by Nico Rosso
“Status.” Ellie came over the comm. “Status!”
Hector was the first to respond. “Proceeding on plan. No sign of Thom... There he is.” Arash was a half block away from Hector. He got up alongside and saw Hector still holding the comm mic. “What the hell—” Hector’s voice over the speaker was cut off when Arash pulled in front of him and slammed on the brakes.
Hector tried to reverse, but Arash was faster and swung his van around to pin his vehicle next to a telephone pole. Hector slammed out of the driver’s side, flexing his thick arms. “What are you doing?”
“Same thing I did to Thom.” Arash swung a fist at Hector, but the other man dodged to the side. Hector bull-rushed Arash and crashed into his body, knocking the wind out of him. The two men stumbled into the middle of the street. Arash gathered his breath and separated himself enough to drive a knee into Hector’s ribs. He followed it with a punch to the jaw that sent Hector backward. Arash closed the distance and drove a fist into Hector’s gut.
Hector curled his hands into Arash’s coat and wheezed, “You’re a damn rat.”
“No.” Arash took hold of Hector’s jacket and yanked him close. “I’m a friend of Marcos.”
“Marcos?” Hector’s eyes went wide as the information struck him. He tried to twist from Arash’s grip, but Arash held strong and swung Hector into the street just as David was charging up toward them. Tires screamed and the impact took Hector to the asphalt. David swung wide away from the accident and sped up a separate street.
Arash ran to Hector’s van and climbed behind the wheel. Another sixteen kids. More terrified eyes and barely suppressed sobs. Arash scraped the side of this van against the other as he took it onto the street. “You’ll be okay,” he tried to reassure the kids. To the right, near a long line of warehouses, Stephanie parked next to the Seventh Syndicate man’s broken car. A couple blocks beyond her was one of the FBI SUVs.
And ahead of Arash was Olesk’s car. All hell had broken loose and Arash could finally make him burn.
Chapter Twenty-One
Stephanie hauled a dazed Grant Hemmings out of his car and helped him stand. “I’ve got you.” She really wanted to put her fist in his throat and hand him over to Vincent and the FBI, but the situation was still completely unstable. Sirens blared a couple blocks away, too far for her to drag Grant.
One block to her left, Arash pulled away in the second cargo van. She’d watched him fight with Hector and nearly get run down by David in the process. She also saw what his target was now. Olesk. But Arash had a van full of victims. How far would his need for revenge take him?
“Oh, thank God,” Grant slurred. “Get us out of here.” She threw open the side door of the minivan and let him tumble onto the third-row seat. He was swiveling to look out all the windows while mumbling, “The FBI? We paid our guy. Who could’ve called this in?”
She looked to where Arash was as she got into the driver’s seat, but he was already gone. Every screeching tire made her heart leap into her throat. Every second was life or death for her and Arash.
Stephanie shot the minivan forward and sped toward the last place she’d seen the FBI cars, but a dark presence cut her off. David veered just in front of the minivan and she swerved just in time to not get taken out. The Chevy swung around, piling black smoke behind it, then sped at her. She raced away and searched for any advantage against the more powerful car.
“Isn’t he with us?” Grant stared out the back window. “I’ve met him. What the hell is going on?”
Stephanie answered by veering hard to one side of the street. Grant slid across the bench seat and slammed into the sidewall. His eyes spun and he scrambled to grasp the nearest seat belt. Her move had thrown David for a second. He corrected and sped closer again. She took the minivan into a quick left turn that brought Grant hard into the opposite side of the minivan.
David pursued, face furious in the rearview mirror. He was angling her farther away from where she’d last seen Vincent and the FBI. With the Seventh Syndicate man as her cargo, her mission was so close to being complete. But the kids were still out there with Arash, his fate completely unknown.
The minivan rocked hard and the steering wheel was jarred from her grip. David had rammed them and was recoiling to do it again. She got the wheel back in her sore hands and righted the minivan before it fishtailed too hard. Her muscles burned as she regained control while plotting her next move. Instead of gaining speed, she slowed as if the minivan was still lost in a skid. She pulled it into a sideways drift and fought the forces trying to yank her out of her seat.
The side of the minivan would be the perfect prey for David. He bit at the bait she presented and his engine screamed. He sped closer with all the muscle under his hood. She pulled out of the drift and straightened out. He shot past the minivan, hopped a curb, lost contact with the ground and smashed down into the side of a loading dock. The car crumpled, nearly folding in half, spraying fluids and hissing smoke.
“Hey!” Grant shouted from the back seat. “Stop the car and tell me exactly what is going on.” He pointed a pistol at her.
* * *
OLESK. FINALLY. ARASH could end it. The van had the power to catch him while he was this close.
But the victims weren’t safe. Their terror clouded the air and Arash couldn’t breathe. Taking out Thom and Hector hadn’t brought Marcos back. There’d been no voice from the cloudless sky thanking Arash for his revenge, or forgiving him for not being able to save Marcos. His friend’s hopes and dreams had ended and nothing he did now could change that.
But there were sixteen humans in the van who still had a chance.
Arash steered away from Olesk and toward the FBI. Stephanie in the minivan blurred between warehouses a couple blocks away, pursued by David. Arash pushed the van as fast as it could go, his blood burning white-hot.
“Status.” Ellie’s worried voice came over the comm. “Status!”
Arash pulled to a stop among two of the FBI SUVs. He didn’t bother getting out of the van this time. Vincent knew the drill and got his Feds to quickly free the kids in the cargo area. “That’s it,” Vincent said, relieved. “They’re safe.”
“Stephanie,” Arash gritted. “Stephanie.” He peeled away to find her.
Ellie kept trying through the comm, sounding more desperate. “Somebody come back with your status.”
Arash picked up the mic. “Thom and Hector are gone.” He saw the minivan in the distance. Stephanie pulled a perfect drift, then snapped straight as David swept past her. The Chevy disappeared next to a warehouse, but from the sound of screaming metal, Arash knew the outcome. “David’s gone.”
Olesk’s voice came over the speaker with a warning. “Arash...”
“You’re next, Olesk.” Arash wished he was squeezing Olesk’s throat instead of the mic. “You’re next because you took money to drive these kids to hell. You’re next because you killed Marcos.” He threw the mic down and drove to where he’d last seen Stephanie.
There she was, intact and still driving. But any relief that started to wash over him chilled when he saw the Seventh Syndicate man in the back of the minivan, pistol outstretched toward Stephanie.
No. Arash should be in that car with her. No.
She slammed on the brakes and ducked. The man’s chest crushed into the back of the seat in front of him. The gun went off and pain flashed through Arash as if he’d been hit. But the bullet flew through the cabin and punched a hole in the front windshield.
Stephanie quickly lunged from the driver’s seat to the rear of the minivan. Arash brought his van alongside and jumped out before it stopped rolling. The man tried to raise the pistol again, but Stephanie twisted it from his grip and it spun to the floor toward the front of the car.
Arash threw the side door of the minivan open and planted his fist in the face of the man. The man sprawled backward, then collapsed
forward. When he rose up again, he had a smaller revolver in his hand. It swung toward Stephanie and Arash wrapped both hands around it, trapping the hammer.
Stephanie moved in a blur, snapping a knife out and driving the blade into the man’s thigh, just above the knee. The man screamed, hands going limp to release the gun into Arash’s grip. The deepest betrayal carved into the man’s eyes as he stared at Stephanie. She faced him, unmoved. “You’re finished.”
A siren blasted behind them. Arash grabbed the man’s lapels and yanked him out of the minivan. Vincent pulled up in his SUV just as Arash was dropping the Seventh Syndicate man to the concrete.
“Olesk.” Stephanie pointed up between the rows of industrial buildings. The Subaru sped over the streets. If it hit the highways, it could be gone in a flash. Arash charged through the side door of the minivan and into the driver’s seat. Stephanie leaped into the passenger seat, determined. “End this.”
The wind howled through the open side door as Arash bolted them toward Olesk. Arash reached out and Stephanie took hold of his hand. Fear and fury had numbed him until this touch. New life arced through him. “You alright?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “You?”
“Still driving.” He saw her attention was on the side-view mirror and he checked behind them. Vincent stood over the Seventh Syndicate man. Arash said, “You got him.”
“We did.” She focused forward. “We’re not done.” Olesk was still a couple of blocks ahead of them and approaching a freeway on-ramp. Wringing all the speed he could from the minivan, Arash blasted across the asphalt toward Olesk. Stephanie braced herself on the door handle and scanned the area around them. “Olesk drives like a machine. Throw something completely unexpected at him. He won’t be able to process it.”
The Subaru curved up the on-ramp. Arash blew through a red light and wove between two crossing cars. Their surprised horns faded quickly in the distance as he charged onto the freeway. Arash pulled close enough to see Ellie in the passenger seat, preparing Olesk’s pistol. Instead of dropping back, Arash built more speed and passed Olesk while he was jammed in a small knot of traffic.
As soon as Olesk cleared the other cars, he gained quickly on Arash and Stephanie. Arash raced him into an interchange in the freeway with multiple curving ramps at different levels. “Hold on,” Arash warned. Stephanie braced herself and Arash slammed on the brakes in the middle of a curving ramp. The minivan slowed hard on the custom brakes and slid a little sideways.
Olesk wove with indecision, braking at first, then chirping his tires for more speed. Arash stepped on the gas again as soon as Olesk was beside them and jammed the minivan toward the Subaru. Olesk yanked his car away, head turning wildly as he tried to adjust to the changing landscape of the freeway around them. He didn’t have a chance. His car slammed into a guardrail, scattering chips of concrete. The churning tires caught and rocketed the car farther forward, up over the rail and down the twenty-foot drop from the interchange ramp.
Arash drove on. Below him and Stephanie, Olesk’s car lay on its crushed roof among overgrown weeds.
It was over.
Marcos wasn’t alive again. But thirty-two people were free from harm. The Seventh Syndicate was hurt. And Stephanie was safe next to Arash.
While they were still moving, she got out of her seat and closed the side door. He throttled back into the flow of traffic. The minivan dissolved from suspicion. After a mile, he realized he didn’t know where he was going. “Navigate?”
Stephanie pulled out her phone. “Message from Vincent. He says they have it contained and the victims are safe.” She sighed long. “I’m telling him that we’re gone.” After typing she put the phone in the center console. “Take us back to Vegas. I need a room.” She reached out and ran her fingers over the back of his neck. He was still alive. “With you. I need to breathe again.”
He vowed, “I will take you anywhere you want to go.”
She turned to him, dark eyes shining. “I want to go anywhere with you.”
Epilogue
Air tools ratcheted in quick percussion, metal clanged against metal and voices rose above the din. It was music. The smells of motor oil and tire rubber added to Stephanie’s feast. She leaned against a desk on one side of Arash’s new garage and watched as he instructed a young black woman on the parts under Mariana Balducci’s hoisted pickup truck.
All three of the bays in the garage were full and two more cars were parked on the driveway on the other side of the open doors. Everything from oil changes to new water pumps. And if anyone from the Oakland neighborhood wandered in, they were sure to get a lesson on whatever was being done. The garage hadn’t turned a financial profit, but the benefit to Stephanie and Arash, to the neighborhood and the city, went way beyond the financial. People were able to stay on the road and make a living. And the next generation of mechanics were having their curiosity fed.
Ty Morrison stood at the desk next to Stephanie. Instead of the usual suit he wore as the police chief of his town, he was in casual flannel and jeans. Stephanie could see the resemblance between Ty and his stern ancestor in the old Frontier Justice photographs from the nineteenth century. Two black men with unmovable resolve. But Ty was actually smiling. “Hemmings’s trial is starting soon. Looks like he’ll go away for a long time. And the info you tracked down during the operation has the Seventh scrambling. Their human trafficking is over and they’re scared.” It had been two months since San Pedro. “Vincent said the FBI has cleaned some house and is really going after them now.”
Ty really lit up when Mariana came into the garage. He stepped to meet her and gave her a kiss that lasted just a little longer than proper. But Stephanie wasn’t going to shut them down. She and Arash had been caught during several lingering kisses on the porch of Mariana’s farmhouse, which also served as the Frontier Justice home base. Usually it was Vincent who cleared his throat with some embarrassment. If Javier was around, he’d just grumble and stalk off to the orchard.
Mariana had a tray of four cups of coffee and handed two to Stephanie and Ty. She motioned to Arash with the other and showed him where she put it on the desk. He gave her a wave, then caught Stephanie’s eye. She warmed, even though spring hadn’t made it to the Bay Area. Arash finished up with the girl he was teaching and came over to Stephanie and the others. Stephanie’s blush grew higher when he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. Even the smallest touch was electric. Something she’d discovered when Arash had brushed his fingers against hers under the table during a generally comfortable dinner with her father and mother.
After taking a drink, Mariana wound an arm around Ty’s waist and stood close. “How does the truck look?”
“Nothing major.” Stephanie had looked it over initially with Arash.
“Maybe new brakes.” Arash nodded. “But Stephanie secured us a deal with a manufacturer to subsidize parts.”
Ty grew serious. “You’re doing good for the people out here.”
“There’s always something to fix.” Arash looked out over the garage, but she knew he was talking about more than just the cars. Between the intel gathered by Frontier Justice, her network, and the information that slipped through the neighborhood into the garage, they were all aware that the Seventh Syndicate and other forces that preyed on disadvantaged people might be quiet, but they weren’t dead.
Arash wasn’t daunted. After seeing the lives he’d saved in the vans, and learning that mourning Marcos was about more than revenge, he’d joined Frontier Justice and made the organization that much more formidable. She understood his strength, and felt it in the light of day and the darkest times at night. She’d seen the same determination in his parents the moment she’d met them. That dedication ran through Ty, Mariana and the others. Stephanie knew that none of them would quit. Even against what looked like impossible odds. They’d survived, and would again. It was a fight they could win becau
se they all stood together.
* * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from Marine Force Recon by Elle James.
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Marine Force Recon
by Elle James
Chapter One
Declan O’Neill hiked his rucksack higher on his shoulders and trudged down the sidewalk in downtown Washington, DC. The last time he’d seen so many people in one place, he’d been a fresh recruit at US Marine Corps Basic Training in San Diego, California, standing among a bunch of teenagers, just like him, being processed into the military.