Just then, the car pulled up behind me. Sadie rolled down the window. “Gage!” she yelled. “Come on.”
I turned back to look at her. Her face suddenly faltered and she yelled something.
I turned back to Vadik. He had pulled out a pistol and was aiming it at my face.
I squeezed the trigger. I fired first, hitting him in the chest. He fired second, missing me by inches. I fired again and again, hitting him with every bullet. He stumbled backwards, but I didn’t wait to watch him fall.
I turned and dove into the car. “Drive!” I yelled.
Sadie peeled out, wheels tearing up the concrete.
We drove fast away from the Hen. After fifteen minutes, we stopped briefly so that I could get behind the wheel. After that, I drove north, and I didn’t look back.
There was no reason to stop, not ever. I wasn’t leaving anything behind in Ashertown. I didn’t have a life back there that I was going to miss.
I had everything I needed in the car right beside me. I held Sadie’s hand and I knew that I was home, that I was really home. I knew that I could finally be the man that I really needed to be.
I had love, and I had a good woman. I didn’t know what more I could possibly want.
Chapter 27
Sadie
Two years later
I could hear laughter coming from the other room. I smiled to myself as I finished making the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I cut off the crusts, because that was how he liked it, believe it or not.
It was always funny seeing a big, tattooed man eat a PB&J with the crusts cut off. It was like a big glob of sugar, but he loved it.
I walked into the living room. Gage looked up at me, a big grin on his face, Tyler in his lap. “I think he said my name.”
“He didn’t,” I said, laughing. I put the sandwich down on the coffee table then picked Tyler up. “He’s barely eight months old.”
“Still. He’s smart. Ahead of the curve.” Gage grabbed the sandwich and tucked into it. He finished the whole thing in two bites. “Thanks babe.”
I shook my head at him, smiling, and then went into the other room with Tyler. “Nap time, little man,” I said.
As I put Tyler down for his nap, I couldn’t help but remember what had happened over the last two years.
After everything in Ashertown, we drove north. We didn’t stop until we hit Canada, and then we kept going. Gage knew a guy over the border that got us set up with entirely new identities, and it only cost every penny we had.
That didn’t matter. We made it work. We settled down outside of Montreal and started to learn French. I got a job in a law office, of all places, as a secretary. They suspected that I knew more than I let on, but that was okay. They didn’t seem to care so long as I showed up and did my job.
Gage got a job working construction in the first year we were there while he went to school at night. He wanted to do something else with his life, and I was all for it. He planned on opening his own business one day, and so he was taking business school classes in the hopes that he’d earn his college degree.
Then Tyler came along. That was inevitable, considering how often Gage and I slept together. Tyler was a blessing, and he really made our new home feel like home.
We were Canadian, and we had a Canadian kid. Maybe we didn’t have the accents, at least not yet, but we fit in. We made friends, we went to work, and we raised our child.
Gage constantly had his eyes out for the Petrov family, but they never showed up. We didn’t know if Vadik died that day, but I couldn’t imagine he would survive that many gunshots. I didn’t want to Google it or check the news, because frankly I was afraid of what I’d find. Still, it was possible, and we were always worried that they’d come after us one day.
It didn’t matter. Gradually, that fear faded away as we settled into our new life together. Gage became domestic, and it was like he was a whole new man.
On the surface, at least. In the bedroom he was the same old bastard, rough and sensual. It was fresh every time, like a brand new sensation.
I got lucky and Tyler went down for his nap. I walked back out into the main room, but Gage was nowhere to be seen. “Gage?” I called out. “Where are you?”
I found a little note on the coffee table. Come outside, it said. I smiled to myself and pulled open the sliding back door. We lived in a small single-family house in the Montreal suburbs, and even had a nice little yard.
Gage was standing in the middle of it, smiling at me. I walked out toward him.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Why are you smiling at me like that?”
“You know how we’re not technically legal here?” he asked.
“Sure.” I laughed. “I forget that, sometimes.”