured, opening the back door to a black sedan and pushing me inside. He got into the driver’s seat, and the engine started right up. Moments later, we were turning out of the garage and into the city traffic.
“Kieran?” I called a few minutes later.
“Stay down,” he ordered.
Moments later, his voice filled the space. “They made an attempt at the impound lot.”
I lifted my head to see into the front, noting the phone pushed against his ear. The only person he would call was Ghost.
“We’re fine.” Then, “Yeah.” He made an angry sound. “I’m not sure about the plan.”
Plan? What plan?
“I’m just going to end all this myself. Right now.” The callous tone made me nervous, reminding me just how dangerous Kieran was.
Ghost said something I couldn’t hear that made Kieran’s hand clench around the steering wheel. “Fine. I’ll just take him with me.”
Ghost spoke again, and it only seemed to make Kieran more pissed off. “I know that! You can’t expect me to just let him go to work. I—”
I popped up from the floor. “I’m going to work.”
“I told you to stay down,” Kieran barked.
I looked out the back window. Nothing appeared suspicious. Turning back, I said, “It’s too late for me to call off.”
“Someone just tried to kill you!” he retorted, taking another sharp turn, making my body sway.
“But they failed. Again. Am I supposed to hide forever? I have a job.”
“It’s a fish store, for fuck’s sake! It’s hardly essential personnel.”
“It’s essential to me.” Especially right now when everything was changing and felt out of control. The Neon Reef was a constant, a place that always made me feel at ease.
Kieran started to say something, but Ghost must have cut him off, making him sigh dramatically.
“Fine. See you then unless I tell you otherwise.” He tossed the phone into the cup holder and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” I said, crawling into the passenger seat and tucking my legs under me. This is a nice car.
“I told you to stay in the back.”
“But it’s too far from you.”
“At least scooch down,” he grumbled.
I wiggled lower in the seat and smiled.
“Why’re you sorry?” he asked.
“‘Cause I dragged you into my family drama.” So weird to think of it as family drama. I still wasn’t even convinced Matteo Salvatore was my father.
Kieran’s hand settled over my leg. “No one can make me do anything. I don’t go anywhere I don’t want to go.”
“The government made you their hitman,” I pointed out.
“I could have said no.”
“Yeah, and gone to jail. Or gotten killed.”
“Shitty choices are still choices.”
“This conversation is stupid,” I muttered, turning to look out the window. I didn’t even know what part of the city we were in.
“I choose you.”
The words were quiet, but the impact was absolute.
I choose you.
Kieran chose me over getting mixed up with the mob and potentially being murdered.
“You chose me over death,” I whispered.
“Those who cling to life defy death,” he said quietly, almost internally. “Only you have the power to make me defy everything I am.”
Not caring that he was driving, I crawled over the center console, right into his lap. “You might be a hitman, but you are so much more than death, Kieran Vaughn.”
His arm folded around me, and he drove one-handed in silence until parking the car a short while later.
I didn’t look up because I knew if he stopped, it was because he thought it was safe.
“I want to take you and drive until the landscape turns to ocean and then sail until the sea gives way to land and we can disappear into the horizon where our ties don’t matter and we can be free.”
“Freedom isn’t free,” I whispered. I didn’t know the true meaning of that until I met him.
“You’re right,” he said, stroking my hair as if I’d made him proud. “That’s why I’m sitting in this shitty parking lot and giving you a choice.”
I lifted my face. “What choice?”
“I have a meeting later. One that should make you safe. The original plan was for Ghost to hang out with you at the Neon Reef until I finished.”
“But now you don’t want to do that?”
“I don’t want to do anything that takes you out of my sight for five minutes, let alone an hour,” he expressed.
“Because I’m a hazard,” I repeated.
“Because I love you.”
My lips rolled in. I’d never get used to hearing those words. I’d never not feel them ricochet inside my heart.
“But I’m going somewhere dangerous, somewhere I’m not sure you are ready to face.”
“Where?” I asked.
My breath caught when he told me. “B-but why?” I croaked, nibbling on my nails.
“So you can keep your life here. Or we can leave and never come back.”
I propped my head against his sturdy chest and stared out the window at the sky. “Three days ago, I wouldn’t have blinked at leaving this place. I had no one. Nothing. A life I didn’t really think of as mine.”
“And now?”
“Now I have you. And Rett. Ghost. I have an identity beyond what the state assigned. I mean, sure, my father is dead and probably my mother too, but if I stayed, I might be able to learn about him. It might be secondhand information, but it’s more than I had before.” Maybe I’d like that.
“Mm.” Kieran agreed.
“Plus, your apartment is really nice. We were gonna get Cliff and Atlas a plant stand. And maybe a fish tank. We just got those plecos at the Neon Reef. I gotta make sure they get good homes. Mr. Wasashi just sells them to anyone.”
“A plant stand and a fish tank?” Kieran repeated. “I didn’t agree to that.”
“You will,” I said, confident.
An amused sound floated over my head.
“We could have a good life here,” I said, looking up. “Don’t you think?”
His eyes searched mine as he nodded. “I’ll make it happen.”
“We will,” I said. Then, “But I think I’ll stay at the Neon Reef with Ghost. I don’t think I’m ready for all of that.”
The muscles in his jaw jumped, and he let out a deep breath but then nodded. “You’ll listen to everything Ghost says. Take every precaution and stay away from the windows and doors.”
I nodded.
“You won’t take a step out of that place until I come back.”
I nodded again.
“I’ll be an hour. Or less.”
I laid my palm against his cheek. “I can survive an hour without you, Kieran. I’ve managed my whole life.”
“That was before you were the target of the mob.”
“I got away from them twice, thank you very much.” Three times if you counted just now, but Kieran would probably take the credit for saving me, so I’d just let him have that.
Although, I couldn’t help but wonder. “Why didn’t the cops help us back there? I mean, the impound lot is like police property, isn’t it? They didn’t even come outside when we were getting shot at.”
Kieran’s face pinched. “The mob owns at least half the force. No one—not even the police—would willingly step into their business. Unless they had a death wish. Which is exactly why I’m putting an end to this. Today,” he vowed.
“But what if it doesn’t work?” I worried, letting him see the doubt in my eyes. “What if they… keep coming?”
“I’ll kill them,” he said, matter-of-fact. “All of them.”
The glittering determination shining in his eyes was not only proof that he could do it but that he absolutely would.