"Mmm. Where you going?" I try to grab Erica as she slides out of the bed.
"Shh. Go back to sleep. I’m just getting some water," she whispers as she hurries out of the room.
Without another thought, I immediately fall back to sleep.
"Slate!" Erica screams, causing me to fly up off the bed.
Before my eyes even have a chance to adjust to the darkness, the hard metal butt of a gun slams down on the bridge of my nose. Pain explodes inside my head, but with Erica’s screams still ringing in my ears, I don’t let it control me. I still can’t see my attackers, but that doesn’t stop me from returning every blow they hit me with. My arms fly, wielding punch after punch, but what I can’t figure out is how they remain standing.
Suddenly, I’m tackled from behind and forced to the ground. Even as I struggle against them, my arms are pulled behind my back and sealed in plastic zip ties. I continue to fight until light illuminates the room and an older man comes casually strolling in, dragging Erica by her hair. Rage and adrenaline overwhelm my body at the sight of him manhandling her like nothing more than a rag doll.
There are four men standing around me in various stages of injury, and even though my hands are bound, I still manage to escape their grasp and rush toward her. Tears are streaming from her bright-blue eyes, and without question, I know I will do absolutely anything to protect her. I never thought murdering someone would sound so appealing, but as I watch this man tip a gun up to Erica’s head, it suddenly becomes my life mission to make sure he dies a painful death.
"Mr. Andrews, so nice to finally meet you. I’m a big fan," he says, pulling Erica’s hair tighter, forcing her to cry out.
I recognize him as Lucas Wilkes from one of the photos Leo had in the folder. I instinctually take another step forward, but he shakes his head to stop me.
"No, no, Slate. I’m going to need you to stay right where you are." His smirk is disgusting.
"Give her to me," I growl but freeze as he slides the gun to her temple.
"I’m afraid I can’t do that, and if you get any grand plans of trying to muscle your way out of this, I can assure you, I have no problem killing either one of you." He turns his attention to the men standing behind me. "Bring him to the living room," he bites out as he walks from the bedroom, his hand still firmly planted in Erica’s hair.
My head spins as I try to figure out what to do. How the hell did they even get up here? But before I can really wrap my mind around the current situation, two men step up on each side of me, guiding me from the room. I don’t fight them. I need to make sure Erica is safe before I can even consider fighting back again.
I’m led into the living room, where he is still holding her. His grunts deposit me in a chair and stand behind me. My eyes stay glued to Erica. She's crying, but the most alarming part is the odd level of calm she’s wearing under the surface. It’s almost as if she has given up and accepted this as the end.
"It’s okay, beautiful," I say to try to snap her out of it—to bring her attention back to us. Even if I am bound to a chair, I need her to focus on something real before she gets lost in the fear.
"Beautiful! How sweet!" Wilkes laughs manically. "You know, Slate. I have been asking myself over and over how the hell a big time celebrity like yourself got involved with these two. I thought, on the way over here, that you were just a fool who hired the wrong man to run security. But now…" He pulls Erica to face him. "I heard you were a little whore. Are you sleeping with the boss? Tsk tsk, Erica. What would dear old Leo have to say about this? There has to be a reason all these men are falling all over themselves to keep you from me. Maybe I should take you for a quick spin to see if you live up to the hype." He leans forward, dragging his nose up her neck.
Bile rises to my throat as I bolt to my feet. Blinded by my uncontrollable anger, I sprint toward him only to be knocked to my ass by two of the men who were, seconds ago, standing behind me.
"Get your f*cking hands off her!" I shout from the ground, but his smile widens.
"Now where’s the fun in that? I’m quite enjoying the show." He moves behind her and very suggestively rolls his hips against her.
A blaze of rage erupts inside me again. I jump to my feet, head-butting the man on my left before charging forward. I’m not thinking straight, and it’s only the sound of Erica’s scream that slows me to a halt.
"Slate, stop!"
I look up and see that Wilkes has moved the gun from Erica and is currently aiming it directly at my chest. Part of me wouldn’t even care if he shot me right now if it meant I could get my hands on him. But the idea of leaving Erica alone with him is the only thing that stills me.
"Please just stop!" Erica cries, completely breaking down for the first time since this whole ordeal started. Her body violently shakes and fear covers every inch of her beautiful face. "Please. Just do what he says for a minute." Her eyes are pleading. "Just one minute, Slate," she repeats.
I stare at her in confusion, but I can’t catch my breath any more than I can process what the hell she is attempting to convey to me. But it’s obvious that trying to bulldoze over these a*sholes isn’t going to do us any good. I take the few steps backward, careful never to take my eyes off Wilkes, and sit back down in the chair. I suck in a few deep breaths to slow my racing mind. I need to formulate a plan, but the image of this man touching my Erica is holding me captive.
"Okay, Slate. Let’s get to the point. As very entertaining as your little show was, I’m getting bored. Tell me where Leo James is at and I’ll be out of here before you know it. Who knows? I might even leave your little girlfriend here when I leave."
"You are not taking her anywhere. Ever," I say menacingly, but it does nothing to sway his cheery demeanor.
"Last chance." He smiles, moving the gun back to Erica’s head. "Where. Is. Leo?"
"I have no f*cking idea where he is. He left us over a week ago," I bite out, but my eyes flash to Erica. Her chest is heaving, but she has the strangest look on her face.
"He’s lying," she squeaks out. My eyes go wide as I look at her, confused. "If I tell you where he is, you have to promise to let Slate go. He’s not involved in this."
"Oh, of course, my love. I would never harm your dear Slate. You tell me where Leo is and I’ll leave Slate unharmed." He winks at me from behind her. Lying son of a bitch.
"Erica, what the f*ck are you doing? Don’t try to be brave here." I call out.
"I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at me, okay?" She swallows before looking over her shoulder at Wilkes. "He’s in the security room with two of his men. Just don’t hurt Slate."
Wilkes’s eyes go wide as his smile grows to epic proportions. "He’s here?" He exclaims before leaning in and whispering, "This just got interesting." He nods his head toward the back hall and three of the four men head that way.
"I’m sorry," she whispers before squeezing her eyes tight and covering her ears.
"Erica?" I jump to my feet, immediately concerned about why she is apologizing.
Suddenly, I hear shots fired and shouting down the hall. Wilkes uses his gun to signal his last man to investigate before aiming it back at Erica’s temple.
I stare down the hall, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Leo’s not in that room, but I have no idea who the hell is. Just as suddenly as it started, the whole room goes silent.
Wilkes yells, "Mark!" but no one answers. He nervously takes a step forward and shouts again, "Dan!"
With his attention focused somewhere else, I see it as my chance to make a move. I quietly rise to my feet, but Erica’s head swings toward me. Her eyes are desperate but fearless as she mouths, "No. Sit down." The determination and bravery on her face has me momentarily willing to comply.
As soon as my ass hits the chair again, I hear a thick Spanish accent roll through the room. "Lucas Wilkes. It’s so nice to finally see you again."
At the entrance of the hall, all four of Wilkes’s men reappear. Only now they are unarmed, restrained, and being pushed forward with guns at their back. I’ve never seen the four new men who are escorting them. They are definitely not on my payroll, but they are clearly here to help.
Wilkes spins, pulling Erica completely in front of himself.
The group of men split as a young, well-dressed Hispanic man saunters into the room from between them.
"Mateo Rodriguez. What the f*ck are you doing here?" His eyes are surprised but he never lets his smile falter. Wilkes swings his gun forward, pointing it at our newest guest.
"Looking for you, of course." He grins as three more men follow him—guns raised and aimed directly at Wilkes. "My new friend, Leo James, paid me a little visit this week. He informed me you were on the way here to find him. I have always wanted to visit the Windy City, so it was actually quite fortuitous." He pushes his hands into his pockets and shrugs casually.
"You are an idiot, Mateo! It was their testimony that landed Dom in jail. Now you are working with them? Have you forgotten about your family’s honor? Because I sure as hell have not."
"Oh, I know all the facts, Lucas. I also know that Dom was a traitor and should count his lucky stars that he gets to serve a life sentence on the inside of a prison. Because, should he ever be released, he will unquestionably share your fate. So you see, I owe Mr. James quite a bit. He killed your stupid brothers and got rid of mine as well. Seriously, I don’t know why he didn’t come to me sooner. My apologies, Erica. It appears I’m a bit late to the party," he says, taking a step toward her.
"Back the f*ck up!" Wilkes yells, but Rodriguez ignores him.
"I have to admit, Erica. I’m impressed. I have heard you are quite skittish. I had my doubts when Leo told me of your plan. But you managed to prove me wrong." He moves even closer.
"One more step and I swear I will kill her."
"I’m thinking that’s not a good idea," Leo snarls, appearing a few feet behind Wilkes along with Johnson and two other men I definitely recognize.
"So nice of you to join us, Leo," Rodriguez purrs.
Wilkes immediately spins to face Leo, firing a shot before he even stills. Erica jumps, and for the briefest of seconds, Wilkes loses his grip on her neck. In a move so fluid I have no doubt it was choreographed, Erica drops to the ground. No sooner than her hands slam over her ears, Rodriguez’s men fire their own bullets at Wilkes.
I watch helplessly as Erica lies on the floor while bullets buzz over her head. I try to call her name, but I can’t even hear my own words among the chaos. After a few seconds, Wilkes collapses lifelessly to the ground.
"Son of a bitch!" Leo yells, covering his shoulder as it bleeds through his shirt.
I rush toward Erica, dropping to my knees beside her. "F*ck, are you okay?"
"I, uh… I think so," she says, fighting back the tears as she sits up and crawls as quickly as possible away from Wilkes’s dead body. My hands are still zip-tied behind my back, but she throws her arms around my neck and buries her face in my chest.
"Someone cut him free," Leo barks. "Babe, can you come look at my shoulder?"
"Oh, God." She shakes off whatever emotions were just about to overtake her and runs to Leo’s side.
My hands are freed by Johnson as the room moves in slow motion around me. Erica is frantically tending to Leo with a box of medical supplies someone magically produced. Rodriguez is ordering his men to take Wilkes’s thugs back out the window in the security room, Wilkes is lying dead in the middle of my living room, and sirens from the street are screaming toward us.
"A word, Mr. Andrews," Rodriguez says, walking up behind me.
I can’t focus on anything but Erica, but I somehow manage to drag my eyes to face him.
"We are gone, we were never here, and Wilkes broke in with the intentions of harming Erica. Your security officers were forced to kill Lucas Wilkes when he fired upon Leo." He drops three guns onto the couch beside me. "Ballistics will match one of those three guns to the bullet in Wilkes’s head. By the way, they are all registered to you. You may be ticketed for not securing them properly." He winks. "Do you understand? Leo and Erica have gone to great lengths to prove to me you are trustworthy in this matter. Do not disappoint me now." He taps my shoulder and turns to walk away.
I have no idea what the f*ck he just said, but all I know is that it ended with a bullet in Wilkes’s head. Absolutely nothing else matters.
"Clear the room!" Leo shouts, standing back up.
"Erica! Leo! Should you ever find yourself in need again, you know where to find me!" Rodriguez shouts over his shoulder as he heads back toward the security room.
Erica runs forward, slamming into my chest. "Don’t be mad," she says quietly.
"Oh, I’m f*cking furious, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why," I growl, looking at her with more anger than I ever thought possible.
"Well, the cops will be here any second, so aim your anger at the dead man on the floor. When they question you, remember everything happened except for the part where Rodriguez showed up."
"Jesus Christ, Erica, did you plan this?" I snap at her.
"Not now, Slate. We’ll talk tonight." She blows me off.
I don’t recognize this woman. There were just bullets flying around her, and now she is dismissing me as if I’d asked why we are out of milk.
Leo limps over even though it was his shoulder that was hit. He points down at the guns and says, "Pick those up and hand them to the guys. I need your prints on every single one of them."
I narrow my eyes at him but follow his orders. I’m not in any position to question him tonight.
Leo gives me the world’s quickest brief, reminding me of what ‘fictionally’ went down tonight. Not even two minutes later, the room fills with at least a dozen police officers. They question us numerous times until Leo’s contact at the US Marshal’s office shows up, clearing us all. I’m not sure if they believe our story as much as they just don’t give a damn that someone killed Lucas Wilkes.
They confiscated all of the weapons, but Leo assured me that they were in fact all legitimately (forged) registered to me. It seems Leo has been a busy guy over the last few weeks—even before he left.
However, it’s Erica who surprises me the most. I’m pissed as hell that she blatantly played me for a fool, but I’ve never been so proud of someone in my life. To watch her transform from the terrified woman I first met all those months ago is utterly incredible.
She’s far more of a fighter than I could ever imagine being.
"Are you f*cking kidding me?" Slate yells as I fill him in on how tonight came to be.
"Will you stop yelling?" I whisper-yell back at him.
We are, after all, in a suite in a downtown Chicago hotel. The last thing we need is the police being called on us yet again.
"You could have gotten us all killed!" he scolds, gritting his teeth.
I knew he would be pissed, and while I hate that he’s mad, I’m so euphoric about how flawless tonight went down that I can’t even hide my smile.
"Are you going to let me finish now?" I say, cocking my head to the side, but I’m sure I’m still smiling, which only pisses him off more. "So yeah, I may have drunkenly hatched this plan, but Leo and I were very sober when we put it into action."
"F*cking hell, get to the God damn plan. I can’t listen to you tell me for one more minute how you and Leo devised this shit over beer and pizza."
"Right. Well, Leo has always said that, as far as he could tell, Rodriguez didn’t hold any ill feelings toward either one of us for testifying against Dom, but we couldn’t be absolutely certain. I know I told you the story about how Wilkes’s little brother found us, but what you don’t know is that it was a member of the Marshal’s office who tipped him off about our whereabouts. He straight-up used us as bait to take down part of the Wilkes family. After that, I lost all faith in the program. If I’d had anywhere else to go, I would have gone. No questions asked. But we were both stuck.
"So while at dinner the night you were at the fight, and yes over a few beers, Leo and I decided we were sick of running and playing games with our own lives. I suggested using myself as bait to lure Wilkes out, but Leo being Leo, his first instinct was to protect me. However, within two hours, I talked him into it. Guilt is a hell of a tool," I say as Slate curls his lip in disgust. "Oh hush! It worked, didn’t it?"
"Erica, this is not a game. You could have been killed!" he says, but once again, I smile, because I am no longer afraid.
I know how it turned out. This conversation before tonight would have had me rethinking everything, but they say that hindsight is twenty-twenty. And tonight, I see freedom.
"We both knew you would never go for it, so we decided to keep you in the dark. I love you, Slate, more than anything in the entire world. But I couldn’t live like that anymore. Every single day, I lived in fear that not only something would happen to me, but worse that something would happen to you because of me. I knew you wouldn’t allow me to risk my life, no matter how solid the plan."
"Damn right!" he snaps, but he finally sits down on the corner of the bed.
I settle behind him, wrapping my arms around his chest and burying my face between his shoulder blades. "Leo went to Rodriguez, who was all too willing to help as long as it ended with Wilkes’s head."
"You knew where Leo was going when he left?" He sighs, grabbing my legs and pulling them around his waist from behind.
"I did. We staged the big exit. But if it helps at all, they were real tears as he walked out the door. I was worried Rodriguez wouldn’t even humor Leo’s plea for help and would kill him on the spot."
"The window in the security room?" he asks, and I can actually feel the pieces snapping into place for him.
"I was worried I would miss the call when Wilkes got there, so I left it open as much as possible."
"So just let me get this straight. Leo leaked his identity and the fact that he worked for me then left to hopefully get help from Rodriguez? What the hell would have happened if Rodriguez had actually killed Leo? He led Wilkes right to our door and then took off."
"We used the same twelve-hour rule we used in the program. If he was missing for more than twelve hours, I was to tell you everything, pack up, and leave. But luckily, Rodriguez immediately agreed."
"Jesus Christ, Erica. I don’t even know what to say. It was stupid and irresponsible, but it worked. So as much I want to lose my f*cking mind right now, I can’t even be mad at you. I will say your ability to lie to me does not bode well for our future together."
"Yeah, well. At least we have a future together now," I respond dryly.
He sucks in a deep breath and pushes us both to the bed, turning to face me, assuming our talking position. "I always thought you were such a terrible liar." He humorlessly laughs to himself.
"Don’t worry. I usually am. I just knew it was the only way out."
"God. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life as when I saw him drag you into the room. All I could think about was how I had failed you, and because of that, I was going to lose you."
"You didn’t fail me, Slate. You made me safe."
He laughs, shaking his head. "I didn’t do anything. I was absolutely helpless tonight. It was the worst feeling in the entire f*cking world."
"No. You did do something. You saved me. Maybe it wasn’t tonight, but you gave me something to fight for, Slate. I used to be great in chaotic situations. I was always strong and levelheaded, but I lost that years ago. Do you think that frightened woman you first met hauling in groceries would have been able to stand there in Wilkes’s arms without breaking down completely? I don’t care if it was a carefully mapped-out plan. I would have lost control and been worthless when the memories overtook me. You gave me back the pieces that were stolen from me. You gave me back myself."
"You did that all on your own, beautiful," he says, leaning forward to kiss me.
"You’re wrong, but I love you anyway."