~ Reese POV ~

"They're getting closer."

I listen to Alec's words as I stare out of the window. The busy New York traffic sat below, and I used my finger to move the curtain. 

"So, what do you suggest I do, Alec?" I turn and ask him. "Send 'em a dick pic with my location and say, hey boys you're close, might as well come in."

He smacks his fist against the table before quickly storming over to me, stopping once we were face to face. He shouts, "This isn't a fucking joke, Reese! Joesph and his men aren't gonna stop searching the goddamn city until they find you. And once they do, they're not gonna bring you down to a little cell with Mrs Innocent giving you fucking cookies every day. They're gonna shoot you straight in the head."

I grab the collar of his shirt and slam him against the wall. It makes the clock fall, and shatter against the ground. I spit in his face, "Watch what the fuck you say about her."

"Get over yourself, Reese," he shakes his head. "She's the daughter of the enemy. No matter how much you want her, you can never have her."

"Shut the fuck up," I whisper, keeping him against the wall by holding my arm against his neck. 

"You know it's true," he continues with a red face. "You stay here and keep pining after her, you're just gonna end up dead."

I shout, "I said shut the fuck up!"

"She's not like us, Reese! She doesn't have the fucking guts to live in our world!" the second those words leave his mouth, I throw my fist into his face.

His head jerks to the side, blood spewing from his mouth. He falls to the ground, holding his jaw, as blood dripped from his mouth and onto the floor. He doesn't know a damn thing about her.

I shake my fist as I stare down at him.

"I don't give a shit that the mafia don and his team of cheerleaders are looking for me," I speak in an even tone while he stays on the ground, looking up at me. "I'm not leaving town. Not after meeting Azalea."

He continues to rub his jaw, as the blood continues to pour. I slowly step back, before turning around, and leaving the house. 

My hands grip my steering wheel tightly as I speed down the busy road. The buildings around me look like a blur, and my jaw is tight. 

I'm so distracted that I barely even noticed the two cars tailing me. My eyebrows lower seeing them following directly behind me, even though I was pushing 120 miles per hour. 

Joesph's fucking men.

I slam on the gas. My car moves so fast that I can't recognize anything around me. 

The cars begin to pick up their speed, too, following close behind me.

I make an abrupt turn, making my tires skid against the road. I slam on the gas again, sending my car flying down the dirt road.

My turn caught the two cars off guard for a moment, but they were quickly following close behind me again. My teeth clench together as dirt whips up into the air from my tires. My car bumps from every hole that I hit, but I don't let up the pressure. 

I keep speeding. The night is dark, and there's nothing you can see outside of what your headlights show you.

But I know this road.

They ride my ass as my speed increases anymore. I can't hear anything besides my tires against the ground, and as it's coming up, I prepare myself. 

I look up into the rearview mirror, and see them still directly behind me. 

And then I look back in front of me.

And not a second too late, I open my door and jump out of the car. I roll along the dirt before hitting the grass, and the explosion reaches my ears before I can even rise to my feet. I push myself up once I come to a stop, and look at the flames in front of me.

All three cars were now unrecognizable. They were nearly pressed into a thin line from the rock wall they just crashed into. One of the cars burst into flames, the hot orange heating me from over here.

I cross my arms and walk over. I can see both drivers, dead in their seats, the windshields smashed. 

I step back onto the road, and begin walking down the dirt road. I pull out my phone and call a number, which rings a few times. 

"Hey, I need a taxi."

~ Azalea POV ~

I sit at my vanity, humming while french braiding my hair.

My dad hasn't been home all day. I think I twisted his thong by burning his money.

My mom is more confused than anything. Both my father nor I have shared details of what's been happening between the two of us. I still ate all three meals with her today, but my dad must've been too mad to stop by. 

I finish the braid, and tie a tiny clear elastic at the bottom.

And right as it's done, I jump hearing something hit my window. My head snaps to look at it, but I back away out of fear. I take slow steps closer, looking to see what it was.

But as I stepped directly in front of it, I saw nothing was there.

I let out a huge sigh, "Jesus, Azalea-"

Another tiny rock hits my window, and I jump out of my skin. With lowered eyebrows, I quickly walk forward, and open my glass balcony door. 

I rush over to the ledge, place my hands on it and look down. 

"Reese?" I whisper, forcing myself to blink again as if this were an illusion.

He stands in my backyard, looking up at me with a smile. 

"Hey beautiful," he says casually.

I frantically look around, terrified my parents would hear or see him. Especially since he was standing directly in front of the door in the kitchen that lead to the backyard.

"Are you crazy?" I ask while laughing a bit over how insane he has to be to be here. "Jesus, get up here before my parents see you!"

He jumps up, grabbing hold of the ledge before swinging his legs over. He holds a light brown bag in his hand, and holds it out for me to take. 

"I brought you cookies. Like you used to bring me," he tells me.

I take the bag from him, looking at it with a smile. 

"Reese. My dad could be home at any minute," I whisper. "He can't see you. I heard him on the phone last night, after we came back from the party. He has every single one of his men looking for you, to kill you."

He nods, "I know. But I don't give a damn."

I set the bag down on the ledge and hug him. The second I do, he hugs me back so tightly that I feel like I may actually explode. I laugh, "Reese! I can't breathe!"

He lets me go, and kisses my forehead gently. I shut my eyes and lean into it, until he removes his lips. 

"Thank you so much for the cookies," I look up at him and say.

He wears loose black pants, black boots, and a tight white t-shirt. My eyebrows lower seeing something that looked like a grass stain on his sleeve, but I didn't say anything. 

"I owe you my life, Azalea," he says while looking into my eyes. "I owe you more than just some cookies."

I lean my hip against the ledge and cross my arms, "No, you don't. I didn't help you to hold it over your head and have you owe me, I did it because I wanted to."

"How's your brother?" I quickly ask after, but in a gentle tone since I don't know their relationship.

"He's doing good. He's still safe," he tells me. "But I've been keeping my distance from him since your dad sometimes has people follow me on the road."

"Well, be careful. If he finds out where you live, he will kill you," I say seriously. I don't want him to get hurt. 

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and hums, "Mhm."

The sound of my dad killing him didn't seem to affect him in the slightest. He just kept looking at me, as if that were more important, and cupped my face.

I lean into his hands with a smile. The feeling that fills my heart when I'm with him just feels so warm. I feel safe, and as if I'm an equal, when I'm used to feeling below. 

"Azalea!" my dads voice calls up the stairs, sounding muffled from my closed door.

My brown eyes widen.

"You have to go!" I whisper to him. 

Even with somebody that would kill him if he saw him just a few steps away, he still didn't look affected. Under the night sky, he kept a happy look on his face the entire time he looked at me.

My dads footsteps started walking upstairs. 

"I wish I had more time with you," he whispers. It tugs on my heart.

"Reese, I really like you," I whisper. "But I've said it before. We're different, and I don't want to go back onto your side. I want to keep living my life, with no crime or death."

He nods, "I know. But I really like you, too. So I'm not gonna give up. All you have to say, is 'leave me alone forever.' You say those four words, and I'll stop bothering you. But until then? I'm not giving up."

My dads footsteps started to approach the door.

I shook my head and smiled at his stubbornness. It actually made me feel special, to hear how he didn't want to give up on me. It made me feel good enough, something I was told that I'm not.

I watch him jump down, and the second his feet land against the ground, my bedroom door opens behind me.

I grab the bag of cookies and quickly turn around, seeing my dad entering my room with a confused expression while looking around. 

He steps out onto my balcony slowly, scanning his eyes around. He asks, "Were you talking to someone?"

"I was just on the phone with Simon," I lie.

He stares at me for a few moments, before slowly nodding.

"What are those?" he asks, pointing to the small brown bag.

"Cookies. Went out and got them a while ago," I lie again. 

And once again, he stares at me. He looks as if he's searching my face for deceit. But I've gotten better at lying lately.

So, he nods.

"Goodnight, sweetheart," he says before turning.

He exits my room, and with my cookies, I jump into bed.

I end up staying awake way longer than I was supposed to. While eating the cookies, I watched a bunch of movies, and before I knew it, it was 3 am. I decide to get a glass of water before heading to bed, so I exit my room, tip-toeing in my fuzzy white socks.

I move silently, not wanting to wake my parents. I grab a glass of water, the bright light from the fridge making my eyes wince.

As I start tip-toeing back to my room, I pause when I heard my dad's voice in his office. 

"I want him killed. Soon. This morning two of my men that were tailing him died," he whispers into his phone. "We need a bigger plan. A better one. We need to find every single fucking living relative of his and fucking kill them until he finally comes out."

My stomach sinks hearing his words. Although he doesn't say a name, I know exactly who he's talking about.

"This is a war now. Us, versus him," he spits into his phone. "And he will lose. No matter what."

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

I hadn't seen Reese in days. 

My dad has been out of the house even more than usual. I know that it has something to do with him trying to find Reese, but I don't know much more than that. 

But I've overheard a few things. About Reese killing his men, stealing money from him, bombing his warehouses. It sounds like things are escalating, and judging by what I've heard my dad say lately, things are only going to get worse. 

He hasn't shown up here in a while. Which I understand. If he does, he risks being seen and shot on sight. 

I sit in my backyard, watching the stars. It snowed earlier, so a thin white fluffy line sits on the ground. 

My dad doesn't know this yet, but I changed the wage he pays his workers. I set it to twenty dollars an hour, instead of seven. He hasn't noticed yet, but I'm sure that when he does, he'll be furious. 

I pull my beige jacket tighter around me. 

Earlier today, I started to fall down a rabbit hole. I started looking through my dads office, looking through his emails, and regular mail. He talked about business deals, the best way to get drugs across the border, and he talked about casualties as if they meant nothing to him. Some of them looked as young as 10.

It's disgusting. How a grown man can be responsible for the deaths of children and not care, even in the slightest.

He's horrible. He's a monster. 

"Miss me, Azalea?" my head snaps up.

Reese stands in my backyard, hands in his pockets. I quickly sat up, thinking that maybe I was just imagining this. But when his smile formed on his face, I knew that this was real.

"Reese!" I exclaim. 

I jump out of the chair, and run toward him. I jump on him, wrapping my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck.

How hard that I jumped on him made him stumble back a few steps, and we fell into the pool. As we broke the surface, my jaw was dropped from how cold it was, but I kept smiling from seeing him. 

"It feels like I haven't seen you in so long," I smiled at him, as if we weren't in freezing cold water.

"I know, I'm sorry. It's risky to leave my house lately," he tells me. "Your dad has hired even more men to try and find me."

I frown. It feels like there's not a single person in the world who wants us to be able to see each other.

"But I missed you so fucking much," he says softly. "I don't have much time. Your dad will be home any minute. But I just needed to see your face."

He grabs my hand, and guides me out of the water. We're both dripping as we step out, shivering from the cold as my hair sticks to my face. 

"Can I kiss you before I go?" he whispers, his knuckle brushing my cheek. "I don't know the next time I'll be able to see you."

I kiss him instantly. His lips alone are able to heat up my freezing cold body. 

Maybe what felt so good about kissing him had something to do with the fact that my dad would hate it. But I think the main part that felt so good, is that I like him. He's a killer, cold-hearted, and would kill somebody just like me if he didn't know them. Hell, he probably would've killed me before meeting me.

He's dangerous. He's the kind of guy I should stay away from.

But I can't.

He pulls away, "Your dad's home now."

"Okay," I nod understandingly. 

"Come with me," he says quickly.

My eyebrows lower and my lips part.

"Come with you?" I repeat.

He nods, "Yes. Come with me. Come stay at my house, where I can see you every day. Where I can touch you every day. Where I can just fucking be with you."

From the look in his eyes, I know that he's being dead serious. My mouth hangs open to speak, but no words come out.

"Just think about it. Think about it for a few days," he says softly. "And the next time I see you, you can give me your answer."

I nod. He told me the exact words to say, if I wanted him to leave me alone forever. But I don't dare to say them.

"I'll see you, Azalea," he kisses the top of my hand. "Think about it."

He turns, jogging over to the fence, and jumps over it. Even after he's no longer in view, I keep standing there, looking in that direction for a while.

"Azalea?" my dad says from behind me. "What the hell are you doing?"

He looks at the fact that I'm fully wet with my clothes on, in the cold weather. I look down and shrug, "I fell in. My mistake, the snow was slippery."

His eyes look me up and down. They then look behind me, and as the look on his face grows angry, I know he sees the set of footsteps walking away.

"Ricci was here. Wasn't he?" he asks bluntly. 

But I don't give in. I lie, "No, he wasn't."

He steps toward me, while continuing to look me up and down. 

"Listen, Azalea," he speaks sternly. "We are family. And always will be. You don't turn your back on family, we're on the same side, forever. So don't join his side. It's the wrong one, and I promise you, he will lose."

Crickets fill in the silence as I look up at him, not replying at first. I know that by 'he will lose' he means he will kill him. 

"I saw on the news that two sixteen-year-old boys died tonight. They say they were involved in crime, and probably owed money to somebody that kill them," I speak, and although my words are accusive, I keep my tone even. "You didn't have anything to do with that. Did you?"

His face is stern. His eyes never waver, and his jaw is tight. But I can see by the look in his brown eyes, it was him. 

"We're family," he doesn't answer my question. "Do not pick the wrong side."

I watch him as he enters back into the house. I stand there, not caring about how cold I was, as my anger was enough to keep me warm.

I can't take him down. I know I can't. He's smart enough to never leave any evidence, and I wouldn't doubt that he has police connections. 

But if I can't take him down?

Then I'll become worse than him. 

I'll become his biggest fear. 

Word count: 3072