Chapter Two
Carmen
“Okay. Alright. You’re okay. Everything’s gonna be alright.”
There was no rationalizing with my panic, though, as my gaze frantically moved from the rearview to the side mirrors, sure I was going to see a motorcycle come flying out of nowhere to chase me down. Or gun me down.
But I pulled away from the curb, white-knuckling the steering wheel, made it down one side street, then the next, with no headlights following me.
I reached for the button to crank up the air conditioning. My whole body was drenched in sweat.
I’d like to claim it was just from the run for my life, but it started before that. Before the guy grabbed me like it was nothing, then pulled me against him. Before I even raised that gun and took aim.
It started all the way back to the second I slipped into my ‘about to commit a crime’ outfit back at home and had been soaking through my clothes ever since.
Because, well, I wasn’t a criminal.
I certainly wasn’t a killer.
But, God, some people just didn’t deserve to keep walking around this world after what they’d done.
Still, I clearly hadn’t been ready.
I knew it when I walked up to the open clubhouse gates. Every inch of my body had been shaking like a leaf, so bad that my back molars were sore from knocking together.
I should have turned around, regrouped, come back when I wasn’t so terrified.
As if that day could ever happen.
That was what pushed me through. I was never going to be ready. Not to put a bullet in a stranger. That just wasn’t who I was.
And yet… that was exactly what I’d been meticulously plotting to do for months. Almost a year at this point. Ever since I learned that…
“Stop,” I told myself, shaking the thoughts loose.
Those weren’t going to help.
Besides, I had more pressing things to think about now.
Like how the guy had now seen my face.
I’d opted out of wearing a mask in case anyone was around. Surely, a bunch of bikers would have had a red flag go up if they saw someone all decked out in black with a mask on approaching their home.
I figured if all went to plan, he wouldn’t be, you know, alive to point me out in a lineup. Or, more likely, hunt me down and murder me himself.
A dying animal sound escaped me as I pulled up to a red light and pressed my forehead to the steering wheel.
How, how had things gone so sideways so quickly?
I’d been plotting it out in my head for months. I had a whole detailed plan. I was going to walk in there, find him, tell him who it was for, then shoot him. That’s it. Simple.
Except there was nothing simple about taking a life.
I guess that was kind of the whole point, wasn’t it?
It shouldn’t be easy.
It shouldn’t be something you could just shrug and walk away from. Then move on with your life like it never happened.
I thought that maybe my motivation would be enough to, I don’t know, make it all feel righteous and justified.
But I’d been sick to my stomach before I even walked in those doors.
When I’d practically just run into the right guy, I’d been thrown even more.
Not just because he looked different than I’d anticipated.
I guess I’d expected him to look like the monster he was: shifty-eyed, ugly, a perpetual sneer.
But this Rune guy was unexpectedly, well, hot. There was no other word for it. He was model-level gorgeous. The man could have been gracing billboards and high fashion ads instead of being a terrible human being.
He was tall and fit—not overly bulky, but had a nice, broad chest, corded arms, and those strong forearms that a woman could drool over. He had golden-kissed skin, a chiseled jaw, gooey dark eyes, and from what I could tell from the smile that had been forming at first, amazing dimples.
He was panty-melting, traffic-stopping, like-and-follow (and mildly stalk) on socials gorgeous.
Then, oh, then, he had to… save me?
That was what he’d done, right?
He’d saved me.
One second, I laughingly thought I had all the power.
The next, his friends were coming in, and he effortlessly overpowered me. Held me against him.
To hide the gun.
To shield my motives for being there from his biker buddies.
Because they would have acted, wouldn’t they? Pulled out their own guns. Shot first, asked questions later.
By grabbing me, he’d prevented that.
But why? Why would he do that when I’d clearly been there to shoot him?
It wasn’t like the man had any morals to speak of.
Was he just curious what motivated me?
Did his plan involve something a lot slower and more painful than just letting his friends shoot me dead where I stood?
That seemed the most likely situation.
And now he knew what I looked like.
If I was able to track him down (it took absolute ages, but still, it was doable), then surely he could find me. Likely a lot more easily. Knowing all the criminal tricks of the trade.
How long until he was at my place?
Until not only my life was at risk, but my sister’s too?
I couldn’t handle it if he hurt her to get to me.
But I couldn’t run either, could I? Not unless I took her with me. And that would involve having to explain to her what I’d been doing behind her back for almost a year.
And we both had jobs and lives.
I mean, if it came to it, we could run. But we’d run out of money fast.
Normally, I’d say I’d stay put and shoot him if he came to the house. But the guy got my gun.
“God,” I groaned, stomach sinking.
That was my gun. As in my legal, registered gun I’d needed to get since, well, what normal person knew how to buy a black market weapon?
What if he, I don’t know, committed a crime with it?
Would I be somehow at fault? Should I report it stolen?
The thing was, I didn’t have a concealed carry permit.
So I couldn’t say it was stolen off me or out of my car.
I’d have to say it was from my house. And, again, that would require me telling my sister since there would be cops around.
My stomach twisted in its millionth knot.
I would just have to play dumb about the gun if something came of it with another crime.
It likely wouldn’t come to that. Most likely, he would track me down and shoot me with my own damn weapon.
Except… except he’d saved me.
And that just made no sense.
My mind was no clearer when I pulled up to the shabby little duplex I shared with my sister on our side and an old, partly deaf, ornery man on the other side.
We shared a small backyard that he maintained with his little ride-on mower he loved.
In thanks, we maintained the front flowerbed that he’d allowed to be taken over by weeds.
And on one weekend when he’d been off fishing with a buddy, we’d sanded down and repainted the whole deck.
He’d grunted about it, but we noticed him spending a lot more time out there after we fixed it all up.
It wasn’t the nicest neighborhood, if I were being honest. But it was all we could afford and be close enough to the city, where my sister had gone to school, then after that, worked, to reach by a short train ride.
It was definitely an area where you didn’t walk around at night.
Sometimes, we were a little nervous taking our dog out to pee.
But she—a block-headed pittie mix with a scarred face from who-knew-what before we adopted her—and the old guy next door, helped us feel a little safer.
I parked close to the house, climbed out, and mostly closed the door so I could hip-check it all the way to keep the sound from waking up my sister or our dog.
I crept around the back of the house, unlocking both doors, then locking them again as I went inside. I debated putting something heavy in front of it too. But there was no way Rune could find me that quickly. And, well, it would open me up to questions.
I thought I was in the clear until I walked through the living room to have the light flick on in the pitch-black space.
I felt like a teenager caught sneaking in past curfew as I turned to find my sister and our dog sitting up on the couch with matching looks of disapproval.
Shit.
I hadn’t prepared for this.
I was way too worked up to come up with a convincing line on the spot.
“So,” Sofia said, looking uncharacteristically serious in her ridiculous pig-printed pajama pants.
Our dog had a matching pajama shirt on. In fact, Hamster had an entire closet to herself in the hallway because she had too many clothes to keep anywhere else.
Many of which matched my sister’s outfits.
“What’s his name?” she asked, her voice going all soft and teasing in a beat.
“What?”
“His name? What is it? You never sneak in the house. So I can only assume it’s because you have a new man friend and you don’t want me to know about him yet. But too bad. Now I do. So, what’s his name?”
I can’t tell you why it slipped out of my lips. Exhaustion? Confusion? The fact that not a single other male name appeared in my head as I stood there.
“Rune.”
“Rune. Oh, sexy.”
“Yep,” I agreed.
“When can I meet him?”
“Never.” I prayed. “Don’t pout at me.”
Sofia was a world-class pouter. It was how she ended up getting anything she wanted when we were growing up. Well, that, and she’d always been almost inhumanly beautiful, even as a baby.
As an adult, she was one of those super petite women with bird bones. Everything about her was small and delicate.
We had the same skin tone, the same eyes, the same face shape, but while we both got crazy thick hair, mine was mostly straight and she got amazing curls, even when she didn’t put much effort into them.
Even with her hair pulled into side braids, her face wiped clean of even a trace of makeup, and a star-shaped pimple patch near her jaw, she was probably the most gorgeous woman anyone had ever seen.
I’d say that God was fair and made her prettier but me more talented. But, nope, she got all the talent in the family too. Truly the chosen one.
I’d resent her if I didn’t love her so much.
“Fine. Don’t let me meet him. But can you tell me why you’re dressed like a cat burglar to go see him?”
I couldn’t stop the surprised snorting laugh that escaped me at that.
“I, uh, got behind on the wash.”
“I will never understand you,” Sofia said, shaking her head at me. “You clean for a living but your own life is a mess. It’s like that mechanic I dated whose own car was falling apart.”
“I spend so much time cleaning, the last thing I want to do at home is clean.”
“Well, you just added three more girls to your crew. Pretty soon you won’t be doing any actual cleaning anymore and can focus on that sty you call a bedroom. We’re going to bed. Come on, Hammy,” she called to the dog who immediately got up to follow, but paused to get a pet from me first.
I waited until they were upstairs with the bedroom door closed before I collapsed into an ancient wingback chair, cradling my face in my hands, and rocked back and forth, trying to find an outlet for the adrenaline of the night.
But almost an hour later, I was still climbing out of my skin.
With a grumble, I went to the kitchen, gathered up my cleaning caddy, then headed upstairs.
I always thought the most clearly when I was working. It was part of what I loved most about my job—everything was very physically repetitive, so I didn’t really need to think about it; my mind was free to wander.
Up until a year ago, I used to knock out one or two audiobooks a day while I worked.
Then everything changed.
Ever since then, all I could do was plan, plot, and prepare myself for what I needed to do.
All that time, wasted.
I closed my bedroom door, put on some headphones, cranked up my music, and tried to drown out any unproductive thoughts.
But even as my room was cleaned and gleamed by morning, I was no closer to coming up with a plan for how to handle this situation I’d gotten myself into.
Exhausted, I peeled off my sweaty clothes, took a quick shower, changed into pajamas, and sat off the side on my bed.
I stared at the picture on my dresser, feeling a hopelessness so deep I could drown in it.
“I’m sorry I screwed it all up,” I said to the face beside mine in the picture.
Then I passed out.