Page 10 of You Can Run

“I was trying to save a life,” Ryan snapped, a flash of heat finally breaking through his stoic mask.

“So was I!” Dante roared. “I tried to get her out thirteen years ago. I tried to give her a life that didn't involve federal goons or cartel hitmen. But she chose your world. And look what it got her.”

Ryan’s eyes darkened. “It got her a chance. You would have dragged her into the dirt with you.”

“She loved me,” Dante stepped into Ryan’s personal space. “We belonged to each other. Long before you ever showed up with your shiny badge.”

The air between them was thick enough to choke on.

“If you stay here,” Ryan said, “they’ll find you. They’ll use you to break her. Or they’ll kill you both to send a message.”

Dante laughed. “You think I don't know howLa Mano Negraworks? I grew up in their shadow while you were still playing with G.I. Joes.”

“Then stop pretending hiding equals safety. I’m offering a plan. Protection.”

“From a man the Marshals want to put in a cage?” Dante shook his head. “No. I’m not disappearing again. I’m not dragging Santiago back into this. And I sure as fuck am not trusting her life to a man who already failed her once.”

Ryan stared at him for a long beat. “Then you’re already failing her, too.”

“Get the fuck out,” Dante snarled.

Ryan hesitated at the door, looking back one last time. It looked like he wanted to say something else. Then he just turned and vanished into the grey dawn.

SIX

Trent left at five-thirty,same as always. Same half-hearted kiss on her cheek that smelled like toothpaste and stale coffee. Same muttered complaint about his shift schedule and how the department was screwing him over again.

Jessica waited until she heard his truck start, then locked the door behind him, slid the deadbolt, then checked it again without thinking. The apartment settled into silence around her.

She leaned her forehead briefly against the door, eyes closed, letting her breathing even out. Her pulse was still skittery from the night before. From Ryan’s face under the strip club lights. From the way he’d saidyou're in danger.

She scoffed and pushed away from the door. She was still wearing the dress she'd worn to work last night, a tiny red sequined number that felt lurid and gauche in the pale dawn light. After coffee, she'd shower and wash off her makeup and try not to catch her reflection in the mirror, lest she notice how she was now a woman in her mid-thirties and way too old for this shit.

The duplex was hers, although she'd heard Trent boasting to his buddies that he owned it and merely let her live there. Thetruth was, even though the man was paid a good salary, he was terrible with money. He seemed to spend it as a fast as he got it, on overpriced sneakers and brand new Xboxes, and on wild nights out with the boys. It was on such a wild night a little over a year ago that he met her, while she was working at The Bare Minimum. She knew he continued to frequent other strip clubs in town, but the knowledge bothered her less than it should. He was still someone to come home to, someone who filled up the empty spaces in her life, and he still cared for her, she knew that. And that was not nothing, which she would have if she didn't have him. Nothing but bad memories and nightmares that still dogged her in the dark.

She moved through the living room barefoot. The place was small but neat. There was nothing personal on the walls, nothing that tied her to a past she’d worked very hard to bury. A couch salvaged from Facebook Marketplace. A scarred coffee table. Curtains she never opened all the way. The kettle screamed from the stove, shrill and impatient. She poured water over instant coffee and grimaced. She used to love good coffee. She couldn’t remember when she’d stopped caring.

Jessica carried her mug to the window, peering through the thin slit between the curtains. The street outside looked the same as it always did. A row of identical duplexes. A white pickup parked across the road. Someone’s dog barking two houses down. All completely ordinary.

She leaned back against the wall and took a sip of coffee, her fingers drifting to the thin chain around her neck without conscious thought. The ruby ring rested just below her collarbone.

She rubbed her thumb over it, feeling the familiar edges of the setting. Then she dropped her hand. Something felt off. The thought slipped in quietly, unannounced.

She held her breath for a moment and listened. There was just the hum of the fridge, the tick of the wall clock.

Normal.

She took a step away from wall and saw the back window was ajar. She hadn’t opened it.

She crossed the living room slowly, heart beginning to pound a little harder. The latch sat half-turned, not fully engaged.

Her stomach tightened.

Maybe Trent forgot. Maybe she had. That happened sometimes.

Still. She locked it. Then she checked the bathroom window. Locked.

Bedroom. Locked.