Braden had just cleared the event room when he thought he heard her call his name. He paused, scanned the crowd, then stepped out of the stream of people to get a better look. He didn’t see her, but his eyes honed in on a narrow hall that seemed to lead to a service area.
The sight of it panicked him. These kinds of places looked straightforward from the outside, but inside was a labyrinth of back hallways and corridors designed to service the facility with minimal disruption to event attendees. If someone had grabbed Nora, there was no telling where they might take her.
He spoke into his mic as he slipped through the crowd, making his way back to the hall. “I lost the girl.”
It was hard not to scream her name, to stick to the rules they’d agreed on. She wasn’t just any girl. Just any woman.
She was his woman.
“I’m heading down a hall next to the event that just let out,” he said into the mic.
“Wait for backup,” Locke said. “I’m working my way to you.”
The hell with that.
“I’m not waiting,” he said into the mic. “You can catch up.”
“Motherfucker…” Locke muttered into his ear.
It took him less than a minute to make his way back to the hall, but it seemed like an eternity. It was hard to see around his fear for Nora. Hard to think about anything but someone like Shields getting his hands on her — or worse, that Ukrainian bastard with a mile-long record.
The thought spurred him forward. He moved down the hall at a sprint.
“I shouldn’t have come?” she said to Mike. “You shouldn’t have come. What are you doing, Shields?”
His expression was empty. Had she ever seen warmth in his eyes? Or had it been a trick of the light? Something she’d wanted to see?
“That’s none of your fucking business, Nora. None of this is any of your business.”
“It is my business.” She tried to ignore the press of cold steel against her cheek. “I can’t believe this. Kane was right; you’re a rat.”
“Kane,” he spat. “You think he’s any better? He’s a fucking coward, Nora. He bailed on us. On all of us. You think he’s going to save you?” He shook his head. “No one’s coming to save you. I own your ass now.”
The lack of emotion in his voice scared her more than any menace might have done. She was nothing to him. Had never been anything to him. He would use her as a hostage. Trade her for his freedom if he could — or promise to trade her and then kill her anyway just to make a point.
She was almost relieved by the thought. Negotiations took time. She would find a way to get away before then. Would find a way to bring him down.
She saw movement over his shoulder, had a moment’s hope that it was Braden before another figure entered the room.
And this one was anything but comforting.
He was a lot closer than he’d been when she spotted him with Mike under the overpass by Marty’s, but she knew instinctively that it was the same person.
Petro Sokolov.
His face was wide and flat, his features coarse, and he had the same short stature and meaty build that made her think of street fighters and old-school mobsters.
He shut the door, came toward her with a grin that curdled her blood.
“What do we have here?” he asked in heavily accented English. “A little bonus?”
“Maybe,” Mike said. “But only if we make it out of here alive.”
And then she knew that Mike wasn’t a worst-case scenario. That being traded as ransom — or even being killed — would be better than the fate that awaited her in the hands of the man leering at her over Mike’s shoulder.
Braden hurried down the hall and stopped at the end, trying to decide whether to go right or left, wishing Locke was at his back. But he didn’t have time to wait. Nora was out there somewhere, and every second she got farther away from him.
He went right, saw that the hall was one long corridor unbroken by doorways on either side, and doubled back the other way.
He hesitated at the first locked door. Breaking into every locked room would be time-consuming; it was safer to assume whoever had Nora didn’t have keys. He hurried past the door, heading for the second one, hoping it was unlocked. He’d almost reached it when he heard a thud come from behind him.
He quietly backed up to the first door and listened for more proof that he hadn’t imagined it. It came a moment later in the form of murmured voices.
It was all he needed. Maybe it would be a couple convention center employees getting it on between shifts.
But maybe it would be Nora, and if it was her, he would bring the whole place down to get her out alive.
He backed up a little and removed his weapon, glad they’d fitted their guns with silencers. A muffled thud rang through the hall as he fired at the lock, the metal sparking as the bullet went through it. He kicked in the door and entered the room, his eyes not on his woman being held against the wall, but on the two men who had tried to take her from him.
She was running down her options when something slammed through the wall behind Mike and the other man. A second later the door flew open, and then Braden was there, stalking through the doorway, weapon drawn and pointed at Shields.
Everything seemed to slow down as Shields turned toward Braden, pointed her gun, still in his hand, in Braden’s direction. Petro Sokolov was pulling something from his waistband, but she didn’t have time to worry about him. All she could see was Shields, already pointing the gun at Braden.
She brought her knee up into Shields’ lower back, then took advantage of his momentary shock to shove him forward. He tried to keep his balance, but the surprise worked in her favor. He stumbled, giving Braden time to turn his weapon on Sokolov, who was raising a mean-looking semi-automatic.
Sokolov got off a string of shots that embedded themselves in the concrete floor before Braden’s bullets hit him in the chest. Sokolov dropped his gun, pitched forward onto the floor as Shields straightened, pointed Nora’s gun at Braden for a second time.
She stepped forward, moved to punch him in the throat, but he must have caught sight of her in his peripheral vision, because the next thing she knew her whole body was rocked with the impact of his fist into her face.
She spun on her feet and saw the ground close in on her, barely had time to hold out her hands, break her fall as she fell onto the concrete.
She heard Braden’s roar even if she didn’t see it. By the time she looked up, he was charging at Shields, kicking the gun from his hand and going at him with his fists and feet, pummeling him between the punches Shields managed to land.
He was putting up a fight, but Braden’s size and anger gave him an advantage, and he slowly wore Mike down, beating him until his face was a bloody pulp as Nora crawled toward her gun on the floor, Mike just a few feet away, blood pooling under his face.
Braden lowered his weapon, was moving toward her when the man with the Buddha necklace burst through the door. She thought they were safe then.
Thought it was over.
But she hadn’t seen Shields reach for the gun dropped by Sokolov. She watched him raise the weapon in Braden and and the other man’s direction. Saw it dawn on them a second too late.
Except they weren’t the only ones with a gun.
She had one, too, right at the tip of her fingers. She closed her hands around the trigger, raised it at Shields and squeezed.
He fired immediately after her, but he was already falling, his aim off, the bullets lodging themselves in the ceiling as he hit the floor.
Then Braden was rushing toward her, dropping to the floor, cradling her in his lap, saying her name.
“Nora… Thank god…”
42
She tried not be nervous as they wound their way up the hill, desert brush on one side of the car, the Pacific gleaming on the other. It was late August, and the sun had finally decided to stick around over the water. It bathed everything in the kind of golden light she’d nev
er seen until she came to Southern California, and she closed her eyes, felt the wind on her face through the open window, let the sun’s warmth seep into her skin.
A couple minutes later the car came to a stop. She opened her eyes. A black gate loomed in front of them. She looked at Braden in the Saab’s driver’s seat.
He reached over, gently touched her still-bruised face. “You sure you want to do this? Because this is pretty much the point of no return.”
She looked at the water glimmering in the distance, thought about everything that had happened. Everything that had led her to this place.
It wasn’t what she expected.
There was the death of Mike Shields and Petro Sokolov, the realization that people were rarely everything you thought they were. That even the good ones could be hiding something dark — and the ones who seemed like they were on the wrong track might have it right after all.
But it went back further than that. She saw that now. It had started with Erin. With the knowledge that the man who had gotten her hooked on heroin would still have a life while Erin’s was over forever. With her brother’s decision to hold people accountable even when the law couldn’t.
When it wouldn’t.
She’d thought she was different. Thought she was like her father.
And she was. But so were her brothers. So was Braden.
They all wanted the same thing, and she was finally ready to admit that truth — and justice — wasn’t as black and white as she’d always believed.
The Bureau was a good organization. Most of the people there followed the rules, the letter of the law. They took criminals off the street using policies and procedures that had been put in place to ensure fairness to everyone accused of a crime.
But what about when policy and procedure was actually an impediment to justice? Did those people go free because someone hadn’t filled out paperwork? Because something wasn’t technically against the law even though it was wrong?
Someone had to be willing to break the rules when it was the only way to see justice served. Braden had done it by using Shields’ illegally obtained phone records to find out about the meeting in San Diego. They had all done it to go after Shields and Solokov at the convention center.
It was imperfect and messy. But so was life.
She hadn’t been really living it before. Had been too worried about keeping it neat and manageable to worry about whether it had meaning. Whether she was really making a difference. She’d been so worried about being like Erin that she hadn’t thought about whether she was being herself. Hadn’t even figured out who that was until the moment when she’d had to choose between preserving Shields’ life or saving Braden.
In the end, the choice had been surprisingly simple.
She looked over at Braden and smiled. “I’m sure.”
He nodded, punched a code into the security panel. The gates swung open and he pulled through, started up a winding hill that gave her glimpses of the water. When they reached the top, a big house with a tile roof came into view. Braden parked next to a familiar Humvee and they got out of the car.
He took her hand as they made their way to the front door. Braden knocked, and a few seconds later it was opened by the man she’d saved — along with Braden — by firing on Shields at the convention center.
The man wore jeans, his feet and chest bare, Buddha still hanging around the piece of rope at his neck. There was a moment when he seemed to be taking the measure of her all over again. Then he smiled, held out his hand.
“I’m Locke.” He opened the door wider. “Welcome.”
“Nora Murphy.” She shook his hand and stepped into the house.
He closed the door, studied her for a few seconds. “You saved my life, Nora Murphy.”
“You saved mine.” She looked from him to Braden. “You saved mine.”
She heard her mother’s voice on the breeze flowing through the house’s open windows, the big glass doors that led to a terrace overlooking the water.
Everything you need to know is right in front of you.
Looking into Braden’s eyes, she knew her mother had been right after all.
It was.
THE END
Get to know Locke Montgomery by PREORDERING REBEL LOVE, the second standalone in the Kings of Corruption series, or read ahead for a sneak peek!
Rebel Love Sneak Peek
One
Elle Matheson stood at the window, her eyes on the sign hanging from the facade of the building across the street.
COMING SOON: FULL SERVICE BOOKSTORE!!
The sign had gone up months ago, a big red banner proclaiming her doom. It had been a sucker punch to the gut, and she’d spent the time since then alternately fascinated with it and avoiding it, looking the other way when she left work at the end of the day.
Fighting panic, she turned away from the window, gazed across the little space that had become her haven. She’d looked at countless locations before she’d chosen this one, searching for just the right space to rebuild the independent bookstore that had been stolen from her parents more than six years earlier.
She’d known right away that this was the one. Perfectly situated on a corner in the historic Gaslamp District in downtown San Diego, it was shabby and small, but even then she’d been able to see it filled with books, smelling like ink and paper and the sandalwood incense her mother had burned when she was little. She’d looked past the peeling paint and the cracks that ran like scars across the old plaster surface.
And yes, she’d looked past the Bolton’s Mega-Store across the street, too.
She hadn’t loved that part, but like all new buildings in the historic district, the giant store had been designed to fit in with the local architecture. The fact that the chain carried a small selection of books was a concern, but she’d grown up in an indie bookstore, knew the readers who frequented them. They bought indie on principle, wanting to support what was quickly becoming a dying form of retail. She might lose a handful of customers to the other store’s lower prices — possible only because of their volume — but their selection was small, limited only to bestsellers. Besides, her immediate neighbors consisted of The Big Bean coffee shop and Rosie’s boutique. The Big Bean had the best coffee in the city, and Rosie’s was filled with a curated selection of handmade dresses that were Elle’s addiction. In the end, she’d decided the location’s strong points outweighed her distaste for the mega-store, and she’d signed the lease, nervously plunking down the money she’d worked six years to save.
Now she had to acknowledge that she’d been wrong. It would have been foolhardy for another indie to open nearby, but a big box store that was already there? They could expand their bookstore offerings with the stroke of a pen.
And apparently that’s what they planned to do.
She’d read about the initiative online (but only after a stiff shot of tequila): a full-service bookstore, complete with a cozy coffee shop and a vast selection of books in every genre, including an extensive children’s section where kids could lounge and read. And all at the behest of Malcolm Glover, the company’s new CEO, a man with a reputation for putting profit over everything.
She and Zach, owner of The Big Bean, had commiserated endlessly in the months since the announcement, trying to come up with initiatives that would increase their value-add to customers who might be lured by the cheap prices and convenience of one-stop shopping at Bolton’s. Would it work?
She didn’t know.
Sighing, she wandered between the tables at the front of the store, tidying up as she went, adjusting books, running her hand along the smooth covers she knew as intimately as her own face in the mirror. There wasn’t room at Matheson and Matheson for a children’s reading nook — or an adult reading nook for that matter — and she got her tea and coffee from the Bean next door.
Matheson and Matheson wasn’t about amenities; it was about community. About service. She knew most of the regulars by name, knew the books the
ir children liked, loved talking with them about new releases they would enjoy, classics they might have overlooked. It wasn’t fair trade coffee or a cozy reading nook, but it was all she had to offer.
And the thing is, she didn’t blame the people who bought from stores like Bolton’s. Life was expensive. Most of them were hard-working people with families to support. Elle didn’t have a houseful of kids who needed school clothes or wanted books. She could afford to shop on principle. Not everyone had that luxury.
She stepped behind the register, took a drink of her cold tea, her eyes falling on the Buddha statue by the register. She’d been moved when her mother had given it to her as a Grand Opening presence; the statue had sat near the register of the original Matheson and Matheson. The one that had been stolen from them by Hathaway Holding when the company bought the row of buildings in downtown La Jolla, jacked up the rent, and forced her parents and nine other small businesses out of the market.
There were some things that took her back to being a child in an instant: the smell of the store, the weight of a picture book in her hands, the Buddha statue.
But the statue had another connotation now, and she would never forgive Lachlan Hunt for that.
Would never forgive him for a lot of things.
They’d met at UC Davis freshman year. Lachlan had been like the sun itself, a beacon that drew her with his heat and brilliance. She’d been at one of the many early meet-and-greets, fidgeting with a bottle of water, wondering how long she had to stay without seeming like an anti-social freak, when she’d felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, a shiver run down her spine. She’d turned around to find a blond god wearing a Buddha pendant staring at her from across the room.
She’d forced herself not to look around for the inevitable gorgeous-and-skimpily-clad girl nearby. Because there was no way this guy was looking at her. She was almost relieved when her roommate dragged her off to play one of the games set up by the RAs.
Rogue Love (Kings of Corruption Book 1) Page 17