BUFF (15 page)

AN ICY SHIVER SHOOTS
down her spine.

Becky hears him shift, leather creak, followed by the whisper of his voice that might as well have been thunder roaring, “Move. Now.” His command pierces her like a bullet.

She makes her body turn. Cupping Toby's head she presses into his chest, shielding him from the gun. The weapon is close, maybe a foot away, but that isn’t what frightens her. Before she can convince herself of what to do she braves herself and drags her eyes up.

The man is a stranger; someone she is sure she’s never seen before. Eyes that sting as cold-as-ice they penetrate her will to remain composed, but she doesn’t look away, doesn’t back down.

No… This can’t be true… It can’t…

Becky frowns as instinct takes over. She won’t do anything that will jeopardize her family further. She suppresses the shiver that keeps whipping down her back and stares back, finally placing her sight onto the eyes of a killer.

Colt Lawson.

Hit man to the mob.

“Move.”

He jerks his gun in the direction of her family. When her response doesn’t cooperate with his demand he levels her with the same gaze he’s been hitting her with for the past thirty seconds. A look that slaps across her face over and over, jerking her mind back inside her brain. She gulps clutching Toby tighter and stares back, fighting the nausea that’s crippling her motoring functions.

She doesn’t budge; she feels broken.

So he moves.

Abrupt, like an attack—only worse because it’s upfront, meant to scare her.

“I said move.” His blue eyes glint as they dart between hers, daring her to go against him.

How is it possible? How is it possible to care for someone so much, be almost consumed by them to the point of insanity in one perfect moment and hate them in the next breath? She doesn’t know how—all she knows is when she stares back at Colt she hates him with every fiber of her being.

She steps back and watches closely, almost making sure she does it right, afraid if she stumbles he will have an excuse to use his gun. His glare makes her eyes water. She turns to break it.

Her family sits huddled together on the floor in the middle of the living-room, clinging to one another. Sitting in front of them her father wraps his free arm around Becky and her mother presses against her so hard she feels the line of her rib bones.

“Rebecca,” her mother sobs, a new onslaught of tears replacing the others.

“It's okay.” She hates how petrified she sounds but she has to be brave. She has to get them through this. She knows Colt. At least some small part of him. If she can reach him, negotiate some sort of bargain—anything to get her family out of the mess she created. She has no choice. If she hadn’t been so self-obsessed with the past, with herself, she would have acted like a normal person when she found an intruder in the house.

Her mind made up she turns to her father whose stare is battling between the two brutes fenced around them. He must have felt her gaze because he turns, meets her wide glassy eyes. He gives her the most reassuring smile a father can give then. She smiles back, holding him in place as she pleads for him to see her forgiveness, but she knows now is not the time. The time for such things will come later.

She has to believe there is a later… It’s the only way to find the courage to do what she needs to do next.

She nods finding her father's hand under the jumbled patches of flesh and bone that holds on to him. Toby has fallen asleep in her arms. His breathing is level and there is wet on her collarbone from his drool. She levels a breath, working the kinks out of her system, right when she meets Colt's darkened eyes. They seem to never leave hers. She can feel him on her, tending to her actions, waiting for to screw up, step out of line. She isn’t sure what for exactly, but he can watch her till his eyeballs drop out of his sockets. She is never going to let him get to her.

Never again.

She cases him out as well, stroking Toby's back, quieting her own fear with every move. Colt, half-lidded, enclosed in a mask that makes Fort Knox look like it was put together by straw and glue, smirks. The corner of his mouth pinches up right before it falls, even deeper and harder than it was before.

He nudges his head to the side, a small movement that translates a strict order when both behemoths jump to obey. She guesses they’re able to read his mind because one goes to lock the front door and the other goes to the back. Colt scans the area, leaves them for second to check the stairs, then comes back and inspects each one of them before landing back on Becky.

“Is there anyone else in the house?" Her answer is a flare of her nostrils and a blink of steel. “Answer the question."

Fuck you!

“No." Her answer is low, ringing in disgust. She has to swallow fast. Her mouth tastes so sour and dry she thinks she’ll vomit right there on the spot.

The two henchmen return. “The house is secure," the skinny man with short blonde hair says.

“Get their car. Bring it around the corner," Colt orders.

The other larger brute, with shoulder-length dark hair and a short beard, shakes his head, hesitates a bit.

Her fear is clouding her and it has to end. She needs to do this now.

“Colt." He doesn’t seem to hear her, tucking his gun into the back of his jeans just as the dark-haired man draws his out from where it’s hidden at his side. “Colt,” she repeats, watching Colt disappear into the kitchen. She darts a look at the bearded man, wondering if he will take her verbal liberty as a sign of conflict that needs immediate dealing with.

But his lethal glare isn’t on her...

Dad... They’re going to kill him. They’re going to kill him in front of us.

“Colt,” she says, her lungs squeezes in pain. “I need to speak to you."

Colt comes back from the kitchen with a pen and pad, tosses the other guy a message with his eyes that she’s too frightened to read. He doesn’t consider her as he scribbles something down.

“What?” he finally asks, after an eternity of silence.

“Can I…” She clenches her jaw together to fight the bite back. “…talk to you."

He gives the piece of paper to the dark-haired man, who folds it, tucks it in his coat pocket and leaves through the back door, the blonde man still looming over them like a guard dog.

“Talk.” Colt puts the other piece of paper in his leather jacket, raises his head when she says nothing. “What’d you want?"

“Alone, please.” God, this is going to be harder than she thought. She just hopes she has the strength to do it.

“No."

“I need to ask—”

“Ask me."

“I'd rather if we were… Please… It's personal.” She tries her damnedest to soften her voice, to trigger a memory in him.

Return and end this living nightmare.

But nothing flickers within him, not even the subtlest of gestures pass through his features.

“You wanna ask me something, do it now.” He folds his hands over each other, placing them against his midsection and remains that way, waiting. “Make it quick."

Now or never.

She gulps down the rise as more streams of nausea threaten to overcome. Her ability to speak is becoming more and more a challenge the longer she tries to think and rethink her plan. Her eyes skim the skinny blonde man before settling on Colt.

“Wh-Whatever you’re going to-to do,” she says, “do it to me. J-Just to me.” Her teeth chatter, her nose burns and she feels the first tear form in the corner of her eye. "L-Leave them out of this, Colt. Don't hurt them... J-Just take me…do whatever you're going to do with me… me only."

The tears are building up, blurring her sight, making her see things because as she speaks she thinks she sees a hint of something come and go in him. A shadow of something along the lines of feeling; warm, soft feeling that can almost melt the cool, hard blue of his eyes. But it’s gone so fast she is sure it’s a trick to play her.

He appraises her, his gaze undeterred in its pursuit. Like always he does what she least expects and comes next to her. “Why’d you think we’re here?" There is no mistaking the sarcasm in his question.

He’s goading me; he has to be.

She won’t rise to the bait. Only a fool makes the same mistake twice.

“I know why you're here."

“Do you.” His eyes glance at her father, holds, then comes back to her.

“Yes.” Her hand comes up on its own accord, but Colt dodges her grasp stepping away. “Please, I'm begging you."

“Enough.” The one word silences her. Her heart feels like it has a race horse galloping in it. “Give the baby to your mother."

“Listen, Mr. Lawson, take me,” her father finally speaks up. “Please, leave my family out of this."

Colt casts him a scowl dark enough to make the Devil blush. “I think that’s something you should’ve considered a long time ago, Mr. Appleton."

“Mr. Lawson, we both work for the same man. I’ve been loyal to Mr. Kulich for years, you have to know the great services I have provided for him. This shouldn't be... P-Please,” his voice cracks, “please, there has to be another way."

Colt's face hardens. His cheeks tighten and spread as his jaw line locks. “I guess you and I have two different definitions of the word: loyalty."

Her father's face strains as a he stifles a groan. Becky doesn’t ever want to be witness to the sound of that sort of agony coming from her father again. It ripped at her gut, stretching her own fear and pain wider, deeper.

“If you think you’re innocent of what we have come here to rectify then you have no worries now, do you?"

When her father remains motionless at her side, his small whimpers burning her ears, she realizes her tolerance has about run out. “Leave. Him. Alone."

Colt doesn’t appear to hear her. “Consider me your priest. Confess, Mr. Appleton." He couldn’t have sounded more practiced and peaceful in his suggestion if he’d been rehearsing it at a monastery. He is answered only with her father's silence. Raising a dark brow, Colt's head tilts slightly. “No?” He nods, finding his gun at his back without having to turn. “Do you consider yourself right with God then?

No! He's going to murder my father!

“Colt,” Becky breathes out, this time gulping for air. She shifts, handing Toby over to her mother who is behind her. She stands, not prepared for how rubbery her legs are under her.

She flings herself in front of him—so close—so he can only see her.

Now he will have to pay attention.

“Colt, wait, please. What’re you doing? Why are you doing this?"

He slants her a gaze then directs himself fully on her, only for a few seconds at a time, as if he’s bothered by her, as if it annoys him to have to stare at her for too long. His eyes are sharp as they envelop her and her words.

“Don't do this."

“This,” he hisses, “is my job."

“And this is my family! I'm asking you—I'm begging you, Colt,” she urges, her voice rising, “to not do your job. Walk away, whatever it is, just forget it. I promise we'll leave, you won't ever hear from us again. Turn your heads and let us walk out of here like we were going to do anyway."

Blue sparkles as he sneers. “Begging really doesn't suit you."

“I saved your goddamn life! Do you remember that?” The words carry themselves as she watches his pupils dilate, his lids blink in a slow drift as if he’s forcing himself not to remember. “You said you’d never forget. Was it all just an act? Was what happened between us part of your master plan all along? You made me trust you and you trusted me to take care of you. If it wasn’t for me you'd be dead! Dead, Colt, dead! You owe me."

He shifts his feet, dismissing her with a clear of his throat. “This has nothing to do with you."

She steps closer. “Like hell it doesn't! This has everything to do with me, my family”—she points to her dad—“
that
is my father. My father you're going to kill.” She jabs at her chest. “How can you stand there and do this? You might as well kill me too!"

The breathing stagger though the fleeting emotion on his face paces like a dreamed phase. “You should’ve never been involved.” His words are soft, lingering in regret.

Her hand comes up and finds his forearm without breaking eye contact. The leather is slick and cool under her sweaty palm.

“I saved you. It's your turn now, Colt." She picks up on the jump of muscles under her touch. "Save me.”

*     *     *

SOME PEOPLE DON’T
know when to quit.

Sometimes people have to be pushed a little toward the truth. You have to make them face the mirror—smash them into it even—force them to see they're wrong even if they hate you at first.

In the end they will thank you. They'll be damn grateful if they know what’s good for them. He just hopes he isn’t too late.

When he saw the motorcycle parked in front of the Appleton house he’d felt the first stir of anger, recognizing it from the motel. It’s parked on their corner like it’s been there a hundred times before.

Emmett can’t ignore the enticing opportunity that’s fallen flat on top of him like it’s raining fortunes from the heavens.