Cary

by Jessica Gadziala

  “Oh, that’s right. You can’t,” A said, smirking in such an evil way that I felt a chill move through me. “Cut that wagging fucking tongue out back at home,” he added, looking over at us. “See, me, I don’t like it when my men start talking shit about my fucking business, you know what I mean?” A asked.

  “A…” I said, shaking my head.

  “Well, I heard the news,” A said, looking at me. “And it got me thinking about the timing. Which got me thinking about our little meeting. Not all these fucks,” he said, waving toward his two men, “have been with me from the jump. Some came on board more recently. Seems like I put a little too much trust in ‘em. But, see, I got eyes and ears everywhere. So all I had to do was roll back some footage. And guess who I heard talking my shit—and your shit—to Raúl’s cousin?”

  “You mother fucker,” I hissed.

  “So, me and Al here, we had a little talk,” A said. “And in that talking, heard the plan to snatch lil’ mama in a truck that would meet up at a private landing strip where Raúl would be waiting.”

  “Which one?” I asked, reaching for my phone.

  “That one over behind the middle school,” Andres said.

  It happened before I could even wrap my head around it.

  One second, A was just standing there.

  The next, he had a gun against the temple of his man.

  Then he pulled the trigger.

  And blood and brain matter splattered against the wall just a second before the man’s dead body hit the floor.

  “Shit, man,” A said, wincing as he ran a hand up the blood on the wall. “Sorry about the mess. It was looking real nice in here. Well, no worries. I’ll have my crew in to clean up and take out the trash,” he told me, actually stepping on the body of the dead man on his way back toward the door. “Go get lil’ mama, yeah?” he said.

  And then he was gone.

  “I like him,” Dezi declared, getting a snort out of Voss who usually hated him.

  I barely waited long enough for A and his men to get out of the way before I was charging down the steps.

  Everyone else fell in behind me.

  No one stopped to formulate a plan.

  We didn’t even stop to ask Fallon if we could handle this.

  Dezi and I were motivated by our affection for Abigail, Seth likely by guilt, and Voss, well, he was probably just excited for some action.

  The airstrip wasn’t far, maybe ten minutes outside of Navesink Bank.

  We probably should have pulled off somewhere and snuck up, taken them by surprise. We had Seth, after all. He could take a shot from damn near everywhere. But I wasn’t thinking clearly enough for that.

  All I could think about was Abigail.

  And the promises I’d given her.

  Ones that I hadn’t been able to keep.

  I couldn’t imagine the fear that must have been coursing through her as hands reached out to grab her, as she watched her guards get picked off.

  And I knew Abigail. She would worry just as much about them as she did about herself. She would blame herself for putting them in that situation.

  I just hoped to hell she didn’t let her mind go too dark, that she somehow convinced herself that she deserved whatever was coming to her because of the innocent people who’d gotten hurt along the way.

  She needed to fight.

  She needed to hold on just until I could get to her.

  “Fuck!” I screamed as I jumped off my bike at the landing strip, finding the plane that was supposed to be there gone.

  Along with Raúl.

  And, likely, Abigail.

  I wasn’t an idiot.

  I knew that if I didn’t catch her before she got back to Mexico, that there was no way to protect her from the violence and pain that would come from that man’s hands.

  “Hey, yo,” Voss called, letting out a whistle that had me turning to the side to find him pointing toward the line of trees. “Moving truck,” he added as we all started over. “Explain that,” he added, pulling the door up more to reveal the body in the back.

  He was shot twice. Once in the abdomen, and then once in his chest.

  “That’s the one who took her,” Seth confirmed, nodding.

  “Yeah, but then why’s he dead?” Voss asked, moving around toward the front of the truck. “Eh, maybe he was cleaning house,” he declared, grabbing the driver’s side door, and pulling it open.

  Another body spilled out.

  “If he was contracting out and didn’t want shit tracing back to him,” Dezi said, shrugging.

  “Fuck,” I hissed, turning on my heel away from the truck, walking down the tarmac, my hands raking through my hair, trying to think of a single way this didn’t end with all of us—including Abigail—dead.

  It would have been one thing if I’d needed to go down to Mexico without him knowing I was even after him. But now? Now, that would not be possible. Eyes would be everywhere, looking for someone like me. If not me in particular. I didn’t know exactly how much information A’s guy had offered over.

  If he’d given names, though…

  Shit.

  Andi and Niro.

  Dezi likely already knew he had to be on the lookout, but I had to make sure Niro was keeping Andi safe.

  With that in mind, I picked up to call.

  “Fallon called,” Niro said.

  “If he pointed us out…” I started.

  “Yeah,” Niro said with a sigh.

  “Sorry I dragged you into this.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’d have dragged you in if this situation was reversed. You got a plan?”

  “Not yet,” I admitted.

  “It would be a death mission to go down there right now.”

  It would.

  “What other choice do I have?” I asked, exhaling hard.

  “You could have Hailstorm set up a mission.”

  That could take days.

  I had no idea what kind of damage could be getting done to Abigail for days.

  That wasn’t an option.

  “I know,” Niro said, reading my thoughts. “Keep us posted,” he added, then ended the call.

  “Fuck,” I hissed. “I need to get to an airport,” I said, hearing someone coming up behind me.

  “You can’t fly with guns. And you’re never going to get a gun down there if Raúl has his men looking for you,” Seth reasoned.

  He was right. Of course he was.

  “I can’t just stand here and do fucking nothing.”

  “I’m not—“ Seth started, trailing off when my phone rang.

  “It’s Chris,” she said, cutting to the chase. “I found some chatter online,” she told me.

  “Saying what?”

  “That someone saw a woman jump out the back of a moving truck.”

  “What?” I hissed, heart constricting at the possibility.

  That she wasn’t on a plane.

  That she wasn’t with Raúl.

  That she maybe, possibly, got away.

  “Yeah, I mean it’s the social media account to some teenager. And I see nothing else. But who would lie about that?”

  “Does it say anything else?”

  “Just a lot of ‘no fucking way, man,’ type comments,” she said. “But five minutes on his account said it was either over around Bank Street where he lives, or that basketball court over on Hamilton where he posts videos and selfies all the time. Not much to go on, but if you get feet down in the area, you might be able to get more.”

  “Chris, thank you,” I said, voice a little thick with relief and hope.

  “Bring her home,” Chris said, hanging up.

  “What is it?” Seth asked.

  “Some kid saw a woman jump out of a moving truck somewhere between Bank Street and Hamilton.”

  Voss’s gaze slid back to the truck.

  “Punishment?” he said, shrugging.

  “Hear me out, Zaddy,” Dezi said, wiggling his shoulders. “Our girl took out the fuc
ker in the back. Raúl took out the driver for not realizing shit went down.”

  “You think Abigail shot him?” I couldn’t picture that. This woman had been beaten down year in and year out. But she’d never once tried to steal a gun and shoot her way out. She’d bided her time instead and took a chance on a risky escape instead.

  “Think she’d do anything not to go back,” he said, shrugging. “Let’s go find your girl.”

  “Fall out of a moving truck,” Voss mumbled, since all he did was mumble and grumble. “Gotta be banged up.”

  “She left her phone at the apartment,” Seth said as we got to our bikes. “She’s probably bunkering down somewhere to make sure no one is looking for her. She can’t call. Safest thing to do is hide.”

  That sounded right.

  Problem was, the area between Bank Street and Hamilton was full of businesses, apartment buildings, and abandoned buildings.

  She could be anywhere.

  And it wasn’t likely we were going to get a hell of a lot of cooperation from the locals who knew how shit went in the area, and didn’t want to get involved in some sort of possible street war.

  I didn’t give a fuck if I had to burst into every fucking apartment in the area to look for her. No one was going to get in the way of getting her safe, of making sure no one touched a goddamn hair on her head again.

  I had no idea what safe was going to mean at this point. Especially now that Raúl likely knew the club was involved. But that was shit I could work out after I had her in my arms again.

  It only took us maybe twenty minutes to get back to the right area, and we all parked in the lot of the park, deciding this was best done on foot.

  “Blood on the street,” Voss rumbled, jerking his head toward the pavement.

  My heart flew into my throat, fearing the worst, before I saw just a couple of red streaks. I didn’t even know how he saw them, let alone decided immediately it was blood.

  Then again, I didn’t know much of anything about the man.

  “Would run for a bit,” he declared, moving forward to stop at the next cross street. Lifting an arm, he waved down it, asking a silent question.

  “Yeah. We’ll start here,” I called to the others.

  We didn’t get anything to go on there, so we moved onto the next street.

  I was just about to head into a pretty fucking unsafe-looking abandoned building when I heard Dezi call me.

  “This miniature human said he saw a bloody woman going into his apartment building today,” he said with his arm draped over the shoulder of a kid of maybe nine or ten who looked equally fascinated by and terrified of the man at his side.

  “Hey, bud. Which apartment building?” I asked, waving at the two of them I could see from where I was standing.

  “That one,” he said, pointing.

  “Thanks, little man,” I said, barely able to keep myself from running in that direction.

  “Do you guys have motorcycles?” the kid asked.

  “Sure do,” Seth said, nodding.

  “Can I see them?”

  “Tell you what, if we find our friend, I will bring my bike right here and let you check it out, okay?” Seth asked, waving toward the curb.

  “Can I tell my friends?”

  “Sure. But you have to promise to wait until we find our friend, okay?”

  “Fine,” the kid grumbled, likely used to adults making promises that they didn’t keep.

  “I’ll sit here and wait with you to see if they find her,” Seth said, waving toward the front steps of the apartment building as Dezi, Voss, and I moved inside.

  I gave him a nod as I moved into the foyer, looking around as if I would find her just sitting there and waiting for me.

  “I’ll go up,” Voss said, going toward the stairs without waiting for a response.

  “What are you doing? She wouldn’t be in the elevator,” I said when Dezi moved inside it, keeping his foot in the way of the doors so they didn’t close.

  “No. But she did use it,” he said, looking up at me, waiting for me to move into the car to see what he was pointing to.

  The floor buttons.

  Well, one in particular.

  With blood on it.

  The basement.

  Yeah, that made sense, didn’t it?

  The upstairs floors risked her being seen by someone who might give her up if the guys came looking for her.

  But the basement was likely abandoned and private. It would give her time and space to lick her wounds, to try to figure out her next move.

  Dezi moved back to let the doors close as he punched the basement button again.

  “At least if we plummet,” he said when the elevator creaked and groaned, which explained why the floor was so damn dusty, like no one had stepped inside it for ages, “we would probably survive.”

  The car stopped, the bell chimed, and the doors slid open.

  The two of us moved out in unison.

  And we both froze in unison too when we heard the hollow click of a gun with an empty chamber.

  It was half of a second later that I found the source.

  Abigail, standing in the doorway of a small room, her whole body shaking.

  But still making her last stand.

  “Hey, love,” I murmured, voice soft, not entirely sure she was fully comprehending that it was us standing there. “You’re okay. Put the gun down,” I said. “You’re okay. You’re safe now.”

  That last part seemed to penetrate because her arms dropped to her sides as her whole body slumped down, curling into itself as the sobs started to rack her system.

  “Shit, man. Tears. That’s your thing. I’ll go find the asshole,” he said, walking backward into the elevator and hitting the close door button a bit frantically, like he was worried Abigail might try to cling to him and cry on his shoulder.

  I rushed forward, dropping down in front of her.

  The fall and roll afterward had done some damage, but she must have lucked out and jumped when the truck wasn’t moving too fast.

  The pavement had torn through her pants, skinning the knees beneath. It had done the same to the arms of her shirt and the skin beneath. And there was a pretty decent gash on her forehead and road burn on her chin.

  There were likely going to be bruises everywhere and a lot of soreness.

  But she was okay.

  Alive.

  Away from Raúl.

  That was what mattered.

  Everything else we could handle.

  “Okay, baby, it’s okay,” I said, carefully closing my arms around her, pulling her against my chest.

  “Are they okay?” she sobbed, her voice a high-pitched, hysterical sound. “Did they die?”

  I went ahead and assumed she wanted to know about Seth, Finn, and Louana, not Raúl’s men.

  “Seth is right out front waiting for us. He wasn’t hurt at all.”

  “But… but…”

  “They got shot, but they’re okay,” I told her, carefully running my hand over her hair.

  “It’s my fault.”

  “Hey,” I said, voice a little firmer than usual. “Listen to me. Not a fucking thing that happened today was your fault. This was Raúl’s fault. No one else’s.”

  “I had to… to… shoot.”

  “I know. You did what you had to do to survive, that’s all.”

  “Did he die?”

  I could have sugarcoated it. But that wasn’t my style. She needed to know the full truth of what was going on.

  “Yes. And it looks like Raúl shot the driver.”

  “Is he…”

  “I’m assuming he’s on a plane back to Mexico. That was where the truck was. At an independent airstrip.”

  Though, I very much doubted he was going to stay away.

  Especially now that he had more information. He was probably going to go back to let the heat die down, then make another move when he thought we wouldn’t have our guards up.

  But I didn’t need
to give Abigail all that information. At least not until I got her somewhere safe, got her cleaned up, made sure she was okay.

  “Can I take you out of here, love?” I asked. “I really want to check you over, clean you up.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Where are we going?”

  That was a good question.

  The apartment was not an option. First, because of possible fresh bad memories. Second, because there was a body on the floor and blood all over the walls.

  I could take her to the clubhouse.

  But I got the feeling that she would feel on-display there, and even more guilty when she saw Finn and Louana recovering from their injuries.

  “Wanna go back to the hotel?” I asked. “We will bring Dezi and Voss to hang out in the lobby to keep an eye. But, for now, I think we’re safe enough to go there.”

  “Okay,” she said, sniffling hard, trying to pull it back together.

  We rode the creaky elevator back up to the lobby where we could see Seth out front with a crowd of kids checking out his bike while Dezi and Voss stood back looking a little green at the idea of the kids maybe wanting to ask them questions.

  “Thank fuck,” Voss rumbled as we emerged.

  “We took a couple trips to get the bikes while we waited,” Dezi said, waving toward mine.

  “Appreciate it. We are going to head to the hotel if you two want to come and hang for a bit, just until we’re sure shit has blown over.”

  “Got nothing to do,” Voss said, shrugging.

  He’d been used to long, tedious work. Because, apparently, he’d been a human junkyard dog at his last job. Just walking around to make sure no one jumped the fence and stole shit.

  “I’ll stop and get donuts,” Dezi offered. “You want donuts, don’t you?” he asked, nodding at Abigail.

  “I think you want donuts,” she said, finding a small smile, despite the shit day she’d had. “But I’ll have one.”

  “Probably want some late dinner too,” Dezi said as we moved toward my bike.

  We managed to get a room at the hotel with a river view, but a floor higher than the last one. With one king-sized bed.

  “Come on, love,” I murmured, pulling her with me into the bathroom.

  I had nothing to change her into, but she had to get out of the torn clothes, so I could clean her up. The robe would have to do until I could get someone to come by and drop off some fresh clothes.