She’d been able to cancel her standing order, and, having spent the past two hours on the phone with various vendors, assure them that payment was on the way and that there would be no outstanding invoices by next week. Only when she was caught up could she take a serious look at the accounting to see what other damage Richard had wrought on her restaurant.
“Not only Richard,” she muttered and tossed multiple heads of lettuce into a plastic bin. She was just as responsible. She’d been mired in grief and all too happy to let someone else take control of what she should have been paying close attention to. She’d find a way, some way, to drag True back; she hadn’t worked this long and hard to give up. She certainly wasn’t going to give Cruz Medina the power to destroy her life.
True would be the phoenix of restaurants and rise from the ashes of scandal better and bigger than before.
As for the food she was left with, she would be spending her day making donations and deliveries to various food banks and homeless shelters. No way was she going to let any of this go to waste.
“Figured I’d find you here.”
Tatum yelped, jumped back and pressed a hand to her racing heart. “Sam!” She all but shrieked at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I was going to do what you’ve already started.” He set his phone on the stainless steel counter beside hers. “Need some help?”
“I would love some.”
Her phone buzzed for what must have been the tenth time in the past hour and she could tell by Sam’s expression who it was. “Cruz?” she asked.
“Guy’s got a set, I’ll give him that. Man.” He shook his head and joined her at the refrigerator. “A cop. Ty was right. I so should have seen that.”
“If it matters, he never suspected you,” Tatum said.
Sam hefted a box of produce, arched a brow at her.
“Okay, maybe before he met you, but not after.” At least she didn’t think Cruz did. Honesty wasn’t exactly at the top of his list of positive qualities. The loading bay door rumbled. They stopped, looked at each other. “Someone come with you? Ty?”
“Nah. He has his grandkids today. Did you know he has grandkids?”
“I found out this week,” Tatum said. “I’ve had a lot of information to process. Maybe it’s Quallis.”
“We need some more crates anyway. I’ll go check.” Sam set the box on the counter and headed for the loading bay.
Smiling for the first time in a while, Tatum resumed unloading the perishables from the walk-in. She heard voices, Sam and at least one other, muted. There was no way of telling who it was from here.
Curious, she closed the fridge and headed off to join them, clicking on the light in the storeroom.
“Sam?” she yelled. “Did you find who—”
Bang! Bang bang!
“Sam?” Tatum ran toward the sudden crash, skidding to a halt as she saw Sam lying on the ground, a thick pool of blood spreading under him. “Sam!” She raced forward, dropped to her knees and pressed her hand against his side, the only place she could see a wound. “Sam, what happened? Who did this?”
He blinked, his dark eyes wide with shock. “Tatum.” Blood trickled out the side of his mouth. “Tatum, run.”
“Run? No, you need help.” She looked behind her but didn’t see anyone around. The loading bay door was open, as was the van’s back double doors. “I have to call an ambulance.” She patted her bloodied hands against her shirt, over her pockets. “I left my cell. I need to go get it. I’ll get help, okay?” She grabbed his face. “You stay with me, you hear me? I can’t do this without you!”
“Go.” He tried to sit up, but his face went ashen and he gasped, coughed up blood.
“Stay still. Sam, please, just don’t move. I’m going to—” She turned to race back to the kitchen and slammed right into a solid form. She screamed, jumped back, and barely had a blink of a second to register what was happening.
He dived for her, grabbed her around the waist and threw her into the van. The doors slammed before she could scramble to her knees. She clawed for the handle, screaming for help. Two hands locked around her ankles and pulled her back. She slammed face-first onto the floor of the van. Dazed, she rolled onto her back, tasted blood in her mouth.
She pushed over onto her side as the engine roared to life and the van began to move.
* * *
“Tatum?” Cruz figured yelling his presence was enough of a warning as he pulled open the unlocked door of True. Irritation flickered. What was she thinking not locking the door behind her? If she wanted to strike out at him, fine, but he wasn’t going to let her ignore him. “Tatum, I know you’re here. I know you don’t want me here but...” He slammed through the kitchen’s swinging double doors.
Empty.
Crates and boxes of food were stacked around the kitchen, on the counters. The walk-in fridge was closed. Cruz pulled out his phone, dialed her cell again.
The buzzing from the counter had him walking forward. “Tatum!”
He picked up her phone, glanced at the second one lying beside it. He tapped the screen, saw an image of a laughing Sam with his mom appear. Of course Sam was here. Relief she wasn’t alone surged through him, only to be stifled at the continuing silence. “Tatum? Sam?”
A crash exploded in the storage room.
Cruz raced down the hall, spotted the pile of boxes. The catering van was gone. Something moved beneath the boxes. Moved and groaned. He threw them to the side, uncovered a trembling, bleeding Sam. He swore, ripped off his jacket and wadded it up to push against the younger man’s chest. “Sam, what happened? Where’s Tatum?”
Sam blinked hard to stay awake. “Pike.” Blood continued to trickle out the side of his mouth. “Couldn’t stop him. Took her. Get her back.” He grabbed hold of Cruz’s shirt, hauled himself up. “Go get her back.”
“I will.” Panic and terror battled for control, but Cruz eased Sam back, kept pressure on the wound and pulled out his cell. “Detective Medina, Narcotics. I need an ambulance in the back alley behind True. I’ve got a single gunshot—what?” he asked when Sam shook his head, held up three fingers.
Cruz swore again, yanked up Sam’s shirt, then hauled him onto his side. “Be advised victim has three gunshots to the torso. Two appear to be through and through.”
Sam coughed. His eyes rolled back in his head. Cruz pressed two fingers against the side of his neck. The pulse was there—faint, but still there. “You hang on, kid, you hear me? I expect you to kick my butt for what I did to Tatum.”
He could have sworn he heard Sam try to laugh.
Footsteps pounded behind him. Cruz looked up and found two uniformed officers headed his way. “Over here!” he yelled. “Ambulance is on its way. I want you to keep pressure on this wound here.” He dragged the young woman down into his position. “You, call in an all-points for one Jeremy Pike. He’s driving a white van, with True Catering on the outside.”
“On it,” the officer said.
Cruz raced back through the restaurant and out to his car. He was pulling away as he hit Dial on his car’s dashboard phone. Waited for his LT to pick up.
“Report, Medina.”
“I was too late. Tatum’s gone. Witness said Pike took her. I need you to access the GPS tracker I put on the True catering van.” Thank God he hadn’t had the chance to remove it yet. “I’ve got it bookmarked on my laptop.”
“Give me a few.”
Cruz drove mindlessly, uncertain where to head.
“Okay, Cruz, looks like he’s headed to the warehouse area. I can get you a precise location in a bit.”
“On my way.”
“Backup’s rolling. Ten minutes out.”
Cruz hung up. Ten minutes. He had less than that before sirens rolled and all hell broke loose. Ten minutes to save the woman he loved.
* * *
“Pike.” Tatum’s vision finally cleared enough for her to make out the driver’s profile. Even if she hadn’t seen his face, that tattoo was unmistakable. “Pike, what are you doing? What’s going on?”
She pushed to her knees and dragged herself forward. Another headache pounded its way through her skull.
“Just stay back and shut up.” Pike’s order shot out like bullets. “We’re almost there.”
“Almost where?”
“You’re the only one who can get me out of this.”
“Get you out of what? Shooting Sam?”
“Stupid of him to get in the way. Stupid, stupid!” He slammed his hand against the steering wheel.
“Jeremy, tell me what’s happening. Please.” It couldn’t hurt to be patient, but something told her it would hurt a lot more to panic.
“They want their drugs.” He looked at Tatum. “They think you have them. They want to talk to you.”
Reality struck hard. He was taking her to the dealers working with Richard. No. The dealers working with him. “You’re working with Richard.”
“Richard was working for us! It should have been easy, should have been so easy, but then you had to bring in that cop. I knew, I knew I’d seen him before.” He gripped the wheel, jaw pulsing. “Took me a while to remember, but when I did I knew, I knew he was a cop!”
“Where did you see Cruz?”
Pike laughed. “Like I’m going to confess everything to you. What do you think this is? A TV show?”
“I think I trusted you enough to hire you and I deserve an explanation.” She looked at his hands, the way his knuckles went white as they tensed. The oversize gold ring on one finger. The same ring she’d seen flash in the glow of the grocery store parking lot. “It was you.” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but once she did, there was no taking it back. “You tried to run me down.”
“You were supposed to be cooking! Supposed to be focused on the critic. But you couldn’t be distracted. Not with that cop with you twenty-four seven.”
That cop. Cruz. Hope sprung to life inside of her. He had Richard in custody. He’d probably questioned him. Was it possible...was there even a chance Cruz would know she was in trouble? She needed to stall, needed to give Cruz time to catch up with them.
“Pike, if you take me to these men, they’ll kill me.”
“Better you than me.”
“You aren’t going to get away. Not from Cruz.”
“Cruz.” Pike snorted. “Should have killed him that night I killed his partner. Then none of this would have happened.”
She tasted bile in her mouth as nausea surged inside her. She pressed a hand to her stomach, willed the panic to subside. “His partner isn’t dead.”
Pike whirled in his seat, accusing eyes on her before he refocused on the nearly empty road.
“He’s in a recovery unit,” Tatum lied. “You haven’t killed anyone yet, Pike. Please. There’s still time to make something good come out of this. Don’t do this. Don’t take me to...” He turned into a fenced area of warehouses. All these buildings, all this space. There was no way Cruz would find her here. “Pike, please. I don’t want to die.”
“Too late.” Pike hunched over the steering wheel. “We’re already here. There.” He pointed to the collection of cars just inside a wide-open door. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen them do this before. It’ll be quick. You won’t know it’s happening.”
“Yes, I will.” She spoke softly as her mind raced. Above the sound of the engine, she thought she heard sirens, but she had to be imagining it. Manifesting it. She needed to believe, even as she accepted the odds were against her.
These were the men, Pike and these cartel members, responsible for so much pain, so much suffering. So many deaths. The drugs they sold and dealt were only to line their own pockets, and their greed knew no end. This was what Cruz had spent his life trying to stop. He’d taken an oath, promised his partner, dedicated his life to protecting people and stopping the same kind of criminals who in a matter of minutes would kill her. Forgiveness, she realized, wasn’t so hard to manage, after all.
If she was going to die, she wasn’t going to die a victim. She’d go out fighting.
It was what Cruz would do.
Tatum threw herself forward, grabbed hold of the steering wheel and slammed her foot hard over Pike’s. The van lurched forward, speeding up to the point the entire vehicle began to shake.
Pike tried to get his arms free, but she pushed all her weight into him, elbowed him in the face when he nearly knocked her aside. She lifted her foot, slammed it down again and wrenched the wheel to the side.
The momentum tossed her into the passenger seat. Her shoulder cracked hard against the door as the van spun, lost traction and, for an instant, seemed to be flying. She grabbed hold of the seat belt strap and yanked it down as the tires caught and flipped, once, twice, too many times to count.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the sound of crushing metal and a scream that went suddenly silent. When the van skidded to a stop, the sirens blared louder. Shouts and cries were followed by gunshots. Tatum lay there, bathed and covered in shattered glass. Tiny pinpricks of pain dotted her face and arms. She sat wedged between the dash and seat, tried to catch her breath and assess if she could move.
More shouting. Pounding footsteps. Two more shots. Tatum opened her eyes and found Pike’s dead-eyed stare. Blood covered most of his face as he hung suspended by his seat belt, his arms dangling toward her.
Tatum whimpered, kicked out, desperate to get free. She could climb out if she could just—
“Tatum!” Cruz’s voice blasted through the ringing in her ears. “Tatum!”
“Cruz.” She had to clear her throat. “Cruz, I’m here! In here!” She pulled with her arms, hoisted herself up only an inch before Cruz appeared on top of the van. He lay there, half in the shattered windshield. She smiled up at him, half laughing, half sobbing. “Would now be a good time to tell you you’re forgiven?”
“I don’t think there’s a better one.” He reached out his arm. “Take hold, babe.”
She released the belt and reached up. The instant her hand locked around his she knew, without hesitation, without reservation, that this was where she belonged. With him.
Minutes later he was pulling her off the van and hauling her into his arms, holding on so tight she couldn’t breathe. And she’d never been happier.
“I was afraid I was too late.” He led her away from the van, toward one of the waiting ambulances. “I was so sure I’d lost you.”
“No way that’s happening now.” As she clung to him she looked around at the chaos she’d wrought. “Did I do that?”
“A woman of many talents. Thanks to your stunt driving we’ve got the entire cartel. Including Javier Nacio Sr.”
“Pike’s dead.”
“Yeah, I saw.”
“He shot Johnny.” She felt him tense, then his hold tightened. “He could have shot you, too, but he chose not to. I’m so glad he did. It was maybe the only good thing he’s done.”
Cruz set her back, caught her face in his hands. “You aren’t going to fight me on going to the hospital are you?”
“The hospital.” She gasped and felt the first twinge of pain. “Sam! He shot Sam! Oh, Cruz...”
“He’s alive,” Cruz said with a nod. “Last I heard he was still alive.”
“I need to be there.”
“Yeah.” Cruz pulled her back into his arms. “So do I.”
* * *
“I am so done with hospitals,” Tatum groaned as she uncurled from the torture device of a chair in the waiting room. She accepted the mediocre coffee Cruz handed her. She’d been checked out and discharged, but only because Cruz had promised to monitor her injuries. She had bruised ribs, multiple lacerations and another crack on the head. She
’d be out of commission for at least a week, the same amount of time True would be closed.
The Chicago Police Department had also released a public statement thanking Tatum and the employees of True for helping to bring down a significant narcotics ring in the city. With Richard Kirkman cutting a deal with the feds, True and Tatum were in the clear to reopen with the restaurant’s saved and praised reputation.
Or so Cruz’s lieutenant had told her when she’d arrived at the hospital to touch base with Cruz. She sat with them and Sam’s mother, who had been brought to the hospital by Ty. The rest of True’s employees filed in to wait for word on their friend.
Hours ticked by. Tatum dozed, her head tucked into Cruz’s shoulder, the sound of his deep voice lulling her into a fitful sleep. By the time he shook her awake it seemed as if forgiveness, while not completely earned yet, was soon to come from the staff. Sitting among her friends, her family, peace settled over her corner of the world.
“Doctor’s here,” Cruz murmured as she sat up.
“Right, okay.” She steeled herself. “Dr. DeSantis, how is he?”
“Very lucky.” The female surgeon removed her surgical cap and gave an encouraging smile. “We removed his spleen and repaired some internal damage. He must have turned at just the right time. The other two bullets missed any vital organs. It’ll be a while before he’s on his feet again, but I expect he’ll make a full recovery.”
Sam’s mother let out a relieved sob that brought tears to Tatum’s eyes. “Thank you so much.”
Dr. DeSantis left them alone.
Cruz swore when his cell rang.
“What?” Tatum wasn’t sure she could take any more unsettling news today.
“It’s Jade.” He flinched, glanced at his watch. “I need to take this.” He held up a hand at Tatum’s curious expression. “Jade. Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten. I can be there in—what?”
“What?” Tatum couldn’t remember ever seeing him so shocked. “What’s happened?” He reached for her hand, squeezed so hard she had to move in to ease the pressure.
“Okay, yeah. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Tell him...” Cruz’s eyes misted. “Tell him I’m bringing someone with me.” He cupped Tatum’s cheek. “Someone special. Yeah. I’ll see you soon.” He hung up. “It’s Johnny.” He backed up, looked between his LT and Tatum. “He’s awake.”
Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2021 Page 23