Shay Savage - Otherwise Unharmed

Her voice trailed off.

“Who?” I yelled again.

“That guy,” she whispered, “the one who came to your apartment before.”

I blinked, considered, and shook my head.

“Jonathan?” I yelled through clenched teeth, not even able to comprehend him doing something like that to any chick and certainly not one he knew was mine.  He was always going on about how Nick and I didn’t respect women enough.  The only thing I had done to him was spare his life, but all that would change if he touched her.

“Not him.”  Lia shook her head.  “The really big guy with no hair.  The one who showed up when…well, when we were arguing that one day about the neighbor and…and her dog.”

I froze.

She couldn’t mean him.  There was no way.

“The one who told you to check into me?” I asked.

She nodded, but I kept shaking my head.  None of this made any sense.

“I don’t get it,” I said.  “Lia, he doesn’t work for Rinaldo.  He’s a fucking fed.”

“The one making you do all of this?”

I nodded.

“Why would he…?”

Part of my initial conversation with Trent came back to me.  He had taunted me with the suggestion that I had been working for the insurgents and had given them information—the same thing Kevin Davies, the private who had given up our position, had been accused of doing.  At the time, I assumed it was just a tactic to get to me, but now I wondered if there was more to it.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I’m going to find out though.”

I wrapped her hair in my hands and pulled our heads together.  I inhaled her scent through my mouth and nose, wanting to capture it forever in my memories.  Everything in my head made so little sense, I was half afraid it was still nothing but a dream. I felt wetness in my eyes drop down the sides of my face and into her hair.

Something was happening inside of me, and it was strong and powerful.  I didn’t have a name for it, only that I equated it to more of an unexpected, physics-defying sunrise rather than a left hook to the jaw.  It was like it had always been there, lurking around my body, but was blocked by everything else.  Before I nearly lost her, I couldn’t see it for what it was.

Now it was blinding.

“I love you,” I heard myself say right before I started babbling.  “God…I just…I…I love you, and if you had…if he had…fuck…I can’t be without you.  I love you, Lia.”

Her hands were on the sides of my face a moment later, and her lips pressed to mine.  I returned the kiss with hunger.

“Did I hear you right?” Lia whispered as her eyes looked to mine.  “Did you just say what I think you said?”

I ran my tongue over my lips and nodded.

“I love you,” I said again.  “I love you, Lia Antonio.”

Her eyes brightened with her smile.

“I love you, too, Evan Arden.”

I took a shuddering breath and listened to the words play over and over again in my mind.  The sound was the most beautiful music I had ever heard.

“No one’s ever said that to me before,” I said as the realization bounced around inside my head.

Lia’s eyes widened.

“No one?”

I shook my head.

“I remember a lot of shit about how God loved me,” I told her, “but no one ever saying it…not like that.  The God shit, well…let’s just say that considering what He’s put me through, God can pretty much fuck off.”

Lia’s fingers ran down my cheek with a sad smile.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.  “I think maybe He brought me to you, so I can’t be too mad at Him for the other stuff.”

For a long moment, we stared at each other without speaking.

“No more of this shit,” I finally said.  My hands cupped her face, and I stared into her eyes.  “I’m done with it—all of it.  We’re getting the fuck out of Chicago as soon as possible.”

Lia nodded her agreement, and I kissed her again.  That action led to another kiss, and before long, I had to force myself to part with her to make good on my promise.

“I have to get you somewhere safe—somewhere you can be protected.”

I instructed Lia to get her seatbelt back on as I picked up the phone and tapped a couple of numbers on the screen.

“I have her,” I said when Rinaldo answered.

“She’s alive?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I need a safe place for her,” I told him.

There was a long pause.

“You going after Davies?” he asked.

I was going to have to tell him everything about Trent…or Davies—whatever his name was—but I didn’t want to do that yet.  I needed to know something first.

“Do you have a problem with that, sir?”

“He was just doing a job,” Rinaldo said.  “A job I requested.  Are you coming after me, too?”

“No, sir,” I said.  “And yeah, it was a job.  Consider retribution an occupational hazard.”

I heard a sigh come through the phone.

“All right, son,” Rinaldo said, and I felt my heart start to beat faster.  “Bring her to my house.  Luisa can stay with her.”

Much of the tension inside of me subsided, knowing he would be behind me on this even when he didn’t know everything yet.  I would tell him when I could do it face-to-face, but knowing he was going to back me up on killing someone he thought was on his side was all I really needed to know.

“Thank you, sir.”

I drove to his house with Lia’s hand grasped in mine.  I didn’t want to lose contact with her if I didn’t have to—not for a second.

Nothing would make me leave her unprotected again.

Rinaldo opened the door himself before we had even exited the car.  His driver came around from the garage and took the keys from me, and I grabbed my duffel bag in one hand and Lia’s arm in the other.  I led her up the marble stairs of the mansion, between two huge, white columns, and through the front door.

“This must be the one,” Rinaldo said quietly as he looked over Lia.

Other men might have been angered by his scrutiny of her, but I saw it immediately for what it was.  He wanted to see her—know her—and evaluate her worthiness.  Would she be loyal and keep his secrets?  Would she be good enough for his valued hit man?

I looked to Lia, clenched her arm lightly, and nodded.

“Lia, this is Rinaldo Moretti.  Rinaldo, Lia Antonio.”

“A pleasure,” Rinaldo said as he shook her hand gently.  “Apologies for the contract I put out on you.  Mister Arden and I may have had a bit of a misunderstanding.”

He looked at me with coldness in his eyes, and I dropped my gaze.

“Sorry, sir.  I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“We’ll discuss later exactly what your choices were,” he said with the same coldness in his voice.  “Now isn’t the time.  We’ve got quite a mess here at the moment.  With Mario dead—a fact I’m half inclined to hold you responsible for—I’m going to need a little assistance.”

The den in Rinaldo’s house was full of people.  He had two of his trusted men with him—Victor and Matthew.  They stood on either side of him as he sat down in the leather office chair behind his desk.  Luisa was also there, and she took Lia’s hand and sat her on the couch near the bookshelves.  Nick Wolfe was oddly present.  He wasn’t one to deal with a lot of the business stuff, but with Mario and a handful of others gone, Rinaldo obviously thought he was needed.

Even Nick’s Russian piece of ass was there.

Milena Severinov watched me carefully from where she stood next to Nick.  I hadn’t seen her since that night of drinking at Sweetwater and an almost confrontation with her brother, Micah.  I walked past them both as I sat on the other side of Lia on the couch.

She was looking around at the grandeur of the room and was clearly impressed and intimidated by the display of extravagance.  Luisa whispered something to her, which made Lia smile and her cheeks turn slightly pink.  I reached over and ran my hand down her arm before taking her hand and looking at Rinaldo.

“We’ve got all-out war here, boys,” Rinaldo said.  The obvious addition for three women in the room didn’t stop him from using the term.  “Greco’s gunning for us, the Russians are now gunning for him, and they’re all after my enforcer.”

He looked at me pointedly.

“In other words, we’ve got a big fucking mess.  Business is going to suffer, and I’m low on killers and protection.  At the same time, there are fewer and fewer people I can trust.  On top of that, Mister Arden here seems to think I need one less guy around.”

“He was doin’ a job,” Victor pointed out.  “If you’d been around and the same contract came out, you’d kill a chick.”

“Not for fifteen G’s,” I replied.  “What you got is a cheap, piece-of-shit killer.”

“You still gonna take out my guy, huh?”  Rinaldo was never one to beat around the bush.

I wasn’t either.

“You mean the fed I’ve been working with,” I said simply.

Rinaldo raised an eyebrow.

“Agent Trent and Kyle Davies are the same person,” I informed him.  “He’s the one who wanted to set you up initially but agreed to let me give him Greco instead.  That must not have been good enough for him if he moved to infiltrate your crew as well.  I don’t know exactly what his game is yet, but he’s not on your side.”

I looked over to Lia and added, “Or mine.”

“How do you know this?” Rinaldo asked.

I lifted my chin toward Lia.

“She’s seen him,” I said.

Rinaldo looked over to her, and Lia looked down to where our hands were clasped together and bit at her lip.  I gave her hand a bit of a squeeze, and she looked over to me.