Run (Run Duet #1) (10 page)

He swallowed loud enough for me to hear him. “Liv is strong girl. She can handle herself just fine—”

“Not if she has bullets flyin’ at her she can’t.” I had cocaine to chop up and sell plus a new batch of Oxycontin had come in. This conversation had just gotten old real fast. “I’ll hold you to your word, Povikov. At the end of it all, that’s all a man had is his word. If anything happens . . . I’d sleep with one eye open if I was you.” I ended the call and quickly dialed another number.

“Who’s this?” a southern accent slurred.

“You crazy son of a bitch. What the fuck did you call Povikov for before me?”

I could hear Joe panic in the background as he lit a cigarette. “Carter, it was nothin’ personal. Shaw encouraged Annabelle to leave me and I was angry—”

“This is about a piece of pussy?” I roared with anger. “You think that’s worth getting Shaw and Liv murdered? If that Russian Jew succeeds, I will hold you personally responsible. I will ruin you and your redneck Dixie Mafia empire, you got that?”

Joe coughed in the background before he hawked phlegm through his mouth and it wet some place in his trailer park. I couldn’t imagine his country ass living in a decent place.

“My boys and I will be there. We know they plan to attack ‘em at the mall because we have it on good suspicion they are going shoppin’. It’s a high end place and we are gonna stand out like a broken thumb but I promise you no harm will come to Shaw or Liv—”

“Fuck Shaw. He’s got that Povikov on his side. You only have one person to protect and that’s Liv. I won’t tell you how but she’s a relative. Not a close one but my second cousin is her goddamn aunt. If I don’t protect her then I will face a whole hell of a lot trouble, and not just from my brothers. I will feel this shit all the way from Belfast because they will send men to kill me.”

Joe blew smoke from his end into the cell phone. “Well, you know we have a special relationship, Carter. We’re kin in the fact that we’re both Irish—”

“No, boy, we
ain’t
kin.” My voice turned to ice. “You’re some American loser whose family has been here for generations. You probably ain’t even pure—got all that nigger and Indian blood in your veins from years back but deny it. Me, I’m one hundred percent Irish. I came off the plane, I know my family crest and all the generations that came before me. So you and I ain’t nothing alike. But if you don’t protect Liv, we will have somethin’ in common. I swear on the Mother of Christ that I will kill you before someone does the same to me. You got that?”

Joe was quiet for a minute. “Yes, sir.”

“Good now I don’t know what kind of deal you made with Povikov but remember that our deal comes first. If you don’t, you’ll have hell to pay.” I hung up and began to unpack my shipments.

Tonight, I would be lucky if I got to sleep before the sun rose in the sky.

I
felt a bit guilty but after wearing out Shaw all night, I was ready to go shopping.

It was true, I felt a little sore but nothing I couldn’t handle while cruising through some of the top designer boutiques in Nashville. Something told me this would be the last time I’d be able to pick up anything remotely designer so I was ready to go before Shaw was.

He climbed out of bed, naked as the day he was born with a semi-erect cock and a hangover that was causing him trouble but I almost entirely ignored him as I put on my makeup, dressed in a pair of cargo shorts and a black halter top, finishing off my look with a pair of black Doc Martens and a black beanie cap. I didn’t care how upscale The Mall at Green Hills was, everyone turned less snooty when they were being presented with cold hard cash.

My outfit may have stuck me out a bit but clothes could be changed. There was nowhere between here and where we were going that I could get a new hairstyle or color. Not to mention I wasn’t that crazy about settling in Mexico. If I was gonna hide, I wanted to hide in plain sight, and that meant stayin’ in my own country, thank you very much. They could kill us across the border as fast as they could kill us here so what difference did it make where we stayed? The whole point was to be safe, point blank.

Now all I had to do was convince Shaw of this.

It didn’t take him as long as I thought it would to get dressed but as he slipped on a pair distressed jeans that were neither too baggy nor too fitted, and slid into a black Papa Roach t-shirt, I realized we looked just like any other ordinary couple spending the day at the mall.

As we made it out to the Charger, I said, “I don’t want to risk a second night here. After the mall, we get our ass on the road and don’t stop until we get to New Orleans. I’ve already mapped it on Google and it’s a seven and a half hour drive, give or take but if we gun it through Alabama and Mississippi, we can probably get there sooner.”

He stared at me, and tossed me the keys. “Did you leave anything in the suite?”

“Nope, my dirty clothes are in my handbag. I’m going to put them in the trunk for the time being. None of them are wet so there’s no chance of mold. Did you—leave anything in the suite, I mean?”

“Yeah, I did because you decided until now to tell me your brilliant plan. Give me your card key.”

“I left it in the suite. I thought you’d get the hint when you saw me put my dirty clothes in the plastic bag they provide for soiled items.”

Shaw smirked, shook his head and walked back into the hotel.

I unlocked the Charger with the remote and climbed in. It had one of those plastic, smart keys that you couldn’t even use to key someone else’s car. But it also had Sirius radio and I clicked through the stations until Grace’s “You don’t own me” played and left it there.

I couldn’t sing for shit but that didn’t keep me from crooning along to the song. Sometimes, I wondered if I had to tell my own personal G-Eazy, aka Shaw, to stop acting like such a caveman all the time. I was smarter than him, book wise, but he’d beat me on the streets anytime. He just knew how they worked and what to do. I was no vestal virgin to street life but sometimes I wondered if I depended on him too much.

What if, God forbid, he was murdered? What would I do then?

I knew exactly what I would do. I would run to my aunt in Nevada, and she would make everything okay. There was a reason why my father stayed in and out of prison. Callahans were known for their tempers, and we wouldn’t allow anyone to push us around. We didn’t ask—we took what we wanted. Regardless of my education, I wasn’t too different from my dad.

Yeah, I could have fucked Shaw ages ago but I wanted to make sure I had him wrapped around my finger. If I made him wait long enough, I could count on him being loyal. He may have been a Shaughnessy in name only but they respected their women and never cheated.

Povikov couldn’t have been that big of an influence over him. I refused to believe he would let that douche bag tell him anything and allow it to stick. The guy was a prick and one of my biggest customers at the club. Well, he and his whole fucking family outside of his wife, Yelena, who had a stick shoved perfectly up her flat, bony box-shaped ass.

What Nathalia, his daughter, got off on lap dances for was beyond me but she liked us to masturbate together and then eat me out so it wasn’t all-bad. I didn’t consider myself a lesbian—bisexual maybe with the right chick—but a mouth was a mouth and if she liked eating me out, who was I to turn her down? The thousand dollar tips she left behind were exactly the reason I dealt with her bizarre behavior because whether she knew it or not, she was ultimately contributing to my get-away fund.

Speaking of the twisted Povikov family, while having changed the station to Octane and listening to From Ashes To New’s “Same Old Story,” I would have to have been blind, deaf and dumb to not pick up on the meatheads that were several cars away from ours. They looked like the usual Russian suspects with names like Boris and Yuri.

What the fuck?

How did Povikov find out where we were? We still had to go shopping but I wanted to get in and out. No way was I starting a war in a mall when I wouldn’t even think about putting a gun in my handbag. It was big enough and I was an ace shot thanks to my dad and Shaw but that wasn’t the point. The moment violence was let loose in a public environment, local law enforcement stepped in, and like the dumb ass yokels they were, they’d bring in the FBI.

Shaw and I had enough trouble without being involved in some kind of investigation. The FBI would find our asses in a couple days—tops—no matter how many disguises or fake IDs we had on us. Hell, this car alone might as well be a beacon that said, “Come and get us!”

Shaw tapped on the window and I jumped in my seat before opening the trunk for him. He loaded his stuff and closed it before he hopped back into the passenger seat. “Babe, what’s got you so spooked?”

I tried not respond to his calloused hands holding my face so gently but one tear fell regardless of my strength to hold it in. “I thought I saw . . .” I trailed off as I looked into the rearview mirror again.

Shit!

The car was gone and I didn’t even get a chance to make out the model. Just one of those trucks that had been modified with large tires to fit in with the local rednecks. Hell, I hadn’t even noticed if it was black, midnight gray or dark blue—I’d been too wrapped up in the fact that we’d been made.

“Liv, are you listening to me? You thought you saw what?” he asked me, his voice rising.

I shook my head. “Nothing. Just my mind playing tricks on me is all. Let’s shop and get the hell out of dodge. I’m not used to getting comfortable in any city until we know we have some backup.”

“Fine, let’s go then.”

U
nlike most guys who if they were as tough and rumble as Shaw was, he actually bragged about loving to shop.

For anything.

Clothes, cars, shoes, electronics—you name it, he loved something new to buy. It was a good thing too because we split up as soon as we headed inside Green Hills. I stayed toward the more girly stores like Victoria’s Secret, 7 For All Mankind, True Religion, Michael Kors, Coach, Burberry, and White House Black Market.

The whole time I was being followed, I tried to brush it off because it was easy to duck into an Express or Bebe until they passed and I would head in the opposite direction.

After an hour and a half, I was officially done. I’d been a size four or six my entire life, depending on the store and the fit so I knew what stores a size six would fit better than a size four and the opposite.

I took out my burner and placed a call to Shaw.

“What’s up, babe? Getting a couple pairs of sneakers at the moment?”

“Have you spotted any tails on you?”

“No. I’d damn well know if I was being followed.”

“I am, and despite making three trips to the car, I know someone’s following me—”

“Dixie Mafia?”

“Joe’s too stupid to do anything like that but he’s not that dumb. He’d call Povikov in a heart beat just because Annabelle ran off and he doesn’t know where she is.”

“Listen, I’ll get us some lunch. Anything in particular?”

“As long as I can eat it while driving though I am craving Chinese food,” I said as I walked toward where I’d parked our car. While at 7 For Mankind, I’d changed into a pair of dark blue boot-cut jeans, and a cute distressed hot pink top that was damn near see-through. I’d also gotten rid of the beanie and stuffed it into the same bag my clothes had been purchased with. That was the only way I’d been able to throw off the tails but it wouldn’t work forever. The moment they saw me sitting in the car, they’d know.

“Listen, I’m gonna bring the car around and park in the red zone in front of the mall. Get our food to go and meet me out here in fifteen minutes. That’s figuring the time we have before we get made.”

Shaw sighed over the phone. “All right. I’m grabbing a burger and fries but I’ll get you some dim sum, okay?”

“You’re the best, baby.”

“Is that it?”

“Oh yeah, you’re great in the sack.” I ended the call and fiddled with the radio yet again until I came across Beyoncé’s “6 Inch” featuring The Weeknd. God knows I didn’t feel like waiting, and the fifteen minutes it took for Shaw to come out of the mall felt like a year in my lifetime.

I could admit to being a coward. I wasn’t ready to die yet. I hadn’t even really lived my life. Yes, I’d done some freaky shit that went well beyond my good girl, Catholic upbringing but I’d never intentionally hurt anyone. Hell, those two bent cops in Boston would still be alive if I didn’t think they were going to kill me in a heartbeat without zero fucks to give.

Everything in my life had been done by instinct, and I trusted mine fully. I didn’t even realize I was listening to an Ella Jade song until I saw Shaw walk out of the mall with a handful of bags.

I tossed them in the backseat with mine while he held the food, got back in the car and took off as soon as he was seated.

“You sure everything is okay?”

“No, I’m not. I just want to get on the freeway and put as much distance between us and Nashville as soon as possible.”

Shaw chewed on a fry. “Then you want to get on the I-59 heading south—”

“That’s the long way. The short way is to use I-65 heading south and then we merge with the I-59 going south.”

He rolled his eyes. “They’re doin’ a bunch of construction on I-65. The I-59 might be a bit longer but it’s also clear. So, which one do you wanna take?”