Last Breath

Twenty-nine

Regan

I’M HOLDING DANIEL ’S HAND AS we get out of the taxi and approach the run-down apartment building. It’s . . . kind of a dump. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

“It’s the address Nick sent me, yeah.” He checks his phone again, then shrugs. “He’s Ukrainian. Maybe he thinks this is high on the hog.”

I wrinkle my nose, but in reality, it’s not that bad. It’s clean, the roof is all one piece, and there’s no trash in the streets. That automatically makes it better than most favelas. “I thought it would be . . . I don’t know. I can’t imagine Daisy in here.” Sweet, adorable little Daisy with the innocent blue eyes that went so wide every time something broke down in our old, beat-up apartment.

“He said it was a fixer-upper,” Daniel says and releases my clinging hand to sling both of our bags over his shoulder. Then, he takes it again because he knows I need him. His touch grounds me.

We’ve been out of Rio for about two days now. Two days of travel, staying in hotel rooms, and more travel. I’m not entirely sure where we’ve flown; all I know is that it wasn’t a straight line. Something about not being obvious and avoiding the wrong people. I don’t question. Daniel knows the slippery side of the law better than anyone, and I trust him to keep me safe. I’m still having nightmares, though. It’s like now that I know Hudson is dead, he’s haunting my dreams. Daniel holds me close and tells me it’s normal after what I’ve been through. He never lets me go.

He’s exactly what I need to make me feel whole again.

We head inside and no sooner do I step into the foyer of the apartment building than Daisy’s barreling down the stairs and running for me, arms outstretched.

“Regan!” she squeals in a high pitched, happy tone, and she’s on me and hugging me close before I can tell her that I don’t like to be touched by anyone but Daniel.

“Daisy,” Daniel begins, “Don’t. . .”

But it’s okay. It’s just Daisy, fragile little Daisy with her big cornflower blue eyes and dark hair and round, innocent face. Daisy, who looks like she should sing in a church choir and says sweet little prayers before bedtime. Daisy, who fell for a hit man and got me into this mess. I shove the bitterness down and hug her back. It’s not Daisy’s fault that any of this happened. And while I’m not glad I was sold into slavery, I have Daniel now. And Daniel’s all that matters.

He’s giving me faintly concerned looks as I hug Daisy for a long time, checking to see if I’m okay. I nod at him and hug Daisy back. She smells clean and fresh and as wholesome as ever; and I feel a little better knowing that through all of this, Daisy has remained as innocent and as lovely a person as she ever was. I’m glad, and I mean it.

“It’s good to see you,” I tell her softly.

She pulls away, tears brimming in her big eyes. “I was so worried about you. But Nick said we sent Daniel, and Daniel’s the best there is, so . . .”

“Daniel is the best there is,” I agree and swat Daniel when I see him begin to make a lascivious face out of the corner of my eye.

“Come upstairs,” Daisy tells me, so excited she’s practically bouncing like a puppy. “Nick’s making dinner.”

“Oh shit,” Daniel says with a grin. “Now this, I’ve got to see.”

We head up the main stairs of the apartment building. Daisy says that the elevator’s busted at the moment. Apparently Nick was trying to fix the wiring, got pissed when it shocked him, and took a sledgehammer to it in retaliation. Daisy looks a little disgruntled at the situation, and I see Daniel smothering a laugh behind her. “He’s not very good at being domestic,” she tells me, her cheeks glowing.

“And you’re letting him make dinner?” I ask, trying not to giggle, myself. It feels so good to have Daniel behind me, his hand on my back to let me know that he’s here, and Daisy chattering away in front of me. The stain Rio left on me is falling away like it never existed.

“He insists that he wants to help out,” Daisy says with a helpless shrug. “It’s so cute. One day, I came home from class and he was making Hamburger Helper. ‘I do not understand what it is helping the hamburger to do,’ he tells me. I lost it.” She giggles even now, thinking about it.

Daisy gives us a quick tour of the apartment building as we walk. There was water damage on the top floor, so most of those apartments are still being worked on. They’re redoing the tile on the bottom floor, and she and Nick are on the second floor, along with an apartment for her father if he ever wants to visit. He doesn’t leave his farm much, Daisy tells me, but the fact that he leaves it at all makes her happy.

“And there’s an apartment for you,” she says, pulling a key off of the key ring and holding it out to me.

“Me?” I’m surprised. “Why?”

“We lost the other apartment,” she says in an embarrassed voice. “By the time I got back, there was an eviction notice. All I could do was grab everything, and so we moved here.”

“Oh,” I say, and my voice is smaller than I’d like. Of course we lost our apartment. I’d been scraping by with scholarship funds before Daisy moved in to pay her share. But for some reason, I thought my apartment would always be there, waiting for me to come back to it when I was ready.

The fact that it’s not there kind of rattles me. The world went on while I was gone. Like I never existed. I think of Mike and Becca, and I swallow hard.

“You doing all right, sugar tits?” Daniel says in my ear, his breath warm as he leans in.

Daisy turns and gives us both a horrified look. “What did you call her?”

For some reason, I erupt into giggles. Maybe it’s Daisy’s aghast expression or the fact that Daniel’s so naughty to call me that in front of her, but I lose it. Hysterical, silly laughter bubbles up, and I have to hold my sides, I’m laughing so hard. Daniel chuckles and his fingers brush my cheek affectionately while Daisy looks at me like I’m crazed.

I finally get control and wipe tears from my eyes, still giggling. “It’s an inside joke,” I tell her since she looks ready to wag a shaming finger in Daniel’s face.

“I’m . . . going to go check on Nick and dinner,” she tells me and reaches out to wrap my fingers around the key she gave me. “Why don’t you check out your apartment? Take your time. We’ll keep dinner warm for you.” The look on her face is kind and sweet and so totally Daisy that I want to hug her all over again.

I don’t, but I think she’d understand why. “Thanks, Daisy.”

“We’re in 2A,” she tells me. “Come by when you’re ready.”

Then Daisy heads down the hall, and I’m alone with Daniel and my new apartment key. I stare down at the key for a moment, then look over at Daniel. “Sugar tits again, huh?” My lips twitch with laughter.

“Great conversation starter, ain’t it?” he drawls.

“I need a conversation starter of my own,” I mutter as I put the key in the door. “Like ‘sweet dick’ or ‘pork and beans.’”

“Do I get a vote?” he asks. “Because I’m partial to ‘big Johnson’ or ‘Goddamn-Daniel-Your-Dick’s-So-Huge’.”

I snort and push the door open, trying not to giggle again.

Then I grow silent as I stare at the new apartment.

Daisy’s thoughtful, I’ll give her that. The new apartment, despite a slightly different layout and a higher ceiling, is set up like my old one. She must have unpacked everything and put it down how it was, right down to my beat-up cookie jar on the counter and my B-Grade horror movie posters on the walls. There’s even the crappy futon that I had in place of a sofa, and my DVDs are lined up on their familiar shelf.

It’s like walking into a dream. “It’s my stuff. All of it.” Tears brim from my eyes as I walk inside.

“That was nice of Daisy,” Daniel says in a careful voice behind me. He sets our bags down on the futon and tucks his gun into his pants, then proceeds to go through the entire apartment, checking it out, while I stand, numb, in the doorway. It’s a process of ours, and one that I normally don’t mind—especially not after Rio—but it feels weird in this new place with my old stuff. “All clear,” he tells me a moment later and then moves past me to shut the door and lock it.

I step inside, still in a daze. There, on my coffee table, there’s my old picture of me and Mike from a friend’s wedding. I pick it up, staring at his face. I don’t feel anything for him, oddly enough. Maybe an irritated twinge that he moved right on to Becca, but there’s no love lost, no sadness.

Daniel’s arms move around my waist, and he peers over my shoulder. “Is it bad form if I say the guy looks like a lousy fuck?”

I giggle again. “You sound jealous.”

“I am jealous,” he admits, his arms tightening around my waist. “He should have fucked your brains out and given you a jillion screaming orgasms, but all he did was think of himself.” Daniel sounds totally disgruntled.

I put the picture aside and turn in Daniel’s arms, wrapping mine around his shoulders. “No need to be jealous. He never gave me one orgasm. You gave me more orgasms last night than he did in all the years we were together.”

“I am pretty awesome,” he teases, pretending to consider this.

“Pretty awesome,” I agree, and suddenly I’m feeling frisky. To think that a guy as gorgeous, sexy, and dangerous as Daniel is jealous of my old boyfriend is kind of . . . sweet. Daniel is a thousand times better to me than Mike ever was. There’s no comparison. And I want to show him how sexy I find him. “Have you ever had a blow job on a futon while sitting underneath a poster of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?”

“Attack of the Killer Tomatoes? That’s a real movie?”

“Oh, it’s real. I have it on DVD. That and the sequel.”

“You’re shitting me. They made a sequel of that?”

“They made a few,” I tell him, pushing him backward toward the futon. “Would you rather watch it than get a blow job?”

“Christ, no,” he tells me. “But don’t you want to go see Daisy and Nick?”

“Soon,” I tell him, putting a sultry note in my voice. “But right now I want your cock between my lips and in my mouth.”

He groans, and I know I’ve won this round. I’m delighted as he flops back on the futon, takes the gun out of his pants and tosses it onto the old, beat-up coffee table that I rescued out of a rummage sale. He watches me with hot, avid eyes.

“I love you,” I tell him as I sink to my knees in front of him, pushing his legs apart.

“I love you more than anything,” he tells me, and he’s so serious for a moment, so intense, that I feel a shiver go through my body. Then, I give him another naughty look and unzip his pants.

“This loves me too, obviously.”

“Shit yeah it does,” he tells me. “Fucker can’t get enough of you.”

“Mmm.” He’s already hard, and I wrap my hands around his length, admiring him. “I think I might have to spoil my dinner with this.”

His eyes gleam as he watches me lean in. His hand goes to my hair, stroking it back from my face. “This is the perfect angle for me to watch you suck me.”

Even though we talk dirty in bed to each other all the time, with those words, my mind flashes to the brothel. The gun pushed to my forehead. I close my eyes and swallow hard. Those memories aren’t gone. I don’t know if they’ll ever be gone.

But then Daniel’s hand is caressing my cheek, the touch loving. “God, you’re beautiful.”

And just like that, I’m okay again. I open my eyes and it’s Daniel’s handsome face I see before me, Daniel’s skin warm underneath my hands. And when I lean down to drag my tongue over the crown of his cock, it’s Daniel’s taste on my tongue.

I can make new memories, starting now. I lick the head with a quick swipe and look up at him when his hand fists in my hair. “You trying to distract me, baby boy?”

“Fuck no,” he rasps. He lifts his hands in the air as if to show me that he won’t touch. “That’s the last thing I want.”

I take the head in my mouth again and giggle, and I feel him shudder as the vibrations from my laughter move against his skin. My hand grips the thick base of his cock, and I tease and stroke the head with my tongue while my other hand toys with his sac.

I’m pleased when his head falls back on the couch, his entire body tense, and his cock seems to visibly swell in my hands. He’s extremely hard, the head leaking pre-come faster than I can lick it up. He loves this, and I love doing it to him. I love the pleasure on his face.

“I want to put my hands all over you right now,” Daniel says as I lean in and suck his length into my mouth, careful of my teeth. “Just drag those pretty tits out of your shirt and play with them while you suck my cock.”

He’s not touching me, though. He’s just laying back and watching me work on him. Maybe he realizes that if he grabs me, it’d be too much for me to handle with memories pushing at the back of my mind. This makes me love him all the more, and I show my love by taking him deep and sucking so hard that my cheeks hollow.

His groan of pleasure is delicious to hear, and it makes me redouble my efforts. I practice all the skills that I know, working him with my mouth and now both hands at the base of his cock, pumping him in time with my motions.

“Christ, you’re good at that,” he rasps when his cock prods at the back of my throat again and I loosen my jaw so my gag reflex doesn’t kick in.

I don’t respond—my mouth is full. My mouth is full, and my senses are full of Daniel: his salty taste, the feel of his warm skin, the tickle of his groin hairs on my hands as I work him, the pleasure on his face with every pump of my mouth. There’s nothing but pleasure here for me.

I’m disappointed when he grabs me and tosses me down on the futon.

Well, almost.

But when he plunges into me, I give a shriek of pleasure and cling to him like a wild woman. His strokes pound me against the futon, and we’re slamming it against the wall, and it doesn’t matter one bit because we’re both coming hard and fast and I’m so happy I might burst.

We don’t make it back to Daisy’s apartment for well over an hour. And that’s okay, too. Somehow, I think Daisy was expecting that.

Daniel

MAKING LOVE TO REGAN IN a place where we don’t have to keep one eye on the door and one foot on the floor is both weird and amazing. I can’t wait to actually go to bed with her and then be able to wake up and have morning sex. Then we can go back to sleep and wake up and have mid-morning sex. When I suggested that we stay in the small futon bed and pretend we fell asleep, she shakes her head. Daisy is expecting us. Well, fuck Daisy, I think, but I pull on my trousers and join the surly Ukrainian and his farm girl for dinner. At least they have food. In the kitchen, the girls are making drinks that contain candy canes. I don’t mind a fruity drink now and then, but I draw the line at candy canes in my booze.

Nick, in a rare fit of insightfulness, invites me to the rooftop. In theory it’s a good idea. Go outside and get a fresh perspective. The reality involves standing out in sub-zero temperatures, which sends my balls inside my body for warmth. I hope the boys come out when we see Regan again. Nick is Ukrainian so apparently he’s impervious to the cold because he’s standing in a thin cotton shirt looking like he’s enjoying the Arctic breeze. I’m drinking my Shiner Bock as fast as possible to get some heat into my veins.

Nick doesn’t speak, merely stares out impassively into the distance. I wonder if he misses Russia or how he feels about the current situation in the Ukraine, but we don’t have that kind of relationship so instead I admire the night landscape. The night is cloudless and the slice of moon brightens up the sky enough so that you can make out the dark blues and black in the atmosphere. It’s strange to see Nick without a gun, though. He was an exacting, methodical, and successful hit man. If he took your job, your mark was dead. The only project he didn’t complete was his last one because he had to run off to rescue Daisy in Russia. Now he’s an art student and a landlord. The world has turned upside down.

“You are to meet the parents?” Nick asks pensively, as if he is worried for me.

“Tomorrow, first thing,” I answer and then frown. No mid-morning sex then. Maybe we’ll have sex first thing when we wake up, and I can eat her out in the shower. That might hold me over until I can have her again around lunchtime. “Why? Did you have issues with Daddy Miller?”

Nick nods. “He does not like people.”

“You two should be besties then, because you aren't a people person either,” I point out.

“Da, this is true.” Of course Nick takes me seriously. While I appreciate his concern, I have no worries about meeting Regan’s parents. My biggest issue is what I’m going to do with myself now that I’m not focused on running down my next lead in search of my sister. Fortunately, I don’t have to decide that today or tomorrow or even next week. I drain my bottle and reach for another. One positive thing about the frigid temps is sticking your bottles in the snow keeps the beer nice and chill. About four minutes of silence later, after I've completely forgotten about the subject, Nick asks, "Besties?"

“Best friends,” I explain. It never fails to surprise me how inept Nick is at social interaction—but given that he spent most of his time killing people, I suppose it made sense to erect emotional barriers. The army is full of people who kill, but it’s a family of some sort. A sniper is never without his spotter and even the recon teams are made up of four to five members. Suddenly I realize that part of the emotional toll the last eighteen months had taken on me is due to the fact that I was alone for most of the time. During my stint as a mercenary, I tried to create connections with others like Nick because I’d missed my team so much, and now I am missing my family. Regan talks about how I can never leave her, but it’s me that can’t live without Regan. If she were to leave me, I’d be nothing. Might as well shoot me in the head because her walking away from me would mean I was already dead from heart failure.

“Vasily Petrovich has your sister,” Nick muses.

“Yup. I threatened to rat him out to the Bratva if he harms her.”

“Or we could go kill him,” Nick offers as nonchalantly as if he’s asking if I want a cigarette. But I guess if you’re raised to kill before you can feed yourself, then that’s how you act. Who was I to talk? I killed Nick’s last mark—the trauma surgeon in Seattle who was harvesting diseased organs and selling them on the black market—so Nick could get out of the business. It was a wedding gift for him and Daisy, although they haven’t gotten married yet.

“For some reason I actually trust him. Besides you aren’t allowed to go back to Eastern Europe, remember?”

Nick shrugs. “To kill Petrovich, may be worth it.”

I sit, kick out my legs and drain my second beer, but I don’t pop open another. I have plans for Regan tonight that require sobriety. “I’m tired of it, Nick. Tired of killing people, falling asleep with my gun on my chest, not sure if I’ll have to wake up shooting. I’m tired of closing my eyes and seeing blood splatter. I want to go to sleep in the same bed every night and wake up in the morning. I want to make love to Regan on a real mattress with soft sheets.” Up on the roof I can see the skyline of Minneapolis to the north and the outlines of planes taking off from the airport to the south. I get why Nick has picked this place. Subtle signs of gentrification are everywhere. In a couple of years this place will be worth a fortune, but living in the city, responding to a hundred daily complaints or painting pictures, even ones with a lot of black and red paint, doesn’t interest me. I want to go home, show Regan the land that my great-great-grandfather settled. Have her watch the foals being born and the bluebonnets poke their heads out of the earth. Turning to look at Nick to see if he gets it, I say, “I’m done with death.”

“Da, I am too.” He lifts a bottle of vodka. “But what will you do now?”

“Don’t know, man. Have any advice for me?” It’s a joke, a reference to when Nick asked me dating advice when he was stalking Daisy. But Nick doesn’t know how to joke, so he gives it some serious thought—which he washes down with a quarter of the vodka.

“It is easier to decide whether to pull the trigger or use a garrote to take down a mark than know what will bring happiness in the future,” Nick finally declares.

“I know Regan makes me happy. I’m going to stick with that. For now, though, why don’t you let me take a look at some of your honey-do list.”