14.When it rains, it pours.

Amber stood on the porch for a while; she wasn’t sure how long. ‘Long enough to feel stupid doing it,’ she thought, smiling. She didn’t go anywhere in a hurry. Brian was already gone. Dom and Eddie had gone back into the garage to join Jim. Tools dropped, a sharp metallic jangling interrupted by curses; the quiet returning just as quickly. Mia had gone back into the diner to get ready for the dinner rush.

Smiling, Amber looked back at the diner. A few days ago, she wouldn’t even have known what a dinner rush was. ‘One day buttering toast and listen to you.’ It was funny and it wasn’t at the same time. All her life, she had done some sort of clerical work. ‘A young lady should learn how to type.’ It was something her mother had said, not exactly in a nice way either; her mother didn’t think that women should work in the first place, but if they did, then they should be a secretary. And no higher either. And only to find a ‘nice man.’ Alan had apparently fit that bill.

Eyes closed; she wasn’t going to think of her mother, not now. There was no way that she’d let her mother wreck this day. Or any other. Resolute, hands clenched in fists; there was no way that she’d let Alan take it from her either. That was done, no more.

The air was cooler; grey leaden clouds piled up like dirty foam on the horizon. She had seen the same thing in the city a million times over but it was different when there was nothing in the way to obstruct the view, to watch it roll out across the sky. It crept forward, cool air in the forefront. It was nice. She wondered fleetingly if her roof would leak and thought about if she had enough containers to put out, to catch it all. Practical thoughts. A couple of weeks ago, she just would have called someone to come and fix it, not thinking much beyond that.

That had changed, amongst other things. They had even washed off the marks of Dom’s boot on the door, where he had kicked it in. There was a dent, maybe something stuck in the tread of his boot, just beside the doorknob. That wouldn’t come out. It looked like a little comma, like someone with a heavy duty fingernail had taken a hard jab at her door. Other than that, there was no way to tell that it had been kicked clean off its hinges.

That’s what had stopped her, froze her to her place on the porch. It wasn’t just the door, although that was a simple, solid way that showed on the outside. Just inside the door, if she didn’t look too closely, she couldn’t tell that anything else had been broken either. She and Mia had cleaned up the glass right away. Jim, she guessed that it had been Jim, had carefully pulled out the shards of glass that remained stuck in the channels of the two cabinets. Like a mouth with teeth pulled. Better now though. He had said that he would repair it. At first that had seemed impossible; now she wasn’t so sure. There was still the dent in the wall, where Alan had thrown her. It seemed small somehow. Insignificant once the rest of the damage was cleaned.

She figured that at some point, some kid in the house had managed to throw a rock or a baseball through the window. A pissed off older brother maybe put his fist through a wall. All sorts of things could have happened in this house over the years. Couldn’t tell now. Alan’s contribution was trifling, cleaned up over the course of a few hours. Insignificant. Easily moved past. She wondered how he would feel, what he would think, if he knew just how little his being here mattered. ‘Like wiping shit off a shoe.’ It was crude perhaps, but true, and it gave her a great deal of pleasure.

She had rolled the idea around in her head. It was almost too cornball to voice aloud, but it stayed stuck in her head nonetheless. She could wipe Alan out of her life just as easily; in fact, she had gone a good deal of the way already, in leaving, divorcing. Making a wry face, rolling her eyes as she walked past a small mirror near the kitchen, Amber pushed the idea out of her head. Enough was enough.

Surprisingly tired, the yawn was halfway gone before she could clamp a hand over her mouth. Too late; her lip still hurt like hell. And she smelled like hamburgers. Wrinkling her nose, she sniffed at her shirt. Sweat, hamburgers, and there was a definite splat of some sort of sauce on her shirt. Tomatoes. A mess, and she didn’t care. Hadn’t cared when she had sat out with the others, her friends, and eaten a late lunch.

So it didn’t much matter now as she walked through the house, pulling up a spot in the living room and got comfortable. Another mark on the battered old couch would hardly matter. Shirley picked up the phone on the third ring; she was still at work

“Shirley Dufresne, please.” It was a little odd to have to call through the switchboard instead of simply dialing Shirley using an inter-office extension number, but Amber waited patiently, listening to the muted indeterminate music in the background.

“Sugar, is that you?” Shirley was one of the few people that had Amber’s home number; it showed up on her call display. Heart lifting at the pleasant sound of her voice, Amber leaned back, resting her head against the back of the couch.

Grinning, Amber held the phone against her ear, toeing her sneakers off and pulling her feet up. “Hell yeah, how are you?” Caught off guard, Shirley laughed into the phone and the two exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes.

“I can’t thank you enough for your gift. It’s the best gift I’ve ever had.” The baseball bat no longer leaned against the couch. If it was later in the evening, Amber may have gone to look for it, but it was still light out. And Dom was a yell away.

It was quiet on the other side of the line. A breath, and then Shirley’s low seductive laugh rolled out over the line. “Oh, sweetheart, what did you DO!?”

“A little batting practice is all.” The wide smile hurt Amber’s lip a little but she couldn’t stop anyway. Tears, happy, sad, she didn’t know, wasn’t sure, collected at the corners of her eyes and she blinked them back.

She could see Shirley leaning forward on her chair, all seriousness, a hard line between her brows. “Did he hurt you?”

At one point, it would have been hard for Amber to picture Shirley as being strong, hard. ‘Cheesecake’ was how people at work had described her. Somewhere along the way that had changed for Amber. They hadn’t shared stories, at least not in the way that other friends might. It was more that things were said, whispered, insinuated around the office. And Shirley didn’t refute, didn’t deny.

Amber ran down most of what had happened the night before. She didn’t pick and choose the details, just let out what felt right. It was odd that of all the people from her life, former life, that it was Shirley she felt the deepest affinity for. So Shirley got it all. Or almost all of it.

“That goddamned son of a bitch!” Papers slammed on the other side of the phone. “Are you charging him?”

Running a hand over her face gingerly, Amber sighed. “It’s complicated.” There was something that Amber had left out of the explanation. Someone, rather. Not in it’s entirety, but the specifics. Shirley didn’t press, at least not in words. The silence yelled however. “If I charge Alan for assaulting me, he’ll turn around and charge Dom for protecting me. Dom hit him too…” Amber didn’t really care so much if she ended up being charged. She knew that was odd, but her life before had been prison already; it didn’t really frighten her.

“…But…” Shirley interrupted, clearly pissed off.

Amber sighed; it was all so clear to her; she could see how it might not be for someone else though. “He’ll go back to prison, no matter what. Doesn’t mat…”

Sifting through what Amber had said, Shirley settled on what bothered her the most. “Back? That’s a little bit more than complicated, sweetheart. Is he…”

The laugh was out of Amber before Shirley had a chance to finish. “Hell no, he’s not.” Amber could hear the unspoken questions on the other side, about how could she know for sure. Of course she couldn’t. Except that she could. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen that behavior up close and all too personal. “No, he’s definitely not. I don’t know how to explain it, but he’s a good man, you know?” She spent a few more minutes explaining about Dom, a little about Mia, finishing with him spending the night with her. It was an odd thing to even think, and Amber’s cheeks were hot by the end. “I’m okay, Shirley. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been better.”

Shirley was quiet on the other side of the line, mulling it over. “You watch out for that man, sweetheart.” Shirley didn’t say which one she meant, which wasn’t lost on Amber at all. Alan. Or Dom. Both dangerous if in different ways.

If her lips hadn’t been so sore, Amber would have bitten them, not wanting to grin, as though Shirley would know on the other side. “I started another job today,” Amber changed the subject.

Shirley let her. “How’s that working out? It starts out as a lot of paperwork, but once you get a handle on it, it’s easier. Easier than here, that’s for su…What are you laughing at, sugar?”

Amber looked over at her small laptop, sitting atop a stack of files, before she filled Shirley in on how she had spent her morning. Toast, sandwiches. Her day divided not into hours, but into rushes. Breakfast, lunch. Dinner was something she didn’t know about yet. The conversation came so easily and by the time Amber had looked up, an hour had gone by.

Inviting people over was new to Amber; the house she had lived in with Alan had never been hers. And there had always been Alan to think about. Not that Alan lashed out at anyone else, but he would save it up, and pay her back later. So it felt a little strange. “Would you like to come out and see where I live?” Amber asked tentatively, afraid of being turned down. Afraid of it being accepted, even if she had no reason to fear any longer.

“You name the day, sweetheart, and I’ll be there with bells on.”

Blinking, swallowing back happy tears and the lump in her throat. Quickly, she gave Shirley the information and the two women spent another few minutes saying their goodbyes. When she hung up, Amber stopped holding back, and cried for a little while, still smiling, before she reached for her laptop and got to work on the files. She didn’t care that she still smelled like hamburgers.
—

Mike cupped his hand around the cigarette; the wind had kicked up a bit and he knew that by nightfall, the desert would be a very different place than it was now. For the moment however, hard sunlight battered down with merciless weight on an abandoned stretch of road on the outskirts of Desolation.

Sheriff Hollabird had called him a short while ago. Everything in the man’s voice made it clear that it was not a call he liked to make. That there was something unseemly about the whole matter. The call came through nonetheless, and now Mike stood, one hip cocked against the fender of his car, the cooling engine ticking under the hood.

There was no way to know if this Brian Spilner would show. No way to know if anything he had was of any value. No way to know what side of the fence he really played on. The weight of a snub-nosed 38 pressed against the outside of Mike’s ankle. In theory it should have made him feel safer but it didn’t. Never did. Having a weapon and being able to take down a target when it counted were very different things.

It wasn’t the only weapon at Mike’s disposal. Of course he had checked out Spilner. Enough to know it was an alias, which didn’t come as too much of a surprise. It would probably have come as more of a shock to have his real name come up. Some heavy government cover at some point, if no longer.
If getting involved with the local law was dicey, getting involved with a former fed put a rock in Mike’s gut. Former. No such thing as former, Mike knew, and he had met a lot of those so called former spooks while he was serving out his time shooting people for the US government.

Spilner had chosen the spot, but Mike had checked it out well ahead of time, just as he had checked out Spilner. It was remote, but Mike could see Spilner coming from a long way off. That probably went both ways. A small cloud of dust at the horizon like a smoke signal as a car turned off the main, the only, road. Only one car, which didn’t mean that he came alone, but so far it looked good. Mike watched as the car approached, finishing his cigarette and grinding it under heel.

His gut tightened, it always did when dealing with the unknown. It was a look mirrored as Spilner pulled up and got out of the car. Like two fighting dogs, they faced off, not barking, not attacking. Just sizing each other up, bodies tight and ready, observing for strengths and weaknesses.

Mike imagined that a lot of people underestimated Brian Spilner, to their peril. He looked soft, like a well-fed surfer boy. At least at first glance. Mike could imagine that if Spilner flashed a pretty smile, a lot of people would believe just that. There was something in his face that made it easy to believe him. Undercover. Mike had no doubt that Spilner worked undercover when he was still a fed. Pretty boy. Spilner wasn’t smiling. Changed the whole look.

Mike stood still, knowing that Spilner was doing the same. Spilner would have done some checking of his own, before he came out into the middle of the desert alone. So Spilner would know about the military background; he might even know about the rest. Mike ignored the virtual frisk, as Spilner’s cold blue glare swept over all the places he would hide a weapon. Spilner would never ask, and never expect, Mike to show up unarmed. He wouldn’t ask to frisk him either. It wasn’t done. Mike did the same; spotting the automatic tucked into a holster at the small of Spilner’s back, under his shirt.

They were both armed. That was expected and, as much as was their nature, the weapons had been worn openly, or at least not well hidden. The only thing not covered was whether they were wired or not. They didn’t dance around the subject; they were two professionals. Mike shook out another cigarette and lit it casually, that simple act signaling the end to the first phase. “You wired?” It wasn’t an accusation, just a simple question.

“No. You?” Spilner had pulled his car up alongside Mike’s, in the middle of the road. It wasn’t as if there was going to be a big rush on use of the road anytime soon. Casually leaning against the fender, a subtle mimicry of Mike’s ease.

“I guess that clears that up then,” Mike uttered easily, the cigarette tucked into the corner of his mouth, hand outstretched. “Mike Anderson…”

“PI, yeah, I got that. Brian Spilner,” The grip was hard, resolute. Another test.

The corner of Mike’s mouth turned up. He knew that Spilner’s real name was O’Conner. Whats more, Spilner knew that he knew. “We could probably play this all day. Don’t really think we’ve got the time to fuck around. Do you?”

Brian smiled, and Mike reassessed his earlier statement, about Brian appearing soft. There was nothing soft in that smile. Maybe there could be, if he turned on the charm, but not right now. “Don’t think we do. So. Alan Brightman. You show me yours and I show you mine.”

Teeth bit into the filter as Mike smiled at that, a half laugh behind it. That he knew that Brian was making him like him, that it was probably why he was picked for undercover work, was something Mike had no doubts about, didn’t change the fact that he DID like Brian. In the simple way that two professionals can connect with each other, no matter their other differences.

“Fair enough.” No more dodging. “I think Alan Brightman killed his first wife, Janet Arlington.” Mike paused and Brian cocked one eyebrow but otherwise showed no outward display of emotion. “I broke into his place. He keeps a box of trophies in his closet. Nothing like a bunch of ears or fingers, nothing that could put him away. Photos. A collection of identical bracelets. I’m guessing one for each woman. Don’t know whether he killed them too, though I guess that would be easy enough to check.”

Mike paused, unsure whether he wanted to divulge the one piece of information that he had left out. Arms crossed over his chest, Brian snorted. “I don’t know if it’s a bigger deal than murder, but I know I don’t intend to leave anything out, even if what you’ve got blows me out of the water.”

That made sense; too much was already out. “I made a copy of a locker key that I found in Brightman’s apartment.” That Mike didn’t elaborate spoke volumes.

Brian didn’t press. Clearly Mike didn’t know what, or where, the key was for, or he would have divulged the information. After everything else that Mike had said, just the existence of a place Brightman would keep secret made him uneasy.

Brian felt dizzy, sick, and stayed against the side of his car. There was a difference between what he would show outwardly, and what he felt. Mike watched him carefully, knowing that it would be so easy to discount what he had just said. It sounded crazy. Brian would never have discounted it out of hand anyway, but the fact that he had seen firsthand what Brightman was capable of put it all in crystal clarity.

It took a minute, but Brian regained his cool. Mike watched, and let him; it was a lot to swallow. “That definitely blows me out of the water.” Brian had a hell of a lot of questions; about the first wife, Arlington, that box, the key, but that would have to wait. Right now, they were laying all their cards on the table; the details would come later, once they knew what they faced.

Not that he expected company, but Brian looked out down the road, the winding asphalt tail vanishing in mirage. It was easier than looking at Mike’s hard face; like taking a deep breath. “Brightman attacked his ex-wife, Amber, last night.” If Brian had been looking at Mike right then, he would have seen guilt. And pain. Not that Brian could do a damned thing about it anyway.

“It gets complicated. He can’t be charged.” Brian turned back towards Mike, composed and cold again. “I don’t think Brightman expected her to fight back. He definitely didn’t expect her to have help.” In subtle movements, the two men betrayed their feelings; Mike ground out his cigarette and lit another. To someone else it would look cold. Mike said nothing, but waited for Brian to continue.

“I started out investigating the ex-wife,” Brian went on, with a small degree of dark amusement; they had done the same thing. “Originally to see if she was papered up. She came up clean, but Brightman didn’t. At least his company didn’t.”

Mike’s cigarette dangled, ignored. Eventually he dropped it and ground it under heel, all pretense ignored. Brian cast a quick glance at him and then continued. “International Trade.”

Both men snorted. It wasn’t a loud or obvious sound, just a mutual acknowledgment, the generic sounding name, and its significance, not lost on either of them. “Anyway, IT is an import/export company with a hell of a lot of shady names on the books. Brightman is…was…involved in international shipments. A surprising amount of which ended up getting lost, usually in South America through Mexico.”

None of that really surprised Mike much, and it fit with what he had already discovered about Brightman. “That sounds familiar. We’re thinking the same thing here.” Mike stated easily, without inflection.

Brian tilted his head to the side. Neither would say what it was they were thinking. Even with men like them, there were bogeymen. “That’s going to make it pretty hard to deal with him when, if, the time comes.”

Mike looked down the road, as Brian had done earlier. “Or easier, depending on how you want to look at it.”

For a fraction of a second, they looked at each other, the nod nearly imperceptible. It made sense that Brightman had intelligence ties. It explained how he could so easily hide his ‘indiscretions’. In the real world, they would be seen as a liability; in the world of ‘former’ intelligence agents, it would be a useful lever, perhaps even an asset. There was no need to voice it; they had both seen their fair share. Mike more so than Brian.

Arms crossed over his chest, frowning slightly, Brian picked at the sore spot, like a man with a missing tooth. “Why did he hire a PI to get his wife’s information. You’d think that he could have just used his contacts.”

“He isn’t employed anymore. I shot the shit with a gossipy secretary outside their offices shortly after I started looking into Brightman.” Shrewd and thoughtful, Mike thought it through on the fly, adapting to the new information he had been given, fitting it in with what he already knew. “He was let go. Don’t exactly think he was too happy about it. He came to me because he’s out of the loop for some reason.”

“We find that reason, maybe we have something else other than the law to use against him.” Brian still wasn’t comfortable going so far outside the law; at heart, he was always going to be FBI.

Like a scent in the air, Mike caught the unease. “For whatever reason, Brightman’s out in the cold.” Which made him easy prey. ‘Need to know’ seemed like such a cliché, until you realized what it really meant. Brightman was out in the cold, with no contacts.

Switching tacks, Brian rested his hip once more against the side of his car, all casual grace. So far, all they had shared was supposition, nothing concrete. If Brian hadn’t seen a fair bit of it with his own eyes, it would all sound like a yarn spun over a campfire. He went for something concrete. “The locker key, you got a copy?” Brian knew that he did, because HE would.

A split second’s hesitation. Mike knew that at some point, it would come down to the one piece of hard evidence, if that’s what it was, that he had. He wouldn’t hand it over easily, at least not without a promise in return. He couldn’t, not in good conscience. Holding the spare in his hand, he squared off with Brian. “Amber.” She would be a deal-breaker.

“Nothing’s going to happen to her.” Still Mike didn’t move, didn’t open his fist to relinquish the key. Brian continued, “She’s being watched over, by me. The Sheriff. Toretto.”

Mike had looked into Toretto, as part of his initial investigation, finding Amber. “That was the ‘help’ you mentioned earlier.” Brian nodded. Only then did Mike extend his hand, for Brian to take the key.

Turning it over in his hand, Brian examined the key, before dropping it into his pocket. “You?”

“Janet Arlington, the other women.” The box of trophies haunted Mike; he could do nothing else.

Brian was at the door of his car. “Poetic.”

“Life works like that sometimes.” They both smiled quickly as they got into their cars. Sometimes it did work like that.
—

Eddie and Jim were both long gone. Mia would be in the diner for a few more hours still. Dom slowed down a little as he walked back down the driveway towards the garage. The sky was dark and it felt later than it was, the air cold and laden with rain that hadn’t fallen yet.

From out in the driveway, he could hear the water run in Amber’s shower; her bathroom was just down the hall from her bedroom. Not really having anything better to do, he stood out in the driveway, listening to the sound, at least until it seemed weird, even to him.

The apartment above the garage was little more than a simple room. Bed pushed up against the wall, under the window. The bedside table was a battered grey filing cabinet with a lamp and an alarm clock. He threw his keys onto the top of the dresser and pulled his shirt off, tossing it onto a wooden straight-back chair in the corner. The only thing on the walls was a calendar.

Kicking his boots off, he sat on the edge of his bed, falling back easily, fingers interlaced behind his head. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear Amber in the shower.

Everything in his life was simple, pared down. It hadn’t always been like that. Before he had gone back to prison the second time, it had been different. Eyes open again, he looked up. Pipes, painted grey, some wrapped in insulating tape in places, crossed his ceiling, disappearing into the wall to the garage beyond. He had taken the prison with him when he left. The grey stone walls lived inside him, pushing everything else out.

“Fuck!” Dom kicked the chair across the room when he shot off the bed. It didn’t break, which pissed him off even more. Growling, he stamped off to the other side of the room, yanking open the door that led to the garage’s bathroom. Hopping once, chinos came off, left in the narrow corridor and, without turning on the light, he smacked the tap, getting hit with a blast of icy water.

It would take a minute or so for the water to warm up. Normally, he would have turned it on and waited. Today he didn’t care. Still, the cold water was a shock; maybe that’s what he needed, what he wanted. Dom kept his eyes closed as frigid water ran over his back, tilting his head, letting it run over his face.

The tile floor underfoot took longer to warm up, even after the water got hot, steam rising. The shower stall had originally been a place to dump mop buckets; he’d had to run the pipes in, to turn it into a shower. Punishment, that’s what it was, and he knew it. There was no way that he would have lived like this before.

Hot water didn’t last long and he sluiced the rest of the soap off before it ran out, shutting off the tap. Resting his forehead on the tiled wall in front of him. Water beaded against gooseflesh and he sighed, running a hand over his face and scalp, flicking water off. Both hands braced on the wall, eyes closed, and then he was off again, swiping at the towel that hung on a nail. Not bothering to dry off, he stormed back to his room. Only when he was there did he make a half-hearted effort, scraping the towel over his form almost angrily. He was angry, at himself anyway, so it fit.

Yanking a dresser drawer open, he pulled out a clean shirt and pants, getting dressed. Before he left, he straightened out the small mess that he had made, righting the chair. It wasn’t the sort of destruction that he wanted, that he needed.

His mood as black as the sky overhead, Dom let the door slam behind him and stalked across the driveway to the back door of the diner. Dom couldn’t stand to be in his room anymore, but he wouldn’t leave the garage, he wouldn’t go for a drive to cool off. He wouldn’t leave Amber alone.

Quick to anger, just as quick to fade. Dom looked over his shoulder at the small white house, the warm light from her bedroom window, and sighed again. Frustrated. Pushing it into the corner, Dom turned and walked up the back steps to the diner, pulling the door open and walking to the back, the kitchen.

Quietly, Dom stepped around Mia and slapped a hamburger patty on the grill, moving back to raid the bowl of fries sitting under the heat lamp. If Mia hadn’t been in a heated conversation with Heather, over a customer’s order, over something more, she would have flicked him with one of the towels, shooing him out of the kitchen. Her kitchen.

Pulling up a milk crate, Dom leaned against the wall, eating a pile of fries out of his hand. Heather was no match for a pissed off Mia, but Dom knew that there wasn’t much that was. It had taken him years to understand that, but it had sunk in. He remembered Mom; Mia was just like her. Fiery temper. Heather backed off, stamping off with an armful of dishes.

Mia turned and spotted Dom sitting against the wall. Dom looked caught, for just a moment, and then he smirked up at her. “While you’re up, you wanna flip that burger for me?” Playing with fire, he knew.

Pointing the business end of a pair of tongs at him, Mia glared at him, a hand cocked on her hip, her mouth open, ready to let loose on him. Until she got a good look at him. Dom was smiling, but it was all on the surface; she always knew when he was faking it. If she asked him outright, Mia knew that he would say that he was fine. If she pressed, he would get pissed off, storming out. Proving her point. This time, Dom looked worse than pissed off, he looked hurt, so Mia stowed it away.

Instead, she turned back to the grill, turning Dom’s burger and putting on another. Setting up plates. Dom watched all of this quietly, getting up for another handful of fries. This time, Mia did turn around, catching him. The edge of a towel whickered out, snapping hard against his ass with a loud crack. Snorting, he reached in for another handful of fries and sat back down on the crate. ‘No matter how bad it gets,’ he thought. Mia always made him smile, every time.

Dropping another basket of fries, Mia bustled a bit, preparing buns. They didn’t talk. Dom felt centered just being around her. Dom’s burger was done first, but Mia didn’t hand him the plate right away, just tended to the second. Dom knew what she was up to, but didn’t ask. Didn’t say anything either way.

Overhead, the sky broke open. Fat drops pattered against the stainless steel roof of the diner. Dom loved the sound. It was the same in the garage. Often, he’d lie back and just listen. He could move a lot of places in the world; he had the money, and the name would take him just about anywhere he wanted to go. Couldn’t.

Mia toed him, just a nudge against his calf to get him to open his eyes, and held the two plates out to him. They weren’t covered, but it was a short trip. “She won’t feel like cooking anything.”

Standing, Dom pushed off the wall and took the plates from her, reaching forward to kiss the top of her head. “Thanks, sis.”
—

“This is fucking nuts, babe. Have you even looked outside? We can’t fucking drive in this!” Vince followed Letty through the cluttered house that they shared.

Letty rounded on him, snarling, her finger stuck in his face. “Fuck you, man!” She jabbed her finger hard into his chest and he swatted her hand away, which pissed her off even more. Both hands came up and she launched at him, pushing him backwards against the wall. “Scared of a little rain? Since when were you a pussy, Vince? You going soft on me?”

In what passed for their love life, she used a seductive tone, an angry hand swatting over his groin, as though she had to check for herself if Vince was in fact going soft on her. Letty had always had an attitude, but the anger had deepened. To an extent that even Vince didn’t think was healthy. He grabbed her hands and pushed her back; in the end, she was still just a girl. “It’s not like that….”

Pulling her forearms out of his grip, Letty spun on her heel, snatching up her jacket as she swept past. Before she reached the front door, she spun to face him. Vince had silently come up behind her; he would follow her anywhere, and Letty knew it. The light was bright in her eyes, two hectic spots of heat in her cheeks. She yanked her jacket on angrily and then her finger was back in his chest.

“Maybe I know something you don’t, you ever think of that?” Her eyes blazed, burning a hole into him; there would be no reasoning with her. Not once she got an idea in her head. Letty with an idea in her head was a terrifying thing to watch. Single minded and determined, she would pursue what she wanted relentlessly.

It had gotten worse after Dom went away. After Dom had rejected her. Letty didn’t talk about it, but Vince wasn’t stupid, and after following Mia around like a lost puppy for so long, he knew what he was looking at. Voice softening, he stepped forward, pulling her to his chest. “Can’t this wait till tomorrow?”

Letty wasn’t interested, her arousal reserved for the next heist, the next chance to prove herself. She pressed backwards out of his arms, her back against the door. “This is a sure thing. The biggest haul ever. My source is legit.” She dared him to say otherwise.

It was always the ‘biggest’, the ‘most’, the ‘most daring’. Vince had followed as Letty pushed hard. He had made the mistake once, only once, and mentioned that she didn’t have to be better than Dom. That fight had the neighbors call the cops, and that was almost unheard of where they lived. Letty had left for a week then. Vince had searched for her, every spare moment and a few that weren’t and never brought it up again. But he didn’t fool himself.

“Your source,” Vince snorted derisively, angry again as jealousy crept into his voice. “Who the fuck is this source anyway?”

Letty patted his cheek like a dog before she whipped her set of keys off the table by the door. “Never mind who my fucking source is. Dom talked too much, had to tell everybody his fucking business. Even a cop,” she spat, disgusted. “I’m not that stupid. Come on.”

Vince sighed and pulled on his jacket, following her, knowing he could do nothing else.

Copyright © October 2007 xxxevilgrinxxx

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