“It can happen!” Cherry said. “Stop being angry.”
“Everything I have is gone! I’m fighting for it all, trying to hold on with my fingertips,” David snarled. “Don’t you understand that?”
“Fuck you,” Cherry said, and that was the end of the conversation. She went to bed alone that night. She woke up alone, before the sun was even out. She got out of bed and went down to the kitchen. Standing at the sink, she filled a glass with water and drank it. In the backyard was a small hut. The maid, a Greek woman in her thirties named Beth, which of course was short for something more exotic sounding, lived there. The light was on. Cherry could see through the window. There, bent over a kitchen table, was Beth, nude. David stood behind her, plowing her with his large cock. Tears swam in Cherry’s eyes, and she ran back upstairs.
She packed what she could, finding a small bag in the back of the closet. She hurried out the front door. The ferry wouldn't come by until later that morning, but there was a small row boat tied to the dock. She got in and set out for the mainland.
It took her hours, but she made it. The sun was beginning to rise over the horizon. She had taken money too, and she bought a room in the city. It was small and lonely, and she sat on the end of the bed and wondered what she was going to do next.
Her cell phone rang. It was David, and she didn’t answer.
Days passed, and he called and called. She didn’t answer or listen to the messages he left. He texted her, but she didn’t read those either.
One day Cherry was getting lunch at a small shop near the hotel when a man took her by the arm.
“You’re a hard woman to find,” the man snarled as she turned. He jabbed a gun into her ribs. “Don’t try anything,” the man said. He was American, and Cherry hadn’t heard anyone with that accent in days.
She nodded to show she understood and let the man lead her out of the shop. A car was waiting nearby, and he pushed her into the backseat. Nathan was there.
“Cherry, holy fuck, I had to come to Greece to get you,” Nathan said as the other man got behind the wheel and started driving.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
“Where is David?”
So they didn’t know where he lived. They just had found out he had a home in Greece.
“If I tell you, will you let me go?” Cherry asked.
Nathan grinned and nodded. “This has grown beyond you,” he said. “You have my word. I’m over that earlier stuff. So you saw what I was planning. To be honest, you made me jump forward on my time table, and everything has worked out. I’ll even give you your old job back.”
Cherry considered it all. She didn’t know if Nathan was telling the truth, of course, but she didn’t care what happened to David, not after what she had seen.
“I’ll take you there,” she said finally, and Nathan grinned.
6
David was worried. He had been for days. He didn’t know where Cherry had gone. He had been rough on her—he knew that—but wasn’t she taking things too far? He would apologize; he would win her back. He had too. He loved her, and he wanted to be a father.
The bell rang. Beth had the day off, so she wouldn’t be getting the door. David went and pulled it open.
“Cherry,” he said, seeing her first, and then it dawned on him who she was with. “Nathan,” David growled, reaching for the gun he always kept on him, but Nathan already had his drawn.
“Mind if we come in?” Nathan asked sardonically, and David stepped back. Only one other man was with Nathan, but David had no way of telling if there were others out of sight.
“Where have you been?” David asked Cherry.
“I saw you two,” Cherry spat. “You and Beth. You fucked her!”
“I didn’t!” David said, and then it all dawned on him. He knew what she had seen. He could explain it to her, but he had bigger fish to fry at the moment.
“You did!” Cherry said, her voice full of hurt.
“Enough,” Nathan said. “I should have just killed you both right away, but I wanted you to know it was me.”
“You little shit,” David said. Nathan laughed and lifted his gun, aiming it at Cherry.
“You said!” Cherry said, her eyes going wide.
“I lied,” Nathan said, and then there was a loud bang.
Nathan crumpled to the ground, his head red and horrible, a bullet having slammed through the back of it.
Cherry turned as another shot rang out. A man in the doorway was stalking forward, limping, a gun raised. He had killed Nathan’s driver.
“Any more?” David asked the man while Cherry tried to take it all in. The man who had saved them looked almost identical to David. Same build, same square jaw, same color hair. It was uncanny.