Fool's Gold: A Kisses and Crimes Novel Page 10

  He glowers at me. Unblinking.

  “You don’t trust me, do you?” he asks.

  “You’ve very perceptive…” I glance him over. “Smarter than you look.”

  He doesn’t bite at the snarky remark. Not the way I want him to.

  I want to piss him off. I want to make him feel crazy the way he makes me feel every time he’s around me. Every time he touches me or even looks at me.

  But he doesn’t do anything.

  In fact… he almost smiles.

  “I look dumb to you, Dani?”

  “You look…”

  Too good to be fucking true.

  “Like a criminal and a coward,” I finish.

  “Coward?” He laughs low. “You should know better by now… There’s not a goddamned thing cowardly about me, kitten.”

  I notice that he doesn’t address the “criminal” part of my statement.

  “And the handcuffs are to protect you, Dani,” he comments.

  I scoff, not believing a word he says. “Protect me from who?”

  “From yourself.” Bishop stands again at last. “And any fucking bastard that would use your amnesia for their own sordid goddamned benefit.”

  “Any bastard like you?”

  I bang my cuffs against the bedpost, and he waves the Frenchman’s wallet in his hand, a token the dirty bastard unwittingly left behind.

  “Sit tight.”

  As if I had a choice.

  I knew it. I knew I should have kneed his nuts into the next dimension when I had a chance. I’ll never break free from him now.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” I say to him, my voice rising. “This… is bullshit. All of these cryptic messages. Talking without really saying anything. You haven’t answered for shit!”

  My words turn into a scream.

  “Who are you?!”

  At that Bishop hangs his head, rubbing the scruff around his lip and chin, before turning back to me with fire in his eyes. He places his hand on the front door knob to the apartment, and immediately I can see the regret in his face.

  I want to cry.

  “I’m the man who risked everything for you, Dani. And that’s all you need to know.”

  He opens the door slowly before slamming it behind him.

  It shakes the entire suite in its wake… and what little kernel of faith in him I still had left.

  NEW DOG, OLD TRICKS

  BISHOP

  They call me “the Crow.”

  I never liked that fucking nickname.

  It was a tradition at first. To call the man guarding the boss’s back and taking perch on his shoulder “the Crow” to let others know that he would be there.

  Ever-present. Ever-watching. Waiting to strike.

  The guardian of the crops. The protector of all that the big boss had sown.

  What a crock of shit. The name was supposed to end with John Gafanelli.

  But of course, it didn’t.

  Don, wanting to be so much like his father, picked it right back up. And it was easy.

  My features were dark, my hair—raven. When enemies looked at me, they saw a shadow. When Don Gafanelli looked at me, he saw “the Crow.”

  And so the Crow is what I had to become.

  I was twenty-three years old.

  Orphaned… left alone in the world, I hadn’t been able to save my own parents when they’d been violently ripped out of my life.

  When I met the man who helped raise me, I found my calling. When I met Don Gafanelli, I’d found a purpose.

  I knew what I had to do, and when he’d taken me under his wing, it was all so easy. So simple to enter into his world.

  I thought that nothing would stand in my way—that nothing could stand in my way.

  I could cake-walk into the most infamous mafia family in the United States. I was living the dream until I met… her.

  She was more petite than I presumed. Blonder.

  Her hair flowed to her waist, and she had lips the color of maraschino cherries.

  Smart. Wittier than a bitch too. She had cut my ego in half within seconds of meeting her.

  She’d infuriated her father. Embarrassed her mother.

  But me? She had only peaked my interest. I spent half the night chasing her.

  I think a part of me has been chasing her ever since.

  And now I’ve caught her. But what do I do with her?

  I should have never been at that Sweet Sixteen party. I should have never been allowed into that circle of politicians and CEO’s and magnates and tycoons and mob bosses.

  But I was.

  And I made the most of it.

  I thought I could do that now… but then the worst (or best) thing I could have imagined happened…

  She forgot me. She forgot herself.

  And now I’m responsible for building the memories back. A job I’d never asked for. A job I shouldn’t have been given.

  I was born into a life of horrors.

  If I could’ve erased it all, I would’ve. I would’ve wiped the slate clean and started over, but with Dani? How can I?

  She deserves a clean slate more than anyone, to not be born to a father who dabbled in more double-dealings than the Devil himself.

  But who am I to judge? Who am I to make the decision about which pieces should stay and which should go?

  I’d do anything to not have to tell her the truth.

  My Dani.

  So pure, so beautiful, so fucking right. Born into a world of so much fucking wrong.

  The amnesia was like a gift and a curse, sent to tempt me into rewriting history.

  What if we could start over? What if we could leave it all behind?

  But now I know that’s not possible. The crooked cop was just a reminder. We could flee the past, but it would always chase us.

  Her father will never let her go… and I was once of the mind that I could…

  But things are different.

  Being with Dani is like touching ecstasy and being expected to hand it over.

  Holding her. Touching her. Fucking her gently with my fingers. These are the things I now live for.

  Just to lie down beside her and smell her skin. To talk to her until the night turns into day and still never get enough.

  As I walk the street outside of our “new apartment” window, all I can think about is how absolutely fucked I am—how I want to spend every day doing the things I’d dreamed about.

  Dani. Soft and warm beneath me. Dani. With my name on her lips and her fingertips digging into my skin.

  Dani. Squeezing my hardness like a silken glove, taking everything I have to give—giving everything back in return.

  I should never have taken her. I should never have touched her.

  I should never have married my own wife.

  ***

  “You can’t be that fucking stupid…”

  “Guess I am.”

  “I’d never taken you for being suicidal.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  Penelope slams her third manila folder of the day down onto her desktop. Blue eyes blazing, red hair shining, she crosses the length of her Parisian office in a suit the color of her navy eyes.

  She regards me closely, tucking a ginger-colored lock over her ear—a nervous habit she’s had since she was a girl.

  Incensed, outraged, she hides her concern for me behind a façade of fury, strutting towards me with a powerful walk, attempting to dissuade me with a lethal tongue.

  She insults me from the minute I set foot inside the door.

  “The fact that I’m wrong about you isn’t what’s disappointing. The fact that you don’t seem to care is.”

  She shakes her hands in front of my face.

  “I always knew you were a different son-of-a-bitch. Crazy? Yes. A boundary-pusher? Abso-fucking-lutely. But this? This, Bishop?”

  Penelope shakes her head sadly, retreating from me.

  “This is crossing a line. A line I may not even be able
to help you with…”

  I step forward, placing my hands into my jean pockets.

  “You’ve done it before…” I start.

  “Yeah! And it almost cost me my job. It did cost Jackson his job.”

  Penelope turns on me.

  “A damned good one, at that.” She sits once more behind her desk. “Hell, I never would have gotten this job if Governor Price didn’t see something in me and want to hire me.”

  I cut my eyes at Penelope, scoffing. “Yeah, sure. The honorable Governor Price.”

  Penelope picks up her pen, tapping it.

  “More honorable than your bastard of a boss. And it’s my connections through her that have kept your ungrateful ass out of hot water. And I honestly don’t know if I can keep doing it…”

  I freeze at hearing her admission, saying nothing. Damned if she isn’t right.

  But Penelope doesn’t wait for my reply. She starts writing.

  “I could guess that one day you’d be stupid enough to risk your life… but I never thought I’d see the day where you’d risk Dani’s.”

  “P, look…”

  “Don’t fucking ‘P’ me right now, Bishop. I’m not in the mood…”

  “What? Everybody calls you ‘P’.”

  “Noo. They don’t… Everybody calls me ‘Penny.’ You’re the only person I know who think it’s appropriate to call someone ‘Penis” from the ages of ten to thirteen, and think that shortening it to ‘P’ is some sort of term of endearment.”

  She glances sternly up at me.

  “Does she even know about you? I mean, after the memory loss?”

  I don’t hesitate. “No.”

  “Well, tell her... before you both do actually end up dead.”

  “It’s not that fucking simple, Penelope.” Frustrated, I run a hand through my thick head of hair. “Who would believe the fucked up truth?”

  Exasperated, feeling stifled in her office, I walk over to the window behind Penelope, watching a silent rain fall on the quietly bustling city of Paris.

  The canal of the river we overlook is silent as the water beats a beautiful pattern on its surfaces.

  I couldn’t have picked a more gorgeous locale to escape to… and yet the majestic scenery feels almost tainted, poisoned by the horror I’m almost positive is going to follow.

  I’d grown up with horror. Would I ever escape it?

  “Everyone thinks I tried to kill her, Penelope...”

  Penelope sighs.

  “Not everyone, Bishop…” She folds her hands neatly. “Some of us do know the truth. Dani knows the truth… even if she’s doesn’t remember it.”

  “Shit, all Dani knows right now is that she wants to drop-kick me right in the p…” Penelope grunts loudly in response. “—the pillars and post… Beyond that…” I pause. “She doesn’t seem to know anything else.”

  I listen to the wheels in Penelope’s head begin to turn.

  “Well…” she commiserates, “you’ve got at least one friend in your corner… even if she is a red-headed, hot-headed bitch like me.”

  I can practically hear her smirk.

  “I didn’t come all the way out to the Parisian office for beignets, Bishop.” She places a hand on my shoulder from behind. “I came here to help.”

  My eyes follow the shiny cars on the blackened wet streets, seemingly heading towards the dusky Paris horizon. If only Penelope were here under better circumstances…

  If only Dani and I were, too…

  “I appreciate you, P. I do.”

  “And do me a favor,” she cuts in. “The next time you need another batch of fake passports...” She hands me one thick manila enveloped file. “Please use another messenger. Jackson is a pain in the ass.”

  “You two have a lot in common,” I smirk.

  “Besides you and a mutual disdain for one another…?” She cocks an eyebrow. “I don’t think so.”

  I push away from the window, passing Penelope’s desk.

  “Thank the Governor for me, P, will ya?”

  Penelope scoffs. “Yeah… I’ll send her your highest regards…”

  I reach for P’s heavy office door.

  “And Bishop…” she calls. I turn.

  “I’m not the only one in your corner here. Dani is, too… whether she knows it or not.”

  She sits on the edge of her oak desk.

  “I’ve never seen you love anything more than her… Not even me.”

  I give P one final look before leaving.

  By the time I manage to make it to the street where our Paris loft is located, the dusk has turned into an even dark twilight.

  The crooked grey sidewalk bleeds into the cobblestone of the street, and amber-golden streetlights cast a golden hue over every doorway.

  Rain, light and warm, leads the way, casting a dampened path to the front door of my new building, and I shake the wetness off of my shoulders, attempting to shake off the stupid fucking dread I feel at having to tell Dani the truth.

  The real truth.

  The truth she deserves.

  It’d be so easy if I could get one other inconvenient truth out of the fucking way…

  That I’m a liar. That I’m a fraud. And I’m the last person on earth she should ever trust…

  I take the key out of my pocket, prepared to open the door to the apartment. I wait one second, then two…

  A slip into the keyhole, one twist of the tiny metal, and I’m in.

  The second I open the door, I know that something’s terribly wrong.

  I try to unlock the door…

  I realize it is already unlocked.

  A quick survey of the living room turns up empty. After a hasty walk-through, the same turns up for the bedroom.

  Im-fucking-possible.

  Because that’d mean I’m missing one important thing…

  Dani.

  The spot where she sat bears the silhouette of her body, the outline of her shape. The handcuffs are gone, and in their place are these little notches.

  I see scrapes and scuffs that hadn’t been there, markings highlighting places where her fastened metal handcuffs had been pulled.

  Gun out, laser focused, I kick the bathroom door open with a deafening thwack, searching behind the shower curtain.

  I check the closets. The window.

  No trace.

  Somebody walked right out with her—right through my fucking front door.

  Her purse is gone, her cell phone—vanished. It’s almost as if she were never here, though I can still feel the warmth of her on my bedroom sheets.

  Not too far behind the scent of her trail, I make a beeline for the door, my cell phone tracker firmly in hand.

  I’m a fucking fool.

  I’d worried so goddamned much that I’d lose her, never truly imagining that she would be taken.

  EASY COME, EASY GO

  BISHOP

  The blinking blip on her cell phone sensor puts her smack dab in the middle of Paris’s party center.

  One cab and umpteenth blocks later, I stand on the corner of Desperation and Losing my Fucking Mind, staring blankly at the flashing trace from Dani’s cell phone on my iPhone screen.

  The blip leads me into a nearby building, packed at the street-level with party-goers in the form of suited men and tight-skirted women.

  Clad in a leather jacket, black tee and jeans, I stick out like a sore thumb. Broad-backed bouncers with tiny black earpieces block the path leading to the door.

  They escort a pretty woman up the stairs, then another.

  The men wait impatiently at the bottom, sulking and soaking in the beauties with their hungry eyes. I do the same, but I’m not focused on which ass I can get full view of.

  I’m concerned about my own.

  These doormen have particular tastes.

  And tall, dark and dick-swinging doesn’t seem to be it.

  I approach the door, gun on hip, knowing that I’ll never get it in the easy way. My entrance is going to requi
re some hard convincing.

  I reach for my wallet.

  “How many hundreds would it take for someone with a cock to get in, boys?” I ask in stilted Spanish.

  Rien. The bouncers stand to their full Shrek heights. Nothing.

  “Come back when you buy a pussy,” the tallest says. He elbows another as they all laugh.

  I look up at the doormen, letting the drizzle hit my face as I stare them down.

  “A shame for you, guys,” I condescend. “A pussy’s more expensive than a new nose.”

  The bald-headed one steps forward—curious. “You’re getting a new nose, cocksucker?”

  I climb an additional step. “Nope… You are.”

  I strike out, slamming the heel of my hand into the bridge of Bald Man’s nose. I use the other hand to slam Shrek #1’s head into the crumbling baldie, pivoting another step to slam a knee into the groin of mini-Andre the Giant.

  The people in line gasp as the pile collapses.

  I step over the pile, throwing a pile of cash onto the heap of men before slinking inside, side-stepping as a bevy of beauties giggle their way out of the door and into the line of sight between me and the other bouncers.

  The deafening music hits me the moment I enter the front room.

  The bass of a hard EDM beat puts a pulse into the room and dancers on the floor gyrate in full view, swinging their hips (and in some cases, dicks) to the DJ-orchestrated rhythm that makes the club feel like it’s breathing.

  Blue disco lights illuminate the bar and floor. Glasses clink. Drinks spill. And in the midst of it all, I cut a path into the middle of an organized chaos.

  And behind me, the chaos that I created at the door grows louder with every second.

  I duck beneath the tray held overhead in a bartender’s shaky grasp.

  Heading to the back corner of the club, the consolidation of tits, asses and bare legs becomes overwhelming. In the attempt to surpass the swarm, I subject myself to multiple gropes, lots of ass grinding and one bold cock-grab.

  I hit the far side of the dance floor, dipping my head next to a bar leading to a back room. My search for an exit ends when a hand pulls me behind a red velvet rope.

  I land unexpectedly on a leather sofa seat.