Candace turns to look at me and when her eyes meet mine, she reads my mind and grants me a perfect, beautiful smile. The kind that lights up a room and this dark heart of mine. She throws her arms around me, fixing me in a pretty green stare, love in her eyes. “We’re getting married right here.”
I stroke hair. “Yes,” I say. “We are. Forever and ever, baby.”
“Forever and ever,” she agrees.
“Shall we?” Rosa queries, directing us to our left. “The priest is waiting on us.”
“As long as he’s willing to marry a sinner and an angel,” I say. “Lead the way.”
A few minutes later, after Rosa meets with the priest one on one, we’re brought into an office lined with books. The priest, a man in his sixties, with white hair, but a young voice and chiseled face, studies us from behind a heavy wooden desk. “Who’s the sinner and who’s the angel?”
“I’m the sinner,” I say. “Is that a problem?”
“It’s not my role to judge you,” the priest assures me. “But you’re welcome to join me in the confession booth.”
“No,” Candace says quickly. “That won’t be necessary.”
I laugh and she scowls at me.
“That won’t be necessary,” I repeat. “We wouldn’t want to scare you away, Father.”
He laughs, and says, “I don’t scare easily, but let’s move on and talk about your wedding.”
And just like that, I dodge the confession booth and a bullet.
We’re home-free and walking with fancy feet now.
Onward to the wedding.
And the hot honeymoon night.
CHAPTER TWO
Savage
March, less than a week before the wedding…
“Is Barney getting married and why are you showing me his purple tuxedo?”
The store attendant, some new guy who has his nose in the air and a stick up his ass, bristles. “Is this not your tuxedo?”
Adam laughs. “Can it please be his tuxedo?”
I scowl in his direction and then eye the snobby attendant with a badge that reads “Nicolas.” He is such a fucking Nicolas, too, which as far as I’m concerned is the equivalent to a Karen. Nicolas scowls. “The tag says right here, Jackie Mitchell. If you have buyer’s remorse—”
“Once upon a time Jackie and Jill went up the hill. If I were Jackie, Jill would tumble right on top of me and stay there. But I am not, in fact, Jackie. If I was Jackie, I’d give someone a gun and tell them to shoot me.”
Nicolas blinks at me. “You’re not Jackie?”
“Jesus,” Adam murmurs. “No. He is not Jackie.”
“Oh,” Nicolas states. “Well then, what is your name?”
“Rick Savage and they call me Savage for a reason, Nicolas. Take the purple tuxedo to Barney.”
He purses his lips and without so much as an apology, he walks away. I eye Adam and plop onto a velvet high back chair across from him. “I’m a cranky bitch, right?”
“You are a cranky bitch,” Adam confirms, “but he deserves it. He has crap customer service skills. And you’re the customer, the groom, who’s nervous as fuck.”
“I am,” I admit, scrubbing my jaw. “I just don’t want to screw up with Candace, you know?”
“Candace knows what she’s getting herself into. She’s not going anywhere.”
My cellphone rings and I snatch it from my pocket to find an unknown caller. My Spidey senses tingle. Spidey senses never mean anything good is about to happen. I answer the call with a scowl. “Who is this?”
“Max. It’s Max, Savage.”
And there it is. A problem. A piece of my past, a man I worked with under Tag. A man I killed with, and survived with, for all the wrong reasons. “Why are you calling?”
“You owe me.”
He’s talking about saving my life. I turn away from Adam. “Debt paid,” I remind him softly and add, “Times two.” I’m referencing Walker protecting his wife when he was on the run from Tag, when Tag would have killed him and her, alike. I also killed Tag and solved that problem for him.
“Iraq, Mexico, Washington,” he says. “Three debts. Two down. One to go.”
I curse because he’s right. He saved my ass three fucking times. I walk down the hallway and exit to the alleyway. “What do you want?”
“I wasn’t just hiding from Tag. I made an enemy. A bad enemy.”
I go cold, the promises I’ve made to Candace about who, and what, I am, playing in my head. “You want me to kill him.”
“You won’t have to,” he assures me. “I have a data drive. If you get it to the right person, he’ll kill him for me. Just deliver the data. Debt paid.”
“What’s on the drive?”
“It’s better you don’t know.”
“I need to know.”
“No,” he says. “No, you do not. But if this doesn’t happen soon, me and my wife, we’re dead. He’s closing in on us. I feel it. And I’m running out of money.”
“I know how much money you made because I was right there with you making it. You’re rolling in bucks.”
“And getting to it is risky. You know how that is. I burned through my cash. I’m texting you the pick-up and drop-off details now. Pick-up is at a cabin in Gatlinburg and drop-off about three hours down the road. Call me when you get to Tennessee.”
“Who am I picking up from?”
“No one involved in any of this. It’s complicated, but not messy.”
“All right,” I say. “I can bring you some cash after I deliver. Where are you?”
“You could lead that bastard to me.”
I snort at that. “Come the fuck on, man. This is me you’re talking about. And if this bastard, whoever he is, finds me, I’ll kill him. Which is why you need to tell me who he is.”
His rejection is hard and fast. “I’m not pulling you into this. Just in and out, nice and clean. Invisible.”
I want to push for more, but a cellphone isn’t a safe way to extract information. “Where are you?” I repeat. “I’ll bring you money and we can drink to this being over for you and me.”
He hesitates and then says, “I’m texting the address. Thanks, man. If you pull this off, the story reverses. I owe you.”
“No debt. I’m done after this.” I disconnect and slide my phone back in my pocket, wondering how the fuck I’m going to tell Candace I’m leaving days before our wedding.
My phone buzzes with a text, and I glance down to read the locations Max has sent me. I’m headed to Tennessee and then Colorado. I text the private airport Walker frequents and put a plane on hold.
Once that’s done, I walk back inside the building to find Adam’s big-ass self waiting in the hallway. “What was that?”