Sins & Secrets (16 page)

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to.” There’s something in Layton’s voice that has me puzzled and a bit worried but before I can say anything about it, he withdraws something out of his back pocket.

A syringe.

I start to jump back but he grabs me by the arm and then the needle pierces my skin. “You fucking bastard,” I growl as a spout of dizziness overtakes me and I fall helplessly into my arms.

“I’m sorry, but it’s for your own good Lolita,” he whispers. The last thing I see in his eyes is remorse then I passed out, not sure what I’ll wake up to or if I’ll even wake up.

Layton

My life has been full of choices not made by myself. It started when I was young, when my father sat me down in his office on my six birthday and told me I was going to befriend Lolita Anders.

“But I don’t want to,” I’d replied, being the typical six year-old boy who hates girl’s because he thinks they have cooties.

“You have to,” he’d said, sitting on the desk with his legs dangling over the edge as he looked down at me, making me feel so small in the chair. “It’s for a family, for protection. Right now, the Anelli’s don’t like us very much and we need them to like us. They’re too powerful for us to be on their bad side.”

It’d seemed like a silly reason, but I didn’t argue. I saw how arguing with my dad had ended up. My mother argued with him all the time and instead of yelling back, my father hit her. He also liked to hit the people that worked from him too and sometimes he even killed them. I wasn’t supposed to know it at the time, but I’d accidentally seen him shoot someone in cold-blooded murder when I’d been hiding in his office during a game of hide-an-seek with my brother.

So I’d agreed and had made a major effort to get to know Lolita Anders at school. Turns out, I actually liked her and the friendship sort of grew on it’s own. When I was fourteen, I realized I might like her as more than a friend, which confused the shit out of me so I didn’t act on it. But then when I was sixteen, I realized that I wanted to date her, but knew her well enough that I knew she’d never go for it. When I was seventeen, I slept with her for the first time and it was one of the best and worst days of my life because I realized I was falling in love with Lola, a foreign emotion to me growing up in a home so cold. Like a dumbass I ended up telling her and still to this day am waiting to hear it back. I’m not surprised though. Her mother stuffed her head with all this weird crap about relationships. My father said the woman was seriously messed up, that she was still in love with Everson, the brother, but stayed with Larenze Anelli, Lola’s father, because it gave her stability and wealth and that made her bitter.

When Lola’s mother died, she seemed to get a little worse. Tough as nails on the outside, she was a confused mess on the inside and completely shut down. And then when I went to work with Frankie, well I think she actually hated me.

I’m worried she’ll hate me again if I tell her everything. There’s so much I haven’t told her about our pasts and things going on now. I know if she knew everything about my family, she’d never forgive me. And I swear to God that in itself would be enough to kill me for real.

“I still can’t believe that you tranquilized her. I was betting that you’d backed out,” Solana remarks as we drive down the desolate highway, heading away from the motel where I’m hoping Frankie’s men are still looking for Lola. We’d managed to slip out unnoticed, but I’m not sure how long it’ll be until they figure out we’ve taken off. I’m worried. Right now I’m supposed to be dead and it took a lot to get to that place. Lots and lots of pain that I’d prefer to never experience again.

“I told you if anything bad happened, I’d do it,” I tell Solana. “We talked about this before I went into the bathroom to talk to her.”

She props her boots on the dashboard. “Yeah, but I didn’t think you had it in you.”

I glance in the rearview mirror, my worry about being discovered by Frankie’s men briefly alleviated when I see no headlights behind us. “I didn’t want her to end up in anymore situations where she had to kill anyone. Once was more than enough.”

“You and I have killed many, many more times,” she states blasé as if we’re talking about the weather.

I’ve known Solana for a couple of years now and this is the only mode she has—calm and indifferent. But it was how she was raised to be in that God-awful place that I still can’t believe my family is a part of. “And we’re perfectly fine doing it again.”

“No,
you’re
perfectly fine doing it again.” I clutch the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. “I hate doing it.”

“But you still do it if you have to.” She peers over her shoulder at Lola passed out on the backseat of the car. “She can’t even do it if her life depends on it.”

“And I’m glad. She’s better than that… it’s part of the reason why I love her. Because even though she won’t admit it, she’s a caring person.”

Solana rolls her eyes as she adjusts her ponytail. “You’re more whipped than I thought. No wonder you were perfectly okay taking a bullet just so you wouldn’t have to kill Lola. It’s starting to make sense now.” But I can tell she’s actually confused by it, unable to understand the emotion. I was honestly surprised when she made the deal with me. Let her shot me close enough to death, then we had a doctor who was in on it revive me, all so I could disappear and hopefully one day reunite with Lola again. There were so many things that could go wrong, like I could have easily died, but it was worth the risk to be here now.

I ignore her comment. Yeah, I am whipped by Lola, have been probably since we were fourteen. “So how long were you tracking me in Glensdale?” I ask, pretending that I’m calmer than I am. I know Solana enough to understand that if she wants to, she’ll kill me, without warning or hesitation.

“Since I was sent here to kill her about a week ago. I’ll admit I was a little surprised when I saw you poking around in her life. Not a lot of people are brave enough to break bargains with me.” She gives me a sidelong glance. “But I’m wondering just long have you been breaking our bargain?”

“For a couple of weeks now,” I lie tightly, because I’ve been trying to track Lola since we made the bargain. “I’m sorry, but once I found her and then found out Frankie had figured out where she was, I had to protect her. I tried to do it subtly, but they found her first.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t find her first,” she says, chewing on her bottom lip. “I promised pain when I found her and still haven’t got the honor of doing so.”

“Don’t hate her, Solana, just because she had a better life than you.” I’m crossing a line, but she’ struck a nerve with threatening Lola. “It’s not her fault what happened to you.”

“I know that.” She looks out the window at the trees blurring by. “But you’re forgetting that it’s in my nature to hunt and kill. And right now, I’m going against every instinct instilled in me. ”

“And why are you exactly?”

She remains silently for a while before looking at me. “Lets just say I’m doing you another favor.”

I’d press her for more details, but know it’ll be wasted breath. “So can I ask which one of the families sent you here to kill her?” I ask. “I’m guessing the Dellefontes since Frankie sent his own men.”

She shakes her head. “Nope. That’s not how I work.”

“You know you’re awfully committed to the people who hire you, which is weird since they’re the reason you’re like this in the first place.”

“Watch it Layton,” she warns. “Don’t forget for a second who I am and don’t forget what I’ve done for you.”

She’s right—Solana isn’t someone to be messed with. I should just take my gun out now and get rid of her, but I can’t bring myself to do so. She saved me, from death, from a life I loathed. I owe her more than I probably ever be able to pay back.

So where is this safehouse?” I change the subject. “You said it was nearby but we’ve driven for over fifty miles by now.”

She waves for me to keep going as she rest back in the seat and cross her arms over her chest, letting her head fall back against the headrest. “Just keep going. I promise it’s not too far.”

I sigh and keep driving down the road. Safehouses are always questionable. Either the people are genuinely good and have opened the house to help people like Lola and I who need to escape or they’ve done it hoping people like Lola stumble in and the can collected the reward. And the reward on Lola is huge. Three different mafia families after her, although I haven’t told her about the third, too terrified to tell her who the third one is.

After what seems like hours, Solana finally tells me to turn off the road that dips into the forest. I drive another twenty miles out into the backwoods, the car not taking to the bumpy road very well and I worry more than a few times that we’re going to get stuck. Finally, after I’m beginning to question if Solana knows where we’re going, we pull up to a log cabin secluded in the trees.

“There it is,” she announces, sitting up in her seat. “See, told you it was back here.”

I eye the house with skepticism. It’s late, the lights off, so it’s completely dark around us except for the headlights from the car and a moonlight trickling through the trees. “Are you sure this place is a safehouse?”

She reaches for the door handle. “Yep. Got the information from a very reliable source.”

I turn the engine off but keep the headlights on. “And that would be?”

“Your brother.” There’s a twinkle in her eyes. She’s fucking with my head right now and completely enjoying herself. She knows how I feel about my younger brother, Benton—that I love him to death but that he’s completely irresponsible.

“Are you being serious or not?” I check to make sure I have my gun tucked in the back of my jeans and then that the switchblade is in my boot.

“Of course I’m being serious—I’m always serious Layton.” She shakes her head and then rolls her eyes again. “Would you relax? Like you said, Lola’s my sister. I won’t let anything happen to her, something I think I proved when I didn’t kill her today like I was hired to do.” She opens the door. “Beside, I need her alive.”

“Yeah, but I don’t get why since you won’t explain it to me.”

“It’s better if you don’t know,” she says. “Now lets get her inside and you can tell her what’s going on and hopefully after the initial rage of wanting to kill you wears off, she’ll be smart enough to run away with you.”

“Wait a minute,” I say before she gets out of the car. “I thought she had to do this alone. That was the deal when you shot me. That I had to stay dead to everyone, including Lolita.”

She pauses, contemplating something. “Lets just say I’ve had a change of heart.”

“But what if I get caught?” I ask, grabbing the door handle. “It’ll fall back on you.”

“Then it falls back on me. Don’t pretend like you care, Layton. No one cares about me. That’s the whole point of being what I am. I’m dispensable so no one will miss me when I’m gone—No one will notice.” She steps out of the car and starts to shut the door, but pauses, lowering her head and looking at me. “Look, I’m giving you a get out of jail free card right now, which I never give. Take it or leave it. Your choice. But you need to tell Lola the truth first before you take off with her.” Then she shuts the door.

She’s never showed any signs of humanity since the day she let me off the hook for getting killed, something she proposed to me for reasons she’s never explained to me. She did seem to get some sort of weird satisfaction off shooting me to near death, though. I’m sure it has something to do with being sent to that God-awful place she went to… the one that my fucking family helps run.

I shake the thought from my mind, not wanting to think about the disgusting things I learned about my family over the last few years, and get out of the car. I open the back door to get Lola out, brush my fingers across her cheek, listen to the soft sound of her breathing. That night she killed one of the Dellefontes men, I saw a part of her die inside. And now… well, she looked so hollow, so numb, so broken when I first saw her. She doesn’t even know who she is anymore. But she’ll never admit it. No, her father made sure of that, telling her over and over again to never show weakness. It’s one of the many things we have in common—shitty parents who have zero parenting skills.

I scoop Lola up in my arms, kick the door shut, then hike up the shallow hill toward the cabin. I take my time, not just because I’m worried about going in, but because I know that this might be the last time I’ll ever get to touch Lola depending on how she reacts to what I have to tell her.

“Fuck, I hate my family,” I mutter under my breath as I open the cabin door.

When I step inside, my first instinct is to set Lola down and pull out my gun. The entire place is dark and empty. I can barely see anything, but then Solana appears in front of me with her knife drawn out.