by Dallas Cole
I nod, too nervous to speak, and find a short trail off the shoulder of the highway.
“Further,” Franco says. “Don’t want the rest of the crew catching sight.” He grins, revealing mossy teeth. “I need my privacy.”
I weave around the jagged rocks and cacti that cluster across the desert floor. The engine whines in protest, but I ease it around a rocky escarpment and find us a path down and around a dune, blocking the highway’s view. I reach for the ignition and, when Franco nods, reluctantly turn it off.
The van whines and sputters out beneath me.
Franco Alonzo pulls a handgun from his back pocket. Something sleek and noisy. I suck in my breath. I don’t know my handguns, but this looks like it means business. “Everyone out of the van,” he says. “Toss me the keys.”
I pull the keys out of the ignition and toss them over my shoulder. While he catches them, I dart my left hand into the pocket alongside the driver’s door. Wrap my fingers around cold metal there. Then dart my hand back into my sleeve.
“Out. Out.” He waves the gun toward me and Cyrus. He’s barely even looking at Tyler and Sophie, but keeps his gaze fixed on Brett. “You too.”
“What the hell, boss?” Brett asks. “I told you these guys are trustworthy.”
Alonzo taps the edge of the gun against his lips. “I’m not so much worried about them as the rest of you. Come on.”
The late afternoon sun is blinding as Franco herds us out of the van and around to one side. Hot orange sand crunches underfoot. I glance toward Sophie, waiting for the moment when she realizes who I am. If she realizes who I am. But Franco lines us up against the side of the van.
“Now, Franco, there’s no need to blow your cool.” Tyler approaches the crime boss, slick grin firmly in place. “I’ve had my suspicions about this ‘Brett,’ too.”
Franco darts a quick gaze toward Tyler before looking back to Brett, Cyrus, Sophie, and me. “Is that so, Agent Brennan?”
Tyler nods, relaxing by a hair. “Yeah, man. I’d gotten a whiff that one of the other agencies were onto me. Just this vague sense of suspicion, you know? I find it pays to be paranoid. Sophie knows what I’m talking about.”
Sophie chokes back a sob. I glance toward her. Our eyes meet for the first time; the first chance we’ve had without Alonzo and Tyler staring us down. There’s so much I want to convey to her—so much I want to promise to let her know I’ll do whatever it takes to get her out safe. I hope she understands. She tightens up her jaw and gives me one quick, firm nod. She understands. I let out my breath. She knows she isn’t alone, and nothing else matters.
Except for the trickiest part, now: getting us both out of this safely.
“So then, when this ‘Brett’ guy, who, frankly, seems way too smart for one of your usual recruits, starts working his way up the ranks . . . Then he turns up offering these drivers? All seems awfully convenient, Franco, don’t you think?”
Franco nods slowly, still clutching the gun. “So you’ve been suspecting the feds had planted someone in my organization all along? Is that correct, Tyler?”
“Oh, yeah. I figured it out.” He taps his temple. “I’m smart that way. Too smart for dumb trailer trash like you. Isn’t that right, Jagger Richards?”
Tyler rips my shades off my face. “Fuck you, man,” I spit.
Tyler laughs, deep and throaty. “Oh, Jagger. You think you’re so fucking clever.” I clench my jaw, wishing desperately I could give him a matching black eye. “But you’re too late. I’m the one fucking you over. Again, and again, and again.”
“So you are smart enough to catch this man,” Franco says. His leathery expression darkens; his teeth gleam between his lips, sharp and deadly. “And yet you didn’t bother to . . . perhaps raise this possibility to me.”
Tyler swallows. Turns back toward Franco. Franco, whose stare alone could bore through him right now. Franco, who’s now leveling the gun right at him. “Now—now Franco, just wait a minute—”
I curl my fingers around the tire iron hidden inside my hoodie’s sleeve and start to inch it down into my palm. The moment Franco’s distracted, I can charge him. But if I charge too soon, I’m fucking dead.
“I think you forgot something important, Tyler.” Franco smiles, but it's all cold. “Now that you’re burned, now that you’re on run from the feds too and can’t feed me any information . . . you’ve lost all your usefulness to me.”
He cocks the gun.
“Wait,” Brett says. “Wait—”
But Franco pulls the trigger.
Tyler slams back against the side of the van with a sick wet thump. As he sinks to the desert floor, he leaves a red smear down the side from where the back of his skull had been. Sophie screams as Brett jumps back. And my heart lurches into my throat.
Much as I hate the guy, my stomach churns. This is not how this was supposed to go. We were supposed to get evidence. Do it all properly, using the legal system. Not a fucking slaughter in the middle of the desert. And now Franco’s gaze is turning on me—
Sophie’s screaming. Brett’s shouting. Cyrus is grabbing for my shoulder. But I don’t hear them. I know now what I have to do. Before Franco has a chance to cock the gun again.
“Now it’s up to the rest of you,” Franco says, “to prove your usefulness to me.”
The tire iron drops down into my palm as I take a step forward. Sophie spots me and charges him, as well. I swing the tire iron around, narrowly missing Sophie as she shoves him back.
The tire iron catches him underneath his jaw. Crack. He flies backward, gun flung from his hands. It skitters over the rocks, far out of reach. I swing the tire iron down on him again, but he catches it in his palm and wrenches it forward.
I topple over onto him. Brett and Cyrus charge forward, trying to help me, but Franco presses the tire iron into my throat as he rolls me onto my back. Black spots swim in my vision. He shoves off of me. Sophie’s still crouched, trying to shove him over, and he easily snatches Sophie by the arm.
“Stay the fuck back or I beat this bitch’s brains out,” Franco snarls.
Sophie claws at his arm. “Fuck you!” she screams, nails raking into his skin. But as he presses the muzzle into her temple, she goes still, eyes wide and white.
Brett and Cyrus raise their hands enough for Franco to see there’s nothing in them. “Okay. Okay. Relax. There’s no need to lose your temper,” Brett says. I struggle to my feet, but I’m too out of breath to attack.
“Hah. Yeah. That’s what I thought.” He bares his teeth, grinning, and shoves Sophie back into the van. “I got a special offer for you kids. Hand over the keys to the car, and I’ll let you live. For now.”
I exchange a look with Brett, who nods. Fumble the keys out of my pocket and toss them toward Franco.
He slams his foot over the keys and drags them toward him. “Good boy. Use those smarts, and maybe the desert won’t kill you, too. Now. Start walking. That way.” He gestures further into the desert with the iron. When we don’t move, he brandishes the tire iron over Sophie. “Now!”
“Just do it,” Brett mutters. “It’s better than getting shot.”
We turn around and start our slow march. Behind us, the van doors slam and the engine chug-chug-chugs to life.
As I turn back around, I see Sophie’s face pressed against the window as Franco sputters away, leaving us in the middle of nowhere with the sun beating down on us.
23
Jagger
I stare up at the crystalline sky above me, my throat already parched. We’ve got to find a way out of the desert soon. Even in early spring, the high desert heat is brutal at this time of day. I peel off my hoodie and hold it overhead for a sunbreak, though I can already feel heat sinking into the back of my neck. Cyrus and Brett do much the same as we trudge south, back toward the highway.
“Are we sure we want to head back to the side of the road?” Cyrus asks. “He’s going to send someone back to kill us, isn’t he?”
Brett
sighs. “Yeah, most likely. He’d circle back and do it himself if he didn’t need to put as much distance between him and my boys as possible. Let’s hope your boys find us first.”
“Let’s hope we get found, period.” I glare at the rock formations we still have to cross to get back to the highway. They seemed a lot smaller when we were in the van.
Come on, Drazic. I grit my teeth and keep trudging forward. Whatever discomfort I’m feeling, I can’t even begin to imagine how Sophie feels, getting ripped away yet again. I was so close to getting her back. She was right there beside me, and I was too afraid to reach out and grab her hand. To give her one last kiss. Now I’ve got the entire Alonzo cartel about to crash down on my head, and she no longer has Tyler to protect her. For all his assery, at least he offered her that.
Fuck.
Then I hear the engine drone of my Firebird and it’s like the sweetest symphony to my ears.
Drazic comes roaring over the dunes in my Firebird with Elena and Lennox in his Charger just behind. “Get in!” Elena shouts, rolling down the window, skidding to a stop alongside us in a spray of sand.
“Hallelujah.” Cyrus and Brett climb into the back of the Charger.
“I’ll call Rahid,” Brett calls. “Jagger, can you—”
But I go right over to the driver’s side of my Firebird and jamb my thumb at Drazic. “Scoot. Please,” I add.
Nash scrambles into the back seat, and Drazic slides over to the passenger’s side. “No one handles her better than you, brother.”
I grin. “I know.”
The Firebird purrs beneath me like a contented cat as I steer us back toward the highway. My head’s rattling with fear, but I can’t let it reach me. Like a race, all I can do is move ahead. We spot a few vans and rusted-out pieces of shit that are almost definitely part of the cartel’s op, but none of them seem to be fanning out to kill us just yet. I glance in the rearview mirror and see a few fanning out into the desert, though. Good. If Franco thinks we’re still stranded, we’ll have surprise on our side.
“Please, please tell me you have a gun,” I say to Drazic.
He shakes his head. “Afraid not. Not with all the feds we’ve had crawling all over our shit lately, and then Lennox’s status . . .” He trails off, leaving me to infer his meaning. Lennox the convict. “I can’t risk that kind of heat.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Then I guess we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.” I pat the Firebird gently. I hate having to use it as my weapon, but if we can just get through this, I’m sure Elena will patch it up real nice.
Drazic smirks, then leans forward. “Is that them, up ahead?”
My heart races. It’s the van. The piece of shit can’t go much over sixty, even on this straightaway piece of highway. Please, let Sophie be safe.
But I’ve got adrenaline for blood. The calm, cool sort, like when I’m racing. The kind that makes the rest of the world slow down around me and I’m moving at supersonic speeds. I’m so fucking ready for this.
It ends here.
I surge forward, trying to get alongside the van, but Franco changes lanes. Does he spot us? He must. One of the other cars peels off, trying to block me, but I’m too slick. I slow down and juke it, then head up on Franco’s bumper. Give him a quick nudge. The van’s end wavers, and for a second I hope he’ll lose control, but he rights it easily.
All right. The hard way, then. That trick Nash was bragging about in the bar—he’s not the motherfucker who invented it.
That’s all Jagger Richards.
I charge up alongside Franco. For a moment, I catch sight of glimmer of red-gold hair in the passenger’s window, and smile. I’m coming, baby. Hang tight.
Jerk the emergency hand brake.
Lean into the turn, flipping the Firebird around in a one-eighty spin.
Face Franco head-on.
Franco’s got about two seconds to decide—plow into me, or chicken out? He’s got the bigger vehicle, sure, but his is also a hell of a lot more of a death trap than mine. He’s not buckled in. If he chooses poorly, he ends up with a steering column through his rib cage.
I can only hope Sophie goes unscathed, too. If I hit them just right—
Franco’s eyes narrow. I can see them gleaming through the windshield. He’s coming straight for us—
Drazic throws one hand out, screaming, as Nash shouts from the back seat—
And then Franco jerks the wheel, hard.
So hard that the top-heavy weight of the van sends it rubber banding around. Please topple, please topple—But once again, he’s starting to even out.
I give the Firebird one last pat. I’m so sorry, baby. But sacrifices must be made, and Sophie is worth every sacrifice.
I rev the engine and plow right into the passenger’s side corner of the van’s grill.
The van keeps rolling the way it was headed, but now with an extra shot of kinetic energy. Franco’s got no hope left. It rolls onto the driver’s side and twists off of the highway. I cringe as each roll adds another crunch of sharp rocks punching through the metal exterior. Oh, god, Sophie—
The van comes to a stop on the driver’s side and I pull the Firebird, front bumper screeching against the asphalt, to a stop in front of it. “Sophie!” I hop out of the car, screaming her name, and run toward the van. I dive toward the passenger’s window, pointing straight up toward the sky. Wrench the passenger’s door open.
“Jagger,” she wheezes.
“Oh, god. You’re okay. Can you move?” I peer in the van, at her mop of tangled hair and long limbs. She’s breathing, she can speak, but if she’s pinned in somewhere, or broke something—
“I—I think so. My leg’s pretty torn up.”
I reach in and scoop her out of the van. My god, she looks beautiful. No matter what we’ve been through, those bright blue eyes and soft lips steal my breath every time. I cup her face in my hands and press my forehead to hers, careful not to jostle her broken leg.
“You made it back,” she whispers. “You’re alive.”
“Of course I am. A girl like you? I’ll walk through fucking fire for you.”
She sighs and kisses me, and it feels like all at once, spring’s come into bloom.
“I was so scared,” Sophie says. “He’d called his guys to kill you. Told them where you were in the desert—”
“Get off of me, get the fuck off!”
I stagger backward as Franco shoves out of the van, wriggling his way up the same door I’d pulled Sophie from. How the fuck is he still alive? His whole face is bloodied, and one arm hangs limp, twisted, at his side. As he slides out of the van, I see a huge gash ripped from one of his calves. But still he’s staggering to his feet, brandishing the tire iron.
“Stay the fuck back and no one gets hurt!”
“I think I’ve had enough of your shit.”
Sophie drops out of my arms and takes a swinging punch at him, right to the groin. She sags against the overturned van, but it’s enough to send him reeling; he drops to the ground, howling in pain. The Charger pulls up with Brett, Elena, and Lennox, followed closely by Rahid’s federal agent swarm. I don’t think Franco Alonzo’s going to be too much of a problem after all.
Rahid climbs out of his SUV as a whole fleet of armed SWAT guys surround Franco. “Franco Alonzo. Kingpin of the Alonzo cartel. You’re under arrest.”
“Fuck you.” Franco spits blood onto the ground. “You fucking wreck.”
“Yeah, you can tell me all about it at your interrogation.” Rahid slaps the cuffs on him and steers Franco, bloodied and limping, to the van.
I let out my breath and brace myself under Sophie. Help her limp toward one of the feds’ SUVs and settle in the back seat beside her. “You’re safe now.” I kiss her neck, savoring her warmth so close to me. “We’re safe.”
“I love you, Jagger Richards.” She laces her fingers in mine.
“And you had better fucking know by now,” I say with a weary smile, �
�that I love you, too.”
24
Sophie
Jagger squeezes my hand. “We don’t have to do this if you’re not ready.”
I look down at the boot on my right foot. All things considered, I got away from my time with the cartel pretty unscathed. Seeing my ex-boyfriend shot dead in front of me—that was pretty horrifying, as much as I’m thrilled the bastard’s dead. And the terror of my abduction, of those dark hours under lockup with the cartel, then that final car crash—even a psychology grad student is bound to have issues after that, which is why I found myself a good shrink the moment I got discharged from the hospital. No sense burdening Jagger alone with my baggage. I’ll take all the professional help I can get.
But right now, seeing my friends and family again, I’m just embarrassed as shit about the boot. And about facing my sister again. Admitting that she was right, and I was wrong. Just like it’s always been.
“I’m ready.” I bring Jagger’s hand to my lips for a kiss. “As long as you’re at my side.”
“She’ll be fine. She and I had a good, long chat, after her lawyer friend brought all the exoneration paperwork around for me to sign.” He grins. “She misses you. She understands why you did what you had to do.”
“Spoken with the earnestness of someone who’s never had a big sister before,” I tell him. But I grin and swing my passenger’s door open. “Let’s do this.”
Jagger rushes around to my side to help me stand up. The boot thunks awkwardly into the gravel, but with Jagger at my side, who the fuck’s going to notice my limp? I link my hand in his and head toward the gate that leads into Darla’s backyard.
The warm smell of Darla’s and Hank’s barbeque grill floods over me. My mouth is already watering. Jagger unlatches the gate, and we walk into the garden that’s Darla’s transformed into a magical wonderland of soft garden lights, bright spring blooms, and all our friends and family gathered for the first barbeque of the season, tossing back some beer, eating steaks and burgers, lounging around Darla’s beautiful yard. Hank, standing over the grill, offers me a wave with his tongs before shrinking under the stare of his wife. My sister.