Escape, the Complete Trilogy

by David Antocci

  Donny could see she was having some difficulty. “I didn’t know him, Abby. Just what I saw on TV or read about him, but he seemed like a good guy. He saw something in you, too.”

  Abby shook her head. “He died for me. It was supposed to be me Bryce hit with the car. He pushed me out of the way at the last second.”

  “They didn’t say that in the news.”

  “That’s what happened, though. I should have been laying there dead on the lawn, not him.”

  Abby’s heart wrenched at the thought of Eric, lying there, unable to move, willing to sacrifice himself for her. Then she heard Robert’s voice. Eric would not want you to spend your life in mourning. He chose for you to continue living, so if you want to honor his memory, that’s what you have to do!

  She breathed deeply.

  Donny went on. “He saw something in you Abby, same as me. Like I said, I didn’t know him and I can’t pretend to, but I can see why he felt that way about you.” He glanced at her in the passenger seat, and their eyes met for a moment before he turned back to the road as the conversation continued in his head. Those damned beautiful brown eyes get me every time. Something about the way you look at me makes me feel like I’m the only guy in the world.

  They rode in silence while Abby pondered the future beyond the next day. She and Donny couldn’t possibly pick up where they left off. She wasn’t even sure where they left off. They spent years hiding their feelings, not only from the outside world but each other. They both knew how they felt, but never acknowledged it for fear of putting the other in danger.

  Was she ready to move on with her life? She had only been with Eric for a year, but had given herself to him so fully it felt like it had been a lifetime. It had also been the better part of a year since he had died, and that seemed like a lifetime, too. Should I move on? Robert was right—she had to keep living. That’s what Eric would want. She knew the answer in her heart but wasn’t ready to admit it aloud yet.

  She couldn’t deny she had feelings for Donny. So many times over her years with Bryce she had dreamt of running away with him. She looked at him, really looking at him, for the first time in a while. It wasn’t just that he was attractive; though he filled out the standard-issue mob suit better than just about any other man she had met. His black sport coat hid arms and shoulders that would rival most professional quarterbacks. His dark eyes held an intensity that was intimidating, but when he let you in, she remembered a softness to them that made her weak in the knees. It had been two days since his face had seen a razor, but the stubble only served to make him look more rugged.

  She had to admit it was a sexy look.

  Beyond his appearance, though, he had been her rock through years of hard times and had put it all on the line to save her and Ava. Now here he was again, no questions asked, by her side, ready to save her daughter again.

  Donny was truly a man. Bryce, Rosso, the whole lot of them, were boys. Boys who intimidated innocent people with guns and torture. Donny was a man who did what was right despite the consequences. She didn’t know how he had made it so long in the organization. Despite his tough-guy exterior, he had a big heart. He may have gone back to the mob life before, but he couldn’t now. Not that he wanted to. And not that there was much to go back to. Abby had seen to that.

  She reached over and ran her hand down the length of his arm before finding his hand and giving it a squeeze. A silent thank you passed between them. He looked down at their hands, then back at the road. A barely detectable smirk crossed his lips just for a moment, but she saw it and gave him a little smile herself.

  14

  THE RIDE HAD BEEN uneventful to this point, but they were in the country now and it was getting harder and harder to stay unnoticed. It was late afternoon, and they had gone from the highway to an altogether deserted country road.

  Donny stayed as far back as he could while managing to keep the Lincoln in sight, but there were only a couple of cars on the road aside from them at the moment. When they planned to follow Bryce’s men back to him, they hadn’t counted on being so exposed. They had been traveling this way for quite a while before deciding that the men in the Lincoln would have to be completely inept to not realize that they were being followed by the mid-level luxury car with Illinois tags.

  Abby checked her .45 and .22, making sure she had spare magazines at the ready. Her knife, as always, was securely sheathed to her thigh. She still had a single flash-bang grenade on her belt; however, that would do them no good in the daylight and out in the open. She had no more quarter-sized explosive discs from Ace, and her canister had been lost in the shuffle somewhere at Rosso’s though she still had her small Taser and a few zip ties.

  She didn’t intend to go with guns blazing, but these were dangerous men and she wanted to be ready for whatever might come her way when they got made.

  “When they pull over,” Donny said, assuming that they have to at some point, “I’m going to continue on by and let them get behind us. Hopefully, I can find a spot to pull off the road and out of sight. When they go by us again, we’ll start the tail again.”

  “You’ve done this before?” Abby asked.

  “Once or twice,” Donny said.

  They didn’t have to wait long. Minutes later, the Lincoln slowly pulled off to the side of the road and onto the shoulder.

  As they were about to drive by Donny said, “You should duck, just in case they start shooting as we pass.”

  Abby gave him an “Are you serious?” look, and then said, “Not a chance. I want to get a good look at these guys.”

  “Just look straight ahead,” Donny said. “Glance at them if you want, but we don’t want them making you.”

  Abby did as she was instructed, confident that she wouldn’t be recognized anyway. She glanced over at the stopped car, hand on her .45 with the safety off just in case. Fortunately, no one fired, and Abby and Donny continued by.

  Had she continued to look at the driver and been able to read lips, she would have picked up on him saying, “Holy shit, do you know who that was?”

  Donny continued forward and around a bend in the road a couple hundred feet. Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw one of the men get out of the passenger side just before the Lincoln disappeared behind thick trees on the side of the road. “I’m going to pull over, but I don’t think they’re coming.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just saw one of them get out of the car,” he said as he pulled to the side of the road.

  Abby jumped out. “Give me a couple minutes to head back and check it out.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “Just do it, OK? If I don’t come back in five, come looking for me.”

  With that, Abby ran to the tree line, leaving Donny shaking his head in the car, watching her run away.

  She followed the tree line until she reached the black Lincoln around the corner. Crouching low, she ducked into the trees and made her way slowly forward to get a closer look at the parked car.

  The two men were both outside the vehicle, with driver leaning on the trunk with his forearms, pushing down the rear shocks to an impressive degree. He appeared to be watching the road ahead, waiting for someone to appear. The small gun in his meaty hand confirmed that they had indeed noticed they were being followed.

  The other man stood on the grass next to the passenger side of the vehicle, holding up his phone and walking around staring at the screen, probably looking for service. As he started punching at the screen with his thumbs, Abby stepped forward to place herself near the edge of the trees, hoping to hear anything that might get said. When she did, she unintentionally rustled a patch of dry leaves that had probably been sitting there since last year, causing both men to look her way immediately.

  “There she is!” cried the fat one behind the car. He raised his gun and fired in her direction, doing nothing but tearing bark from the trees around her.

  The one with the phone stuffed it into his pocket and took out his gu
n, opening fire a second later.

  Abby dropped to the ground, raised her weapon, and fired six quick rounds at the men. As the slugs crashed into the glass and sheet metal, it made a lot of noise but did no damage to her targets.

  As the men dove for cover, Abby realized that all of the accuracy she had honed over the past several months was done with targets that didn’t shoot back. The adrenaline rush she felt trying to dodge bullets while shooting was unlike anything she had felt before.

  Just a short distance away, she heard the squeal of tires as Donny came speeding to her aid.

  She didn’t see him coming, but her targets did and turned their attention to Donny. The fat man behind the Lincoln repositioned himself more toward Abby’s side of the car and started shooting at Donny as soon as the car came into sight.

  Donny swerved as two bullets cracked his windshield and struck the passenger seat where Abby had been sitting just minutes before.

  Abby took advantage of the distraction, raised her .45, stared carefully down the sight, and dropped the beast standing behind the car like a Costco-sized sack of potatoes with a single round to the side of his knee. His head smacked into the corner of the bumper on his way to the ground, and he didn’t move from where he landed.

  Donny sped toward the parked car, window down, gun drawn and firing. He hit the man with the phone with three rounds to the chest, sending him rolling down the hill toward Abby. By the time he came to rest, he was dead.

  Donny’s car slid to a halt on the gravelly shoulder behind the Lincoln, and he jumped out, running toward Abby. “Are you OK?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” She looked up and down the road, not seeing any cars coming. “Quick, search the car. See if we can figure out where they were going.”

  “Right.”

  Donny ran toward the car and began going through the contents of the glove box, suddenly hearing moaning from behind him. He looked back to see Abby club the man on the ground with the butt of her gun.

  “Holy shit, Abby! Didn’t you kill him? I thought you shot him!”

  A few seconds later, his hands and feet were zip-tied. “I shot him in the knee. Come help me drag him to the side of the car.”

  With a colossal effort, the two dragged him to the side of the car so that no one driving by could see him. They spent the next several minutes looking through the vehicle.

  Abby backed out, frustrated. “Eventually someone is going to come along and see this. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Donny was still in the car. “Nothing but a ton of empty take-out bags.”

  She walked over to the car and picked up one of the many discarded bags from the floor. She read the name of the restaurant aloud, “Buena Sera, Sunny Point, NY...” She peered at the floor in the back seat. “There have got to be twenty bags back there.”

  “Well, they’re some big guys. I guess they must spend a lot of time there.”

  They looked at each other and had the same thought at the same time. A restaurant—one of the best places to launder money according to the accountant.

  “Come on,” Abby said running to their car.

  Donny jumped in and they took off, kicking up gravel as they sped away.

  The fat man who had rolled down the hill was quite dead thanks to Donny, though his phone wasn’t. When it finally found a weak signal, it sent a terse message to Bryce:

  BAD CELL SERVICE, CAN’T CALL. ABBY IS ALIVE AND FOLLOWING US. WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

  15

  BRYCE SNEERED as he read the message on his phone.

  “Well, looks like Mommy is coming to get you after all,” he announced to the empty room.

  He was in his office at the back of Buena Sera, a restaurant Rosso bought as a place for Bryce to lay low and launder a little cash for the outfit. He didn’t buy it outright, of course. That would have tipped off the feds. But it was his money that found its way through various accounts until it wound up in the pocket of one “Hunter Bryson”, Bryce’s new identity. Thus was born the finest Italian cuisine in Sunny Point, New York.

  Out front stood a deck with outdoor seating for fifteen tables, which overlooked Lake Erie in the distance, a little less than half a mile down a gradually sloping avenue. Inside was a comfortable waiting area by the hostess stand, with a plush Oriental rug and several rich leather sofas. Off to the side sat a handsome dark wood bar, with half a dozen tables for diners to enjoy drinks and appetizers while they waited for their table.

  Through the columned archway, guests found a finely decorated dining room with seating for another twenty tables. The dining room was unmistakably Italian while avoiding the tackiness that so often accompanied such a place.

  The brick opening into the gourmet kitchen allowed guests to hear the chatter of the Italian-born chefs calling back and forth to one another, adding an additional layer of authenticity. Italian arias played quietly through the sound system in the ceiling in lieu of the Sinatra tunes that usually found their way into the background of so many Italian restaurants.

  This was not a restaurant that anyone would venture to guess was tied directly to the mob. If guests didn’t know better, they would think they were sitting in Tuscany.

  Bryce loved running the place. It was an unbelievable gig. Business was great, and that gave him a certain sense of pride, but it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. With the regular influx of cash from Chicago, the place would meet its bills and obligations regardless.

  He had been a terrible student, especially with math, which gave him pause when Rosso brought up laundering. However, it was such an easy gig that his problems with numbers didn’t matter. Each week a large batch of receipts were forged to explain the money coming in. The cash went to the bank, where it was then redistributed to his vendors for products never received. The vendors, of course, were also owned by companies tied to the family, and the money continued along until it came out clean a few more stops down the road, placed into purely legitimate business ventures the family had interests in.

  Directly under Bryce’s back office, in a small and secluded room in the basement, Ava slept for the first time in days. She sat upright, tied to a wooden chair, mouth gagged and duct-taped. After being awake for several days, however, her body had to shut down and recharge.

  There was only one way into the room: the bookcase behind Bryce’s desk was anchored to the wall on the left by a hinge, and had a small caster under the right so it swung out like a door, revealing a small, spiral staircase just large enough to walk down. The staircase had been a forgettable and inconvenient way to access the basement and the food storage room below, but was a major selling point when Bryce walked the property the first time. It could be his safe room, or a place to keep his enemies.

  After purchasing the property, Bryce walled off the corner of the basement entrance to the staircase, creating a narrow room that ran the length of the restaurant. It took up so little space and was so well integrated that not even someone familiar with the basement would realize it was there.

  This is where he kept most of his weapons, his second set of books, and anything that linked back to his old life. This also currently included Ava, whom he snuck down there in the middle of the night when the restaurant was empty.

  She was a scrappy one. Abby had obviously seen to it that Ava enrolled in some type of karate training. If there hadn’t been three men against one little girl, she might have gotten away. Bryce believed Ava not only inherited her mother’s diminutive stature, but also her spirit.

  With his finances taken care of, Bryce had plenty of time to dwell on the past. He had originally faked his death to draw Abby out. She knew his darkest secret—that he murdered Rosso’s son, Nick. Now, he had to make sure she never told anyone. Even now with Rosso at death’s door, his disloyalty to the family would not play well with the new regime.

  His plan had worked. He drew her out and murdered her and that good ol’ boy Eric. He stayed in hiding after that because the government still lis
ted him as dead, and he saw no reason that that should keep him from enjoying a good life. No need to pop up on anyone’s radar again.

  A few months ago, however, he caught wind of an investigator out of Boston trying to get information on him. He had come to town trying to work the local snitches, saying he had reason to believe Bryce was alive. This did not sit well when word got back to Rosso, who demanded to know why anyone would be insinuating such things. Bryce assured Rosso there was nothing to worry about, but he knew better.

  Two people outside the family knew Bryce was alive. One of them was tied up in his basement; the other was Abby. If someone were asking about him, then that someone was either Abby or someone on her behalf.

  But Abby was dead. He had shot her himself. He saw the headlines the next day about her assassination at the hands of a mob hitman. He even attended her funeral, albeit sitting in the back in disguise.

  The only thing he could figure was that billionaire daddy stand-in Robert somehow helped her manipulate the media. He decided there was one surefire way to find out if Abby was dead. First, kidnap Ava, done handily by a couple of his thugs in the middle of the night. Second, get the word to one of the snitches that he was alive and well up at Lake Erie, which was done this morning.

  On the way to pick up the weekly drop from the accountant in the city, his guys stopped by a local coffee shop in the old neighborhood frequented by one of the snitches asking about Bryce. His men bellied their sizeable guts up to the counter a couple seats over from the snitch, and over some steak, eggs, and greasy hash browns, had an animated conversation that sounded more like old ladies gossiping than a couple of mobsters.

  “Did you hear about Haydenson?”

  “Who?”

  “Bryce Haydenson. You know, the one that masterminded the bank robbery last year that got all those guys killed.”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember him. The feds buried his ass, too.”