Last Breath

Twenty-eight

Regan

DANIEL WARNED ME THAT IT would be bad. But I should have guessed that if he was trying to shield me from it—after all we’d been through together—it would be really, really bad.

I see a cross in the center of the compound’s courtyard, and that’s enough for me to flinch. “Are they going to—”

“Yup,” Daniel answers flatly.

“Oh.” My stomach feels a little weak at the thought and at the kindling I see people stacking at the bottom of the cross. There are people gathered, people everywhere. It’s like the entire favela has turned out to see this. Mendoza’s men are armed and grim-faced as they make a protective ring on the outskirts that no one will cross.

Hudson is standing nearby, stiff as a board, gazing off into the distance. There are two armed men standing next to him, but he’s calm. He’s calm even when they begin to lead him forward. There’s another man kneeling near the base of the cross. His hands are bound behind his back, and his head is bowed. I think he must be crying because his shoulders are shaking.

Mendoza stands over him, a fire behind him illuminating the whole macabre scene. “Recite his crimes,” he instructs the man on the ground.

“Carl Hudson has committed acts . . .” the man half speaks, half whispers. The words dribble out between heaving sobs.

“Louder,” Mendoza commands.

The bound man starts again. “Carl Hudson has committed acts of depravity for which he will be punished. He has stolen thirty-four women, raped them, and passed them around to his helpers until they were dead. Two of those women belonged to Tears of God. Those people belonged to Rafael Mendoza and had his protection. Touching any of Mendoza’s people means death. But for the other thirty-two women, we require more than an execution. Mendoz and the Tears of God require judgment.”

Mendoza raises his arms to his people. “Do we agree that Carl Hudson should die for his sins and be judged by Cristo Redemptor of his final destination?”

“We do!” the crowd shouts back.

I hate the man, but I’m not sure I can see him nailed to a cross and burned. I swallow hard, and my hand sneaks back into Daniel’s.

He pulls me against him. He drags me against his body and tucks my face against his neck, holding me there. In my ear, he murmurs, “You don’t always have to be strong, fighter.”

I nod, inhaling his scent and clinging to him, my arms around his neck. I stay there, because I don’t want to be anywhere else.

I’m there when the sound of a hammer strikes and Hudson starts screaming. I’m there as the hammer falls over and over again, and then the screaming gets louder and the crackle of a fire starts. Smoke fills the air. I inhale Daniel’s scent, trying to drown out the smell of burnt flesh, and hide my face against him, letting him be the tough one here.

After a while the screaming dies down, and Daniel touches my cheek. “It’s over. Let’s go inside, fighter.”

I don’t look back. I don’t need to see—it’s going to be in my nightmares plenty.

We go in and return to Daniel’s room back in the infirmary. Daniel sits on the edge of the bed, and Mendoza follows us in. I sit in a chair close to Daniel’s bed, but I don’t want to hover. The last thing he wants is a clingy girlfriend all over him while he talks to his old army buddy. But I want to be clingy. I want to burrow into Daniel’s side and have him hold me while I try to process what happened.

Hudson won’t be bothering us anymore. He won’t be coming after me or wanting to check my teeth. He won’t be waiting for me to be broken. No more girls will disappear into his dungeon and never reappear. By doing this, we’ve saved so many, and gotten justice for that many more.

And I should feel relieved about all of this, but all I can think of are his screams as he was nailed to the cross. And I don’t feel good about it. I can try to be tough and be a fighter, but I don’t know that I’ll ever be as tough as Daniel needs me to be if we’re going to stick together.

This thought worries me as Mendoza adjusts his belt loaded with guns. It’s nothing to him to walk around armed to the teeth, to live in a favela where people don’t bat an eye when an enemy is nailed to a cross and burned alive.

To them, it says safety. To me, it says torture porn.

“How are the bullet holes?” Mendoza asks as Daniel pats his side, grimacing.

“Well, they’re not magically better yet,” Daniel retorts.

“Maybe it’s because you’re a little too vigorous in your sickbed, eh?” He grins at Daniel and my face flushes. “She was kissing my boo-boos,” Daniel says easily. “Don’t be a hater because one side of your bed is cold.”

“Hell, yeah,” Mendoza says, and I get embarrassed all over again. I curl my legs under me in the chair and try to pretend that Mendoza and all his men haven’t seen me naked recently. They’re not safe, like Daniel, and they still make me anxious, even if they’re nice.

“So,” Daniel says casually, glancing at Mendoza and then at me. “When’s someone going to tell me what happened to my sister?”

I freeze in my seat, anxiety rising to the forefront. Daniel’s voice is calm and even, but he’s been looking for his sister for two years. How is he going to feel once he knows I let Vasily take her? I don’t know what I’ll do if he looks at me with cold indifference. I need Daniel. I need him the way I need air, and I know that’s not healthy and I don’t care.

My hands drag through my hair anxiously. I’ve been hiding the secret of where Naomi has gone for the past few days, and every time Daniel starts to look around his sickroom, or ask questions, I distract him with kisses. It’s not that I hate the kisses—God, I love the kisses so much—but I know I’ve fallen back on my old bag of tricks that Daniel hates.

Don’t want him to ditch you? Get his cock’s attention.

It’s needy and wrong and stupid of me and I can’t help it. I’m terrified because I don’t know what’s going to happen now. I was with Daniel until we got papers and got Naomi. Then, we added “take down Hudson” to that list.

Now, I have papers.

Now, Naomi’s gone again, and Hudson is handled.

There’s no reason for Daniel to keep me at his side unless there’s sex involved. It doesn’t matter how much I love him and desperately want to be with him. I’m still messed up in the head, deep inside, and I know if he sends me back home, I’ll shatter into a million tiny broken pieces.

And Daniel tells me he loves me, and he gives me sweet words, but at the end of the day, am I just pussy to him? What happens when he has to track his sister down again and it becomes dangerous? He’s a sniper, an assassin. He works with dangerous men. There’s no place in that for a girl like me because I’m a liability.

But if I’m a good fuck, maybe he’ll keep me. Maybe.

Still, I look at Daniel’s hard face as he waits for me or Mendoza to answer, and I crumble. Weeping, gaspy sobs escape my throat, and I lose my shit all over again. I’m not the fighter Daniel wants me to be.

I’m terrified he’ll abandon me now, and I love him so much.

Daniel

MENDOZA LOOKS AS SCARED AS any man can be when confronted by the terror that is a crying woman. He books it out of there like God himself is about to loose a lightning bolt on us. Me? I’ll take Regan snarky or sobbing. At least I have her. We’re both alive. My sister is safe, and we’re going home.

“I have to tell you,” I confess in low tones, trying to make her laugh. “I get the most inappropriate boners when you’re crying. I don’t really know what that’s all about, but I’m going with it.”

I’m guessing this is stress relief. Chicks cry for no reason at all. At age twelve I made my mom a janky homemade Valentine’s Day card that I threw together between my morning masturbation session and breakfast. She sobbed all over me when I gave it to her, and I had to pat her back awkwardly until my dad rescued me. He took me out to the barn and tried to explain a little about women. Or at least my mom.

“Be happy she’s crying,” he said. “That’s when you know they still feel something for you. The time when they look at you with dry eyes is when you’ve lost them.”

When her crying continues unabated, I pull her onto my lap and try to kiss the tears. I wasn’t lying about the hard-on. It sprung up almost immediately when her ass landed on my thighs. Maybe it was the proximity of her pussy to my dick. Or maybe it was because I was a dirty sonofabitch. Could be both.

I shifted her back a little so she didn’t feel the press of my erection against her ass while she sobbed. Then I hugged her to me, marveling that we’d made it. When her hiccups signal the end of the storm, I tip her head back and cover her mouth with my own, giving her the comfort that I don’t know how to put into words. After a half-hearted attempt to kiss me back, Regan wrenches her mouth away from me.

“I have to tell you something,” she whispers.

“Shoot, baby doll, can’t imagine you telling me anything that is more important than us kissing.” I joke, but a thread of fear winds its way up my spine because something is really bothering Regan.

“I don’t want us to be separated.” She scoots higher up on my lap until her ass crack is cradling my semi-hard. On contact it grows harder, but she pays it no attention which has me all sad and worried.

“We’re not going to be,” I assure her. “My cock would fall off if I had to spend more than a few hours away from you, so trust me, I’m sticking to you closer than flies on shit.”

At her crestfallen expression, I tamp down my urge to roll off one awful joke after another in hopes that one of them hits her funny bone. “Sugar tits, nothing you can say is going to upset me unless it’s that you’re leaving me—which I’d ignore and follow you around like a stray dog you fed once that expects you’ll feed it again.”

“Sugar tits?” She rears back and offense is written all over her face.

Finally a non-teary response. “I was trying for that’s not good instead of slap your face insulting. How’d I do?”

“Yeah, don’t ever call me sugar tits again.” And for a moment I think we’re on our way to happy town, but then her face crumples again.

Impatiently, I jostle her on my legs. “Regan, let’s go find Naomi and get the hell out of here. I’m ready to eat some barbecue and drink some Shiner Bock. You think they have Shiner Bock up there in Minneapolis? Because if they don’t, then you’re going to have to hold me while I cry.”

At the mention of Naomi’s name, the tears start up again and that thread of fear I felt before has transformed into a heavy cloak of dread. “Naomi’s okay, right?”

“I didn’t see what happened,” she sobs. “I was so worried about you, and the next thing I know both Naomi and that asshole Petrovich are gone. Mendoza says he looked everywhere, but between the gunfight outside the gate and then you at death’s doorstep and them crucifying Hudson, I lost track.” Her noisy sobs make some of her words kind of hard to understand, and for a moment I’m distracted by the sheer amount of salt water she’s leaking out of her body. She’s going to be dehydrated before long. Then her words sink in. That dirty fucking freak show has my sister. With a roar, I yell for Mendoza. I stand up but Regan still clings to me, so I swing her into my arms and stride for the door.

Mendoza meets me at the entrance of the sick room but won’t step in any farther.

“Sorry,” he raises his hands. “I suck with crying women. Pretty good at killing people and striking fear into the hearts of many. Not so good with the comforting thing.”

“Shit, man, where’s my sister?” I snap.

He shakes his head. “No idea. Like your girl said, it was chaotic, and I was more interested in killing Hudson’s men and capturing him than I was making sure that the Russian didn’t run off with your sister.”

With a snap of his fingers he calls the attention of a young kid draped in a crisscrossed ammunition belt. I roll my eyes, and Mendoza shrugs. “Kids,” he says. “What can you do?” The kid hands him a tray of food which Mendoza brings into the room. “Eat. I’ve got a cargo plane that will take you to Costa Rica. From there you should be able to get home. You got your papers?”

I nod. “Thanks.”

“Sorry about your sister.” At the doorway, he pauses and says with not a little longing in his voice, “You got a good one. Hold her tight.”

So the king wants a queen to keep him company in bed. Interesting. I don’t give any more thought to Mendoza’s lack of romantic prospects because I’ve got other concerns to worry about. On the tray there’s a pitcher of water along with two bowls of hearty gumbo and a few cheese rolls. Regan is silent through this whole exchange, and her tears have tapered off.

Setting her on the bed, I pull the table in front of her.

“Pão de queijo.” I offer her a roll. “They’re cheese and bread. Trust me, this is one of the best things that has ever been made. Like Cristo Redentor himself must have delivered the recipe to the original settlers of Rio.”

She gives me a sad, watery smile and takes the cheese roll. Because these rolls are so damn good, even tragic Regan can’t stop her moan of pleasure. “Right?” I say, eating half of my own roll. “Crispy crust on the outside and fucking heavenly delight on the inside.” I wait until she’s swallowed down one whole roll before I hand her a glass of water. “Fighter, we are in this together. It’s not your fault that Vasily ran off with my sister. Plus, I know where he lives. Like, literally. So we’re going to eat up and then head off to Costa Rica.”

“I want to come with you,” she says, mouth halfway around another pão de queijo.

“Sure.” I lean over and give her a quick kiss. “I wouldn’t want to go back to Minneapolis and mess with payroll systems either.”

This finally gets a tiny grunt of a laugh from her. “You’re really not upset with me?”

“Christ, no.” I set down my food and stare at her in surprise. “Is that what the torrent of tears was all about? That I’d be mad because of Naomi?” She gives me a small nod. “Look, Naomi was not your responsibility. If anything, it’s on me because I got myself shot. Vasily’s not going to hurt her.” I hope not at least. My initial fear was that Naomi had gotten separated and was out wandering the streets of Rio, which would not be good. She’s not good with new places, bright lights, disorder, or crowds—which is kind of what Rio is.

“I feel terrible and thought you’d be done with me.”

Setting down the bowl of gumbo, I cup Regan’s face with one hand and push the table away with the other. “I’m not ever going to be done with you, fighter. What’d I tell you before? You’re going to have to kill me first before you can scrape me off.” I stop and then say, “It sounded a lot less creepy in my head.”

Laughing, she draws one finger along the ridge of my prominent erection. Thin linen pants do very little to hide what’s going on, particularly when I’m free balling it. “Your creepy thoughts make me feel safe.” Her voice takes on a teasing quality, and a damp spot appears close to the tip of her finger.

“I have lots more where that came from.” I tumble her down on top of me, and as I lick inside of her mouth, I know that nothing will ever taste as good as her. She trembles under my hands and moans against my mouth.

“Can you always wear skirts?” I ask, shoving up the fabric so I can find the true heaven on earth. My hand delves between her legs, and I swell even harder, bigger, thicker, when I find that she’s soaking wet and completely naked.

“It gets cold in Minnesota,” she gasps. “There’ll be times I can’t wear them.”

“Then we’re gonna have to live somewhere warmer.” Pulling my own pants down far enough to spring my cock free, I roll her over and position it at her wet, hot entrance. The first push is always so amazing, as her cunt welcomes me with a silky tight embrace.

I wish I could kiss with her less ferocity, and in the back of my mind, I wince at the marks I’m leaving. Then I grow even harder at the idea of Regan wearing signs of my possession. I hope she makes some of her own on my body. Kneading her ass cheek in one hand, I impale her completely. “I’m never leaving you,” I tell her, desire making my voice harsh. “Not for a day or an hour or a minute. I’m always going to be with you.”

She winds her arms and legs around me. “I’m always going to fight to be at your side.”

“That’s more than any man can ever ask for.” Then I’m done talking. Crushing her mouth to mine, I ravage her. I fuck her hard with my tongue and my cock, until I feel the spasms of her arousal hug me tight. My whisper-thin control breaks and my body starts pounding into hers, but the cries of Oh my God, Daniel, yes and Harder, harder tell me that she’s right there with me. I pull out at the last minute and come into the folds of her skirt that are bunched between us at her waist.

“Goddamn.” I whistle, flopping onto my back. “One of these days we gotta either get a rubber or get you on the pill.”

She rubs her cheek against my chest. “Maybe neither some day?”

I clutch her tight to me. A baby with Regan? After my sister was taken, there wasn’t life in me anymore. I had only one goal and having a family and settling down wasn’t part of my future. I wasn’t even sure I deserved a future, and now I have Regan. She’s got me by the balls, and if she wants to lead me by the dick then I’m happy to follow. Wherever. If it’s babies she wants, then hell yes. I want to have a family with her. Life’s getting better and better. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Finally I heave to my feet because we’ve got to get going. “Eat your food,” I tell her, and then I drag myself toward my bag. Inside there are clothes I can travel in. A pair of cotton pants, underwear, a button down shirt. At the bottom are a bunch of guns, ammunition, knives and a burner phone—all of which I’ll leave for Mendoza. The notification light on the flip phone blinks, and I notice there’s a message for me.

Picking up the phone, I enter the code to retrieve the message. It’s Naomi and because it’s her, there’s no greeting. Greetings are superfluous in her estimation.

Vasily has given me a ride to Russia. He says that there are places in Russia where it is white and there are very few people. I like that. Also, he wants me to do something for him, but he says that it will help people. By people, I think he means it will help him, but he also says that this can—what does he call it?—provide me recompense for the bad things I’ve done for Hudson. My balance sheet is uneven, so I’m going with him. Vasily says I have to call you or you will follow me to Russia. Don’t. I won’t like that. I do like that Vasily is quiet. He grunts most of the time, but I’m learning what they mean.

She draws a breath and pauses.

I love you, Daniel. And I stole all the digital currency people had placed in the fake bank I created in the Emperor’s Palace and converted it into Francs and then funneled it into five different accounts in the U.S. It was too big for one account. I emailed you the details. I had to give some of it to Vasily or he wouldn’t allow me internet access. But I was able to save some for you and Regan. And Mom and Dad if they need it. It’s from bad people, so don’t be angry. You can’t really steal money from bad people. This is like a redistribution. Like recompense.

That was it. Naomi doesn’t say goodbye.

“Was it Naomi?” Regan’s voice is so hopeful that I’m glad I can say yes.

“She says hi and that she converted fake drug money into real money and that she thinks she’s going to like it in Russia.” I feel a little dazed. The phone is going to have to come with me. “Hold on,” I tell Regan. “I need to call Petrovich.”

The phone rings only once. It’s as if Petrovich is expecting my call, and I light into him before he can utter a word. “So you kidnapped my sister. Give me one reason I shouldn’t come and hunt you down like a dog. Or better yet, reveal to your Bratva how you were involved in the assassination of your uncle.”

Petrovich is silent, perhaps not expecting me to throw this back into his face. But fuck honor. My family is on the line.

“I swear on my mother’s grave that no harm will come to your sister. I will protect her as if she were my own sister from the womb of my dear mother. Every hurt she suffers, I will bear twice in payment. She will want for nothing, and I will return her hale to the bosom of your family.”

Beyond him there is a murmur of sound and then a swift argument.

“Yes, Naomi, I will return you.” Then he’s back online with me and in a stiff voice says, “I will return Naomi only when she desires it. I have promised her this.”

Before I can say anything else, he hangs up.

“Is she going to be okay?” Regan asks.

I nod and take a few deep breaths. “Yeah, he promises on his dead mother, so you know it’s all good.”

“Then why is the phone crumpled in your hand?”

I look down and see the burner’s plastic face and back are cracked, the edges of it drawing blood from my palm. Tossing it aside, I wrap my arms around Regan because she’s become my safe harbor. Her neck smells warm and comforting, and the angry pounding in my head over the knowledge of my sweet sister in Petrovich’s hands subsides a bit.

“I guess I have to trust him. I’ve got a pretty big weapon to hold over his head, so unless we’re up for a battle with one of the most powerful Russian crime families, I’ll just have to believe in his promises. Petrovich took control of his Bratva by helping us kill Sergei and Sergei’s lieutenants. If the rest of his organization knew that he did this, he’d be killed. Plus,” I rub my forehead, “he really believes in honor and family, which is why he had Sergei killed. Sergei was bringing the Petrovich family to ruin, and Vasily needed to stop him.”

“I’ll go to Russia with you,” Regan offers.

“Know what, fighter? Huge Dicked Daniel is tired. He needs some R and R.” The thought of going to Russia and dealing with Petrovich all over again mentally exhausts me. I know Naomi is safe. And I know she’s got some bug up her ass about a new project, which means I’d be fighting both of them to bring her home. And for now, I’m just fucking tired of it all. I want to pull Regan into my arms and fuck her for days on end and not have to worry about anything other than running out of condoms.

“R and R is fine,” Regan says, smoothing a lock of hair from my forehead in a possessive gesture. “I just want you to know I’m with you. We’re a team now, right?”

I squeeze her tight and drop a kiss on the top of her forehead. “We’re a team.”

“So . . . what does this team do now?”

With effort, I stand up and grab my pack. Holding out my hand, I say, “We go home."