Defiance Falls War: Defiance Falls Book 3

by Dean, Ali

  Man, Jeremy was good. I’d have to ask him how he figured out the carbon monoxide detector had been shut off, and what made him look under the bed.

  But Hazel, it seemed, had a different idea. “I should go in. They’ll come in a little after that, right? Thinking I fell asleep and then, how long does it take to die from carbon monoxide poisoning anyway?”

  Instead of shutting down this idea immediately, Moody replied, “Depends on the generator and the space but a couple hours probably.”

  We gave him funny looks but he shrugged. “I just Googled it. Relax. It’s not something I kept stored away for some dream career as a hitman.”

  “So, I go in, Dad and I wait inside, the guys stake out around the house, when the hitmen move to come inside, we call the cops.” Hazel laid out her plan and she was bouncing in my lap with eagerness to execute it.

  “I don’t think so, Haze.” I tried to keep my voice from shaking but my pulse was skyrocketing as I tried to reason with my feisty girl. She wouldn’t back down easy. “It’ll be pretty suspicious, you walking in minutes after they set this up. They could get nervous and decide to shoot you on the spot.”

  Her bouncing stopped and she froze. “Good point.”

  “Yeah, not happening sweetie,” Jeremy said with finality.

  “You can stop holding me so tight now.” Hazel glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows raised, and I realized I’d been grasping her hips like she’d bolt any second.

  I relaxed my hold, but not by much. Hazel was wound up, ready to put herself out there to get the hitmen setting up her murder. I didn’t blame her, but I wasn’t going to let her take unnecessary risks.

  “Wait, hold up. I just saw something,” Spike leaned forward in the driver’s seat and we followed his gaze.

  Sure enough, a few cars up a light had switched on and the driver’s door opened. A man stepped out. He had a beanie on his head, but no mask. Actually, it looked like the mask portion of the beanie was pulled up, but it was hard to say.

  “Get down,” someone hissed, and Hazel, who was sitting up tallest in my lap, immediately dropped to flatten herself.

  The entire car held a collective breath as we slumped in our seats and watched the man look from side to side down the street.

  No one uttered a word.

  The guy then turned to face the back tire of the car and started unbuttoning his pants.

  “What’s happening?” Jeremy’s voice came through the line, reminding us he was still on speaker.

  Bodhi let out a cackle that was muffled by Hazel, who was half on top of him now. “The hitman is taking a piss.”

  “Yeah, that’s gotta be the guy,” Moody muttered from the other side of Bodhi.

  “What?” Jeremy asked. “You think it’s one of the guys from the picture I sent you?”

  “Yeah,” I confirmed. “Same build.”

  Hazel added. “Who else would be getting out of their car to pee on our street in the middle of the night?”

  Jeremy snapped us out of our stupor, and I understood now why he’d missed his first chance to go after the guys in the house. It was easy to get wrapped up in the spectacle of it, waiting for confirmation this was real. This was really happening. “Two of you go after him. One behind to see if there’s anyone in the passenger seat. Three of you stay on Hazel.”

  “What?” Hazel asked. “I can shoot too. I have my gun.”

  “I know, but the other guy could be somewhere else, watching the back door or something. You’re still their target, Hazel, don’t forget it.”

  Spike looked at Emmett in the passenger seat. “Let’s go.”

  They checked their guns. We all ducked down further when they opened their doors at the same time.

  I couldn’t see what was happening, but noticed Emmett duck down to a crouch as soon as he slipped out his side. The guy pissing must have heard them because a moment later we heard Spike call, “Hands up.”

  “The other one’s getting out of the passenger side,” Moody said. “I’m calling the cops.”

  Jeremy might have already hung up to do that because the call had ended on Hazel’s phone.

  “If that’s both of them, let’s cover them.”

  Hazel was sprawled across me and Bodhi and she rolled off us and hit the car floor so we could ready ourselves.

  Moody was on the line with 911. Bodhi was in the middle seat. And I was in the best position for backup. I didn’t want to leave Hazel, but with two on two out there, it made no sense for me to hold back now.

  Just as I opened the door, a gunshot went off. The passenger had let one fly in Spike’s general direction but Spike was protected by another vehicle. The guy was running straight across a lawn. Emmett let out a warning shot and shouted at him to stop, but the guy kept going. Before I could make my move, Emmett was chasing him.

  Movement had me swinging my gaze back to the guy with his pants now at his ankles, arms in the air. “Uh, can I pull my pants up?” the guy asked.

  “Nope,” Spike said, taking another step closer to him.

  Spike had this idiot covered so I took off after Emmett. The guy was climbing over a fence and Emmett was right on his heels, leaping over a bush. We could take a true shot, but one look at the man’s hefty frame and I knew we were faster. No reason to make this messy if we could bring them in clean. The guy jumped down the fence and I saw where he was headed. There was a bike path on the other side that followed a creek.

  I turned down the sidewalk, deciding to take the alley between this residence and the line of townhomes so I could intercept him in the other direction.

  My legs moved like I hadn’t spent the last five days in a hospital bed. Muscle memory from soccer sprints and sheer adrenaline got me to the end of the alley and through to the creek just as the guy hit the bike path. He spotted me and right as his eyes widened in confusion, I lunged for him, tackling him to the ground.

  Within a second, Emmett was there, and we had him secured on the pavement, face to the ground. I felt like a damn action hero, but then we heard another gunshot. And this one was coming from Hazel’s back porch.

  Chapter Eleven

  Hazel

  When I heard another gunshot farther off, I was done hiding in the back seat of Spike’s Hummer. I looked at Bodhi as I rose and moved toward the door, but I wasn’t asking permission. His mouth was in a tight line, and I knew he hated sitting back here, waiting, just as much as I did.

  Moody ended the call. “They said five minutes. Let’s go. What are we waiting for?” Moody was on board too, and we slipped out of the car.

  When we took in Spike holding court over a dude in boxers, pants around his ankles, we went straight toward the sound of the gunshot. Spike had that one covered and he seemed to be enjoying toying with the guy as he interrogated him about his plans for the night. I would have stayed for the entertainment factor but the gunshot had come from the same direction Emmett and Cruz had gone.

  We took the alley, Moody and Bodhi flanking me on either side. A puddle came out of nowhere and I leapt over it, narrowly missing taking a faceplant. Running in a dark alley was seriously disorienting, but I wasn’t worried about rolling an ankle right now. Injuring myself for the soccer season was the least of my worries. I heard a loud thumping noise as we rounded the corner. It had come from three townhouses down, my back porch.

  “Hazel!” Cruz’s voice snagged my attention, and I saw him sitting on the guy they’d chased. Emmett was there too.

  A loud grunt came from our tiny back yard. I turned away from them and started running toward the back of our townhome but stopped short when I heard wood splintering. I jumped back just as a couple of bodies came crashing through the fence.

  It was two men, the one on the ground twice as big as the shirtless guy pummeling him. Wait, I knew those tattoos.

  “Dad?”

  “Uncle Jeremy?” Bodhi sounded just as dumbstruck as I felt.

  “Dad!” I shouted this time, but he kept pounding into the gu
y.

  I just stood there, mesmerized at what I was seeing as my Dad took down a burly dude, barely breaking a sweat. He wasn’t crazed though, not like Cruz had been when he took out Kai. Dad moved with precision, each blow strategic and smooth. He twisted the man’s arm at an angle that had me cringing and the man screaming.

  “Who hired you?” Dad’s voice was so calm, a chill went down my spine.

  “The call came from a buddy at the Defiance Falls Jail.”

  Dad moved his arm ever so slightly, but didn’t say a word. The guy shouted. “His name’s Stevens. Perry Stevens.”

  “And who hired Perry?”

  The man didn’t hesitate this time and there was pain in his voice when he bit out, “Ray Malone.”

  Dad pushed off the guy and pulled a gun from the back of his sweatpants. He pointed it at the man on the ground. “Don’t move.”

  Then Dad looked up at me. “Hi, sweetie.”

  “Uh, hey Dad.”

  “I thought I told you to stay in the car.”

  I swallowed, never in my life experiencing a sting like this from my dad’s scolding, if you could even call it that. But I knew now I should have listened. There was a third guy, and that hadn’t even occurred to me. Not only that, but Dad totally had it handled.

  “Sorry, Dad.”

  Dad’s eyes softened when they met mine, and I knew he understood the apology was a sincere one.

  There weren’t any audible sirens, but red and blue lights illuminated the darkness. The cops had arrived. And we’d even managed not to shoot anyone. I took a closer look at the man on the ground by my father, then over my shoulder to where Cruz was still sitting on the other one. Yeah, we’d kept this pretty clean, all things considered.

  Relief finally started to seep into my bones, but at the same moment as Cruz’s eyes locked with mine, I saw him blink rapidly. His head rolled back, and he collapsed.

  * * *

  If the entire neighborhood hadn’t woken from the gunshots, they were up now. The ambulance that came for Cruz had its sirens on full blast. And with the cops there, people came out of their homes and gathered around. I followed Cruz as they placed him on a stretcher, explaining his TBI to the medics.

  When we got to the hospital, he woke up for a few minutes, said he had a headache, and fell back asleep. The doctors let me stay by his side, and Mitch joined us. They said it was probably a combination of head pain and fatigue, and then the blue and red lights could have triggered him to pass out. I also learned that even people who aren’t recovering from a TBI can pass out when they come down from an adrenaline rush like we went through. It made sense, because even on the couch in Cruz’s hospital room, I slept hard that night.

  The biggest shocker came when Dad showed up to pick us up the next morning after Cruz was discharged. “I’m taking you to school,” he declared as soon as we were buckled in.

  “What? Dad, you’re kidding right?”

  “No, sweetie. I let you skip all week to be at the hospital with Cruz, but you need to go today. Especially if you want to play in your game tomorrow. The team needs you, and they won’t let you play if you missed a week of school.”

  I wanted to protest, I really did, but Dad didn’t pull shit like this often. If he needed to go all serious-dad-mode on me to feel better, I could indulge him. Maybe having a hit on me had been harder on him than it was on any of us.

  Cruz didn’t argue either, and we spent the rest of the drive getting the lowdown on how the rest of the night played out. With Dad’s security footage, the carbon monoxide generator, and the name of the guy in jail who’d been hired by Raymond Malone, the cops had confessions from all three hitmen by seven this morning.

  “Why didn’t you go after those two guys when they first came in the house?” I asked Dad, the question still lingering from last night.

  “I didn’t know enough. Wasn’t sure what they were up to, and didn’t want to move too soon. Maybe I should have, but I was waiting on reinforcements.”

  I fought against shooting Cruz a pointed look, reminding him that he wouldn’t be suffering a TBI right now if he’d had the same mindset last weekend. But I held it in.

  Cruz turned to Dad. “And the generator? How’d you know to look under Hazel’s bed?”

  “I saw that one of them was carrying a box of some sort when they came in, and didn’t leave with it, so I was looking for something that size. I’ve got alerts set for the fire detector, carbon monoxide, even the thermostat,” Dad said with a shrug. “Checked those, and saw that the carbon monoxide detector was deactivated. Knew the other guy must have dropped the box in Hazel’s room.”

  We turned into the Defiance Falls High parking lot, and I wasn’t expecting anyone to be there. We were running late, and most students would be in class. But there were a few dozen lingering about, and as Dad pulled into a parking spot, they all turned to watch.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. And that was before what went down last night, or more like early this morning,” Dad said, not sounding all that apologetic. “We’ll meet at the Spot at six tonight. Good luck in there today.”

  If I thought Monday was weird, there was no doubt this latest episode would have the students in a frenzy. I might have been in the clear with the Malones, but I’d forgotten all about what would be waiting at Defiance Falls High.

  * * *

  When I stepped out of the shower stall after practice that afternoon, I nearly ran into Kylie Cornwall. “Whoa.” Stepping back, I saw she must have come straight from her own practice on the JV field. Still in my towel, I glanced around the nearly empty locker room. Most went straight home to shower, especially on Fridays.

  “Have you been standing here waiting to talk to me?” I already knew the answer, but I felt the need to call her out on just how weird and creepy this was.

  “How else was I supposed to get you alone?”

  “It’s way too late to switch teams, if that’s why you’re here.” I brushed past her to the locker where I had some clean clothes.

  “You know that’s not true.” I felt her following me. “Your first game isn’t until tomorrow and they’ve moved people from JV to varsity mid-season. As long as it happens by the playoffs, I can officially say I played varsity. With Hazel Ross. On the state champion team.”

  Oh for the love of God, she was still pushing this? I took a deep breath and tried to find an ounce of sympathy. Nope, nothing. The girl was blackmailing me, and she wanted to get the guys charged with murder.

  “You never reported anything like you said you would before, why would I think you would do it now?” I tried for a soothing, gentle tone, but it might have come out condescending. Maybe if I took a different tactic we’d get her off our backs.

  She stood there with her arms crossed as I dropped my towel and got dressed.

  “My friends, Afua and Mel, backed out on me. Now though, we know what the motive would be. I don’t need the other two to back me up. I can still ruin your cousins and friends with this.”

  I slipped on my underwear and bra, giving myself a minute to get my cool back. I wanted to lash out, scare her somehow, wipe away this threat. But she didn’t seem ready to back down, and I didn’t know how to make her. The minutes ticked by as I pulled on jeans, a tee shirt, flip flops, and piled my hair into a wet messy bun on my head. Ignoring her apparently wouldn’t get me anywhere with this one either. Finally, I turned to face her. “It’s not going to happen, Kylie.” I needed to bring this to the meeting tonight, that was for sure. For now, I couldn’t let her know she was getting to me.

  “You used to sit with Louise Janik at lunch sometimes. She seemed like one of your best friends. And then this year started, and you don’t even talk to her or look at her. I don’t know what happened, but what if you got her off the team and I replaced her? We play the same position.”

  To avoid showing her my reaction I swung my backpack around and rummaged through it, pulling out my cell. I glanced at it, and since I didn’t
know what to say in response to that suggestion, I told her, “I need to go. And you need to let this go, Kylie. Seriously, I know you think being on varsity is everything, but it’s not. It’s definitely not worth this game you’re playing at. You should know by now how dangerous it is.” Her eyes widened slightly before I turned to walk away. Okay, so maybe my sympathetic tactic also came with a subtle threat, but whatever. Didn’t she see the news? Didn’t she know this was mafia business she was getting involved with?

  Her idea about kicking Louise off the team wasn’t a bad one, not at all, but I wasn’t about to bring Kylie on as a replacement. Still, Kylie’s perseverance on this was strangely impressive to me, even if it was borderline insane. If only she brought the same attitude to the field, she wouldn’t feel like she had to play this dangerous game.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cruz

  Dad was different. Instead of watching soccer practice after school, I borrowed Moody’s ride to head to Gramps’s and hang with Dad.

  He was sitting in the same spot I’d found him yesterday and when I took the seat beside him again, he asked, “Do you think I should visit Seamus in jail?”

  I opened my mouth to ask him how he’d found out about it, but closed it again. It was all over the news, and that question would reveal we hadn’t been the ones to tell him. Dad probably assumed we’d told him and he’d forgotten.

  “Why would you do that?” I asked instead.

  “We used to be friends, you know – me, Seamus, your mom.” He listed off a few other names, people my parents used to spend time with when I was younger, before Mom died.

  “I knew about your other friends from Harvard, but I didn’t know Seamus was part of that group.” It was hard to tell if he was fully with it right now – he’d gotten all the names correct so that was something.

  “He was. He was different from the other Malones, from his father Flynn or even his kids and nephews.”

  “He was?” My heart began racing, uncertain how much stake to put in my dad’s memories.