Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 19880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 99(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 99(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
“But…Gage. It’s part of my job.”
“Not anymore,” I tell her. “You can’t go back there anymore, Billie. Not for a while. Maybe not ever. Those men may be gone right now, but they’ll be back and may even have it under surveillance.”
Billie sits up, a worried look on her face. “If I don’t close up and set the alarm system—”
“I will do it, Billie,” I tell her. “This is a safehouse I keep. No one knows about it. You’ll be safe here. Just tell me what to do and I’ll handle it. And then I’ll be right back here by your side.”
“I… Okay,” she nods.
Billie goes through everything required with me, which thankfully isn’t too much, and then I’m out the door and heading back to the gallery. I’ve only been away for minutes, but my heart is already aching from being out of her presence. I surveil the scene once I arrive, but it seems like the men have left for now. Then, using the key Billie gave me, I head inside and follow the closing procedures she laid out for me. I’m in and out in less than five minutes and on my way back to the apartment, envisioning my new life with Billie.
I’ll take her away, far away from here. Somewhere they can’t find us, and if they come for us, I’ll kill them all. I’ll take the whole goddamn organization down if I have to. There’s nothing I won’t do for her. This golden warmth I have inside my chest now that she’s brought to me is so precious, so sweet, I can never thank her enough for it.
She’s my treasure. My ultimate reason for existing.
I park the car, my head swimming with thoughts as I head to the door. This is so unlike me. I think I’ve smiled more in the past two days than I have in the past two years. But when I step inside, I find the living room empty.
“Billie?” I call out, rushing into the bedroom. But I can sense it immediately.
She’s gone.
5
Billie
Another day in hell. Another day at the Motel Paradiso where I now work, and just like my job at the gallery, work is a loose term. Again, I’m working a desk, only this time, I’m not sitting around waiting for a nice couple to come give them a tour. This time I’m waiting for a husband and his obvious mistress to come rent one of our sixty-dollar-a-night rooms so they can get up to whatever scandalous stuff they’re going to get up to.
I’ve done a lot of growing up in the last two weeks since I left Gage.
Sometimes I wonder if what I did that day was right. But then I remember just how terrified I was thinking about what my life would be like living under the constant threat of assassins, being pulled from safehouse to safehouse, always wondering if that day would be my last.
I knew when he left for the gallery that day that I only had a few minutes before he got back, so I quickly got dressed and ran. He waited outside my apartment for two days. It was like a game of chicken. Once he finally left, I was able to rush inside, grab a bag of essentials, climb in the car, and floor it out of town. Knowing he knew my plates, I sold it the next day for half of what it was worth and bought the junker I have now. I needed a job and a place to stay, and seeing as how this job came with room and board, I took it. It’s far from ideal, but at least I can still write.
I do miss him. Part of me wishes he’d hunted me down and found me. In fact, that’s the new direction Gage My Love for You has taken. My heart aches every day wishing he would just walk through that squeaky front door and I would look up to see his gorgeous, chocolate-brown eyes looking down at me.
“Let’s go,” he would say. “Let’s go, my angel.”
And I would get up from behind this moldy, smelly old desk, take his hand, and let him lead me wherever he wanted to take me. But I know now that’s never going to happen. It’s been two weeks already, and I ran out on him. I made that choice, and now I have to live with it. I let my fear rule me instead of my love.
And I do love him. I know that now.
I brush a tear from my eye as I hear the horrible digital doorbell squawk and look up to see a man walk in. He looks like maybe a lawyer or an accountant with his tie loosened and his suit jacket slung over one shoulder. But he also looks quite young. Maybe an assistant at a firm or something.