The Night of Seven Read online

  Sawyer was laid off from his job at the plant about nine months ago. Since then his family has been really struggling to get by. They only have one young son, but that is a mouth that they will not forgo feeding. His wife tries her best, but she’s a Sunday school teacher and a part-time substitute teacher whenever she can manage to make that work for her. She doesn’t make much money, and Sawyer has been out pounding the pavement each and every day for the last nine months and is almost ready to take up panhandling in an effort to pay the bills. If nothing else can happen, what choice will he have? It is luck that had him in the right place, at exactly the right time. About three weeks ago, he was exiting a job fair whenever he was approached by a man in a gray suit. It was perfectly tailored to his frame; his shoes looked like they cost more than Sawyer's whole car, and he spoke with such a smooth voice that it was hard even for Sawyer not to be quickly suckered into everything that he was saying. He was clearly a man who knew what he wanted in life, and he was also certain how to set about getting that accomplished. He offered Sawyer a temporary position, which Sawyer had thought was incredibly strange but whenever he asked ‘why him,’ the man simply shrugged and said that he liked Sawyer's face, that he had kind eyes and that was all that he was really looking for. Now normally, that would be the sort of thing that Sawyer would question further, but there was something about that man that didn’t invite further questions. Something about him just gave the impression that if he chose to speak to you, then you better choose to listen. Sawyer was never more happy for trusting such a random opportunity in his life.

  Then again, given that his family was so close to losing the mortgage on their home...it was literally the only thing that could possibly save them. He would have taken any job, doing just about anything. The man finally introduced himself as a Mr. Carilles and since then, he has been flying Sawyer around the country for various different odds and ends and bits, all first class. Sawyer asked him once if he was going to be his personal assistant after he was flown to New York to pick up dry cleaning. Sawyer expressed that he didn’t mind in the slightest, but the jobs were all so varied that he wanted to be absolutely certain. Mr. Carilles said no, and that if his wife were to ask him, that Mr. Carilles wanted Sawyer to tell his wife that he was starting an accounting job.

  That was the first sign that Sawyer might have made a mistake.

  The pay is good. It’s more than good. It’s allowed him to start building up a savings account and really starting to push himself and his family out of the hole that they have been in. Though, the errands that he’s being asked to run are more and more strange...and Sawyer thinks that they might be bordering on the illegal. He hasn’t yet decided if he has a problem with that or not. Something about Mr. Carilles makes him think that he’s not going to be getting into any sort of trouble that Mr. Carilles cannot buy them out of. Certainly not how Sawyer imagined his life going. Today’s mission would be given to him after he lands...he doesn’t even know where he’s going, but he certainly cannot tell his wife that.

  “It’s in the laundry room, honey!” the sweet voice of his wife comes wafting up the stairs. “If you hurry, you can scarf a waffle instead of that bagel! I made extra for the drive!”

  He doesn’t know what he will do if anything ever happens to that woman. He loves her so much. Sawyer jogs into the laundry room and pulls his tie from the rack and starts to slip it under his collar while hopping to pull his other shoe onto his foot. He jogs downstairs to the smiling face of his wife slaving over the kitchen stove with waffle batter all over herself. Their son sits at the breakfast table with his homework in front of him, but it doesn’t look like he’s actually getting any work done. That doesn’t stop Sawyer from ruffling his son’s hair despite the verbal protest to the action and kissing his wife on the cheek. “I should be back tomorrow. I think he might even be flying back tonight if we can get all of this solved in time. I might not be there for the teacher meeting tomorrow though if it doesn’t.”

  Sawyer’s wife grabs his tie and fastens it, not even aware that she’s left smudges of waffle batter by the knot, and Sawyer doesn’t care enough to bring it to her attention.

  “You tell your boss that I’m going to want my husband back sometime soon.”

  “Yes, dear,” Sawyer laughs and pecks her cheek, and then the top of his son's head and jogs out the door to his perfectly average car to board his flight to Las Vegas, wondering from the location just what sort of exciting things that his boss might have him doing today. He doesn’t like lying to his wife, but they are finally approaching a point where they might just become financially stable, just maybe. That has to be worth it, he thinks. It’s going to have to be.

  The airport pushes him through with first-class accommodations as he’s starting to get used to. It’s so much fancier than he ever saw in movies. It’s like living in a whole other world that he never thought he would ever be able to touch. His family wasn’t wealthy growing up; they always had what they needed and nothing more. It was a decent living, and they were happy, that was what was important. Until meeting Mr. Carilles, Sawyer’s ambitions never reached any higher than that small scope of life that he has always known.

  Sawyer boards the plane early, as is his privilege and takes a seat, sinking into the comfortable leather and is almost instantly brought a drink of what looks to be a mimosa, and his brunch order is taken. A second stewardess comes to him with a folded note, sealed with a pressed wax seal that Sawyer is now familiar with resting on a silver platter. It’s so elegant, the whole process. “Thank you so much,” Sawyer says and lifts the paper, waiting for them to walk away from him before opening the letter and viewing the tidy scrawl inside of it.

  Beneath your seat, Mr. Sawyer is a gun.

  It’s time for you to start earning that fancy paycheck I gift to you. I’ll see you when you touch down in Vegas.

  A gun.

  There is a gun on the plane.

  A gun inside of this pressurized cabin that if it’s shot, will cause the plane to tear apart and kill all of them. That’s what happens in all of the movies. How did he get a gun onto an airplane? More shocking still is the connotation that he is supposed to do something with it. Sawyer has never held or shot a gun in his entire life. What exactly, is his new employer going to have him do? He can’t want him to hurt anybody, can he? What will he do if that’s exactly what he’s going to be expected to do? Could he shoot somebody? Could he kill somebody? All he possesses is perfectly average hands...are they capable of hurting somebody? It’s for the safety of his family. It’s for his son’s college fund. It’s to pay off their house and never be in danger of losing it again.

  Yes. He thinks so. For his family. He thinks that he can.

  Chapter Six

  O livia

  These are Olivia’s favorite weekends. Madden comes to town and makes everything better. Sure, she knows that she’s the other woman; it’s not like she likes the title of mistress, but she likes knowing that she can make him happy in ways that his wife can’t. He’s not like her other boyfriends. Olivia has had loads of boyfriends; she doesn’t like to be single. When she can manage it, she’ll even have two or three boyfriends at the same time. She likes the attention; she likes having somewhere new and exciting enough to go each and every night. Olivia likes it whenever they buy her things and take her to fancy places and get her to try all sorts of foods that she never would have been able to afford otherwise. They all promise that they want to make an honest woman out of her, but really, she knows that they just like the way that she looks on their arm. Each and every one of them uses her for the fact that she’s young and beautiful. So, Olivia feels that it’s perfectly acceptable for her to use them for the assets that she deems to be the most interesting out of all of them as well. It’s only fair really. Besides, she’s also well aware that she’s only going to be this young and this hot for so long. She knows that women are only good to men for as long as they can be visually alluring, and she knows that
with her exotic features that she will be able to at least ride all of that generosity to what she hopes is a very decent retirement fund before all of her looks are too dried up to use anymore.

  Really, she should have taken her dancing talents and gone into stripping, then she would not need to have as many boyfriends at the same time. Though, Madden isn’t like the others. He’s the only one that has actually taken the time to listen to her talk. Besides, she likes the way that Madden can manipulate her body until her eyes roll into the back of her skull, and her soul leaves her body. She’s never had to fake it with Madden, and for that reason and that reason alone, she feels that he might just be the one for her. It’s a shame that he’s already married, but Olivia figures that they will just cross that bridge whenever they get to it. In the meantime, their arrangement is working out very well for both of them, at least in her opinion. It’s obvious enough that she has a nice, rent-free spot at the front of Madden’s mind by the number of times that he contacts her throughout the day, and Olivia has come to realize that she doesn’t mind so much anymore that he likes to check in on her. In fact, she thinks that she might actually like the guy.

  So much so that she actually cut ties with her last boyfriend. It was something that she was really nervous to do because of the powerful connections that he had. She told him that she needed to focus more on her dancing, that she really needs to commit herself to her work if she ever wants to work her way up in the world. Besides her love for expensive things, dancing really is the only thing that she cares about. The only thing that she’s ever really cared about.

  He didn’t take the news well.

  But that’s okay. She’s used to being shoved around by men who don’t get what they want from her. It’s not like she’s never been shoved around before. It won’t be the last time, not with a mouth like hers.

  But that was last week. This week, Madden is back in town and buying her fancy shoes and sending her such pretty little messages. While he hasn’t said that he will be, she knows that he’s going to come to the show tonight, which is why she took the money that he sent her this morning and actually spent it on exactly what she was supposed to. She purchased a cute pink lacy number that she cannot wait for him to peel off of her. Really, in her mind, she’s already fantasized about him sneaking backstage and finding her in the dressing room where she can pretend to be shocked until they end up doing it any number of places in that dressing room. She made sure to even wear her good makeup today and that special perfume that she knows that Madden likes. He might not marry her, but she sure wants to get a ring out of him, and soon. She wants to pretend. She can be his Vegas wife, and then he can have his Ohio wife. Personally, Olivia doesn’t see anything wrong with that setup.

  Olivia clocks in and starts to head out of the employee room and across the floor to the stage. There seem to be more people than normal on the floor tonight, wasting whatever money that they can on whatever games strike their fancy. Olivia waves at a couple of the regulars; she knows that if she’s nice to them, then they are more likely to send tips in her direction after the show.

  “Good evening, Cruz,” Olivia flirts, batting her eyelash extensions in his direction, not that he ever budges. She is pretty sure that he’s going to die a virgin. Nobody can get past his fort Knox Limp-dicked. She’s tried so many times. “I see you staring at the guy in that weird looking tie over there; is he the reason that you won’t give me the time of day? I can save you a seat at my show?”

  Cruz rolls his eyes.

  “You sure know how to make a girl feel special, Cruz, you know that?” Olivia knows better than to take it personally; she saw Cruz escorting an injured bird into a pet ambulance once, which is just about the nicest thing that she’s ever seen in her life, so clearly, he does have a heart somewhere in that overly huge, rock-solid chest of his. “Oh, your friend with the tie disappeared. Want me to find him for you?” Olivia chuckles, and Cruz points in the direction of the dressing rooms. Clearly, he doesn’t want her distracting him any longer. “So pushy.” Though, she heads in that direction anyway. “Oh! Did you see Stefan? I didn’t see him at the front, he’s not sick or anything is he?”

  Cruz actually checks over his shoulder. Everybody loves that kid. He’s the quiet, shy type that doesn’t like to make any trouble, but he’s the best-damned janitor that this place has ever seen. Nobody knows where he came from, and he doesn’t like to talk about it, but he has always been there for her any time that she needs somebody to walk her to her car, or just to sit with at lunch. He really is the best guy. She hopes that he’s not sick. “Tell him I was looking for him if you see him?”

  Cruz nods, and she ducks into the hallway with the dressing room for all of the line dancers.

  The moment that she’s inside of the doors, she starts to strip, she needs to check the time to see how much time she actually has before curtain call. Her mirror is lined up for her with her name written on tape stuck to the top, just like it has been for the past five years. Olivia flings her bag over the back of her little chair and starts to trade out her regular clothes for her show tonight, a couple of the other girls are in various states of dress at different booths further down the line from her.

  Olivia is swiping a healthy amount of blush onto her cheeks when it happens. Somebody grabs her by her hair and wrenches her body backward. Pain lances up the back of her head and explodes in an instant tension headache across her whole head. “Ah!” Olivia cries out, startling the other girls who instantly look over and start scrambling to get as far away from the event as possible.

  Olivia is hurled backward until the chair underneath her turns over, and her body falls to the floor, her ass hitting too heavy and nearly knocking the wind out of her. For half a second, she feels like the hand in her hair is going to detach the top of her skull from her very body, and the tears explode from her eyes. Her hands fly to the hand in her hair attempting to pull herself along and alleviate any of that pressure to her head...but something cold and metal is shoved into the top of her forehead and her eyes jerk up to see the barrel of a gun pointed straight at her...and everything around her feels like it freezes. She can’t breathe. She can’t think. She can’t see who is holding her.

  Somebody has come to kill her.

  “Please,” Olivia sobs. “Please don’t hurt me. Please.”

  What else can she do?

  Chapter Seven

  S tefan

  Stefan hears the screaming before he can see it.

  Call it a gut feeling, but he knew that tonight was going to be exactly the reason that he purchased the gun. He didn’t know how or why, but he knew.

  Stefan likes to think that he is the sort of man who can get along with just about anybody. Stefan might not have come from the best sort of upbringing, and he might have had to do some shady things in his past, but college really was the best thing that could have happened to him. He had gone; he had run and did very well in all of his classes so that he could maintain his athletic scholarship. He was able to experience life the way that other people lived. For the first time, and as the only person in his bloodline to have ever attended college, it was a very important experience for him. He learned that not everything had to be hard all of the time. It was quite the process, but even just having a meal card as part of his college experience and having that pressure of having to be able to afford his next meal removed from his shoulders opened up his whole world. He didn’t have to worry about where to sleep. He had clothes and a way to wash them and did not have to wear them while they were wet. The classes were so much more interesting than what he could learn in high school, and he found that he really enjoyed learning. The temptation to drink and party simply wasn’t there for him because that is all that he ever did in high school. That is all that anybody that he knew ever did in high school. They all lived their lives on a loop. They did the same things with the same people and either ended up overdosed, in jail, or they lived off of the government. There wasn’t a
nother option for any of them. He might have liked for them to have seen the light or the way out, but the system isn’t designed to help anybody that looks like they did, without them having something or some skill that somebody else wanted that they were able to exploit in exchange for a better future. In Stefan’s case, it was track and field. His legs were his ticket out of the ghetto and into real life.

  When he graduated, he promised himself that he wouldn’t ever go back to living the way that he used to. Stefan promised himself that no matter what happened or where he ended up, he was going to give it his absolute best. Jobs turned out to be rather difficult to find, but he started on with this casino because they needed a night janitor, and he promised that even though it was just cleaning up people’s shit all day, every day that there was no reason to be upset about it. He’s so young, he can work his way up from entry-level. He knows that if he’s kind, and he keeps his head down, that he will be able to learn just about anything that he needs to know about working in a casino, and maybe somehow that might end up being useful to him. Sure, if something else comes along, that’s fine. It’s honest pay. It’s something that he can do to earn real money, and he can’t trade that. He has his own efficiency apartment, and it has a bed in there that he owns. He owns it. It’s his, and nobody else has ever slept in it. It didn’t fall off of a truck or anything. It might not be something to somebody else, but it sure means something to him.