I lean across the car, curling my fingers against the nape of his neck as he reaches out and wraps the fingers of his tattooed hand around my waist.
“I love you, Gilleon Marchal,” I tell him, because I can never say it enough.
“I love you, too, Regina.” He kisses me then with a dangerous passion that curls my toes and brings goose bumps up on my arms.
Tonight, we're risking our lives for a future, the future together we never had, but that we deserve.
Tonight.
It's all over tonight.
The car ride to … wherever it is that we're going is filled with a tense sort of silence, the kind that begs to be broken, but that I can't for the life of me figure out how to break.
“Gill?” I ask after a few moments, my heart racing, my hands clammy in my lap. I want to help, need to really, but that doesn't make it easy. I'm not exactly trained for this, but if Karl wants bait, I can be bait. I can be the chance that Gilleon needs to get the shot in. Because that's all it'll take—one shot. Once Karl is down, if there is a firefight, Gill's promised that Max's people will take care of things.
“Yeah?” he asks, blinking a few times to clear his head before he glances over me, knuckles white on the steering wheel.
“Everything's going to be okay.” Gill smiles tightly at me, but I can tell from his tense facial expression that he doesn't believe it. “And not because it has to be, because nothing really has to happen. But because we'll make it happen.” I stare out the front window at the darkness and the rain, reaching up to wipe some condensation from the glass. Outside, the I-90 floating bridge rumbles past, the water from Lake Washington black as pitch beneath it.
A quick glance back at Gill shows him with brows furrowed and expression dark. Shit. I run a hand over my face.
“So, where exactly are we going?” I try to make myself smile, but my lips refuse to budge, images of Aveline's bloody body and the mess in the stairwell stroking goose bumps up on my arms. “I mean, where do big time crime lords like to host their get togethers?”
At least I get Gill's mouth to twitch. But he doesn't smile. Guess that's out of the question for either of us right now.
“Medina,” he says, looking over at me for a split second. “Evergreen Point Road.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Ritzy.”
“It's one of Max's safe houses,” Gill says with a shrug. And then he really does smile. “She has much nicer places elsewhere.” I roll my eyes and make myself smile back. This is better. This is good. I feel a bit of the stress melting away. I'm sure it'll all come rushing back when we get to wherever we're going, but at least this is better than mind wrecking silence.
“Uh, of course. You forget where I'm from.” I reach up and pretend to fluff my already perfect hair. “I'm from Paris,” I say, emphasizing the French pronunciation. “While I'm sure the place is nice, it's still in Seattle. How much is this one worth? A mere three million USD?”
“Close—two point eight.” I snap my fingers.
“Damn. So close. Well, it's awfully nice of the boss to meet us in such a shit hole.”
Gill's smile gets a little wider but then fades just as quick when his phone buzzes. A glance down at the screen and then his eyes flick to the windshield with an intensity that'd be frightening to me if I wasn't in his good graces.
“Karl's just arrived,” Gill says, taking a deep breath. He slides his phone back in his pocket, that strange, tense silence falling like snow around us. “And we're eighteen minutes out. Fuck.” I glance over and watch as Gill runs his tongue across his lower lip. “Regina,” he begins, but I cut him off.
“No. I'm doing this, Gill.” I drop my hands to my lap, unconsciously fishing in the fabric until I feel the gun beneath all of that striped organza. My hands tremble as I take another breath.
“All I was going to say was … no matter what happens, I'll keep you safe.”
I nod my head, but I don't like the tone in his voice. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I see two things in that darkened expression of his: you'll make it out of this okay and … I don't think that I will.
Maxine's safe house is really a fancy ass McMansion with a circle drive, perfectly manicured bushes, and a set of double glass entry doors that glow with the false promise of hospitality. In the driveway, there are two black SUVs similar to the one we're driving, an unremarkable silver sedan, and a big, shiny red pickup truck. I wonder if that one belongs to Max? Like mother like daughter, maybe?
Gilleon pulls all the way around the driveway, angling to put us at the exit. Unfortunately, there's a man standing there, leaning casually against a tree. He doesn't even bother to look our way, but I have feeling that if we tried to leave right now, he'd shoot us. At least, he'd try to.