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“The bullet has been marked and your sentence is set.” I slide my hand behind my back and draw a snub-nosed revolver from its holster. I better make this shot count. The marked bullet is the only one inside. “I’ll give you the dignity you didn’t give Bruno. Do you have any final words?”
Realizing he’s about to die, Rocco’s face turns a ghostly white, and fear forces a quiver to his lower lip.
“You’re not going to do this, Cain. You know the shit storm that will rain down on you if you do,” Rocco says.
“Let them come, they’ll suffer the same fate as you.” I raise the pistol and fire the marked bullet. It strikes Rocco right between the eyes. He goes limp collapses back in his chair.
“That’s what you get,” Joe spits. “You dirty, no good, son of a bitch.”
My crew cheers for our victory. I don’t celebrate with them. This won’t bring Alyssa back to me. If anything, it’ll push her further away.
But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop fighting. I’ve dedicated my life in service to her, and I meant every word of it.
She is mine. I am hers.
I refuse to spend another second without her in my life.
Chapter 11
Alyssa
Atear-filled week passed before I found the courage to rise from the motel bed I’d gotten the day I found out the man I gave myself to was the head of the Boston mafia.
The first night was tough, the second worse, and every subsequent day was another reminder of how badly this hurt.
If I close my eyes and imagine hard enough, I can still feel his arms around me. I can still smell the oaky scent that lingers around Cain Hawthorne as if he’d spent his day chopping logs in the forest. In some delusion, I even heard the three magic words I wanted him to scream to the heavens the night he took my virginity. But reality is a cruel mistress.
While I wept and wondered where my life was headed, Cain was off doing God knows what evil. While I cuddled the lumpy pillow in the cheap room eating away savings, Cain was plotting the slaughter of a man I never knew.
He gave himself to me wholly, but how can I be with this monster? With seven days of reflection, one might think I’d have realized my mistakes. Cain and I were never meant to be together. He came from a rough and tumble world, whereas I’m a simple woman trying to find her way through this crazy life. But in with the soul-searching I did, I never once managed to find any sort of release.
My mind wanders to him still wondering how things might have gone had his four lapdogs not been speaking outside that morning. Would he have concluded his business and turned a new leaf for me? Or would he still be fighting his unholy war behind closed doors?
Does any of it matter in the end? I’ve seen Cain’s good side, beneath whatever dark practices he enacts. Beneath the beast is a man with a good heart. He offered me the world and meant it too.
For that, I’m eternally grateful.
“Miss Dresden?” Cynthia Duarte calls my name. She scans me through her thick lens spectacles while she fiddles with a strand of her short, greying hair. “Back so soon?”
I placed my two weeks notice shortly after Cain made his bold proclamation that I should give up on the working world and live with him. An unwise decision that seemed so perfect on the day the offer was made. I’d have given everything up in a heartbeat for him, hell, I did. Now I’m left crawling back to my old workplace, with my tail tucked between my legs, hoping for a handout.
“Trouble in paradise?” She scoffs as if she’s seen this story a thousand times before. The father of some forlorn child finds solace in the young woman tending it only to find the fire dies out after a few nights together.
That’s not our story. The magnificent fire never died between Cain and me.
“I’m wondering if my position is still available?” I ignore her cynicism and get straight to the point. If it isn’t, I have to find work elsewhere, but at least The Poppin Poppins know how loyal I am to my work.
Cynthia grabs a stack of papers below her desk and shoves them onto a clipboard. She grabs a grimy black pen from a bowl holding no less than ten, and hands both to me.
“It is, but you’ll still have to fill the paperwork. We can’t be playing favorites when so many have applied.” A wicked grin stretches across her wrinkled face. I’ll probably get my old job back, but she’s relishing the idea that I have to work for it.
I take what she’s offered back to the waiting area and start filling in the sheets. Name, address, previous place of employment…all the boring details expected from a new applicant.
I fill in the document with sloppy handwriting and less attention to detail than the first time I was here. A job is a job, but I’m not going to grovel for this one.
“Is this seat taken?” a familiar voice hits my ear.
My heart bursts into a mad dash in my chest, and for the first few seconds, I don’t dare look up. I’m either imagining the looming shadow standing over me and the voice clear as day in my ear or Cain Hawthorne has found me.
