fanqie novel
82
“She’s not going anywhere.” Jakub drops his casual facade and raises his gun, aiming it in my direction. I tense up beneath the hand over my mouth. It doesn’t matter that his hand is stopping so much air; my lungs don’t want to work right now anyway. When a gun is pointed at you, apparently the internal workings of your body take a vacation.
“And if you don’t let her go right now, you’re not going anywhere either.”
The guy holding me wraps his arm tighter around me. If he runs back to Henry with his tail between his legs without me, there will be trouble.
“Let her go.”
“You don’t know who you’re fucking with. She’s coming with us.” My captor cocks his gun. A near deafening sound when it happens right next to your ear and the bullet is meant for you.
I’m shoved forward. A gunshot fires, and a body drops to the floor. Everything happens in a swirl of time, sweeping me up into a twisted storm. One second, I’m crushed against his chest, the next I’m on the floor.
When I finally turn around and look, I see the coward standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his hands in the air. The guy who was holding me is on the floor with me, a bullet hole in his forehead. Blood spills onto the thin fraying gray carpet beneath him.
“You should leave now,” Jakub says to the lone man. “Tell Piotr if he has a problem with this, to call me directly.”
A stammer of nonsense falls from the goon’s lips before he turns and runs from the apartment.
“Are you okay?” Jakub steps over the body and gets in my line of sight. “Nicole.” He squats down in front of me, grabbing my chin and roughly dragging my attention to him.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen a guy drop from a bullet. As much as my dad tried to protect me from his ‘work,’ he couldn’t stop me from seeing a few things. But none of those men died because of me.
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine.” I tug my chin from his grip and scramble to my feet. “You didn’t have to do that.” I rake both my hands through my hair. I have a dead body in my apartment. His blood is soaking into the cheap carpeting.
“He touched you,” Jakub says, casually propping his boot up on my couch and tucking the Glock back in the holster.
A nervous laugh explodes from my chest. “He touched me? Are you going to kill every man that touches me?”
He levels me with a hard glare. “You can’t stay here.” He drops his foot back to the floor and straightens up.
“There’s bound to be a few questions about this, Jakub.” I point at the body. The guy’s eyes are wide open, staring blankly across the room. Surprise has frozen on his face.
“I’ll take care of this. You go pack some stuff. Clothes, essentials, anything you can’t live without for a while.” He motions to the laptop sitting on the coffee table. “Like your computer.”
“Why? Where am I supposed to go?” I suppose I can go ahead and use my ATM card since Henry already knows where I am. Better to get the cash out and dash at this point. I shouldn’t have assumed Henry would be reasonable; I should have just emptied the accounts right away.
“You’re coming to my place,” he says then puts his cell to his ear and turns away. “Hey. Yeah. I need a cleanup crew.”Exclusive © content by N(ô)ve/l/Drama.Org.
I stare at the back of his head while he talks, giving my address to whoever’s on the other side of the line and directions for what he wants done. It’s all said in code. But I’m fluent. This guy is going to disappear. He never happened, that’s what’s about to take place. My apartment will be scrubbed clean and unless the FBI brings in their best forensics team, they won’t find a trace of this sorry prick.
“Nicole. Go,” Jakub says to me when he’s done with the call and I’m still standing there in the middle of my apartment. Why aren’t there sirens? Didn’t anyone hear the gunshot?
“I can’t stay with you, Jakub,” I say finally.
“And why is that?” He folds his arms over this chest. He’s gotten more stubborn over the years.
So have I.
“Because they’ll know I’m with you now. Which means they’ll come looking for me, or Piotr will come calling on you. You can’t get involved in this; it will cause trouble for your entire family. I won’t do that.” I shake my head.
“When Piotr contacts me, we’ll have a chat about his men coming at you the way they did. It’s already done, Nicole. I’m in this.”
He’s right. Either way, he’s involved. He just killed one of the Kaczmareks’ hired thugs. There is no going back now.
“Still. It would be better if I just go.”
He drops his hands to his sides and marches out of the living room straight to my bedroom. I catch up to him as he flips on the lights and jerks my closet open.
I’m already half packed.
When he pushes the closet door closed enough to see me, a cold shiver runs down my spine.
“You were going to just take off again?”
“No. I wasn’t sure when I was going. I would tell you.” I planned to anyway, but if I had to ditch fast, there might have been time.
Silently, he grabs my suitcase and tosses it on the bed. While I stand there, my feet frozen stupidly to the floor, he grabs my clothes from the hangers and tosses them inside the bag.
“Stop!” I finally get my body to move and hurry forward. “I can do it. Just stop.” I grab his forearm as he drops more sweaters into the bag. I don’t have much, but everything’s crumpled up and taking up more space in the bag.
“Fill it. Now.” He points a finger at the bag. “We have to go.” He makes his way to the door.
“Fine. I’ll stay with you but just for a few nights. Just until you replace me at the club, and I figure out where I’m going.”
He raises his brow, like what I’ve said just blew his mind. “When we get home, you and I are going to have a talk about your little act of disobedience.”
It takes a second for his words to register, and he’s already at the bedroom door before my brain works again.
“What? You mean coming into my apartment?”
“I warned you, Nicole.”
It’s the last thing he says before he disappears down the hall. A few seconds later I hear quiet voices talking in the living room. The cleaners have arrived.
I stare at my half-filled suitcase.
I never should have come back to Chicago.