Come To Me (Owned Book 3) (22 page)

“What’s it to you, anyway?” he asked, glaring up at me from the ground. My pocket buzzed and I looked away from the kid, leaving his question unanswered. The burner phone I’d kept to catfish Dom read,
We gotta peace, Blondie.

As much as I wanted to interrogate the kid until his tongue fell out, the necromancer was tugging at my leash. It was time to get back to work.

“You tell her you saw me and you’re fucking dead.” I towered over the kid and punched my fist into the brick. When the plaster landed on his nose, he scampered away. I watched the soles of his tennis shoes disappear around the corner before replying to Dom.

Can you meet me here?
I texted the address of the storefront I’d been staying at, brushing blood and plaster from my knuckles,

Why there?
Dom replied.

I’m hiding,
I explained.
There was a black van outside my apartment and I got freaked.
A simple enough explanation for a simple enough person.

I don’t like the idea of you staying anywhere but five star, Blondie.
After swallowing the vomit that crept into my mouth, I replied.

It’s only temporary.

“B
londie? Hello?” Dom called into the storefront, voice echoing back the stupidity.

“Do you even know her fucking name?” I called back.

“I—” Dom stopped when he saw me, teetering on his heels, eyes wide.

“I need to know the answer. Do you?” They
had
been Facebook friends. If I’d ended up knowing more about Malorie than Dom, that would be a little pathetic. She’d been his Siren, after all, the reason he crashed into the rocks.

“What’s going on?” He looked around as if someone was going to pop out and yell, “Surprise!” Perhaps it was a surprise, but it wasn’t a party. This time the presents were explosives, the balloons the clouds of gas and smoke.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” Dom demanded.

“Well.” I shrugged, ambling over to him. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I don’t care what the fuck this is. I’m leaving.” Just as Dom turned to run, I grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him into a chair.

“No, you’re going to stay.” I’d contemplated Duck Tape, but decided threat was better. “You’re going to learn something for once in your goddamn life. Now, look under your chair.” I hadn’t meant for my voice to get so loud, hadn’t meant to let my anger at his betrayal show. When I heard “now look under your chair” echoing back at me, I knew my face must have been contorted with rage. Dom stared up at me, his doofy eyes wide as saucers.

Running a hand over my face, I repeated myself. Slowly, calmly, so he would understand. Dom blinked, but then quickly bent over to check beneath the plastic fold out.

“Is that…” His words died as he rose back up.

“C4 rigged to explode.” I shrugged. “This entire warehouse is rigged to explode.” I had explosives stored all around Santa Barbara and beyond in the US and world. Some people buried treasure; I buried weaponry. I might not have had any money since coming back from the dead, but I was rich in fire power.

I’d stacked all the C4 I’d buried in Santa Barbara into the storefront. That night, I’d make the night hide. For a few seconds while the explosion tore through the store, it would be like the sun had come out again.

“Are you fucking insane?” Dom yelled. He made a move to stand but I shoved him back down again, so hard the chair nearly snapped.

“Careful,” I warned. “I’m already a dead man, but you still have a life to lose.” Dom shivered like a fucking kid in the snow while I went about making final preparations. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that the minute I pressed enter on the numbers Dom had leaked to me, people were going to swarm into the building. By the time Alice figured it out, though, by the time any of them figured it out, they would be blown to pieces.

After I’d checked all the wires for the one-hundredth time, I stared at my masterpiece. It looked like any other shitheap out there. Covered in dust. Filled with nothing save cockroaches. But that was the point. Not many people would walk into a room filled with explosives and stay longer than a second. So I’d hidden them. I gave one last look at Dom and said adios motherfucker. I pressed enter on the numbers and got ready to hightail it the fuck out of there.

“You can’t leave me here!” Dom called.

“I can,” I corrected, “and I will. If you even step an inch from where you are, you’ll blow the entire fucking place.” Dom gulped and I saw sweat forming on his brow.

“I thought we were buddies,” he squeaked.

“We are, Dom.” I smiled. “That’s why I gave you an inch.”

I
watched faraway on a rooftop as GEM employees loaded into the abandoned storefront, ready to take Dom down for sticking his fingers into pies he didn’t own. Before I detonated the remote trigger, I had to be certain Alice would enter as well.

Alice never pulled the trigger herself, but she liked to be present for the executions. Like a queen watching the lyncher at the gallows.

GEM didn’t give a shit about Lennox; the codes confirmed it. With me dead, my family was of no importance to them. Alice was a different story. Since the day she’d discovered Lenny, coincidentally the same day she’d discovered someone could care more about someone else than her, Alice had hated Lennox. Lenny was a walking reminder that Alice was worth less to someone else. As long as Alice lived and breathed, Lenny would never be safe. Seven knew that, and he’d exploited it.

I knew better than to leave the motel, but as we neared day five, I was seriously considering it. All I’d seen since the first day at the bar was Seven’s ugly mug. I was starting to think I had died and this was hell.

“Are you fucking with me right now?”

“Why do you think I saved you?” he asked, smiling like a fucking twat.

It was a rhetorical question. If I even tried to find the answer, I’d probably get my dick shot off, so instead I mocked, “Your heart grew three sizes?”

“Few things are stronger than love,” Seven mused. “One of those is one who used to be in love.”

“I feel nothing for that bitch.”

“I wasn’t talking about you.”

I pulled out my binoculars and zoomed onto the window. From my perch I could see Alice talking to Dom. Dom looked completely shocked; like I said, he wasn’t the smartest of the bunch. The conversation didn’t last long, though. Within seconds the man next to Alice had pulled the trigger. Dom dropped to the ground in a lump.

I let the binoculars fall around my neck. I recognized death as a necessity in life, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed it. Unlike others in my profession, death was not something I looked forward to. Seeing Dom die had not brought me anything save relief. I was relieved I didn’t have to worry for Lenny, but I was not happy. There shouldn’t be any happiness in death.

I couldn’t take anymore time to ruminate on Dom’s death, though, because the storefront was still crawling with cockroaches. I took one long look at the place and then pressed the button on the remote detonator. The loud boom, followed by multiple smaller cracks, let me know the explosions had worked.

Soon the entire place was engulfed in flames, the accelerant I’d used doing the job. For an instant I balked at the irony. Only months before I’d nearly been by felled flames, and now there I was returning the same kind of punishment. It wasn’t meant to be vengeance or some kind of biblical eye-for-an-eye, I was simply covering my footsteps. The easiest way to erase something is to burn it.

C
har filled my nostrils and I turned, unwilling to watch the world burn. Still, I could feel it even with my back to the building. The night was hotter. Bits and pieces of ash and cinder floated in the air like hellish dandelion wisps. A part of me wanted to turn and look back, but I stayed my course, the fire on my neck like a dragon’s breath.

I shimmied down the fire escape, landing on the ground in seconds. Sirens were already in the air so I knew I needed to get the fuck out of Dodge, quickly. I wouldn’t bother with the car, it was stolen after all. It would stay on the side of the road, maybe to eventually meet again with its owner, but most likely to meet with another thief. With GEM, Alice, and Seven officially out of my afterlife I would—

“Vic Wall.”

I spun around at the voice. Soot covered her cheeks and her pantsuit was burned and mangled, but she looked absolutely stoic. Alice leaned against the brick wall, as if she had just gone for a walk and not escaped a burning death.

“You really are a fucking cockroach.” I spat, unable to withhold the hate I had for her any more. Alice shrugged herself off the wall.

“I got out of there quickly…maybe not quick enough.” She glanced down at her wrist, and I could see the beginnings of blisters. “I knew Dom couldn’t be behind this.” Her eyes darted to mine, sharp, as if knowing that was some kind of victory.

“But you shot him in the head anyway,” I bit out.

Alice laughed scornfully. “It’s not like the world will mourn the loss of that moron.”

I let my bitterness, my resentments, and my hate drain from my body. If there was anything Alice hated, it was impassivity. She couldn’t stand the idea that anyone would look at her with apathy, that there was someone out there unaffected by her.

I shrugged. “Just like they won’t mourn the loss of you.” Her face transformed and the mask she wore fell. Alice lunged at me and I stepped aside, but not before her nails grazed the skin on my neck. She screamed at me, the sound like a banshee. It was the first time I’d ever seen her come undone.

It would be the last.

“You ruined everything,” she yelled, grasping at my shirt. “All for what? Some cunt?”

Maybe it was because it was the sixth day in that muggy, sepia colored motel room, or maybe it was because that fucking bastard was right, something was stronger than love: hate. When Seven gave me the keys to that stolen car, I took them. Still, I had to get my last word in.

“Killing Alice isn’t going to end GEM’s wetwork division. Where one head’s severed another will grow.” Seven puffed his cigar in response. “But you know that,” I pressed. “Who do you have in mind to put in the position?”

“Keep asking questions like that and you’ll really end up a dead man, Vic.” Pressing the round nub out on the bed, he signaled an end to our conversation.

“I didn’t ruin anything that wasn’t already razed,” I said, crushing the memory and throwing her off me. She staggered, falling back into the shadows. There was a part of me that wanted to prolong it, to say a few words. But I think when divorcing lasts longer than the marriage, you’ve already said enough.

Alice and I had gotten a divorce, but that wasn’t what we’d needed. Our marriage needed a funeral. We’d been dancing around death since the day we’d said “I do.”

I pulled out my SIG and aimed it at her head. Behind her the fire lit up the sky, just like I’d said it would—only for a moment though, because the smoke trailed after, darker than night. Alice leapt at me and I pulled the trigger, watching with no satisfaction as it lodged into her skull.