“I’m not planning on it. I’m just saying, there are worse ways to go. And when death catches up to me, well, it won’t be as instant as going splat. He’ll make it much worse than that.”
“By ‘death’ I’m assuming you mean Aristov,” he says, passing the joint back. “When Aristov finally catches up to you.”
“Yeah,” I mumble, taking a hit, sucking deeply and holding it in my lungs until I start coughing. The smoke streams out of me, my eyes burning, watering. “His weapons of choice are his hands.”
“So, strangulation, suffocation…”
“Worst way to go.”
My throat feels raw, my chest tight. I can almost feel his thick hands wrapped around my neck, choking the life out of me, his face just inches from my own. I always just hoped I’d see a fleck of humanity, but there was never anything there. The man is a shell. He may as well be made of metal, whatever’s inside of him short-circuiting. He’s inhuman. Seeing him kill others desensitized me, but realizing he’d kill me, too? Realizing ‘love’ to him wasn’t love at all, that it was obsession, that it was all about possession?
It almost broke me.
Almost.
“Old age.”
Lorenzo’s words draw my attention, pulling me out of memories that feel lifetimes ago. I take another hit of the joint, tingles running through my body, warming me from the inside, that floaty feeling starting to take over, before I hand it back. “Old age?”
“Worst way to go.”
That makes me laugh harder than it should. “You’re kidding, right? Of all the ways to die, you think that’s the worst?”
He shrugs, stubbing the joint out, before picking up his Altoids tin from between us on the ledge and shoving it back in his pants pocket.
“I’d love to live long enough to die of natural causes,” I say. “If only I could be so lucky...”
“Live for a century only to have your body shut down, your heart giving out, your brain disconnecting, forgetting everything you did and everyone you might’ve given a fuck about, suffering alone and terrified, shitting your pants, not even knowing your own name? I’d rather be doused in gasoline and set on fire.”
I cringe. Jesus Christ.
“Besides,” he continues, “would be bullshit, living the way I do, if I don’t at least get the chance to go out in a blaze of glory while I can still enjoy it.”
“That’s no way to live.”
“Says the woman thinking about falling off a roof while hiding from some jackass like a scared little punk bitch.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
There’s a part of me that wishes I could explain it to him, that wants to make him understand, but there’s another part of me—the stubborn, hardhearted part—that can’t risk fully confiding in this man.
Facts often change perception. Sometimes stories have plot twists that turn everything upside down. So I keep my secrets guarded closely to my chest, not cracking myself open, because there’s a chance when he sees what’s all inside of me, he might walk away and not even look back.
I don’t know that he would, I don’t even think he would, but he might, and I selfishly need him to stick around. I couldn’t handle that rejection right now.
“It doesn’t matter,” I mumble, swinging around, pulling myself back onto the roof. “I’m going inside.”
Before I can even take a step away, Lorenzo’s hand shoots back, grabbing my arm. “Did you hear that?”
I glance at him. “Hear what?”
Just as I ask that, a faint thumping noise reaches my ears, like footsteps against metal rungs. The ladder. My eyes dart toward the opening on the roof, leading to my apartment, trembling when I hear it again from inside.
Someone else is here. Fuck.
I’m frozen solid, hoping it’s my imagination, until I hear voices. Accents. Lorenzo swings around, getting to his feet. He doesn’t say anything, dragging me across the roof, his hand gripping my arm so tightly it hurts. He takes me over to another ledge before letting go, hauling himself up on it, not even hesitating before dropping over the other side, disappearing.
“Lorenzo!” I call out, heart racing as I pull myself up onto the ledge, terrified, hearing a loud bang of metal, watching as he drops onto the old fire escape below, nearly losing his balance when he hits hard.
He recovers, staying on his feet, and looks up at me. “Now or never, Scarlet.”
Now or never.
I glance behind me, back onto the roof, flexing my hands as they shake. Now.
I jump.
Or well, I fall.
I wish I can say I’m graceful about it, that I pirouette off the ledge and float on down, but I more like flail mid-air for a second, squeezing my eyes shut and holding my breath, before slamming right into Lorenzo. BAM. My bare foot catches on the edge of the fire escape, and I nearly slip through the opening, down another level, but Lorenzo grabs me, yanking me to him before I fall any further.
I wince, blood seeping out from a fresh cut on my foot, the metal edges of the fire escape jagged and rusty. Awesome. If Kassian doesn’t get me tonight, tetanus certainly might.
Talk about some karma.
“Go,” Lorenzo says, his voice firm as he nudges me, making me move. I’m still trying to get my bearings, but I hold onto the fire escape as I make my way down. I’m surprised I’m not yet caught when I get to the bottom, grabbing the ladder and shoving on it, but it only budges a little bit.
Ugh. George is a slumlord. Piece of shit building is a death trap.
“Jump,” Lorenzo says impatiently, nudging me again. Sighing, I grab the ladder, climbing over, and dangle from the end of it before dropping to the sidewalk, right on my ass, with another wince.
Of course, this bastard lands beside me, jumping down, managing to stay upright. Grabbing my arm, he yanks me to my feet, nearly throwing me back down as he shoves me. “Go.”
I take a few steps, because he gives me no choice, but then I stall. “Where?”
He shrugs.
The man fucking shrugs.
All casual and calm, just a flippant lift of his shoulders as he leans back against the building not far from the entrance.
What the hell?
“What are you doing?” I ask incredulously as he props his boot up against the building, his posture relaxed, hands shoved in his coat pockets. He’s just standing there, like he’s waiting.
“You’d rather fall than face him, so I got you down still alive,” he says, “but I’m not afraid, Scarlet, and I’ve never run from anyone a day in my life.”
“But—”
“Go,” he says again, louder. “Quit pussyfooting.”
He’s insane, this man. Bona fide batshit crazy. Groaning, I run around the corner, into the alley, spotting the black Mercedes parked there. Whoa. I retreat, to go the other way, when there’s noise in front of the building.
Voices, distinguishably Russian.
Out of time, I dodge behind a row of dumpsters, overflowing with trash, wedging myself between two of them and squatting down, gagging.
Maybe this makes me a coward, I don’t know, but I’d rather be a breathing coward than a brave corpse.
“Where is she?”
Those are the first words I hear, as I strain my ears.
The voice is familiar. Markel.
“Who?” Lorenzo asks.
“You know who,” Markel says. “Morgan.”
“Oh, did you find her?” Lorenzo asks. “That was fast.”
“Listen, you son of a bitch,” Markel says, losing his temper. “You think you’re funny, but I find nothing funny about you. You are involving yourself in business that has nothing to do with you.”
“Business, is she?” Lorenzo’s voice doesn’t waver from its casual tone. “Thought it was personal.”
“It’s both,” Markel says. “Either way, it has nothing to do with you. We don’t want any problems. There doesn’t need to be any. The girl, she is Kassian’s. So stay away from her, leave her to us, and there will be no hard feelings. Just give her up.”