Dead No More

by L. R. Nicolello

  Lily’s heart skipped, threatened to stop. “Marcus, don’t. Grab her waist. Do it now.”

  Marcus responded instantly, pulling Evelyn close and tucking her behind his body. JB relaxed his stance, but his eyes narrowed. He kept his hand on the butt of his gun.

  The mystery car’s back door opened. Lily swung her scope and zeroed in on the passenger. Jackson sat in the back.

  Holy shit. Lily’s heart plummeted.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Derek muttered, a strange mixture of awe and venom swirling in his voice. “Who knew this could get any more fucked?”

  Lily couldn’t have agreed more.

  Jackson unfolded himself from the car, buttoned his sports coat and moved toward Rowland. Lily studied his face. Did he know he approached the very people who’d pulled his file? The team he’d threatened? Jackson stopped, cocked his head to the side and openly stared at the supermodel couple standing in front of him.

  “I’ll take him out,” Lily whispered, her voice hard. “I swear, if he makes even the slightest wrong move, I’ll—”

  She stopped short. Wondered if her words sounded as menacing, as ugly, to everyone else. Or was it just her?

  “Easy,” Derek murmured.

  And there was her answer. Lily cringed. Heat burned her face.

  Rowland moved to Jackson’s side. They kissed each other on the cheeks like two old Italian men. What the hell? Rowland spoke into Jackson’s ear. He looked over Rowland’s shoulder, smirked, glanced back at Rowland and shook his head.

  Lily tensed.

  “Mr. Young, this is Desmund De Luca.” Rowland motioned to Marcus and Evelyn, then tipped his head toward Jackson. “Mr. De Luca, Jackson Young.”

  Why had Jackson given Rowland his real name?

  She gritted her teeth. Was that even his real name, or just an alias he’d used with her...his fiancée? She took a deep, shaky breath.

  Ex-fiancée.

  “Easy with that trigger finger, Lily,” Derek cautioned into her earpiece.

  She threw him a searing look. His quiet laughter bounced loudly in her ear. Ass. Turning her attention back to the show playing out below her, she ignored her sexy rooftop companion.

  * * *

  TWO HUNDRED YARDS AWAY, hidden within the confines of an empty room, a pair of green eyes watched Rowland through the scope of the SR-25. He’d stepped over the line too many times over the past few months. He deserved what was coming to him.

  Lights out for you, you bastard.

  The scope aligned perfectly, and a finger twitched restlessly on the trigger. Just a hair more...

  A flash to the sniper’s right. The scope swung. Derek Moretti and Addison Moore filled its crosshairs. Well, now, isn’t this an interesting plot twist.

  Rowland James could wait. He’d get what was coming to him, but first, time to deal with the dynamic duo interrupting this moment.

  The sniper recalibrated the weapon, looped a finger through the trigger. Derek and Addison had not been invited to this party. Time to say goodbye...

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Wednesday, October 1, 11:45 a.m.

  DAMN, HIS LITTLE brother was good. Derek rested his forehead against the hot rooftop. His shoulders relaxed, the spasms in the pit of his stomach vanished. Marcus solidified the deal: five of Rowland’s weapons for half a billion dollars. The drop? Next Monday. That gave them less than a week to bring this thing home.

  When Marcus and Rowland had stepped toward each other, Derek had expected bullets to fly. In that moment, he’d contemplated aborting the mission, getting his team the hell out of dodge. But then Evelyn had moved in like a pro, enchanting Rowland like a snake charmer, and gotten them all back on track. The woman was fearless.

  She reminded Derek of the woman on the other end of the roof.

  His gaze flipped from Marcus to Lily. She looked coiled, ready to spring.

  He’d go into any location with her at his six without a moment’s hesitation. The glowing report in her file paled in comparison to the kickass woman in a real-life combat situation.

  But the longer Jackson stood in her scope, the harder her face grew.

  “Until our next meet, then.” Marcus’s smooth voice broke through Derek’s mental musing.

  He peered through his binoculars. Jackson reached out, shook hands with Marcus and walked back to his car. JB and Rowland followed suit. The strain twisting in Derek’s neck loosened as both Bentleys drove off.

  Out of habit, Derek panned the surrounding buildings. A tiny movement, a subtle flash. What the...? Shit! He dropped the binoculars, sprinted and dove, grabbing Lily around the waist, taking her down with him.

  Three slugs hit the ground she’d just occupied, one after the other, kicking up chunks of the rooftop.

  “Sniper! We’re taking fire up here!”

  Lily pushed to her knees and scrambled for cover. Head down, he followed, praying Marcus and Evelyn would get the hell out of there.

  “Go. Go. Go.” Derek motioned Lily away from the open air.

  She ran, sidestepped and pushed her back up against the HVAC at the far end of the building.

  Sixty feet from the nearest exit. Damn.

  It wasn’t ideal, but it was all they had.

  “Hold your position.” Marcus’s command burst into Derek’s earpiece. “We’re on our way up.”

  “No!” Derek and Lily cried in unison.

  “Negative,” Derek said. “You’d be walking into this blind. He’s got a silencer. I can’t get a read on his exact location.”

  Lily glanced over at Derek. “Where is he?”

  Derek scanned the area, got nothing. Scanned again. Then the muzzle flashed.

  “Bastard’s in the building on the northwest corner, top floor.” Derek paused and quickly counted the windows. “Third or fourth in. I think.”

  “Copy that,” Evelyn said. “We’ll make our way there now and try to find him.”

  “Proceed with caution.”

  “Don’t get dead, brother.”

  “I’ll work on that,” Derek muttered.

  He had only one focus now: get Lily to safety.

  “Where’d this joker come from?” Lily dropped her empty magazine, pulled another and reloaded. “How’d he even know we’d be here?”

  Great question. The hair on the back of his neck bristled. If all their known players were in the courtyard below, who was shooting at them?

  Another slug pierced the wall behind them.

  Lily reached for the extra gun strapped to her thigh. He pushed her down and returned fire. She rolled onto a knee and brought both guns up. A bullet lodged into the space above her head.

  “Damn it, Lily. Stay down.”

  “You first.” She aimed at their mysterious sniper and pulled her trigger.

  Fury and wonderment battled for first place within Derek’s mind. God, he loved this woman. But if anything happened to her because of her stubborn warrior spirit, he’d never forgive himself.

  His body jerked suddenly. A searing pain penetrated his right arm. He dropped his gun and inventoried the flayed, slightly charred flesh—nothing more than a graze. Derek scrambled, palmed the gun with his left hand and returned fire.

  “He’s got the vantage point,” Lily called over her shoulder. “We have to get off this roof. We’re sitting ducks up here.”

  Derek glanced around. The next cover was thirty feet. “HVAC to stairs?”

  A bullet flew past Lily’s head and she ducked.

  Derek pulled up both hands, returned fire. Pain ripped through his injured arm. He winced and reached for his shoulder.

  Lily glanced at him. “Derek?”

  He waved his gun in a quick circle as if to prove to both of them that he was fine. “J
ust grazed.”

  She left her shelter. What the hell was she doing? She dodged, scrambled and dove for cover next to him. Another bullet kicked up the rooftop to their right. She reached over and lifted his torn shirt. Sucking in air, she shot him a hot, pissed glare.

  Even furious, she was gorgeous.

  “Just grazed, my ass.”

  He shrugged, then flinched. “It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

  She scowled and pointed toward the door leading to the staircase. “Go. I’ll cover you.”

  “Not happening.”

  “Stop being stubborn and move your ass.”

  The muscle in her jaw tightened. She’d stepped into the commanding role. Funny. He didn’t mind it at all. The ease with which they switched roles shocked and excited him. She was his equal in every aspect of the word.

  Still...equal or not, he wanted her off this roof.

  First.

  He grinned through clenched teeth. “Not gonna happen, babycakes. Go.”

  “Are you kidding me right now?”

  “Nope.”

  She shook her head and muttered something under her breath. Finally, she glared at him. “You’re such a stubborn—”

  Three more bullets flew by their heads. They both slid farther down the wall, dropping as low as they could.

  “Fine. We go together.”

  “After you.” Derek winked.

  She rolled her eyes, then raised both guns, took a deep breath and hauled ass with Derek right behind her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Wednesday, October 1, 1:10 p.m.

  LILY AND DEREK doubled back. Then did it again. If they’d been followed, they would’ve spotted someone by now, so she gradually slowed their pace. She hitched her black bag higher on her shoulder and tucked a piece of hair behind one ear. Not that that would do anything to help her appearance. They probably both looked as though they’d just walked out of a war zone.

  Sirens wailed in the distance. She folded her gun close to her side. No need to get the public riled up any more than their rooftop shoot-out already had.

  Lily glanced at Derek. Weren’t they a pair? Between the two of them, one was always bleeding all over the place.

  Without thinking, she grabbed Derek’s hand and held on tight. “It’s going to be okay.”

  He laced his fingers through hers. Electric fire zipped through her. Lily dropped his hand as though she’d been burned. “Sorry.”

  He gave her a small smile. “I’m not.”

  There go those mixed messages again. She sighed, put her arm around his waist, picked up their pace again and made her way to Ben’s.

  * * *

  LILY OPENED THE door to Ben’s house and stumbled in under Derek’s weight. She glanced up and looked down the barrel of two Glocks.

  “Really?” She kicked the door closed behind her. “Enough with the guns in my face.”

  Marcus and Evelyn holstered their guns. Marcus reached for Derek, shouldering his weight. Evelyn pulled Lily into a bear hug.

  “We thought you were dead.” Tears glistened in Evelyn’s eyes.

  “Yeah, well, we’re dead no more.” Lily tossed her black bag on the floor, and the spent firearms clanked together. She shot Derek a sizzling look. “Though this one is trying his hardest.”

  Marcus frowned. “Shit, brother, did you have to go and get yourself shot?”

  “Yes, I stood up and asked to be his target,” Derek said drily, joking despite the obvious pain etched into his face.

  Lily swallowed the snarky remark on the tip of her tongue and pawed through her black bag, letting Marcus deal with his big brother.

  She pulled out her .45, checked the magazine, chambered a round and set it on the foyer table. It wasn’t her normal procedure to have a gun with a bullet in its chamber, ready to be shot at the pull of the trigger. But then again, there was nothing normal about their current situation.

  Which she hated. She wasn’t leaving anything up to chance. The second it took her to chamber that bullet could be the difference between life and death for all of them. No one was dying on her watch. She chambered the next gun and set it on the table.

  Evelyn pointed at Derek’s shirt and frowned. “That’s a lot of blood, Derek.”

  “It’s nothing.” He sank into the chair closest to him, sucking in a sharp breath. “Okay, maybe it’s a little more than nothing.”

  Derek’s hot gaze dug into Lily’s back, but she ignored it. If she made eye contact with that stubborn man now, she’d most definitely tell him off—not out of anger, but fear. She bent her head and pressed her eyes closed. The world had fallen out from under Lily when she’d seen him on that rooftop, bloodied. All she’d wanted to do was cover him and get the hell out of there.

  True, it wasn’t the first battle wound she’d seen, or the worst, really, but it was the first on Derek. A knife twisting in her gut would have been easier to deal with than seeing all that blood on him. It scared the shit out of her.

  Despite her best efforts to write him off, and tuck her heart safely back in place behind an impenetrable wall, she still cared for him. A lot. One glance from him, and it was as if she’d stepped off a cliff and was free-falling. She reached into the bag, grabbed another .32 and repeated her process.

  She couldn’t decide which was worse: the fact that she still cared, or that he might not.

  Unstrapping her thigh holster, she tossed it on the foyer table and glanced at Derek. The bullet had sliced through his shoulder. Not the end of the world, but still...

  Lily moved to his side and gently pressed her fingers to the skin around the wound. “Evelyn, can you grab the first-aid suture kit under the sink? Marcus, there are towels in the hall closet. I’m going to need some.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Marcus turned and walked down the hall.

  “Preferably the black ones,” Lily called after him.

  Evelyn headed for the kitchen and came back within seconds. She tossed the bag to Lily. Lily opened it and took out a pair of scissors.

  Derek flinched. “What are those—”

  “Not a word from you, buddy.” She attacked the fabric keeping the shirt in place. Without touching the burned flesh, she gently tugged the shirt off and let it fall to the floor.

  Vivid memories of the last time she’d seen him without a shirt flooded her mind. Heat rushed her cheeks. She froze. Her fingers itched to reach out and trace the scars.

  Derek glanced up, cocked his head to the side. “What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?”

  She turned her attention to the first aid kit and dug for the stitching supplies, then glared up at him. “What part of ‘do not talk’ do you not understand?”

  “Touché.” Derek gave her a weak smile.

  “Now who needs to be stitched up?”

  “Aren’t we a pair?” He shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.

  The needle hung in midair. Yes, they were quite the pair. Lily’s throat tightened. Or could’ve been—if he hadn’t pushed her away. She shook her head and focused on stitching him up.

  “Did anyone else notice how shockingly inaccurate that shooter was?” She tugged at a stitch.

  Derek cringed. “Easy, tiger.”

  “I’m not complaining. If the shooter had been a true marksman, we’d both be dead.”

  Derek opened one eye. “I wondered that myself. He knew the correct location, but the bullets never even came close.”

  Never came close? What constituted close, a bullet through his thick head? Lily threw him a scorching look and yanked at the last stitch. “Really?”

  Marcus and Evelyn glanced at each other and smiled.

  “We got nothing in our sweep.” Evelyn piped up. “So who was he?�
��

  Lily shrugged. “Good question.”

  “You think Jackson brought him in?” Marcus leaned next to Evelyn, looped his hands together and pulled at his neck.

  Did Jackson have that venomous a personality? Could he have really sent a sniper after them? Somehow Lily doubted that he’d let someone else take her out. He’d want to do that himself. Prove that she’d made the wrong choice.

  “It’s possible.”

  Ben burst through the door. Marcus straightened and reached for his gun. Evelyn jumped off the counter and pulled out her Glock in one fluid motion. Lily cringed. She’d neglected to call him. And George, come to think of it.

  If Jackson didn’t kill her, one of them surely would if she kept forgetting to check in.

  Ben looked around and his gaze landed on Derek. The top of his bald head turned bright red. Uh-oh. “Did no one think it necessary to tell me you were all back, or that one of you was shot?”

  Marcus and Evelyn holstered their weapons.

  “Sorry, Ben.” Lily placed the bandage over Derek’s wound. “We were a little preoccupied.”

  “Yes, I see that.” Ben crossed his arms and glared at her. “What happened out there?”

  “Rowland verbally agreed to sell me five of his little bombs in a bag.” Marcus tossed Ben a small recorder. “For the small sum of half a billion dollars.”

  Ben caught the recorder with one hand. “Was that before or after bullets started flying?”

  “Before.”

  Turning, Ben pinned Derek with a dark, furious look. “Did you already forget about our little arrangement, Moretti?”

  An arrangement? What did that mean? Lily glanced up at Derek. He averted his eyes, refusing to meet her stony face. The muscle in his jaw jumped. She double-checked the bandage, then stepped back.

  “No, sir, I have not. I have no idea what happened.” Derek cradled his arm to his side. “One minute I was watching Jackson and Rowland getting into their respective cars. The next, bullets were flying. If I hadn’t spotted the shooter, Lily would be—”

  Ben spun and glared at her. “Are you done trying to get yourself killed?”

  She bristled. It wasn’t as though she’d set out to land in the middle of this pile of crap. It was supposed to be easy in, easy out. Grab the necessary intel to lock Rowland up and get back to tracking Jackson.