On Every Street (The Artists Trilogy #0)

Then the realization hit me in the stomach like a cold fist. I couldn’t press charges if I was dead.

I was so temped to look behind me at the bar to see if Javier was still there, but it would only give him away. Tom pushed me into another one of the guys, this one built like an MMA fighter and over six feet tall. He grabbed me by the top of my head and forced me down to my knees. With his other hand he went for his belt buckle. I’d bite his dick in two, I hoped he realized that.

“You’re going to suck it, then you’re going to fuck it,” Tom squealed like an excited coyote. “Then you’ll do it to all of us until you learn not to fuck with me again.”

The man’s fist tightened in my hair until I was sure I was bleeding at the roots. He took out his erect penis, an ugly beast of a thing, bringing it toward my mouth.

Another explosion. Liquid splattered on my face. For a second I thought perhaps he blew his load too soon, but when I opened my eyes, I saw blood and the man toppled to the ground. I screamed and scrambled to my feet, turning around in time to see Javier striding toward us, his arm stretched out in front, a gun pointed at Tom. He remained meticulously focused on him, eyes not straying, not even to catch a glimpse of the gun that one of the other men was pulling out from his pants.

Without missing a beat or looking away, Javier turned toward the gunman and fired, his eyes cold and hard, boring into Tom. The other man was shot straight in the heart and he fell to the ground, joining the man who had been shot earlier. My eyes were torn between staring at their dead, lifeless bodies, the one man still with his dick hanging out of his pants, and at the other man who was turning around and making a run for the door. Javier shot him in the back and he went flying to the ground too.

“Javier!” I couldn’t help screaming. I had screamed his name earlier under such different circumstances. But unlike then, he acted as if he hadn’t heard me.

He marched right up to Tom, grabbing him by the collar and pointing the gun up under his chin.

“The messiah is right here,” Javier said, his voice impossibly calm and cool. “And he’s going to kill every man who has the intention of hurting this woman.” He jerked his head in my direction. Tom glanced at me as I stood there, shaking, covered in blood, in complete shock. I wanted Tom to suffer but I didn’t want Javier to kill him.

“Javier,” I whispered, not finding the strength to go louder.

“I’d like a real apology this time,” he went on, pressing his gun further into Tom’s chin. “Then you’re free to go.”

Tom was also frozen. His mouth flapped stupidly, sweat streaming down his forehead.

“Now!” Javier screamed in his face, the veins bulging in his neck. I was fairly sure Tom was going to die from fright and be all the better for it.

But he swallowed hard and looked at me, avoiding the intensity of Javier’s murderous gaze. “I…I’m sorry,” he said with a gasp as the gun dug in deeper.

“Louder!” Javier screamed, rage personified.

“I’m sorry!” Tom cried out.

Javier smiled. It was akin to a lion baring its fangs. “Good boy,” he said, then pushed Tom away from him. “That wasn’t so bad now, was it?”

Tom just stared down at his dead friends, the blood pooling around their wounds and seeping onto the floor. He glanced up at Javier, brows drawn together, arms shaking.

“You’re just going to let me go like that?” he asked in quiet disbelief.

“Yes,” Javier said. “You’re free to go. I always keep my word. Of course, I’ll kill you before you get anywhere.”

As quick as the bullets inside, he raised the gun and shot Tom square in the head, a tiny hole of blood quickly spreading out from the center of the wound before he fell to the ground. I was screaming again, lost in the sound of the gun, the reality of the moment.

This was happening. My Javier, my criminal. He was every bit as bad as I thought he was and suddenly it was real. Who I was pretending to be. Who I was dealing with.

I hadn’t noticed I was crying until Javier was pulling me toward him, holding me tight. He stroked the back of my head with his hand, the gun still in it.

“Come now, Eden,” he whispered. “I did what I had to do. They had this coming.”

I could only sob in return, burying my wet face into his suit jacket.

“I promise to kill anyone who hurts you. They would have hurt you badly. And then they would have killed you.”

I pulled away, trembling despite his arm around me. “Did you know them?”

He shook his head. “No, though one of them looks familiar to me. I don’t know from where.”

I looked down at the bodies. My first look at dead people. Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be my last. “Are we going to get in trouble?”

He brushed a wet spot, blood probably, from my cheek and peered at me, leaning in close. “No. We aren’t. This was self-defense. And anyway, I’ll take care of this.”

I looked over at the bar. “The video cameras. They would have seen everything. Everything.” The whole getting head on the bar counter was going to be shown to everyone. I was going to lose my job. Not to mention the whole Javier shooting people in cold blood. Self-defense or not, it didn’t look good.

“Hey, angel,” he said, tipping up my chin. “Let me take care of this. You go into the washroom to clean yourself up. I have a few calls to make.”

He let go of me and jerked his head in the direction of the hall. Then he brought out his cell phone and dialed a number.

“It’s me,” he said into it. “We have a situation. Clean up. Camera needs wiping too. Bring Perez.”

Then he hung up and nodded again for me to get moving. “Please, Eden. I’ll handle this. You have nothing to worry about.”

I nodded meekly and staggered over to the washrooms. I looked up at my reflection in the mirror and did not recognize the blood-splattered blonde staring back at me. Ellie Watt was nowhere to be found. This was Eden White. And she had plenty to worry about now.

CHAPTER NINE

It was four in the morning when we returned to Javier’s house – he refused to let me sleep at home and I couldn’t blame him. After I had cleaned myself up at the bar, I came out of the washroom to find we weren’t alone. Three burly looking Latinos were helping Javier clean up the mess, the bodies nowhere to be found. Javier saw me lurking in the darkness of the hall but didn’t acknowledge me. So I stayed there and watched, knowing that the men must have seen me and didn’t care. They were under Javier’s total command.

And they worked fast. Soon, two other men showed up and then I was brought into the mess. While some of the men shampooed the carpets where the blood had seeped and repaired the broken door, I showed Perez, a chubby guy with a multitude of earrings and tattoos on his neck, where the electronic equipment was kept. Ten anxious minutes later, he said the security footage was wiped clean and replaced with benign footage. I immediately thought of the movie Speed and nearly laughed at the fact that this wasn’t a movie. This was suddenly my life and I was dealing with a whole new reality.

On the drive home, Javier convinced me that there was no way anything would be amiss. Gunshots were common in the neighborhood, that much I knew, and there was no sign anything had gone down. Everything looked exactly as it did before and he said no one would report those boys missing.

“What about Tom?” I had asked. “He looked like a normal guy, like he went to college.”

Javier narrowed his eyes. “Never trust the men who look normal, Eden. They’re the ones who’ll cut you when you’re not looking. People will be looking for Tom, but they won’t come looking there.”

“But the incident at the bar. They might come for you.”

He smiled dryly. “No one comes looking for me. I go looking for them.”

Even though I knew a little about what he did for a living, Eden White didn’t. It was time to ask.

“Who were those men? The ones who helped you.”

His mouth twisted, lips pressed together. I wondered what answer he was going to give me, if it was going to be close to the truth, if he was just as adept as me at keeping stuff hidden.

“I have some friends, connections from Mexico. That’s all. We deal with a lot of…similar problems down south. I knew I could count on them to make things right.”

That was one of the vaguest answers I could get. But I decided Eden White didn’t want to question things. I had her nod, like it was completely normal to have a murder clean-up team at your disposal. I made her naïve and gullible and happy to accept anything that was coming out of his mouth.

And honestly, it eased the guilt that was forever lingering in my heart, knowing that he was a liar too.

Later that night, as I was falling asleep in his familiar bed, feeling safer in his arms, he whispered into my hair, “I want you to quit your job.”

“What? No.” I couldn’t quit. I was only leaving if they made me.

“I mean it. I worry about you. I can’t let you go out there without me. What if it happens again? What would I do?” His voice broke and I wondered how this man turned out to be the way he was. So completely caring yet a killer without a conscience. “I need you, my angel. And I’ll do anything and everything to keep you.”

I let his wonderful words slide into me, melting away my reserves, the scenes of the night that were stained in my head. But I couldn’t quit my job. I needed something real to hold onto. “I can’t quit.”

“I’ll take care of you. I have money. I have the means. I’ve been taking care of my sisters almost my whole life.”

“Javier, please…no,” I said, trying to stay strong.

“Then move in with me. At least give me that much.”

Move in with him? We hadn’t even exchanged I love you’s yet.

“It’s too soon,” I said feebly.

“Nothing is too soon with us,” he said. He adjusted himself so he was propped up on one elbow, his fingers trailing through my hair. I closed my eyes at his soft touch. “Please, angel. Make me your home.”

Moving in with him would bring me so much closer to what I wanted. That glimpse inside his life, to become a part of it, to become a part of his job. But now that I had a look into what his other life was like, the one that happened when I wasn’t around, I didn’t like it. I had prepared for this but it didn’t mean anything. Each moment we were making love to each other, murmuring sweet nothings into each other’s ears, that was one life. Each moment that I would be reminded about his job, about my job…that was another life. And the further I sank into his arms, into the growing love I felt for him, I knew I’d have to make a choice. Did I want Javier? Or did I want revenge?

I snuggled my face into the crook of his shoulder and whispered, “Yes, I’ll move in with you.” That was the only decision I could make for now.

Since I had been spending so much time at Javier’s place anyway, I felt at home right away. The only drawback was the thirty minute commute to work each day, but I found that being alone in my truck was the best time to try and distance myself from my new situation and get my life back on track.