Hit and Run: A Mafia Hitman Romance (13 page)

“Anything today, Elspeth?” I ask the buxom woman behind the counter.

“Would you believe me if I told you that you
do
?” she asks.

I hustle over to her. “Hit me with it.” She hands me a small rectangle of paper that I unfold.

Edinburgh STOP New Year’s Eve STOP Greyfriars Kirkyard STOP – F

I crumple up the piece of paper. “Keep this between you and me, alright?”

She grins at me. “Always, Mr. Smith.”

That’s the name I gave her when I came in here the first time. I know that
she
knows that it’s made up. But it’s become sort of a joke between us.

As I step back into the frigid Munich air, I feel a pang of regret that I’ll have to leave all of this behind so soon.

I pass a flower vendor and pull a few Euros out of my pocket to buy Elizabeth a thick bouquet of peonies, which might be the only flower left on earth that I haven’t given her. I still have yet to figure out her favorite flower.

I pass the corner market and realize that she’d likely enjoy a big chocolate bar more than flowers.

Who says I can’t get both?

The line at the market snakes through three aisles. I tap my foot impatiently, listening to the chatter of German all around me. It’s easy to get lost in your head in public when you can’t understand the normal chit chat. It’s almost become a meditation for me. The line snakes slowly, hardly moving at all.

It takes a good half hour and I nearly abandon the chocolate idea entirely until I consider how hungry Elizabeth’s been over the last few weeks.

I pay for the chocolate with cash and run into the street. Icy sheets of moisture fall from the sky, hitting the pavement with a cascading clicking sound. Tiny beads of hail pelt my face and sting my skin. I run up the stairs and get out my keys. I slide the metal into the lock and turn it in place.

That’s when I realize that the door is already unlocked.

“LIZZY!” I yell into the apartment, my heart threatening to pound right out of my chest.

The bedsheets, still rumpled from our early morning fucking, are covered with fresh spots of blood.

I kick my foot against the bedframe, completely enraged.

I pull at the hair on my head, tossing the rumpled flowers I just crushed between my fingers onto the floor along with the heavy bars of chocolate. When the red clears from my eyes, I realize there’s a note taped above the headboard.

“Edinburgh. New Year’s Eve. We have what you want. Want to trade?”

It’s in a tidy scrawl that I recognize.

The note is from Damian.

I know only one thing as I shove clothes into the secondhand duffel bag I bought our first day in Munich.

I’m going to kill him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ELIZABETH

I tried to fight the two men who broke through the door of our flat. I fought for my life. I fought for my baby’s life. I fought so I could see Cain again.

If there is one thing I’ve learned in my decades of being a woman under my father’s protective thumb, it’s that you never leave two crime scenes. You fight as hard as you can so they can’t take you from the first to the second.

I didn’t do that, no matter how hard I tried.

I managed to scratch the arm of one of my kidnappers pretty badly, though. I think I left his blood on the sheets.

But I did fight.

It wasn’t enough.

I choke against the cloth gag in my mouth. I open my eyes and feel the jostling of some kind of moving vehicle.

It’s dark in here and I can smell diesel fumes. I cough again, tears stinging my eyes.

Then I take a deep breath.
Think
.

Cain would tell me to stop and think. That’s what he would do.

So I do. I listen to the rumble of the engine and take in every detail I can. I must be in the trunk. I’m still wearing the pajamas I had on in Zurich. My mouth is dry. I have to pee. My hands and feet are bound. I strain against my bonds but they don’t budge. They pinch at my skin.

A good amount of time has passed. I just don’t know how much time.

Two men had taken me. They hadn’t bothered wearing face masks, which I know in my gut doesn’t bode well. That means they aren’t afraid of being identified. That means that they don’t plan on me getting out of this alive.

I try not to let this thought take over my brain, but my heart races against my will.

The men had put a gun against my back and led me downstairs. If I made a noise, I was dead. That’s what they said.

I remember sitting quietly in the back of a car on the way out of Zurich. The last thing I can recall is the sharp pinch of a needle entering my forearm. They obviously drugged me.

There’s no way for me to tell how much time has
exactly
passed since they took me. I can only guess.

I’m kept from wondering any further by the trunk opening. I have to blink several times to clear the black dots from my eyes. Wherever we are, the sun isn’t shining. But the light from behind the clouds is still searing my eyes.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.”

I know that voice without clearing my eyes any further.

It’s Damian.

He reaches down and brushes my hair back over my scalp. I cringe against the feeling of his touch against my skin. It feels fake and disgusting.

“What, nothing to say now that your husband isn’t here to defend your honor?”

I scream against the gag and he puts his palm over my mouth. “Shh. Shh now. It’ll be alright.
I’m
here with you.” He smiles and I try to convey as much hate and disgust as I can with only my eyes.

He reaches into the trunk and puts his hand under my back. I protest through the gag. “You can’t very well walk yourself into the house, now can you? It’s been a cramped ride.” He lifts me out of the trunk the same way Cain has carried me so many times before.

It’s amazing how different the same action can feel coming from a different person. His touch is cold through my pajamas, far different from Cain’s warm skin. I shut my eyes so I don’t have to look up at him.

The surrounding hills are verdant and lush around us; mist hangs in the air. It’s cold. The temperature soaks through my clothes and nips at my skin unpleasantly. Damian carries me inside of an old stone house and across creaking wooden floors.

This house is old and musty-smelling. He tosses me on a threadbare velvet sofa.

“Don’t go too far,” he says, walking out of the tiny living room and shutting the door behind him.

This place is dark and dim, with peeling, rose-covered wallpaper. It smells like cats. If I had to guess who lived here, it would be a woman in her eighties with failing eyesight.

It smells of damp and mildew. There’s a small window set into the thick stone wall. I shiver. It’s cold in here. There’s an empty fireplace that I wish had flames in it. Then maybe I could set the house on fire and escape.

I sit upright, wiggling my body into place on the dusty cushions that let up puffs of dust every time I move. I hear muffled voices coming through the walls, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.

I look around the room one more time and realize that a rusty metal latch hangs on the window frame. I scoot my body to the end of the couch, pausing every few inches to make sure the voices are still at work.

I push my bound feet against the rickety wooden coffee table to move it by inches. I need to get it far enough away that I can fall off the sofa onto my knees. Then I think I can move like an inchworm over to the window. The coffee table creaks and groans as I push against a lopsided leg. I nearly have a wide enough gap when the leg snaps.

The inset marble tiles of the coffee table crash to the floor with an almighty racket.

“Dammit,” I hiss to myself as the voices in the kitchen come to a stop.

I fall over on the sofa and try to worm my way back into the position Damian left me in.

I mean, it’s sort of pointless. I doubt he’ll think that the coffee table collapsed on its own. There’s just no way.

The door flies open and Damian looks furious. “What the hell was that noise?”

I stare at him with no answer on my still-bound lips.

His eyes go down to the coffee table and he walks over, crouching on the ground and lifting up a tile shard. “Thought you’d break this so you could get away?” He grins at me and I wish I could spit in his face through the gag on my mouth. “Oh, sweet Elizabeth. I wish that would have worked for you. I honestly do.”

He reaches out to touch me but I squirm away. He sighs. “I guess I’ll just have to wait to touch you until your dear, dear husband gets here.” He laughs and it sends chills down my spine. “Hey!” he yells over his shoulder. “Get in here and clean this damn mess up.”

He stands up but pauses, reaching a shard down to my cheek and tracing my skin with the pointy side. The sharp pain turns to a dull throb; a thin, warm bead of blood leaks out of my skin. There’s evil in his eyes, but I don’t want to close my own so I don’t have to see him.

I know that I’m bound and gagged and completely vulnerable, but somehow I feel like it would be even worse to also have my eyes closed in his presence. My sight is all I have right now. I can’t relinquish that tiny, fiery bit of power.

Damian walks out of the room and his two henchmen return, picking up the table and removing it.

It turns out that the table is my lucky chance. It seemed like a disaster when it shattered. But now Damian thinks that was the only thing I was reaching for.

He was wrong.

I look at the window and know that a single, rusty latch stands between me and my life being saved.

I have to make this count.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CAIN

I have to take a train to Edinburgh. I know it isn’t fast enough, but I can’t buy a plane ticket on a fake passport right now. Damian probably has paid off enough people in Europe to catch me if I so much as sneeze.

I buy a ticket with a hat pulled low over my ears, sunglasses on my face.

I stand up almost the entire train ride, leaning against the window of the sleeper car. There’s no way I can sleep. No way. Not with Elizabeth and our child at risk.

I know Damian well enough to know that he won’t hesitate to kill her.

I weigh my options in my head.

I have what Damian wants; the thumb drive.

But there’s a reason I have this list; it’s my ticket to getting both Elizabeth and me out of danger. If I can hand it over to the government, they might let both of us live.

It’s my only form of leverage.

I pull it out of my pocket and spin it through my fingers.

I’m halfway to France when I realize how I’m going to play this.

It’s risky. It’ll put both of our lives in danger.

But what the hell do I have to lose?

We’re already probably going to die anyway.

This is the only option. The only chance.

The only possible way out.

I have to try.

I hop off of the train as it stops at a station in Northern France. I hail a taxi cab and head to a cell phone store to buy a burner phone. I dial the last number I have for Flea.

He picks up within two rings.

“You really shouldn’t have called me, dude. I think they intercepted the telegraph,” he says breathlessly.

“Where are you right now?” I ask him.

“I’d rather not say. But dude, seriously. I think the feds caught the message I sent you. I can’t meet you in Edinburgh.” I hear the sound of tapping fingers on a tabletop come through the phone. “They’re listening, dude.”

“Good,” I reply. “The message
was
intercepted. It wasn’t the feds. It was Damian Lucas. He’s meeting me in Edinburgh tomorrow. Same place you wanted to meet me.”

Flea exhales loudly. “Did you not hear what I – “

“I heard you. And it’s Edinburgh. Tomorrow night.” I hang up the burner phone and throw it in a trash can, hailing yet another taxi cab and paying him nearly the last of my Euros to take me to the airport.

I smile for the security cameras as I approach the ticket counter, my sunglasses and hat tucked into my pockets.

This is overkill, but I want the feds to know that I’m in Europe. I’m serious.

And I want them to be there tomorrow night with Damian.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

ELIZABETH

I drop off the couch and onto my knees. I Army crawl using my elbows and pull my legs behind me. I pause just as before to make sure the men are still talking in the other room.

So far so good.

I make it to the window ledge and manage to somehow pull myself into a near-standing position.

My hands can’t quite reach the window latch.

I grunt as quietly as I can and force myself to reach further.

Finally, the tape connects with the rusty metal piece. It’s so sharp I barely have to press at all before the metal pokes through the tape. I slide the bindings down the metal latch.

I’m free.

I nearly yelp in surprise and joy but clap a hand over the binding in my mouth just in time. I reach down and undo the bindings on my feet, the sticky tape clinging to my fingers. I think I can fit through this window if I wiggle enough.

My hand is on the glass of the window when I hear footsteps.

I re-wrap the tape and place the bindings around my wrists. I toss my body back onto the sofa, trying to slow down my breathing so Damian doesn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary.

I look at the door as it opens. “Mr. Lucas wants you moved,” grunts the monster whose arm I sliced open back in Munich.

He lifts me off the sofa and I feel the tape start to slip off of my wrists.

If he looks down, he’ll know that I tried to escape.

I hold my breath and cross my fingers, praying to God that he won’t see what I’ve done. I’ve come this far.

This can’t be the end.

He walks me up the steps of the house, the treads of the stairs creaking ominously under our combined weight. I groan inwardly knowing that my chance of sneaking down these stairs undetected is next to nothing.