Leverage (15 page)

“
Don’t fucking kill me, okay!
Please! I-I gotta kid on the way, you know. I…just…tell me what to do, all right? Just…tell me how to fix this and I will. I swear!”

Greg’s face melted into a knowing grin. He walked from behind his desk right up into my face, nose to nose. I was already backed up against the door, Janek a mere three feet to my left. I couldn’t move. I could only stand on my toes, raise my chin, and press my back tighter into the door.

Greg tilted his chin as he, first, studied my face, then the rest of me, his eyes sliding up and down my body—seductive almost, provocative—scrutinizing every inch, analyzing my worth. Then he leaned in even closer, his chin over my shoulder and his mouth at my ear. I turned my head away, forced to look at Janek as I felt Greg’s hot breath on my neck. I heard him inhale deep through his nose then exhale with a quiet moan.

“And what if you don’t
want
to, Mr. Maguire?” he whispered, throwing my words back in my face.

The first tear rolled from the corner of my eye. “I will. I promise.”

He snorted a chuckle. “But what if you
can’t
, Mr. Maguire?”

A sob choked up from deep within my chest. “I-I…can, and I…I will. I swear to God. I-I will.”

I lowered my chin to my chest, no longer concerned with Greg’s proximity, only staying alive. My body shook so hard, my cheek touched his, and I raised my hand to my mouth, afraid I would puke all over the both of us.

Greg slid back to his desk and took his seat. With a loud sigh, he resumed writing, his eyes downcast on the yellow legal pad. “You can start by washing the dishes. Seems our head busboy had a tragic accident this afternoon and won’t be returning…ever. Now get the fuck out.”

I gasped and almost pissed myself when Jan took a step in my direction. He chuckled as he grabbed the knob and opened the door a crack.

“Pussy,” he muttered as I slid out of the way and through the door.

I ran straight to the restroom where I dry-heaved into the toilet. Above my retching was the sound of Greg and Janek’s laughter, echoing across the kitchen and straight through the bathroom door.

I put an ad up on Craigslist for my guitars and all my equipment. I knew it wouldn’t add up to shit compared to what I owed, but it would show I was committed to paying Greg off. I was even ready to sell my car. I needed to do something, anything to buy a little time. I was in way over my head. As embarrassing as it might be to admit the fiasco to my mom and Ty, it was nothing compared to what might happen if I didn’t live up to Greg’s expectations.

Ty said he had a friend in the FBI. I wondered if he could help get me out of this mess. It had to be extortion, right? Loan-sharking, illegal gambling, something. Surely it was against the law. They damn near came right out and threatened my life, and Katy and the baby, too. Greg knew exactly what he was doing when he’d brought them up.

Leverage.
Fuck.

It took just four days to sell my guitars, but I made a nice chunk of change. At first, it was hard to part with it all, especially my Les Paul. My father had bought that for me as a consolation gift when he and my mom first split. Everything, in fact, had been purchased by my dad, usually to buy my understanding over some stupid thing he’d done, like forgetting to attend to my graduation. The more I thought about it, the more I realized every piece was a payoff of some sort, the guitars, the Marshall half-stack, my bass. Knowing that made it easier to give them up. My dad’s failures would buy me some time. The irony was not lost on me.

The last item to go was my G&L acoustic, secondhand, but my first and favorite, and very rare. The guy who’d bought it was a lucky sonofabitch. I imagine he probably thought I’d stolen it. But I didn’t have time to haggle. I grabbed the cash and headed home, calculating I had nearly a quarter of what I owed Greg. It was a decent down payment, enough to get him off my back, at least until I talked to Ty and, hopefully, his buddy, the fed.

I planned out what to say to my mom and Ty on the way home and was feeling a bit more upbeat. I thought I might even keep a ten for myself and take Katy out for Japanese. She seemed to really crave that stuff lately. And a night out together would be good for us both. I had a smile on my face when I unlocked the front door, imagining how she’d react when I asked her out. I couldn’t even wait ‘til I was through before I shouted out my plans.

“Hey K?” I called out as I hung my jacket in the entry closet. “What d’you think about teriyaki for dinner?” I closed the door and walked toward the living room. “I gotta a few extra bucks—”

“Money just burns a hole in your pocket, now doesn’t it, Mr. Maguire?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard that voice.

Holy shit.
Greg.

“What the fuck!” I yelled and stepped into the dimly lit room just as the light popped on.

There he was with his goon, Janek, sitting on my crappy sofa, with Katy in between, her arms secure in their hands. She was shaking all over, her hands clamped together and pulled tight into her chest, and her hair hung like a stage curtain, obscuring her face.

“Greg…please…just—”

“Just what, Mr. Maguire? Are you here to save this poor damsel in distress? Pull her from the clutches of your evil nemesis?” he said as he gave Katy a jostle.

She cried out and tipped her head back, and her hair fell away from her face. I sucked in a loud breath and charged three feet into the room, until Jan pulled out his knife and stuck it into the cushion next to Katy, all the way up to its brass-knuckled hilt.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mr. Maguire. Mr. Janek here’s been itching for a little fun. Your friend, the busboy, proved quite unfulfilling, I’m afraid.”

“Steve? Y-you killed Steve? But…why? He did what you asked and brought me in.”

Greg pressed his lips together and sighed. “Yes, well, that information right there is reason enough. Loose lips and all.”

I tried to swallow, but the lump in my throat refused to go down. I didn’t know how to respond. So I tried to put Steve out of my mind for the moment and focus on Katy.

“Okay, I…I get that you’re angry, but…she has nothing to do with this. Just…let her go, all right? You’ve already got me. There’s no reason to hurt her any more than you already have. I get the message, loud and clear.”

Greg pulled himself up straight, his mouth open, affronted, as if I’d just insulted him. “Excuse me? You think we did this to your beautiful young mother-to-be?” he said, forcing Katy’s chin up higher, exposing her bloody nose and tear-stained face.

I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes, trying like hell to hold myself back.

“You wound me, Mr. Maguire, and have proven to be a poor judge of character. We didn’t do this. She did it to herself.” He lifted a copy of
Cosmopolitan
magazine. Beneath it laid a mirrored tray with a straw, a razor blade, and two lines of a white, powdery substance.

My hands flew to my head and I dropped to my knees. “Oh Jesus, no. What’ve you done? For God’s sake, she’s pregnant! Oh my God, the baby.” I rocked back and forth as nausea rolled through me, chanting, “Please, God, don’t do this. Don’t do this. Please, please.”

Greg let go of Katy’s arm and stood. He walked out from behind the coffee table and crouched down next to me, his hand on my shoulder. “My, you’re awfully stressed-out, Mr. Maguire. All this worrying, it’s not good for you,” he said with a shake of his head. “And it’s certainly not good for an expectant mother. I mean, if she’s capable of
this
,” he added, indicating the drugs, “God only knows what else she’ll do. She could do anything, really.” He gasped and brought his hand to his mouth. “Perhaps she’s even suicidal.”

He picked up the razor blade and held it out, twisting it around, examining it. I stared at him, speechless, incapable of putting two words together.

“You mustn’t leave things like this hanging around, Mr. Maguire. You wouldn’t want her to, I don’t know, maybe cut herself or something. Why, that would be terrible. Or maybe…” he said as he put the blade down. He faked-gasped one more time and looked me deep in the eye as he pulled something from his inside coat pocket. “Maybe she’ll jump out the window. Like…like Leo.” He raised his chin and pulled a cap down onto his head—a San Francisco Giants baseball cap. “You remember Leo, don’t you, Mr. Maguire?” he said with a wink.

And that was it, the moment it all clicked into place, the feeling I had the day we first met. It was Greg up on Leo’s balcony that night.

I was right. Leo
had
been pushed. And Greg had been the one to push him.

Blessed sunlight—the real thing, not the usual filtered gray—sliced between the shuttered slats on my bedroom window. My eyelids glowed from within, a soft but vivid red, the color so intense, it woke me with a pleasant nudge. I breathed in deep and let out a long sigh as my eyes fluttered to adjust. I smiled, remembering the dream I’d just been pulled from, Tyler and I making love outside in some exotic place I couldn’t identify, not that it mattered. All I cared about was us, that we were together again, in each other’s arms. I closed my eyes again and reached for the memory as it tried to flit away.

I could still feel the smooth warmth of Tyler’s skin, the way his muscles rippled hard and lean beneath my fingers. I felt his arms around me, holding me tight, yet careful not to lay his weight against the child tucked safe within my womb. And his mouth… It covered my face in seductive kisses, first along my temple, then across my forehead and down my nose, along my cheek to the edge of my jaw and down the column of my throat, making me gasp and wriggle beneath him.

He chuckled and moved his mouth to my ear where his tongue skimmed along the ridges and dove into the valleys. I squirmed even more as chills ran through me and goosebumps sprang up along my flesh. I felt a chill as his weight lifted away, and I looked up into the most startling blue eyes I’ve ever seen, the color of the South Sea, calm and serene yet thoroughly aroused. Dozens of little creases sprang like sunbursts from the outside corner of each eye. God, I loved that about him, and couldn’t help but smile back, for just an instant, until the length of him pushed deep inside me. I threw my head back and gasped as I arched my back, yielding to the pleasure and demanding more.

With my eyes shut tight, my head thrashed from side to side. I panted and reached for myself as I reveled in the memory of the dream. I moaned, clamoring for that moment of release I so desperately needed, that I hadn’t felt in so many weeks, so excruciating, so intense. I tried to find it. I sucked in a deep breath and tried to hold on to the memory—Tyler’s arms, his breath, his warmth, his weight—until he started to fade, his body dissolving into a hazy nebula, only to scatter as if blown by a strong wind.

And then it hit me.

Ty wasn’t here. We had not made love. He wasn’t touching me. I could not feel him.

I was alone.

The impact of that hit me like a spear through the heart. Pain sliced into my chest and exploded out my back. I felt impaled, unable to move. The heat of my delusive lovemaking evaporated, and I grew instantly cold as sweat condensed over my skin. But the worst of it was how completely empty I felt, like my soul had been hacked from my body. I began to cry, long, hard sobs that made every muscle ache and my throat constrict to the point where I could hardly take a breath or even swallow.

With every ounce of strength I had, I rolled onto my side and faced Tyler’s empty spot next to me. I hadn’t made the bed since the day he’d walked out the door. His place was just as he’d left it, a long indentation where his shoulder and hips had sunk into the mattress. I reached out and grazed my fingers over it, imagining the body that had left the impression. That only made the tears come harder, the pain more intense.

I grabbed his pillow and buried my face in it. His scent was so strong. I filled my nostrils with his essence, inhaling him deep into my lungs and holding him there until I knew he was infused into every cell. Oh, how I remembered that scent! It made me recall those days years ago after Ty had first left me, when the FBI had whisked him away.

I’d been so lonely then, so wholly heartbroken. Utterly abandoned and destroyed. I thought I’d never survive, but in the end, I didn’t have to, because he came back to me. We’d been given another chance. And yet, here I was again, with all those same feelings. It was unbearable.

But this time, I couldn’t blame it on circumstances outside my control.
I
had driven him to it.
I
was responsible. It was true, Tyler had pushed me to a dangerous precipice, a line in the sand, but I had chosen to cross it, and brazenly so. Why did I do it? Why had I pushed him? And even then, after I’d slipped the proverbial knife into his back, I’d twisted the goddamn thing! Told him Roman would do what he seemed unwilling to. It was heartless and cold. But I’d been so angry, felt so betrayed.

He should’ve told me about Leo and Katy. He should’ve trusted me. But no, Tyler had been keeping secrets, had put my son at risk, and told me it was to protect me and our baby. I’d heard that before in the stories he’d told me of his first wife, Jillian. It was too much the same, way too similar. I’d sworn long ago that no one would ever have that kind of control over me ever again.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I tried to fix it though, many times. I’d called Ty, apologized, told him I didn’t mean it, even though, at the time, I had. And he
knew
I had. That was the problem. He knew, no matter what I said, no matter how many times I denied it, that I thought he was ultimately responsible for all the terrible things we’d endured—Jill’s death, my kidnapping and assault, and Nick’s death, even the accident that took the lives of his parents and sister. I’d essentially tied the entire tangled mess in a neat little bow and laid it at his feet. And now that horrible snowball of events was melting, and we were both flailing, near to drowning in the flood of its aftermath.

Crushed under the weight of a perfidious first marriage, I had vowed never to be marginalized again. Perhaps I mistook the protection Tyler offered as a barrier rather than a buffer. I knew damn well Ty would never
intentionally
put me or Conner at risk. He’d already proven he’d give his life for me, and, in place of me, my son.

The realization of how completely our marriage had been shattered ran through me like poison, settling in my stomach with a corrosive burn. I could taste it in the back of my throat, smell it pushing up through my nostrils. It made me nauseous and dizzy. Suddenly, bile erupted into my esophagus. I clamped a hand over my mouth and bolted for the bathroom where I emptied the remainder of what little I’d eaten the night before into the toilet.

Wave after wave of spasms gripped my body as I heaved, over and over. When the seizures finally ceased, I slipped down and lay on the cold tile floor, my body weak, shivering, and covered in sweat as I wrapped my arms around my burgeoning belly and stroked the taut flesh.

I exhaled a long deep breath. “Two and a half months to go,” I whispered to my sweet Nicole. “Let’s hope Mommy can bring your daddy home.”

And there I lay, practicing my breathing, in and out, trying to soothe myself as best I could, and worried what would happen if I couldn’t somehow fix the all damage I’d done.