I bring my good arm up and cover my eyes, breathing deeply and trying to calm my pounding heart. Finally, I stand up. It's a fucking effort. I look down and the plaid fabric is stained with crimson, spreading fast.
I trek through the snow-covered ground for I don't know how long, hoping I'm going south. My feet are freezing because I don't have any shoes on. I just need to find a road, and then it should be easy. Emerging between the thick trees, my feet finally hit solid ground. I turn my head from one side to the other, looking for any light source. And then I see it, flashing way further down the gravel road. I look back and the house I left is nowhere in sight.
How long until they realize I'm gone?
I walk slowly down the road, already weakening from the blood loss. Not my brightest idea, this. Finally, I reach the car and the door flies open, and Colin steps out.
“Fuck,” he says, supporting me as we walk to the car. “You look like shit, Devon.”
“Let's just get the fuck out of here.”
He brings me to the back door, and it opens. I groan, seeing Amber in the back. “What the fuck did you bring her for? Do you know how dangerous this is?”
“Trust me, man, you want her here,” is all he says.
I want to argue, but then I remember I'm on a mission, so I shake my head, throw my phone in the bushes by the car, and hop in the back with her. She immediately presses a towel against my shoulder, soaking up the blood. I wince in pain.
“Oh, man up already, that bullet barely grazed you,” she says, biting on her lip and pressing harder. She doesn't sound like Soraya or Amber. Quickly, she lifts her hand off my wound and takes off the bandage from my shoulder. This is the first time I've looked at it since I woke up. It looks . . . like it more than just grazed me. I narrow accusing eyes at Amber.
“That was a smart shot. I've seen worse.” She takes my hand and places it over the towel. “Hold that.” Reaching with her arm behind her back, she produces a duffle bag, and takes out a medical kit, looking through it.
“How much do you weigh?”
What the fuck? “How would I know? What do you think you're doing?”
She looks me over, ignoring my question. “How bad would you say the pain is, one to ten?”
“It hurts like a fucking motherfucker, that's how bad it is.”
Her eyes lift to mine, and I realize she's laughing at me, fumbling with a syringe and a small drug vial. My eyes widen, but it's too late to back away. She sticks the needle into my bicep.
“What the fuck did you just give me?”
“Relax, it's just for the pain. It'll take half an hour, but then it should start to ease.”
“I fucking didn’t take any meds on purpose, and you do this? It’ll slow me down.”
“It won’t, it’s not a narcotic. Just calm down, sheesh.”
“Who are you?” I ask in disbelief, looking at Colin in the rearview mirror. He just shakes his head in that don't even go there way.
This is not the sweet Amber, or the seductress Soraya.
“If you start to feel any abdominal pain or tightness in your chest, you need to tell me straight away,” she says, all business. “You're welcome, by the way.”
“What for?” I ask, confused. She can't mean I should be thankful she just stabbed me with a needle containing God knows what.
“Saving your life.” A duh is implied.
“Wha—what?”
“Yeah, if I hadn't been on time the other night, you'd be dead by now. I came to pick up the car. Didn't see that one coming, I have to say. Girl's got balls.”
“Holy fuck, who the hell are you?” I try to sound angry, but I'm really just astounded. Not to mention my shoulder is starting to numb, the pain lesser and lesser, the way she said it would be.
She brings up a badge from her jeans back pocket, and all I can read is FBI before she takes it away.
“A fed,” I say, sounding like an idiot. “How old are you?” For some reason it seems important to know this.
“I'm twenty-six.”
“But you look barely legal.”
“Well, yeah, that's the idea.” And she even says it in her Soraya voice. I'm completely taken aback by the transformation. The woman is good.
As we drive in silence and the pain eases, my anxiety skyrockets. I shove my phone with the warehouse location at Colin until something dawns on me. “Colin?”
“Yeah, man. I've been undercover for a while.”
For at least two years, if I remember correctly.
“You okay?” Soraya slash Amber slash who-the-fuck-even-knows-her-name asks while putting a new bandage on my shoulder. I don't even realize she's doing it until I look at her, the area already numb.
“Yeah,” I say, finally realizing what I just found out. For fuck's sake, is nothing sacred? We've had the feds around us all this time and no one fucking knew.
“Why are you two here?”
“You called us,” Colin says.
I growl in frustration. “I mean, why are you undercover?”
Colin turns around and looks at me, then back to the road.
“The short version?” Amber asks. “There was a buzz something big was about to happen. It took us a while to figure it out—”
“And a lot of cock-sucking,” Colin adds, flat.
“Shit, St—Colin,” Amber says. “It's not like I had a choice, is it? This is why I fucking don't mix business with pleasure.”
“Are you two Mulder-and-Scullying it?”
They're both silent, confirming my suspicions. I laugh, and it's a scary, out-of-my-mind sound. “This shit just keeps getting better and better.”
“Okay, lover boy,” Amber says, her brown eyes laughing with me, but her voice all serious. “So, the plan was to create one central family. Stevie Romano and George McDougal started it years ago.” She looks at me sadly.
Take down the bosses. I get it. It started with the death of my family. But nothing has happened since, not until recently, with the Potenza’s car bomb, and now Gino Fermi.
“You can see why we had to get involved,” Colin continues. “Controlling several clusters is easier than it is to have one powerful family. You people war between yourselves, and it's hard enough infiltrating you like this, but to have you united—you have a very strong code of honor and loyalty as it is.”
“Yeah, strong, my ass,” I say bitterly.
“There's a new boss in training. We think it's someone they can control and influence, but so far, we’ve no idea who it is.” Amber shrugs. “It goes against everything we know about the mob, which is why it's so dangerous. Your whole hierarchy suits us. This would change everything.”
“What's your name?”
“You know better than to ask that,” she answers, tsk-tsk-tsk-ing.
I lean my head back on the leather seat, closing my eyes. “Well, I'm out. No need to control me, or anything. I'm out.”
“Devon Andre,” Amber says knowingly. “I’ve been watching you for far too long to believe that.” She’s been fucking watching me? Hey eyes meet mine. “It's who you are," she says simply.
The worst part is she's right. There's no way out, even though my father thought there could be. My uncle knows it; I know it. I mull over it for the rest of the drive off the mountain, realizing this could mean a few things. I'm in it for life, whether I like it or not. Even if I leave, I'll always be Devon Andre, the son of Joe Andre, the grandson of Mario Andre, one of the biggest mob names in Boston. But the thing that's really bothering me is that this could mean that there's no way Leighton and I can ever make it work. If I stay here, I'm still Devon Andre, and she's still Leighton Moore. Oil and water.
It is what it is.
“We're here,” Colin says, slowing down the car as we near the Boston harbor just as I’m putting on the shoes Amber gave me. He parks on the side of the road.