Hearts Aflame Collection III: 4-Book Bundle (3 page)

“I can't believe you missed it again!”

John jumped at the shrill voice of his girlfriend as she reentered their kitchen. He shrugged, took another drag of his cigarette, then tipped the ash off into his tray before he replied. “I told you I wasn't going to be able to make it,” he muttered, an annoyed pinch to his voice.

She stalked into the kitchen, yanked open the fridge and grabbed a plate full of leftover casserole. She slammed it onto the counter, pulled the top off, and paused.

John took a deep breath, trying to ease his expression. He knew looking annoyed would only fuel her fire.

“What the fuck, John?! Why did you eat all of it?” she demanded, shoving the half-eaten bowl in his face.

He drew back and took another drag of his cigarette.

She huffed, flipping her long, blonde wet hair over her shoulder, then went to grab a plate from the cabinet. “I just don't understand why you can't think of anyone but yourself,” she muttered, as she forked the food into her own plate.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he murmured.

She froze for a moment, then slowly turned, fixing her blue gaze on him. “Do you even care?” she hissed, shifting her gaze for only as long as it would take to place her plate in the microwave and turn it on.

John watched the plate of food spin around in the microwave, wishing to himself that he could get radiation poisoning and die right then and there. “What makes you think I don't?” he asked in that condescending way.

She threw her fingers up in exasperation, punching the stop button on the microwave, yanking the door open, and grabbing her food. She sat down at the head of the kitchen table, the farthest point in the room from John.

He sighed, swiping a stray strand of hair from his forehead and lit another cigarette.

“Well, can you say something?” she demanded in between bites.

“What do you want me to say?” he replied, as he held the smoke from his first drag in the top of his lungs.

She shrugged dramatically, slamming her fork into the plate of food. “Well, I don't know. It just feels like you don't even care that we're fighting.”

“
We
aren't fighting,” John replied. “You are.”

“God, I just don't understand what is so difficult about making one measly performance.”

“I'm sorry, I had work.” John didn't sound very sorry at all.

She scoffed, “Well, this is my work too, John. I don't I feel like we're in this relationship: you don't support me at all.”

He put out his cigarette, then stood up, putting on his jacket. “It's been getting really busy at the office, and you know your work won't support us.”

She dropped her fork, her mouth wide in hurt and surprise. “I can't believe you just pulled the bacon card.”

John raised an eyebrow. “I wasn't pulling the bacon card, Marge. Please, just calm down.”

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

He just shrugged. “To get some peace and quiet.”

She ducked her head in disbelief. “You can't go now. We're in the middle of a discussion.”

“Well, if you wouldn't yell at me...”

“I'm sorry, John, but the only way I can get you to notice me is if I yell at you,” she cried.

John grimaced at the sound.

“It's just…I feel like you care more about your criminal clients than you do about me,” she pouted.

John shook his head, huffing in exasperation, and left the room. In the next moment, he was in his car, revving the engine, contemplating closing the garage door and just sitting there. The last thing he ever wanted to do was to have to go back into his own house and the thought of that depressed him. He wondered how he even found himself in this position to begin with. He knew it wasn't fair to Marge, staying with her even though they both knew he didn't love her, but at the same time, what was either of them going to do?

He had felt a space growing in between them, so he decided that buying a house with her would make it go away. He was determined to do whatever was necessary to make that space go away. He wouldn't accept the possibility that it might not work out with her, because if it didn't work out with her, who would it ever work out with?

Despite his passive suicidal ideation, he decided to open the garage and pull out of the driveway. He had no plan and wondered at the possibility of simply driving around until his car ran out of gas, then staying wherever he ended up. He maneuvered his car through the streets of New Orleans, stopping once he had reached a small coffee shop.

With his car carefully parked, he sat for a moment, allowing the memories to flood through. He let himself think her name: Jeanine. Just once, or maybe twice. Not three times, because then it forms itself into a nostalgia, and that nostalgia becomes that longing and that longing grows until it’s an unquenchable desire, something he ran from: unquenchable desires.

He longed to see her again, hoped and wished for the opportunity of one chance meeting. Yet, he couldn't be sure where she could have gone. After almost ten years of accepting her disappearance, John was ready to understand the fact that she could have very well been dead. With a sigh, he cut the engine and left his car.

The café was small, having only enough room to seat maybe ten or fifteen people. It was the secret hangout spot for him and his friends as a child, and when he grew older, became the place of choice while he was dating Jeanine. It was owned by an old woman who knew the two of them, since their diaper days and even now, when John entered, he could scarcely order a coffee without her making conversation about Jeanine, and high school. He rather liked the reminder though. With Jeanine having been completely gone for almost ten years, it was nice to have some proof that she had ever existed.

“Hello,” he greeted the woman with a forced smile, but even she could see the dejection in his eyes.

“How are you, Johnny?” the old woman with graying hair and red lipstick asked, her voice shaking with age.

He chuckled. “Don't call me Johnny, Annie.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That's Mrs. Annie to you.”

John shrugged.

“How is the new girlfriend?” she asked.

A smile played at John's lips. “You know, she's not really new anymore. It's been two years.”

“Well, she'll always be new to me,” she replied as she grabbed a clean mug and placed it under a cappuccino machine. She could already guess what he would order.

“You can't discriminate against every one of my girlfriends who isn't Jeanine,” John scolded.

She shrugged as she placed a cappuccino in front of John. He grabbed it, gratefully holding it in between hiss hands. She peered at him, a knowing gleam in her eyes.

“What?” he asked, a little unnerved.

“She isn't dead.” She whispered, before slapping the front page of today's newspaper down in front of him.

Woman Arrested in Washington DC for the Attempted Murder of Saudi Arabian Ambassador

The last three days were a complete blur. One moment, I was in my apartment pretending to be in love and the next, I was sitting in between four walls, trapped. I sat in the interrogation room, patiently waiting. My heart had begun racing again but I took a few deep breaths to calm it. There was no sense in freaking out now. I knew that eventually someone would show up, clear everything up with DC, and I would be able to leave.

I closed my eyes, listening to the silence, trying not to think of anything. However, despite all of that, my breath came more and more difficult with each passing moment. I began to lose control of my own mind. It began to run ahead of me, images flipping through my brain, anxiety freezing me to my place. I imagined the director's voice in my head, his dismay, his disappointment at finding out that we were caught.

Only, that didn't really make any sense. It couldn't have been my fault that we were unable to carry out the mission. If Liam wasn't lying and if I didn't make a massive mistake, than it was their fault. We weren't given adequate information. But even then, if the director knew something went amiss, he definitely had the resources and intelligence to get to me first. Nothing about this situation made any sense to me.

There was a low groan as a guard pushed the heavy door open. A tall, lanky man in a gray custom suit entered. He sat down across from me, unpacked two notepads from his briefcase and shot me a grim smile.

“How are you today?” His heavy northern accent echoed off of the walls.

I shot him a quick smile, then returned my gaze to my own hands. “Fine.”

“Okay.” He leaned in, folding his hands in front of him. “Do you know why you are here?”

“I haven't done anything wrong,” I replied.

He nodded. “Right, well we have reason to think that you have.” 

I raised an eyebrow. “That's too bad.”

“How do you know Liam?” he asked.

I shrugged.

He grimaced. “Are you saying you don't know how you know him?” His pitch raised as he was trying to convey how ridiculous his own statement was.

“I don't have to know anything without a lawyer,” I sneered.

He sat back in his chair, darting his eyes first to the right, then to the left, as if in disbelief at what I just said. I watched as he folded and unfolded his fingers, rocking back and forth. He opened his mouth once or twice, as if trying to decide whether or not to tell me something. Eventually, he gave up, grabbed his stuff, and left the room.

The door slammed, the sound echoing through the room.

The seconds ticked by slowly. I counted each one of them, moving my lips just enough to be able articulate the word: one, two, three, four, five, six... I was in the teens, then the hundreds. Eventually there were thousands of seconds. Thousands of minutes, hundreds of hours, days.... days. I sat on a rough mattress, sometimes staring at my cell mate, sometimes staring at nothing at all. My eyes grew dry, and I imagined they had degraded to nothing more than red holes in my face. My weak eyelids folded over them, and I slept.

A heavy buzzing sound interrupted my fitful nap. I sat up, immediately erect, suddenly aware of the thumping of heels against concrete floor, the cracks of shotguns being fired. My entire cell was bathed in red light. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, wincing as my feet touched the cold floor and ran to the door of my cell. I couldn't see anything from the small window except for the confused faces of other people staring out of their own windows.

The sounds began to swell as the sounds of footsteps grew louder and louder.

“What is it?” my cell mate screeched, just now waking up.

I turned to answer her question, yet as I opened my mouth to speak, I heard Liam's unmistakable voice. I clenched my lips together, my mind working a mile a minute, struggling to figure out what was going on.

There was a thump at the door. I turned to find Liam staring at me through the small window. He held an angry determination in his gaze. His blond hair, which he always kept brushed neatly back into a ponytail, now hung in unkempt wisps around his shoulders. There was a bruise on his cheek I hadn't seen before and the purple circles around his eyes indicated he hadn't slept for days.

“Jeanine!!!” I could see his veins bulging with the strain on his voice, but could barely hear his words through the door and over the sirens. 

A nervous sweat soaked my nightgown to my skin. I swiped my damp hair away from my face. “Liam! What's going on?”

“I'm getting out!” he screamed, darting back and forth to make sure no one was coming.

I could hear the screams of guards quickly approaching. “So they've come for you!” I screeched, my stomach turning in excitement.

He shook his head violently. “No, Jeanine!” 

“What's happening!?” I asked, impatient to find out what was going on.

“They aren't coming!!” he cried.

Before I could respond, he disappeared.

The salt from my dried tears crusted around my eyes. I closed them to make it easier for myself. There was no water from my cell to wash it out. I was curled up in a fetal position on my bed, trying to become as small as possible, hoping that I would eventually die from my broken heart.

I had been abandoned by my employer and the man I thought loved me in less than a month and I still couldn't understand why. In the flash of a moment, I was completely alone... again.

There was a buzzing sound followed by the moan of an iron door swinging open and the footsteps of what I imagined was the guard.

“Jeanine Warde?”

“What?” I croaked without getting up or looking at him.

“You have a visitor.”

I sat up, raking my hands over my face in an attempt to clean myself up. Part of me hoped it was Liam, the other part hoped it was our director, and still part of me knew it wouldn't be either of them. I followed him out of my cell, my brow furrowed in confusion. I hadn't been in contact with anyone other than Liam and the government in years.

He led me into the visitors’ room, a small cafeteria with five round tables. Three pairs of people sat together, talking in hushed tones. I scanned the room, my eyes resting on a man about my age with short dark hair. He sat as close to the table as possible, resting his elbows on it and folding his hands together. He stared at nothing in particular, but cast his gaze downward at the table. The guard silently led me to him. As I came closer, I slowly realized who I stared at.

My eyes widened in disbelief as my heart rate quickened. There was the warmth of a soft hug in the middle of my high school hallway, that happy ache in my stomach after having been laughing far too hard for far too long, my joyful tears shed alone in my room after having been kissed for the first time. Then all at once, there was gut-wrenching loneliness and grief as I mourned the death of a relationship with a man I thought I would one day marry.

“Jeanine,” he breathed. He sounded just as relieved as I felt.

I dropped into the chair in front of him, still unable to believe that he was really here.

“I came as soon as I found out,” he whispered.

I could see his eyes watering, feel the tremble in his voice. I knew every fold in his face, every inch of his skin as if it were my own. “It's been almost four weeks,” I croaked.

He shrugged. “I had a lot of baggage.”

A smile played at my lips.

“So…” He leaned in even closer.

I took a deep breath, smiling at the scent I recognized.

“How have you been?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Really, John?”

His lips folded into a crooked smile. “What?”

“Oh I've been just fine.” I made to throw my arms up in exasperation but was restricted by the chains.

“No need to be sassy.”

“No need to scold me,” I retorted.

“Jesus, Jeanine. It's been ten years. I've found you after ten years
and you're going to sass me?”

“You left,” I sneered.

He huffed, looking away. “You don't know anything about that,” he muttered with a hard voice.

“We are not having this conversation.”

He shrugged, frowning. “Fine. We're not.”

My stomach churned with the old feelings of hate and hurt I thought I had extinguished a long time ago. “Why are you here?” I demanded.

“I had to see you,” he replied with a rough voice.

I raised an eyebrow. “Did you?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Jeanine, you disappeared for ten years.”

I nodded. “I know. That's what I meant to do.”

“I couldn't find you even if I had the will to.”

“Which you didn't.”

“Stop it.”

“Fine.” I shrugged and looked away.

“Jeanine.”

“What?” I snapped.

He leaned in again and I couldn't resist the temptation of looking at him again. “I can help you.”

“Fat chance,” I spat at him.

“Jeanine,” he pleaded. “At least listen to my idea.”

I stared at him, a blank look in my eyes.

“You could plead insanity.”

“What?” I hissed.

He raised a hand to silence me. “You've been charged with murder.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I know.”

“If you plead insanity, we can negotiate a deal.”

A deal. No matter how much I hated him right now, a deal was exactly what I needed.

I forced the thought of romance out my head. I couldn't allow myself to assume John's coming to me meant he cared. But what else could it mean? After ten years, he had hunted me down. What if he had been looking for me this whole time? I shook my head, hoping it would dispel my thoughts. I'd take his suggestion. Anything was better than prison.

***

“Yes. Here,” John muttered, twisting his arm around so that he could reach his wallet in his back pocket. He paid the cab driver twenty percent extra for taking him to the “wrong side” of town. The back streets of DC looked somewhat like the modern version of slums one would find in period movies.

John shut the door behind him, breathing in shallow wisps of air in order to avoid the rancid smell. He rushed through the alley, stopping only to bang on the door at the end of the street. There was one knock from the other side of the door as a response.

“Stop,” John stated in a clear voice.

There was the scratch of a chain being drawn back and the click of a lock switching back before the door swiped open. A tall man dressed in dark jeans, a black T-shirt and sweatshirt stood on the other side of the threshold.

“John?” he murmured, a bit surprised.

“Remember that IOU?” John demanded in a confident voice.

The man tilted his chin in way of an affirmative answer.

“It's about time for you to pay up.”

Do you like this book? Be sure to check other books in this series

Saved - Volume 2

Finished - Volum
e 3

Memoirs of a Retired Assassin (Trilogy Bundle)