In the Shadow of Malice Book 3

by Nancy C. Weeks

  Calista peered out from under Adam’s arm and gasped. The entire front of the unit was one huge ball of fire. She bucked her hips, trying to get his weight off her. “We have to get out of here.”

  “Wait,” Adam roared.

  The second the words were out of his mouth, something else exploded next door, spraying chunks of concrete over them. The force of the blast slammed Adam’s forehead hard into the back of Calista’s head, and her chin hit the concrete. The metallic taste of blood spread into her mouth as she choked back a cough.

  Adam hauled her to her feet. He yanked his jacket off, drew her to him, and placed the jacket over their heads. Calista’s lungs burned from the heat and smoke each time she gasped in a breath of air.

  “We have to get through the flames,” Adam said, with his mouth next to her ear. “Keep your head down. I’ll get you out. Move on three.”

  “Wait.”

  “Damn it, Calista.”

  She bent and grabbed the small album from the debris and tucked it under her arm.

  “We have to go now!”

  “Three!” Calista cried out, sucking in a smoke-filled gulp of air.

  Adam kicked the boxes out of his way and raced through the flame. The intense heat slammed into Calista. She held her breath and shut her eyes.

  It took only seconds to clear the flames. Adam searched the road with his gun ready, but the men had disappeared.

  “What is stored in that unit?”

  Adam peered into the opening. “Fireworks, boxes and boxes of fireworks.”

  A whistling shrill hit Calista’s ears. She glared at Adam.

  “Shit! Run!”

  Adam grabbed her hand and they dashed across the road, just as a hot flash of air whooshed from the unit, followed by an earsplitting explosion. A gust of piercing, hot air lifted them both off the ground and sent them flying into the middle of the street.

  Calista held out her hands, knowing they wouldn’t lessen the contact to the hard asphalt. As her body slammed to the ground, the last ounce of air escaped her lungs. Pain shot down her arms to her hands as tiny, loose rocks sliced into her palm.

  A high-pitched ring drummed between her ears. Calista rolled onto her back and let out a painful groan. She eased her head up and searched for Adam. He laid only inches from her, unmoving.

  God, Adam!

  Lifting herself onto her hands and knees, she crawled the short distance, and eased down next to Adam’s face. His eyes were closed, and blood drained from his nose and mouth.

  “Adam?”

  Touching the side of his neck, she let out a heavy sigh of relief when his pulse bounced against her fingers. She laid a hand gently against his cheek. In a breathless whisper, she called out to him again as tears burned her eyes. “Please, Adam, say something.”

  “Fuck,” he moaned as his hand covered his face. He rolled over and sat up, drawing her into his lap. His hands roamed over her head, face, and arms.

  “Are you okay?”

  "I think so.” She breathed in deeply. “It just hurts everywhere.”

  Adam rose, pulling her up with him. Calista’s knees wobbled. She reached for Adam’s arm and found her balance.

  “The damn ringing won’t stop,” she said, tapping and pulling on her earlobes as her gaze settled on the scorched units.

  “We have to get out of here,” Adam said, tugging her hand.

  “Wait.”

  “Can’t. Police.”

  “What police?” Calista tried to get her feet to cooperate.

  Adam didn’t slow down to explain. He charged toward the passenger side of the sedan. The windshield was in shards over the dash and the front seat, but the rest of the vehicle looked untouched. In less than thirty seconds, they were on the highway. Calista watched as fire response vehicles turned into the driveway of the storage facility. After several blocks, Adam entered the expressway.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  She glanced down at her hands, the cuts and scrapes beginning to burn. She picked out a tiny piece of asphalt from her palm. “Can we go back to the beach house?”

  “No.”

  “The plane?”

  “Calista, we can’t go back, period. If they found us at the storage unit, Ludis knows my fucking life story.”

  Calista cringed as she struggled to draw in a breath of clean air. Her lungs were raw, her nostrils filled with the acid stench of soot. After letting out a racking cough, she whispered, “I don’t understand.”

  “Someone is feeding Ludis information on me. We are on our own.”

  “Not your brothers. They wouldn’t do that.”

  “No, not my brothers, but Emil must have had someone very close to him who is now sucking up to Ludis.”

  Adam’s words finally hit home. Everything in the storage unit was gone. There was no disk, the only thing Adam could use to fight this nightmare.

  “Why don’t they just leave you alone? You don’t have the disk and nothing to hold over Ludis.”

  Adam went still. The silence between them only revved up the panic building in Calista.

  “Ludis knows me. I will never let him go free. I couldn’t save Annija or Rina, but I will take care of Ludis.”

  “Then why look for the disk if you are just going to…”

  “Calista, with the disk, there may have been a way to take him down without crossing that line.”

  Her mind reeled, grasping for a solution. This was so far out of her experience, she had no idea what to do next. Without the disk, Adam and Anna would never be safe. And where did that leave the McNeil family?

  She circled her waist with her arm to ward off the chill that settled deep in her spine. A thick substance coated her arm right below the elbow. She bit down on her bottom lip as the pain from her side cursed through her.

  “Adam,” she moaned.

  He skirted around traffic, then turned to her. Shock slowly seeped into his every feature. “Oh shit. Where are you hurt?”

  “My right side.” She set her hand on the area, as the pain began to burn. “It’s just a scratch.”

  He lifted her hand. It was covered with blood. “Does this look like just a scratch?”

  He hit the accelerator and raced across four lanes of traffic, leaving behind honking horns and screeching brakes. He exited the freeway and drove down the access road, turning into the parking lot of a large shopping mall. Finding an isolated spot, he slammed the car in park and got out. He charged around the sedan, threw open the passenger side door, and knelt.

  “Calista, move your hand so I can see.” Adam’s voice was gentle, but his eyes had transformed to pools of black. He eased up her stained T-shirt and gasped. “Shit!” He shook his head. “It’s deep.”

  He used the edge of her shirt and gently pulled on something in the cut. It hurt like crazy, but Calista clenched her jaw tight to keep from moaning.

  “There are pieces of the cement block still in the wound,” he said, fingering the blood-covered piece of mortar between his thumb and forefinger. He wiped it off on his jeans, cupped his hand around her neck, and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry, Calista, so sorry.”

  “Don’t, Adam,” she choked out. “This isn’t your fault.”

  “Like hell it isn’t. I should have kicked you off the damn plane and cuffed you to the inside of Jared’s truck.” He swept a hand over his face and let out a noisy sigh. “I need to get you to a hospital.”

  “No, you are not dumping me alone in some strange emergency room, damn it.”

  A sob clogged Calista’s throat and she couldn’t keep the tears away. She was more frightened than she could ever remember in her life, but the thought of being without Adam left her empty. “Can’t you clean the wound, close it up?” She hitched in a painful breath. “Like Jason Bourne. He patched up his wounds.”

  “Who the hell is Jason Bourne?”

  “Forget it. You can do something, right?”

&nb
sp; “I need supplies, drugs…”

  “We can stop at a pharmacy. Maybe Mary McNeil can call in something.”

  She didn’t want to add to Adam’s problems, but she couldn’t let him out of her sight, either. Anna’s words swam around in her head.

  If you don’t go with Daddy, I’ll never see him again.

  She couldn’t help him from a hospital bed.

  “Adam?”

  He let out a string of curse words then yanked out his cell, punching a number on speed dial. “I need a favor, a huge favor.”

  Twenty

  With a foot on the brake, Adam slowly eased into the rutted parking lot of a nameless hotel. The heat radiating off the asphalt seeped through the cracks of the car door, turning the interior into an oven the moment he shut off the ignition. Rolling his shoulders, he eased his T-shirt off his clammy back and scanned the rugged terrain. The small, dusty town off the main highway in Death Valley was the perfect place to lay low for the next twelve hours. After a much-needed shower to wash off the grime and soot, he was going to shut it all off and give himself time to recharge.

  How had Ludis discovered the storage unit? The place was rented under an alias and there was nothing that could be tied to Adam. He had left anything that could be traced electronically in the hotel room with Calista’s belongings right after Ludis blew up Rina’s home. As for his vehicle, he removed the tracking device himself. Yet somehow, his uncle’s men not only found out about the storage unit, but they came prepared to torch him into an early grave.

  Adam glanced at Calista who laid prone in the passenger seat. The gash on her right side wasn’t as serious as he first thought. After a quick stop for supplies, he cleaned and dressed the wound. There were other scrapes and burns he would take care of when they stopped for the night. She dozed off into a restless sleep once they were on the highway.

  His brothers came through for him in a big way, organizing sleeping accommodations and antibiotics for Calista.

  He had been in some horrifying situations, but he somehow maintained the upper hand. Nothing in his past came close to the mess he was in now. If there was a way out, he couldn’t see it, and that scared the shit out of him.

  The only way he could insure everyone’s safety was to force Ludis to confess his involvement. For that, he needed the disk, which if it had existed in the first place, was now a melted wad of crap on the floor of his storage unit.

  Adam had only one option. Kill Ludis. Going against a man in Ludis’s position was a death sentence, but his family would be safe. Of course, Anna would grow up without him in her life, and Calista…shit, who was he fooling. He couldn’t do that to either one of them or himself. He’d killed on the job, but he wasn’t a murderer. There was a solution, but for now, Calista’s comfort was his priority.

  Adam opened the driver’s door and eased his sore, stiff body out of the car. After another quick scan of the area, he rolled the tension from his muscles and unlocked the trunk. The entrance to his motel room was only a few feet from the parking lot.

  Using the room card, he unlocked the door, and a blast of cool, clean, fragrant air filled his nostrils. He dumped the contents of the bags onto the far side of the king bed.

  Once outside, he opened the passenger door, knelt, and lightly stroked Calista’s cheek with his thumb. Like him, soot coated her face, neck, and arms while angry scrapes covered her elbows and hands. Her bloodstained clothing was ripped to shreds and beyond repair.

  Adam rubbed a rough hand over his face and silenced the string of curse words flooding through his head. He was better than this. What the hell happened to his training the last few hours?

  “Stop it, Adam,” Calista said in a rough whisper. “You’re doing that blame thing again and it’s pissing me off.”

  “Can’t,” he replied and tried to plant a smile on his face. “We have a place to stay for a few hours. Can you move?”

  “Yes.” She tried to sit up, but her face distorted with pain.

  “I’m going to carry you, but it will hurt the gash on your side like a motherfu…”

  “Just do it, I’ll be fine.”

  Removing the seatbelt, he twisted to face her. He placed one hand behind her back and the other one under her knees. He lifted her against his chest, carefully clearing her feet from the door. He slammed the door shut with his hip, locked it with the key fob, and hurried into the room.

  “Not on the bed,” Calista forced out the minute he closed the motel door.

  “Then where?”

  “I need to clean off the soot first.”

  Adam headed into the small bathroom. He set Calista onto her feet. Her hand never left her side as she took a moment to find her balance.

  “Just lean against me, sweetheart, and let me help you,” he said as he turned the water on at the sink, then grabbed the towels and washcloths off the rack.

  She rested her head against his chest and met his gaze in the mirror. “I’m fine.” She raised her hands. “I’m a natural-born klutz. I do this much damage just riding my bike back and forth to school and the diner.”

  She eased her hands under the warm water and began to wash the grime and blood from her palms. She closed her eyes, and tears glistened on her eyelashes as she took in deep, cleansing breaths.

  Adam wrapped his arm around her front and held her. “Shit,” he said under his breath. He removed her hands from the water and pressed the towel to her palms as gently as he could. “What else hurts?”

  “My elbows,” she whispered.

  She reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head. Adam bit back a string of profanity. The blast from the second explosion left third degree burns on her left shoulder. A long, angry scrape began at her left elbow and extended to her wrist.

  “I have something that will help with the pain,” he said, and headed into the room. He grabbed the open box of gauze, ointment, and tape. Calista stood completely still as he gently washed each abrasion, applying a healthy amount of ointment, and wrapped her arm from her elbow to the wrist with gauze.

  He turned her so she faced him. “Where else, Calista?”

  “That’s it.” A small smile graced her lips, but the pain in her eyes tore him in two.

  “I wish I had some pain meds.”

  “I hate taking those things. They make me nauseous.”

  “I hate that you’re in pain,” Adam murmured, lightly brushing her hair off her face. A lone tear escaped and rolled over her cheek. Adam lowered his head and stopped the droplet with his lips. “I will make this up to you.”

  Calista took his hand in hers and kissed his knuckles. “I don’t need that.”

  “What do you need then?”

  “You. I just need you.”

  “Have you looked in the mirror? Why would you want to be with me?”

  Calista studied him for a moment before she spoke. “You know damn well why. You feel it too.”

  “I’m not good…”

  Calista slammed her fisted hands into his chest. “Don’t you dare say it!” She let out a heavy sigh. “Sometimes you are such a dumbshit. There isn’t enough love in the world as is,” she said, as she pinned him with a heated glare. “When someone is giving you their heart, you don’t stomp on it.” She swiped away the moisture on her cheeks. “You accept it, hold it close, cherish it, and never allow anyone to take it from you.”

  Calista jerked out of his hold and stepped back. “I know what you’re doing, Adam Blake, and I will not make this easy for you.” She shoved him to the side and stormed out of the restroom.

  “And what the hell am I doing?”

  “You’re going to dump me somewhere and turn yourself over to your uncle.”

  Adam took hold of her fists and brought them to his lips. “I don’t think anyone has ever dared call me a dumbshit to my face.”

  “Get used to it, big guy. It’s going to become one of my favorite nicknames for you.”

  Calista’s words trailed off and her eyes c
losed. She freed her hand from his hold and dropped down on the bed.

  Adam sat next to her and said in a low whisper, “I don’t want to hurt you, Calista.”

  “Then don’t leave, don’t do this to your daughter… and to me. Anna was right all along. You had no intention of coming back to us.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Calista lowered her head and tightened her arms around her waist.

  “I’m waiting, Calista.”

  She stretched her feet out in front of her. “Anna told me on the runway in West Virginia that if I didn’t come with you, she would never see you again.”

  So that was why she got back on the damn plane. “There is no way Anna could have known any of this would happen. She just didn’t want me to go alone. That’s it.”

  “I get that, too. But she’s not just a little girl trying to hold onto the only family she has. What if she knows something you couldn’t possibly know? There is no logical explanation where this incredible power came from, or why Anna has been able to hear your mother, but stop being so pigheaded and consider her warning. She said I had to be with you. So, damn it, I’m here, and I’m staying.”

  “Dumbshit and now pigheaded. You sure found yourself a great guy.”

  Calista ran a shaky hand through her hair and bit back a sob. “I see you for who you are and want you anyway.”

  “You don’t know what―”

  “Seriously, I’m going to hurt you. I have something to say, and you are going to listen.”

  “Get it out.”

  Calista turned back to him. “If you didn’t want something to develop between us, why didn’t you just stay away from me? You had to know how this was going to play out. Did you think you could just disappear out of my life and everything would return to normal as if you never existed?”