I kissed her. It was the most natural thing I’ve ever done and the most powerful. The passion that blasted out to every corner of my body wasn’t like anything I’d ever felt before. Those previous times were pale shadows.
She was the sun.
She was –
Fuck!
I broke away and pulled out of her embrace. Her expression was full of surprise and hurt. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. My heart was pounding. My body was alive and aching for her. “It’s all just…sudden.”
“Sudden?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I shook my head, trying to clear my mind.
“Sudden,” she repeated to herself, looking away. She shrugged. “Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe I made a mistake.”
I wanted to scream that she hadn’t made any mistakes, that everything was very right, but I forced myself not to answer.
She looked up at me. Now her pale blue eyes were rimmed with sadness. “I guess what I felt at the church, and at the bar, I guess that was just me. I thought there was some kind of connection between us. Something different, something I couldn’t quite explain, but…” she trailed off. Her eyes watered, but she looked away before any tears fell. “Maybe I was wrong.”
I stood in the entry way of that hotel room, my nerves jangled, my heart pounding, my cock raging and my voice stuck in my throat. All my life, I’d hoped for what she described. That magical connection. Didn’t everyone dream of that? Even those of us who refused to admit it? How else do all those romance books sell, if not to feed into that basic human desire?
And here it was. A beautiful, mysterious woman that I felt that immediate connection with. And she was standing in front of me, professing to feel that same connection. Was she lying?
No. Every fiber of my being told me she was sincere. All my street smarts and cop smarts told me the same thing. She was for real. And if I pushed this away because I didn’t have the guts to trust it, I’d spend the rest of my life regretting it.
I reached out and slid my hand along her cheek, resting it at the back of her neck. She needed no more encouragement than that. Her lips found mine again, kissing me without reservation. I felt heat from every direction and I poured that heat into her.
It was an hour later before we spoke another word. In the interim, only the moans and cries of pleasure and then the silence of satisfaction afterward filled the room. My clothes lay strewn across the pathway to the bedroom. She gave no reaction to the thudding sound my gun made when I dropped it to the carpeting at the side of the bed. Her eyes were alight with hunger and she’d pulled me onto her.
Lying beside her now, I listened to her breathing. The smell of her perfume, our sweat and sex, drifted in the air. She was tucked in next to me, her head on my chest, my arm draped over her. I felt like I could lay there forever.
“I wanted this,” she finally whispered, stroking the finger of my hand where it hung near her breast. “From that first moment I saw you in the church, I wanted this to happen.”
“Me, too,” I said softly.
“Is that horrible?” she asked. “To want something like this so badly at a time like that?”
“No. It is what it is. We’re human.”
“Some of us are,” she said. “Others, I don’t know.”
I felt my chest tighten a little. “You’re talking about—”
Her hand covered my mouth. “Don’t say his name. Not here.”
I waited until she removed her hand. Then I said, “But you’re with him. Why?”
She didn’t answer me for a long time. Her breathing was even and steady. I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep.
“I was afraid,” she finally said.
That didn’t make sense to me. “Afraid of what?”
“I see a lot of things in that bar. People meeting people, you know? The kind of people who didn’t want to be seen with the people they were meeting. And I heard things. Dangerous things.”
“So quit. The money can’t be that good.”
“The money is the best I can ever remember, at least for tending bar. But it isn’t the money that keeps me there. It’s the fear.”
“I’m still not following you,” I said, but with all the talk of her being afraid, I gave her a reassuring squeeze on her arm, anyway.
“I’m afraid that if I quit, they’ll get suspicious about what I might know and hurt me,” she said. “As long as I’m still there, I’m part of the group, so I’m safe. But if I leave…”
Then I understood. “And he’s your way out.”
“I thought so, yes. He has the respect of those people. They’d let me go without suspicion if I was with him. He was strong enough to make it happen.”
A rush of sudden jealousy exploded in my chest. They say jealousy is green, but that’s not how it felt to me. It felt black and red and full of hatred. “So you got your wish. All you had to do was fuck him a few times.”
She turned her head, staring up at me in stunned silence. Tears sprang to her eyes. I felt a hitch in her chest. “What do you think I am? Some kind of whore?”
“I never said that. I said you fucked him.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t.”
It was my turn to be stunned. “You haven’t?”
“No. I’ve put him off.”
I looked at her, uncertain. “I wouldn’t figure Jerzy to be sticking around a woman in that situation.”
“Maybe I’m not just any woman.”
“No argument here.”
She smiled slightly, then shrugged. “He pushes, but I told him I want to take things slow.” She gave me an earnest stare. “But I don’t want to take things anywhere with him. I just want out. And from what I heard, he would only be here a few days. Long enough to leave with him, but a short enough time to…”
“To lead him on and then cut and run once you’re clear.”
She nodded. A single tear rolled down her cheek. “I know that’s horrible, but it was a matter of survival. Patrik’s been looking at me in strange ways the last few weeks. And Andros, too.”
“Andros?”
“Patrik’s bodyguard. The big guy with a crew cut.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t know for sure what their intentions are, Mick, but I know they’re not good. So I took the opportunity when it came through the door.”
“So you’re clear,” I said.
“No. I don’t think so. In fact, I think I’m worse off than before.”
“Why?”
She let out a rueful laugh. “Why? He’s your brother, Mick. You know him. He’s more heartless than everyone in Ambrozy’s put together. He won’t keep taking it slow, no matter what I say. And now he’s told me things. Things about diamond earrings.”
I paused. So she knew about that.
Ania started crying in earnest. She didn’t make any noise, but her body hitched and jumped. Tears splashed onto my chest and rolled down my body. I held her close to me, my arms wrapped around her protectively.
When her tears dwindled, she spoke in the dim light of the room. “He’s going to kill me,” she said, her voice full of dread certainty. “As soon as he has the diamonds, he’ll realize I know too much. And when he figures out that I don’t really want to be with him, that’ll be the end. He’ll kill me.”
I tried to think about what she said, but I couldn’t. Or rather, it didn’t require thought. Her words rang true. Jerzy was a sociopath. If she kept refusing his sexual advances, he’d lose interest. Or simply take what she wouldn’t give. And if he thought she was a liability, he only knew one way to resolve that kind of problem.
I kissed the top of Ania’s head. “He won’t hurt you,” I told her. “I won’t let him.”
She started crying again, but this time it had a different tone to it. She squeezed me tight until her tears subsided. Then she slid up and kissed me gently on the neck.
“That is why I called you,” she whispered hotly into my ear. “I knew you were for real. And I knew there was something between us, something that could be for good.”
I swallowed. “Yeah,” I said. “I feel it.”
She put her head on my shoulder and ran her fingers across my chest, stroking it. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore. And I don’t want to be afraid of this. Of us.”
Us.
That word made my chest soar.
“I’m not afraid,” I told her.
“Good,” she said.
And it was.
TWENTY-THREE
Jerzy
For fifteen minutes I’ve been standing under a low tree, in the shadows and watching my car, the street, everything. Nothing going on, really. A few cars have rolled by but they knew where they were going. This street doesn’t get much traffic anyway.
My head is telling me to get going. I give each end of the street another look.
Fuck it. If you’re out here, come get me. I throw my cigarette away and walk to the car. My right hand is in my jacket pocket and the Beretta is there, too.
I start the car and pull out slow, heading down the block and out of the neighborhood. I leave the same way I came in; I turn onto Milwaukee Avenue and then get back on the Kennedy. I got no idea where I’m going, so I head north and take the first exit. There’s a stretch of fast food restaurants and chain hotels. I pull into a McDonald’s drive thru and get a coke, then I park in the back. I gotta think here for a minute.
I start going down a little checklist in my head.
This car will get made soon if it hasn’t been already when I got here earlier tonight. Tomorrow morning, before I meet Hero, I’ll turn it in and get another one.
But it ain’t tomorrow yet.
Need a place to stay and I guess I’ll use one of these hotels right around here. I still don’t want to stay at the O’Hare Hyatt. Showing myself around there too early and everything, you never know. Plus the diner and bank in the morning are so close from where I’m at I could piss on them from here.
On my left now. A car is sliding into the parking place beside me. I take a drink of my coke and then give the car a quick, casual glance. Just two little pukes. They hop out, all drunked up, slam their doors and laugh their way inside.
For a second, I think about calling Ania, sneaking over to her place. But shit, I know that won’t work. Her place, or even somewhere else, would be a mistake. I think it’s a pretty safe bet the Russians are tracking her and even Patrik is probably watching her now. I mean hey, me and her being hooked up ain’t exactly a secret. They’ll use her if they can. I’ll just have to wait to grab her when we make our jump.
Speaking of Patrik, I will get that fucker. Might take a long while, but it’ll happen. Oh yeah.
I take another sip of coke and look to my right at a tall green sign for a Holiday Inn Express about two blocks away.
As good as any other around here, I guess.
My cell phone is ringing. Fuck me.
I roll over and think it’s morning already but I can see through the curtains that it’s still pitch black outside.
Cell phone again, where the fuck is it?
The half bottle of Patrik’s Makers Mark that I drank, in like an hour, is not helping me here.
I’m stumbling my ass around the dark hotel room but then I see the cell light up as it rings. Over by the TV. I lunge at it just to shut it the fuck up.
The time on the phone says about three in the damn morning. The number calling is Ania’s.
I stare at that number for a second. A short second.
“Hey.” I sway to the left a little and put my hand on the desk to balance my drunk ass.
“You don’t know how good your voice sounds.” Her voice was soft but it has that edge to it again, that sex edge.
“You too, babe.”
“I know things are dangerous for you right now but I had to call.”
“I know. Believe me, I know.” My voice is slurred and my head is still swimming but I have a little more focus now. “Look, Ania, I want you, too. Real bad. Just another day or two and we’ll meet somewhere.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I mean no, it’s not that…it is, but…hold on.” There was some rustling around on her end.
“Sorry, had to switch hands. I’m driving.”
“Its three o’clock in the fucking morning. Where you at? What’re you doing?”
“That’s what I mean. Of course I miss you, want you, but what I’m calling about is I’m scared.” She sounds like she was crying now. “I need you to help me, baby.”
I stand up a little straighter and start pulling on my shirt. This is not good shit.
“What happened? Where the fuck you at? I’m on my way.”
“Earlier, midnight maybe, after I got off work at Ambrozy’s, a car followed me almost all the way home. It turned off, though. Then when I drove up to the apartment building there was another car with its parking lights on about a half block down and there were two guys hanging around the front door of the building too. I just took off. I’ve just been driving since then. I…” She started crying again.
“Take it slow and talk. Just breathe and talk.”
“I’m scared, Jerz. Real scared.”
“Slow down. It’s gonna be okay. Are you being followed now?”
“No. No way. I lost them.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” She sniffs and coughs. ”I lost them on the Eisenhower. Took an exit real quick and they missed it.”
“You sure?”
“Jerzy, yes. Yes.”
“All right, we shouldn’t do this but fuck it. Come to me. Holiday Inn Express, a block south off Damen and Armitage. Room 340.” I can’t believe I’m doing this but I am. She’s trouble, but she’s damn good trouble. I can smell her already. “Be real careful and watch for things.”
“Oh Jerz, I’m so scared. I’ll be there, I’ll be right there.”
“Ania. Park around back. Keep your eyes open.”
Twenty minutes later there is a light tap at the door. Damn, she must have been close.
I carry my gun over, look out the peephole and see that it’s her. She shoots a quick look down the hallway both ways and then stares straight at the door. She’s scared, no doubt about that.
I open the door, she walks in and I shut it right behind her. While I’m bolting the door she grabs me from behind with both arms around my waist and hangs on tight.
Her hand feels its way around and then squeezes me hard.
She turns me around to where I’m leaning against the wall. I rip two buttons on her blouse getting it off. She kisses me, hungry, with a vacuum lock and her breath is coming in quick bursts through her nose. Then both of her hands go to my chest and she breaks off the kiss.