Rogue (In the life of the Rogue Book 1) (11 page)

“I didn’t think I would ever see you again,” a woman’s voice spoke.

At first I could barely hear with the ringing in my ears but I still knew that voice – it had been in my head like a bad memory that just won’t stop being so vivid.

Dominique bent down, her long hair falling around her face. Her eyes were gorgeous and clear. She looked at me, her stare soft, tender and curious. She smiled at me. Not the nice smile that fluttered in the salted air that blew across her face, taking with it her hair that swirled around her shoulders, but still a devastating smile. Not the girl, whom had touched me and I could still feel her hand prints on the sides of my face, but the woman who understood the business of taking a life. She had the coldness in her eyes that told me she had done it before and would do it again without a blink. I knew that look all too well.

I would know it better because I would share it after tonight.

Mr. White rushed into the room with his gun out and his eyes sharp and searching. He glanced around, his eyes touching the dead body next to me and the blood splattered all over the wall where his brain had exited.

He gave an angry growl. “You can go ahead and smoke that cigarette, kid. You’re going to clean this up.”

More fuck ups, more mistakes, more problems, and more of all of the above…

Dominique leaned heavily against Mr. White and Mr. Black’s van. She wrapped her arms tightly against her chest, as her eyes lifted up to the beach house. She tested a bite on her bottom lip, gripping it slowly then released it with a sigh.

“Regrets?” I asked her.

She slid her eyes to me, the corner of her mouth squirking up. “If I had regrets, you’d be dead, wouldn’t you?”

Good Point…

I stuffed my cleaning supplies in the back of the van and closed the door. Mr. White held out a black trash bag and Mr. Black instantly tossed his pistol inside. I did the same. And so did Dominique.

“How clean did you get that wall in there?” Mr. White asked.

“The blood’s gone,” I told him.

He breathed slowly, the air passing smoothly out of his mouth, as if he was internally closing the chapter on the job. “You don’t ever want a job to get messy unless it’s the last resort, or asked before you take the job on. When things get messy, things get complicated.”

His advice was golden no matter if I liked the man or not. In the life of the Rogue, once a door was open, it never closed. The door of
murder
had been opened to me and knowing the rules only made the visit much easier.

Dominique sucked her ruby red bottom lip back into her mouth. She turned her gaze on me, that gray eyed gaze, and released her bottom lip, which came back plump and moist.

And I shivered.

Mr. White snapped his fingers in my face and I was smashed back into reality. His hard eyes bored into me, seeing clearly the lascivious expression smeared over my face like unwanted lipstick after a kiss.

“Over all,” he said, “you did good, kid.” He pointed behind me, towards my rental car parked behind his van. “Your Papa wants you back at your hotel and to wait for his call.”

I cut my eyes towards Dominque. Lulina’s words were back in my head again, the conversation I had with her rewinding and going forward with the volume turned all the way up. And only now did I see that her request had been a little too much. I was outnumbered, out gunned – despite the fact that I just watched the Colors put their guns in a black trash bag - I knew they had replacement weapons under their coats, just like I did. And it was just plain stupid to go against professional killers.

They had experience when I was only running off the fumes of impulse.

Still…

I nodded for Dominque to go to my car.

Mr. White caught on. “What are you doing, kid?”

“The girl goes with me. I’ll take her to Papa.”

His shoulders stiffened and Mr. Black took a step closer to me. “That’s not your play. We have instructions. You did your part now you get in your car, drive to your gang infested hotel and wait for more. Meanwhile she goes with us and we will finish this up.”

I took a step back, gathering room. Dominique hadn’t stopped walking until she reached my passenger door and ducked inside.

Smart Girl…

“I need her to arrive not dead,” I explained.

“I need you to understand you’re talking to very dangerous professionals, son,” said Mr. Black.

“So dangerous that I almost choked you out?”

And here was another notch to my stupidity. My little show in strength back in the hotel room was due only to luck. I was lucky that they didn’t have the intentions of killing anyone, and wasn’t expecting a naked man behind the door ready to pounce.

Mr. Black took another step forward but Mr. White put an arm up, stopping him.

He didn’t want a mess.

“Think about this, kid. You don’t have a gun and you can’t take both of us.” He held up the garabage bag to show his point.

I shrugged my shoulders and retrieved my gun from under my jacket. “That’s okay, I brought my own.” I kept the gun to my side, but they both knew that it wouldn’t take much to raise it and start shooting. “We’re taking the same ride back, boys. What difference does it make who rides with who? We both get to ride shot gun, at least.”

If they had plans on killing Dominique, I would never be sure, but I was sure that they didn’t like the fact that I hadn’t given them the option.

***

Dominique…

The woman from the balcony, the very one who had touched me, almost kissed me, was sitting next to me. I felt the heat of her body, the lingering smell of roses in the midnight breeze. I could still taste the scent of her as clearly as if I was still standing on the balcony watching the world pass me by. And as the reminiscent scent of her brushed passed my nose and burned my tongue, the real smell in the car filtered through:
fear, death, murder, blood, gunpower
.

I used the back of my hand to rub against my eyes, trying to wipe away Jack’s angry, helpless eyes looking up at me, his clouded gaze pleading, begging me not to kill him, and then the defeat in his stare as he realized that his begging had fallen on deaf ears.

And then the tables had turned. It was my turn to watch a man as he comtemplated if killing me would suit his need. I hadn’t looked at him with the look of hope in my eyes, or the look of plead hidden beneath my gaze of fear and shock. I had been arrogant, witty, and cocky in my brief exchange as the prey, and he the hunter.

I laughed to myself as the thought coursed through my head that no matter the act, the resolution was my death – minus the d
nouement. And I had been lucky. Dominique took the shot and killed the man who was about to kill me.

And now I wore his blood on my clothes, and what was left of his brain was in my hair.

I pulled into a deserted gas station. I circled the building twice watching for cameras and found none then parked in the back. I wasn’t sure what to expect tonight, but I was glad that I had packed a
Body Kit
, which contained a bottle of acohol, black garbage bags, a bottle of water and clean clothes. I usually carried the bag whenever I had to work a body, whenever it was time to cut up secrets.

I glanced out into the darken night, watching for any movement or headlights, or some kind of groundskeeper, or midnight guard strutting around looking for action. I waited a few more moments, trying to listen to those new killer instincts of mine, trying to understand them as they spoke a language of caution, coldness and caculation.

And then I figured I was being petulant and stepped out of the car. I yanked my jacket and shirt off and stuffed it into my garabage bag. I undid my belt and stripped my pants off and tossed them into a second bag, along with my socks and shoes. I was well aware of the pair of eyes watching me as I hooked my thumbs beneath the elastic band to my underwear and pulled them down. Dominique silently gasped from the front seat, and I smiled, liking the note of appreciation.

I doused acohol on my hands, chest, back and legs. I grabbed a bottle of water and rinsed the blood and fragments of brain out my hair. I redressed in a clean shirt and a pair of jeans. Dominique was wearing a tight white sweater so I searched the bag and grabbed a blue sweater jacket, wanting to match her clothing, wanting to look like we were together. I combed my hair back and threw a baseball cap on before getting back into the car.

The cleaning and redressing had taken no more than ten minutes, and we were still in the clear. I found another gas station, this one not deserted, but had a few cars parked at pumps and a few people miling around outside, but they barely lifted their heads to me, and paid no attention, or particular interest, as I dumped one of my plastic bags in a dumpster. I found another gas station a few miles down to get rid of the second bag.

Dominque exhaled, running a hand through her long curly hair. “You ever killed before tonight, Tristan?”

I leaned my head back against the head rest, my eyes closing, and a rush of air moved past my lips. The soft raspiness of her voice, the hint of enticement, the subtle hint of sexiness and womanliness, hung around me like a warm hug.

She had been quiet since we left the beach house, and I just now noticed how my body had been yearning to hear her speak.

I finally remembered to answer her question. “No, I have not.”

“Ever have a gun pulled on you?”

“More times than I can count.”

I could feel her curious gaze bore on the side of my face. It wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling. I liked having her looking at me. I liked knowing I had her attention. What I didn’t like was how much I liked these things.

“Why were you at the hotel?” I asked.

“Same reasons you were.”

She was silent for a few lingering seconds. For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to add anything else, but she cleared her throat and continued.

“My father doesn’t like another family in his area. A family being in his area conducting business, tying loose ends, he doesn’t want to be too far away.”

“In other words, you were making sure I didn’t screw up.”

“We were making sure that the crew sent to Miami didn’t botch anything and cause attention to the Lougotti family.”

The answer was understandable. I could see my father making the same decision if another family needed to handle business in our territory. If the job went horribly wrong, it would most likely cause heat on the family in that zone. No one wanted that. No one wanted to get dirty, especially when it wasn’t your dirt.

“Why were you at a safe house?” I asked her.

“My father got wind that my mother was here. He didn’t want her trying to see me.”

“How long has it been since you heard from your mother?”

“I last saw her when I was ten.”

“You miss her?”

She shrugged casually. “When she left, it was the same as her dying. So how can you miss someone when you see them as dead?”

“You can miss the dead, too.”

She turned to me and smiled. “Not the dead that’s really living, laughing, fucking, and too busy to call you.”

The conversation ended there. I turned into the Resort’s parking lot. A valet, a pimply faced kid most likely doing this job to get through school, approached with his hand out. I handed him a ten after he taken my keys – before I left the bodies in the beach house’s basement, I searched the five men’s pockets and had gotten lucky as one of the men had two hundred dollars bills on him.

Dominique and I stood at the threshold to the resort. I leaned down, brushed my lips against her ear.

“Pretend I’m yours,” I whispered, ignoring the urge to drag my tongue over her earlobe.

Her warm hand slipped into mine. She pressed her soft body against my arm, using her other hand to touch and grab onto my bicep. I pressed my lips against her temple, and lingered, smelling the fragrance off her hair. My lips thinned as a smile crept up. Dominique had tightened her hold on my arm, her body leaning more and more against me.

I loved affecting her. It was only fair; she affected me.

An elderly couple passed us and smiled pleasantly, whispering about how nice the young couple looked.

“How long have you two been married?” The old woman asked as we followed behind them into the elevator.

I leaned up against the wall. Dominique stepped into me and rested her head on my chest.

“We’re not, just met a couple of weeks ago,” Dominique answered as she looked up and met my eyes.

“You look so much in love,” said the old woman.

Dominique smiled against my chest. “My mother’s here, at the hotel, and I’m taking him up to meet her.”

“Have you had your first kiss yet?”

My fingers cupped Dominique’s chin. Her gray eyes trailed up to meet my stare. “She’s making me wait and it’s killing me,” I answered the older woman.

“I imagine it will be wonderful,” the old woman noted. Her voice was almost pained, like the thought of us – as loving as we appeared – hadn’t shown it just yet, at least in a kiss.

Dominique grabbed the front of my sweater jacket, her knuckles whitening as she clenched her hands into tight fists. Her bottom lip was back in her mouth as she appeared hurt at my words.