by Sybil Bartel
I stepped in front of the slider then I fucking unloaded.
The glass shattered, the bullets hit their marks, but I kept fucking firing. The entire goddamn magazine. Then I let the rifle drop, and with my 9mm aimed at Dante, I kicked the spidered glass in and stepped through to the cabin.
Looking less than fucking happy, Dante held his hands up. “Asher,” he stated like he wasn’t about to fucking die.
One of the fuckers that had been playing cards moved his arm.
I fired a single shot to his head then aimed back at Dante. “Where are the other four and the captain?”
Dante smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“No movement on deck,” Luna said through the comm.
I should’ve fucking killed Dante on the spot, but I wanted him to sweat. Then I wanted him to fucking beg me for death. “Wanna know what I would’ve done?”
“Taken the girl, fucked her, then held her for ransom?” Dante mused before his expression turned lethal. “You don’t know who you’ve fucked with, Ty Asher.”
“What will it matter when you’re dead?”
“I’m not going to die,” he said confidently. “You are.”
My ears ringing from the AR-15, I didn’t hear him until it was too late.
Glass crunched underfoot and a barrel hit the back of my head. “Don’t move.”
Motherfucker.
“Kid,” I stated.
“Report,” Luna clipped.
“I’m not a kid,” the kid protested, shoving the barrel harder.
“You’re too fucking young to be working for this asshole,” I told him.
“Shut up,” the kid snapped.
“Sharp inhale if you’re in trouble,” Luna ordered.
Dante smirked. “You lose. Lower your weapon.”
I kept my breathing even. “Make me.”
Dante looked over my shoulder. “Thomas.” He nodded. “Take care of him.”
“You kill me, kid, you’re killing your future.” I took a gamble. “How many times have you pulled the trigger? You know what’s gonna happen with a point-blank headshot? You ever tasted brain matter?”
“Goddamn it, Ty, report,” Luna clipped. “I don’t have eyes inside that cabin.”
“Shut up,” the kid barked at me.
“Do the right thing,” I warned him.
“You killed Santos and blamed it on me!” the kid yelled.
I put two and two together. “I didn’t blame shit on you. I take responsibility for every single one of my kills. Whatever the fuck Dante told you, he’s lying. He knows who killed his sick fuck of a cousin.”
“Shoot him!” Dante ordered.
“I’m coming in,” Luna clipped. “Thirty seconds.”
“I’m giving you one last chance to make the right decision, kid. Drop your weapon.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Dante stood. “Do you need me to do it for you, Thomas?”
“Time’s up.” I gave the kid my last warning. “Now or never.”
The kid lost it. “I told you to shut up!”
Ducking, I spun.
Before the kid’s brain synapses fired and made the connection to move, I grabbed his trigger hand, forced his aim on Dante and fired the gun for him.
Three shots to the heart, Dante dropped.
“Ty!” Luna yelled through the comm.
I let go of the kid’s hand and glared at him. “That was doing the right thing.” I touched my comm. “Four guards and the captain unaccounted for.”
“Copy,” Luna answered. “Fifteen seconds.”
His chest heaving, the kid stared at Dante.
“Where are the others?” I demanded.
“What others?” he asked, his voice flat.
“Four of the eight guards on the island and the captain.”
The kid didn’t look up. “Two are still on the island, two went with Addis. The captain is asleep in his berth.”
Luna’s voice came both through the comm and through the broken slider door. “On board.” Aiming at the kid, he stepped inside the cabin. “Threats?”
“One,” I answered. “The captain. Supposedly sleeping in his quarters.”
“On it.” Luna spared me a glance before heading toward the stairs going below deck. “You got this?”
I tipped my chin. “Handled.”
Luna disappeared down the stairs.
I gave the kid an option. “You have two choices.”
His gaze moved to the three dead guards. “Which are?”
He was a hell of a lot calmer than I thought he’d be, I’d give him that. “Leave and don’t look back.”
“Or?”
“Make better fucking choices.”
“You’re here too,” he accused.
I leveled him with a look.
Inhaling, he let it out slow. “I’m not stupid. I know you did that on purpose. There’ll be footage of me on the marina’s security cameras. When the cops show, I’ll be the one going down for this because my prints are on the gun.”
“You play, you pay.” I told myself I had no sympathy for him.
Luna came up the stairs. “Captain’s handled. We need to go.” He glanced at the kid and switched to Spanish. “Why is he still alive?”
“He’s just a kid,” I answered back in Spanish.
The kid looked between us. “I can understand you two.”
“Jesu-fucking-cristo,” Luna swore under his breath before glancing at the kid. “What’s with the haircut? You served?”
The kid straightened his shoulders. “Yes, sir, the Marines. I was medically discharged.”
“For?”
“Preexisting condition.” The kid didn’t elaborate.
Luna narrowed his eyes at him. “Name?”
“Thomas Knight.”
Luna glanced at Dante then back at the kid. “You shoot him?”
I gave the kid credit, he didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Would you do it again?” Luna asked.
The kid looked me right in the eye as he answered Luna. “Yes.”
Luna glanced at me. “Am I gonna regret this?”
I didn’t lie. “Yep.”
Luna nodded slow then looked back at the kid. “You done with this cartel bullshit?”
The kid nodded emphatically.
Luna stared at him. “You want an honest job?”
“Yes, sir,” the kid practically yelled.
“You’re hired.” Luna looked at me. “He’s your responsibility.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, I’m not a babysitter.”
Luna eyed me. “You need something to do besides pulling a trigger.”
“This isn’t it,” I bitched.
“Train him, teach him how to shoot. He doesn’t even hold his damn rifle correctly.”
I glared at the kid, and he moved his finger to the ready position on the trigger guard. “No fucking kidding.”
The engines on the yacht started up.
“Let’s go.” Luna pushed past me.
Shit. “I thought you said you took care of the captain.”
The kid looked between us like he didn’t know what the fuck to do.
“I did.” Luna paused to look over his shoulder at me. “The captain’s gonna clean house.”
I picked up on his last word. “How clean?”
“Boat and island,” Luna confirmed. “Not his first rodeo.”
“And the caretaker couple in residence?” I hated loose ends.
“He’ll handle that too.”
Christ. “How much did that cost us?”
“Not as much as you’d think,” Luna evaded.
I nodded. I didn’t need to know what deal he’d struck. “And the security footage of the dock?”
“I’ll hack in and scrub it after we get out of here. Let’s go.” Luna crossed the deck.
I glanced behind me to see if the kid was coming, but I shouldn’t have bothered. He was right on my six.
I shook my head.
“You fuck this up, I’m taking you out myself.”
“Yes, sir.” He fucking saluted me.
“Do that again and I’ll shoot you,” I warned.
He instantly dropped his hand. “Yes, si—”
“Ty,” I corrected.
He opened his mouth, and I held my hand up.
“Ándale,” Luna snapped, before glancing at me. “And you can tell your chica yourself she’s sexy. Collins is bringing her in to L and A.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “What?” Where thirty Marines worked, half of whom were single? No fucking way. “Why the hell is Collins doing that?” She was supposed to go to her father’s guarded estate.
“She requested not to go home.” Luna shrugged.
Jesus fucking Christ. “I need to get back to Miami. Now.”
FOR ALMOST TWO HOURS COLLINS had been breaking the speed limit and diligently silent as his gaze made a continuous three-point sweep between the road in front of us, his rearview mirror and his side mirror.
I was almost lulled into a false sense of security when his cell rang and he answered it through the SUV’s speaker.
“Collins.”
“Heads up.” André Luna’s voice filled the cabin. “You’ve got two in the SUV on your tail.”
“I know,” Collins answered. “I’m five minutes out from Christensen’s, and they’re holding steady.”
“Then they’re waiting to see where you land,” Ty cut in. “That’s the only reason they haven’t made a move yet. That or they can’t get in touch with their boss.”
My heart leapt, and I almost wept at the sound of his voice.
“Target down?” Collins asked.
Ty started to speak, but André cut in. “Unsecure line.”
“Copy that,” Collins responded. “Approaching destination. Report later.” He started to hang up.
“Wait,” Ty cut in. “She okay?”
Collins looked at me in the rearview mirror and raised an eyebrow.
Oh God. I wanted to speak to him more than I wanted my next breath, but he was the one who’d said nothing could come of us. He’d said he didn’t do repeats. Yes, he’d gone after Dante, and if his cryptic statement was any indication, he’d gotten to him. I owed him a debt I could never repay. I owed him my life. But I just couldn’t bring myself to answer him.
I shook my head at Collins.
“She’s good,” Collins answered for me.
“Am I on speaker?” Ty asked.
Collins hesitated. “Yes.”
“Ludeviene,” Ty clipped. “Answer me. You okay?”
Tears welled and my heart hurt. I wasn’t okay. I may never be okay again. And part of that was because of him, because of his stupid, stupid, devastating smile. And the simple fact that he didn’t coddle the rich girl he’d found tied and gagged and bleeding. He’d given her a gun and told her to drive a boat to her own freedom if she had too. Then he’d tossed her in the ocean and trusted her to get herself to safety.
No one had ever trusted me to take care of myself.
Not even my parents.
I’d had to beg to move out of their house after I’d graduated college.
“Ludeviene,” Ty snapped.
Startled out of my thoughts, I flinched, but then I turned toward the window and pulled my feet up.
“Goddamn it,” Ty cursed. “Collins, is she speaking at all?”
“Affirmative,” Collins answered, slowing the SUV down. “Tail right on my six. Hanging up.” He no sooner ended the call than the Escalade was rear-ended.
Letting out a frightened gasp, I grabbed the seat belt across my chest. “What was that?”
“Hang tight.” Collins took a corner too sharp then floored it as he dialed using the car’s Bluetooth.
A man with an accent answered on the first ring. “Ja.”
“Coming in hot,” Collins warned.
“We are ready.” The accented man hung up.
“Here we go,” Collins said almost to himself as he took another tight turn onto a gravel road lined with tall seagrapes.
The SUV was rammed from behind again, and my head whipped forward.
“Hold on,” Collins said calmly as he gunned the heavy engine.
We were rear-ended a third time, and I cried out in both fear and pain as the seat belt cut into my chest. “What are they doing?” We were on a one-lane road with vegetation so thick on either side of us, there was nowhere to go.
Collins glanced in the rearview mirror. “Making their only play. Hold on, they’re coming in again.”
He no sooner said the words and they crashed into us again, but this time, Collins didn’t floor it. He let his foot off the gas and I panicked.
“Don’t slow down!”
Reserved, calm, giving equal attention to his rearview mirror and the darkened lane ahead of us, he spoke slowly. “Wait… waaaaait.”
A turn in the road appeared.
Then all of a sudden, he spoke in a rushed clip, “Hang on!” Yanking the wheel at the same time he made the turn, he gave the engine gas.
The giant SUV was thrown into a tight arc, gravel kicked up, and floodlights burst the night into artificial brightness like a sports stadium.
Collins slammed on the brakes as we spun in a complete one-eighty. Then he threw it in reverse and gunned it, backing us into an open garage. His gun drawn, he threw his door open and aimed at the vehicle that’d been chasing us. As it came to a skidding halt, the tattooed bodyguard from the club stepped out of the shadows with a rifle, and a third man appeared from the opposite side of the gravel driveway.
Taller than any man I’d ever seen and as big as a Viking, the third man casually walked toward the SUV that’d followed us. With an impossibly large shotgun slung over his shoulder, he didn’t even pause when the driver opened his window and aimed at him.
“Don’t come another step closer, motherfucker,” the driver warned the third man.
A man in the passenger seat aimed his gun at the tattooed bodyguard. “Give us the girl.”
I shrunk in my seat.
The Viking-sized man stopped a foot from the SUV. “You are trespassing.” His deep voice rumbled with an accent. “Leave or I will shoot you.”
“Give us the girl,” the man in the passenger seat repeated.
“Last chance,” the Viking-sized man warned.
The man in the passenger seat raised his voice. “I said—”
The tattooed bodyguard fired two shots.
My body jerked, blood splatter covered the inside of the SUV, Collins holstered his gun, Viking opened the driver door and a body fell to the gravel.
The tattooed man slung his rifle to his back by a shoulder strap and opened the passenger door. “Neutralized,” he announced, pulling the dead man from the passenger side out of the vehicle and letting him fall to the ground.
The Viking-sized man glanced at Collins. “Take the female and leave.”
“Copy that.” Collins got back behind the wheel and closed the door. Slow and careful, he pulled the Escalade out of the garage, drove around the mess in front of us and headed down the same single, canopied lane we’d come in on.
I found my voice. “Is it over?”
“Is it ever?” he countered.
THREE HOURS.
Three hours of goddamn hell.
She hadn’t spoken to me. Despite what Collins said, she wasn’t okay. I’d wanted to call her a hundred fucking times over the past three hours as we drove back to Miami from Key West, but I didn’t need to have a damn phone conversation with her.
I needed to see her.
I was in such a goddamn rush to get to her, I didn’t even let Luna pause to get my truck. I’d called Preston and asked for another fucking favor.
“I understand that, Mr. Loic,” Luna spoke into his cell. “But your daughter requested to not be brought to your residence.”
Loic, the fucker, had called Luna five times during the drive back, demanding to have his daughter returned to
him like she was a piece of property.
Luna repeated what he’d said four other times. “After I’ve spoken with her, I’ll call you. That’s the best I can do, Mr. Loic. She’s a legal adult.” He listened a beat. “As soon as I can, I will. Goodbye.” He hung up. “No wonder the chica didn’t want to go back to that.”
I didn’t say shit, and neither did the kid in the back seat.
My leg bounced as Luna pulled off the highway and cut east toward the office building that housed Luna and Associates.
“I’m talking to her first,” I warned. And if she gave me her words, I made a promise to myself I was quitting smoking.
Luna didn’t argue. His cell rang and he answered it through the SUV’s Bluetooth. “Luna.”
“Boss.” Tyler’s cheerful voice came through the speakers. “You’re all set. The footage from the marina is scrubbed. Anything else you need tonight?”
“No, gracias. Head home.”
“Copy that.” Tyler hung up.
“So that’s it?” the kid asked from the back seat. “I’m good?”
Luna pulled in to the garage at L and A and parked. “You’re all good.”
I didn’t wait to hear the kid’s response. I was out of the SUV and striding toward the elevator. My trigger finger twitching, jonesing for a fucking cigarette, I hit the call button with the side of my fist.
The door opened and the kid called out to me.
“Hey, Ty! Wait up.”
Ignoring him, I stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the fourth floor where Collins had reported he’d dumped her in the client apartment next to Mercy and Nash.
“Let him go,” Luna told the kid.
The elevator door slid shut, and I paced as I asked myself the same damn question I’d asked for three hours. Why wasn’t she talking? Why wasn’t she fucking talking?
She’d made me a promise.
Everyone else could fuck off, but she was supposed to give me her words, and goddamn it, I wanted them. I didn’t deserve them, but I wanted them and I was gonna find out what the fuck was going on.
The elevator doors opened, and I strode down the hall. I didn’t pause, I didn’t knock, I didn’t consider for a single fucking second that she might not want to see me, because I wanted to see her.
I needed to see her.
Scanning my key card against the security lock for the apartment, I threw the door open and stormed in before slamming it shut behind me.