Young Love Murder (54 page)

“Anna,” I urge recklessly, “I need you to do this.”

Her face crumbles and a few tears stream down. “I can’t.” She swallows visibly. “You see, I
do
love you. More than you ever did me, obviously. Unlike you, I’m not capable of pulling the trigger.”

At her words, I rush forward, climbing onto and over the bed. Sliding under the blanket with her, I pull her up against me, kissing her wherever my lips happen to land. Her tears taste salty on my lips. She’s soft in my arms, smells so fresh and sweet. 

As she shakes her head, I pull my head back to look at her face. “No, Gabriel. I can’t do that with you.”

“I know, I understand. I’ll just hold you tonight, baby.” And I do. She falls asleep moments later after letting out a shuddering sigh. I blissfully hold her while contemplating tying her up to make sure she’s still here in the morning. I’m afraid to fall asleep, you never know with this one. At least an hour later, as I drift off to sleep myself, I feel optimistic about us. She admitted that she still loves me and, even though I already knew it, hearing her speak it out loud is momentous.

  The next morning, open curtains are letting an annoying amount of sunlight shine on my face. It takes only a second of consciousness for me to remember where I am and why. But most importantly, who I’m with. Turning to the side, I swing out a searching arm for Anna. 

She’s gone. 

Lifting my head up just enough to utilize both ears, the hotel suite is quiet. I curse my ability to sleep so heavily and jump out of bed. Gripping the bedroom doorknob, I yank the door open, making it slam into the wall. I’m sure my expression is one of surprise to find Anna and Jackson standing in the living room of the suite, dressed like young professionals. Suitcases are neatly lined up next to them with the handles raised. 

Anna raises the gun she’s holding.

“I love you. Goodbye Gabriel.”
Familiar words.

She fires. Something I was so not expecting. My body jerks back from where I’m standing. The sound of the shot is deafening for a moment. Or maybe that’s my shock.

“And now I really do forgive you,” I hear her say, sounding far away.

At first, I don’t even understand where I’ve been shot. Standing there, looking dumbly down at my chest, I wait for the blood to appear. Not seeing a hole, I wonder if she missed me. 

Jackson’s the next person to speak, his deep voice rumbling with amusement, “A little higher, boy toy.” My hand whips up to my throat, but comes back dry. I hear Jackson mumble, “Dumbass.” Yeah, because when he’s been shot, he’s so sharp.

The pain hits me suddenly in my left shoulder. This time my hand comes back red with blood. “Holy shit, Anna.” I know it’s unlikely to kill me in that spot, but
damn
.

Leaning back against the wall, I slide down so I’m sitting on the ground, keeping eye contact with Anna the entire time. I’m relieved to see the pain in her eyes, that this wasn’t easy for her. She walks closer to me, the carpet muffling the sound of her heels. Jackson leaves the room then returns with a white hand towel, handing it to me with a bland look on his face. 

Anna looks about ready to cry as she looks down on me, biting her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. The tough front only makes me love her all the more. I’m holding the towel against my shoulder now because it’s not like Jackson was offering to do it for me. I’m trying to keep in what’s left of the blood in my body. Hurts like a bitch. Glancing at the suitcases, I grunt out, “Where are we going?”

“
I’m
going to Paris. Jackson’s off to Mexico City.” She’s regained her control and getting an unfocused look in her eyes, as if mentally somewhere else.

I raise one eyebrow, attempting to give her a look of sarcastic disbelief, but probably failing miserably. “You’re actually telling me? Does that mean I’m invited?”

She slowly shakes her head. “No, Gabriel. You see, I finally do forgive you, but the cycle needs to end now. We’re over.” With that, she walks over to her suitcase and grips the handle. Jackson’s already opening the suite door, rolling his own suitcase away.

As I watch her leave me once again, I shout out after her before the heavy door slowly closes itself, “You shot me in the shoulder, Annabelle! I know what that means! And I love you too, baby!”

Somehow, I manage to smile through my pain. She really does love me.

And that little tidbit about Paris was no goodbye. 

That
was an invitation. 

Chapter 41

Gabriel

Paris, France - two weeks later

I’d thought that all I needed to do was get to Paris to be with Annabelle.
Wrong
. It’s not like I expected her to be waiting at the airport for me, but I figured she’d find me as she had before. I’ve been here for a week and for all I know she could have already moved on by now. Visiting Marie Perrot again didn’t do any good, considering her burly butler won’t even let me past the front door. 

Max came with me to Paris since I’m still healing from my gunshot wound. That I wear like a badge of honor. My baby gave me this injury. ‘Cause she loves me. If she didn’t truly love me, she would have walked away from me in New York without shooting me, revealing indifference. Shooting me was her way of saying that she was willing to give us another shot.
Pun intended
. A crime of passion is what it was, and it showed just how passionate she still feels towards me. Maybe when the wound is all the way healed and just a scar, I’ll have the outline of a heart tattooed around it. Then I’ll make her kiss it all better every day.  

If
I ever find her. 

Max, of course, thinks I’m insane.
Crazy in love
is what I tell him. ‘
Cause that’s how Anna and I roll
.
It was just a love cap
. Max is
not
amused when I tell him these things. He usually mumbles something about us deserving each other, with the word ‘loco’ thrown in somewhere. 

So, here I am again, trying to find Anna in Paris. I swear I’m going to find someone who can implant a GPS chip in that girl. It’d take a satellite to keep track of her.
I wonder if Porky’s still around . . . . 

We always end up back together. I have faith that this time will turn out no different. I’d prefer it not take months or years this time to find her, though. At this point, it’s been two weeks since I saw her last. Two long, frustrating weeks. 

Back in New York, after getting shot while in my damn underwear, and abandoned only minutes later, I pulled both my body and ego up off the ground. After that, I got dressed one-handedly, not even bothering to tie the laces on my boots, and got the hell out of there. Thankfully, my leather jacket covered the gushing blood that I was so inadequately trying to stop with a hotel hand towel.

I’m really hoping that the room was on Jackson’s credit card and they charged him through the roof for all the blood on the floor. I should have rubbed it in real good. Of course, I was slowly bleeding to death, so there was no time for that sort of shenanigan.  

I left my motorcycle in the hotel parking garage because driving it one-handedly just wasn’t happening. Throwing myself into the back of a taxi, I told the driver to take me to the nearest hospital. I made sure to pull back where the leather jacket was draped over my wound so he could see the urgency. Using my right hand only, I then fished my cell out of my jeans pocket, dialing Max. 

And that’s not a conversation that I ever want to have again. It took practically the entire ride to the hospital to convince him that,
yes
, I really did get shot and that,
yes
, Anna did it and that,
no
, I don’t want to call the cops and,
hell no
, he better not call his mom.

The panic on his face when he rushed into the emergency room thirty minutes later will forever be priceless. You’d think I was having his baby or something. The doctor assured him that I was gonna be fine. Good as new in just a few weeks. The bullet hit far from anything vital, because my baby loves me. What more proof do I need? She could have shot me straight through the heart if she’d wanted too. Even through a lung. But no, she chose to inflict a minor gunshot wound in the shoulder. 

The bullet, however, didn’t go straight through. They had to dig around in there to get it out. Thank god for drugs and sedation, because that would have hurt like hell. I had to stay in the hospital for a whole two days before they’d release me. After that, Max insisted that I stay home a few days to rest. Actually, he threatened to tell his mom about the incident. That’s what kept my ass in bed. A few days was all he got and I was on a plane to Paris four days later.

Which did me almost no good at all. I mean really, why couldn’t she make it easy for me and go to Paris, Texas, where I wouldn’t have to search for her amongst millions of people? People here speak a whole other language than me and even when they
are
speaking my language, I don’t understand it. Really slows the search down.

Max claims that when it’s a beautiful French woman, she’s always speaking his language. Max is a whore. 

Today I’m going to try Marie’s house again, because besides that, I got nothing. As usual, I don’t get past the front door. This time, however, the butler hands me a pink slip of paper before slamming the door in my face. Alright, what’s this? 

I stand there on the steps, unfolding it. The feminine script reads: 

Mr. Sanchez,

This is the last time that I assist you. There will not be another chance. 

[email protected]
 

Think before you act this time,

Marie Perrot

Is this what I think it is? Annabelle’s email address? Skipping down the steps, feeling very hopeful, I get in the BMW parked at the curb that Max rented. From where he’s sitting in the driver’s seat, he raises his eyebrows at the pink paper between my fingers. “Where to now?”

“Take us back to the hotel,” I cheerfully order him. He eyes my exuberant smile warily, obviously looking for signs again that he needs to commit me. I wonder, should I email Anna naked pictures of myself right off the bat? If that doesn’t send her running back to me, I don’t know what will. 

Annabelle

Lying on the hard floor, not wanting to get up because I’m so full, I tilt my head to the side to look at what’s left of the loaf of French bread. Not much. The butter is pretty decimated too. Why do I do this to myself? Whenever I leave Gabriel ‘for good’, I always pig out for weeks afterwards, acting like a demented carbivore. Then eventually turn to drinking. Not being a girl on TV, I don’t run straight to the freezer for ice cream when I’m broken hearted. Nope, for me it’s all about the bread. Though, I do love me a good rainbow sherbet or cookies ‘n cream. 

I came to the city that is the Mecca for bread. Eventually, Jackson is going to finish his job in Mexico City and find me here, dead with a chunk of sourdough lodged in my throat, choked to death. He texted me the other day and asked if I was curled up in a fetal position on my bed at our Paris flat, ‘crying over loverboy’. Yeah, I was curled up in a fetal position from a freaking stomachache. 

I have to admit that I may have a problem when the nearest baker starts calling me ‘Bread Girl’ in French whenever I come in. Not funny, when all his employees start laughing at me. Oh yeah, well I showed him. Today I went to
another
bakery for my bread fix.

The beeping sound from my phone lets me know that I just got an email. Wow, my phone on the end table looks really far away from down here. Maybe I can ghetto-rig this almost empty bread bag and plastic tub of butter to make something that’ll hook onto my phone and drag it down to me.
Aw hell, now you’re being ridiculously lazy, Annabelle.
After a moment of building up a feeling of martyrdom, I crawl my soon-to-be-fat-ass over there to fetch it.