“You were going to protect her?” Amy scoffed, bending her knees just slightly to prepare for the hit she knew was coming. “That’s a goddamn first.”
“You have no idea what kind of shit you’re in.”
“With Corbett Connolly?” she asked, taking the briefest bit of pleasure in the shock on his face. “Oh, I’m sorry. I mean, the Fox? Or maybe his pal, Aiden, who paid me a little visit to see if I knew where you were? Yeah. I know about them. I know about the $37,000 you borrowed so you could make some stupid record, and I know you went to my mom for money, and I know I handled it, because I don’t run from my problems like some people.”
His eye twitched, a sign Amy knew as well as the back of her hand. She struck before he could. In the back of her mind she thought she should get out, run, but those thoughts dissolved as soon as her fist connected with his nose.
He fell back a few steps.
“Fuck!” he hollered, and then swung his arm to backhand her across the face.
It was like he was moving in slow motion. His arm raised, his hand flattened, his eyes narrowed. She blocked the hit before it was even close. He came again, this time with his left hand, and she stepped out of the way, letting momentum carry him forward. He crashed into a dining room chair, which broke as he tumbled to the ground.
“Whore.” He spat blood onto her kitchen linoleum, and she thought, that’s going to be a bitch to clean when I move out of this place.
It didn’t hurt. His words bounced right off of her.
“If you really loved her, you would have told me she was in danger,” she said. “Not abducted her from school. Not gotten yourself into this mess in the first place.”
He said nothing for several moments. And then, “You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”
She shook her head.
“I’m so much more than you ever saw,” she told him.
He didn’t say anything, but looked up at her with such hatred in his eyes she couldn’t help but pity him. Here before her was a junky. A man addicted to a dream he couldn’t hold, a power he couldn’t maintain, a life he couldn’t have. Nothing was good enough. Nothing would ever be good enough.
Footsteps on the stairs drew her attention. She prayed it wasn’t Iris coming downstairs, or worse, one of the girls.
“Who’s there?” she called, unwilling to take her eyes off Danny.
“Hello?” The door slapped against the wall again as someone entered her apartment. Adrenaline, already surging through her, had her lowering, her body readying to either run or fight. It was a good thing, too, because when she turned she saw the man whose face she’d now recognize anywhere. Corbett Connolly. The Fox.
His brows lifted, though his voice didn’t echo his surprise.
“Perfect,” he said. “Just the two people I was hoping to see.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Thought you took care of it,” muttered Danny.
She held still, cringing internally at his words. The chair Danny had fallen through was broken in pieces. If she could just grab one of the legs, she could use it to defend herself.
Connolly was followed by a man she recognized, who lingered by the door, keeping watch.
“Mr. Farrell,” she said. “Didn’t think I’d see you again.” She wondered if their clean-cut friend would also be joining the party, but didn’t see him waiting in the wings. Maybe the cops had picked him up after all.
Aiden smirked her direction, but looked a little worse for wear. Running from the FBI did that to a person, she guessed.
“Danny, Danny, Danny.” Connolly knelt beside Danny on the floor, clicking his tongue inside his cheek. “Beaten by a woman. And a little thing, too.” He shook his head, as if disappointed.
Amy watched as he stood, red hair like flames, light skin a little too pale. He wore a suit jacket over a dress shirt, and slacks that looked tailored and expensive.
Then he stepped on Danny’s hand, and she jumped when she heard the first bone snap.
Danny cried out in pain.
“Shhh.” Connolly held a finger to his mouth. “Make another sound like that, and I’m going to have to cut one of those fingers off.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth so she didn’t scream as well.
Run. She needed to escape. Get past Aiden, up the stairs to the girls. But then what? The walls were thin. She couldn’t barricade them inside for long. No, her best bet was getting them all out of here. Away from the apartments.
Connolly faced her, leaving Danny moaning, and clutching his hand, on the floor.
“Amy, right?” He smiled slickly, and Amy fell back a step.
“I don’t have the money,” she said.
He nodded. “I’m not concerned about that right now.”
She took another step back as he advanced.
“Okay,” she said.
“What I am concerned about is the location of my wife.”
Her blood ran cold. Val’s face appeared in her vision, her eye swollen like it had been when she’d come to Rave that afternoon weeks ago. Rage slashed through her fear.
She glanced to the door. She hoped the door to Iris’s apartment was bolted shut, and that they’d barricaded the door with every piece of furniture she had.
She hoped Chloe had told Mike to call the cops.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. Behind the Fox, Danny whimpered.
Connolly removed a gun from his belt. His eyes widened, and she could see the whites all around the dark irises. Her pulse scrambled.
“The car,” said Aiden. “Let’s take her to the car, boss. Too many possible witnesses here.”
Connolly’s lips formed a thin line.
“I’ve spoken to her friends, one by one, did you know that?” asked Connolly. He moved so close, Amy could smell the heavy scent of his aftershave. She watched his hands, eyes on the gun.
“Not one of them knows where she disappeared to.” He inhaled. “She took my daughter. Surely you can appreciate the worry a parent must feel.”
She could feel the violence in him. The swell of it, like a storm waiting to cast the first strike of lightning. He was Danny, just in a different body. Twisted by hate. Righteous in his anger.
She thought of Jonathan Marshall tying her hands in the car, dragging her out onto the bridge. She would be damned if another man thought he could intimidate her. She’d survived men like the Fox before, she would do it again.
“She saw you that day I dropped her off at the salon, didn’t she?” He snorted. “She didn’t have a manicure appointment, like she’d said. I checked. No, she went back to see you. I didn’t think about that until later.”
“Boss, we need to keep moving.”
Connolly ignored his henchman. “It didn’t take long to recognize your name. Elgin. Unusual, but familiar. I thought, how do I know that name?” He tapped his chin with the tip of his finger
“Boss.”
“I don’t know where she is,” said Amy.
“Oh that’s right,” said Connolly, continuing on as if Amy had said nothing. “He’s that cunt who took out a loan to fund his music career. Guess things didn’t go so well for him.”
Amy glanced again at Danny. “I guess not.”
Corbett leaned forward, hands on his thighs, until his face was an inch from Amy’s. “This is bad for you. Your husband stole my money, and then you stole my family.”
“Boss,” said Aiden again.
The Fox’s glare was enough to make Amy’s bones quake. It was the absence behind his glassy green eyes that was frightening, not the anger in his words. This was a man who could hurt people, then wash his hands and take his daughter out shopping.
And he wanted to hurt Amy.
“Is she with the cops?” he asked quietly. “Where’d they stash my Valerie?”
Amy knew one thing with certainty: she was only useful to him as long as he thought she knew where Val was. Once he found out sh
e didn’t, she was dead.
“No,” Amy lied. “She wouldn’t turn you in.”
He nodded, believing this, even though there had to be a reason the cops were searching for him.
Connolly sighed. Straightened. “Let’s go talk in my car.”
This was the right thing—she needed to get away from the girls—but at the same time it felt like walking straight into a casket.
“Okay,” she said, playing along to put distance between these men at the apartment upstairs. “Just don’t hurt me, all right?”
Connolly chuckled.
He reached forward and snagged the shoulder of Amy’s shirt, then shoved her toward the door. Aiden squeezed by them, just long enough to grab Danny off the floor. As they stepped outside, Amy forced herself not to look up at the breezeway that connected to Iris’s place. She willed Danny to keep his mouth closed.
She replayed exercises she’d done in Mike’s self-defense class in her mind. Twist away. Change the distribution of weight. Throw your attacker off balance.
Connolly returned the gun to his waistband beneath his coat, but she could feel it against her side as he slung his arm over her shoulder.
With shaking legs she walked down the steps, one foot in front of the other, recalling too vividly the night Jonathan Marshall had taken her away. Remembering how it had felt thinking that she’d never see Paisley again. When they were finally to the parking lot, she looked through the cars, hoping to see someone, anyone that she could call out to.
She thought she heard something behind her, and when Connolly stiffened, she knew he did too. When she tried to turn her head, he pinched her arm, hard. It must have been Danny making the noise, because a moment later he wrangled free from Aiden and attempted to push past them down the stairs. Amy and Connolly were thrown to the side as he tried to jump the bannister, but before she could think of making her own escape, Connolly reached for his gun, and fired.
Amy gave a short scream and ducked reactively, covering the sides of her head as the reverberations pounded in her eardrums.
Her heart was pounding.
Her gaze darted to where Danny had gone over the railing. She could see him between the bannister railings, lying on the ground, motionless.
“Dammit,” muttered Connolly, as if he’d only stubbed his toe. “Get him in the car.” He stuffed the gun back into his waistband.
She glanced upstairs, just for one moment. Do not come out.
Aiden jogged down the stairs and rounded to where Danny laid. “Just clipped him,” he said.
She wasn’t sure if that meant Danny was still alive.
She was dragged toward a white SUV with tinted windows. Aiden hoisted Danny into the backseat, where he crumpled like a doll to the floormats, while Amy frantically scanned for help. Both their captors were rushing now; the gunshot had changed their tempo. They knew it was just a matter of time before the cops showed up.
Connolly pushed her inside, beside Danny’s still form.
“Let her go,” came a voice from outside the car.
Connolly jerked toward the sound, still keeping a tight grip in Amy’s shirt. The fabric tore as she twisted out of his hold, but though she made it out of the car, she couldn’t run. The gun barrel now pointed at her ribcage, low enough not to be obvious. Low enough to kill her with one shot.
Please don’t let the girls see this, she thought.
Mike was standing beside the tailgate of his black truck, wearing his beige work shirt and rolling his shoulders as if preparing to pounce. He carried no weapons but his fists, though looked lethal enough for it not to make a difference.
“Who the fuck are you?” asked Connolly.
“I’m the one you’re looking for,” he said.
Amy’s gaze found Mike’s.
Subtly, she tilted her head toward the back of the lot. They had to get these men away from the apartments. If she made a run for it, they might follow her that direction; they’d be crazy to fire at her in the middle of the afternoon where anyone could be watching.
But then again, they didn’t seem to be the most rational people. They had shot her ex-husband in broad daylight, after all.
Mike took a step closer.
“Put down the gun, Connolly,” he said.
Connolly sidestepped toward Amy.
“That’s not the way this works,” said the Fox. “You don’t run the show. You give me what I need, and then I don’t hurt you quite as badly before I kill you.”
“Then let’s get started,” said Mike, taking another step. “You and me. Not Amy.”
“She owes me a debt.”
“Her debts are mine.”
Mike was different than she’d ever seen him. Taller, broader, as if the dark energy crackling off of him was transforming his physical shape. This man wasn’t kind. He didn’t steer clear of violence. He welcomed it.
The Fox was a criminal, no stranger to scenes like this. But right now, she was pretty sure Mike could rip him apart with his bare hands.
“If that’s the way you want to play it.” Connolly turned the gun Mike’s direction. Amy’s breath caught in her throat. Adrenaline surged through her veins.
“Wait,” she meant to scream the word, but it came out barely a whisper. At the same time, she threw herself into him, knocking him off balance.
Mike charged, taking the Fox to the ground with a thud and a grunt while Amy clung to the car door to keep upright. The gun skidded across the pavement, and reactively, Amy scrambled for it. Faintly, in the distance, she heard the whirring of sirens.
Before she reached it, Aiden was on her.
“Boss!” he shouted. “Get in the car!” His grip wound in her hair, and pain seared across her scalp when he jerked her toward the door. She grabbed his hands, holding them to her hair like she’d learned in self defense, and then wheeled back and kicked him in the balls.
With the groan of a dying animal, he fell, curling around himself.
Her gaze shot to the two men rolling across the pavement. Mike was heavier and stronger, and subdued Connolly quickly, shoving his face into the asphalt as he ratcheted his arm back at an impossible angle. Amy’s hands closed around the handle of the weapon, the feel of it still warm from Connolly’s grasp, and heavier than she’d expected.
She turned it toward Aiden, hands shaking.
“The girls?” Mike asked, and she knew the question was for her.
She wasn’t sure what he would have done had she said they were hurt.
“Safe,” she answered quickly.
“Amy.”
She spun to see an officer in a navy uniform with dark hair. Marcos. There were no other cops with him, but the sirens were louder now. He’d arrived before the rest.
He nodded off to the side, and relieved, she lowered the gun, and slipped behind the white SUV, out of danger.
She kept a clear view of Mike.
Marcos quickly cuffed Aiden, then moved toward Mike and Connolly, gun drawn.
“You got him?” With one hand removed a second set of cuffs from his belt.
Mike nodded.
“Move, and I’ll shoot you,” Marcos said. “You’re under arrest, Connolly. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”
While Marcos rattled off the Miranda rights, Mike fasted the cuffs around Connolly’s wrists. The sirens blared now. Red-and-blue lights slashed across the exterior walls of the apartments as the cruisers squealed to a stop around the scene.
“Mike!” As soon as the cuffs were fastened, Amy ran to him. He pulled her into his arms, lifting her off the ground as he strode quickly away from the other men. She could feel the change in him the moment they’d touched. That dark fury dissipated, as if it had never been there. It was as he’d said, he was incapable of hurting her, and when they were close, she could only feel safe.
“You all right?” he asked, setting her down on the hood of a black sedan. His hands were shaking as he tucked her hair behind her ears. She tightened her fists aroun
d his now dirt-stained, crumpled uniform shirt. One of the buttons in the middle had been lost, and her gaze fixed on the place where the fabric gapped.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Are you hurt?”
He tilted her chin up gently so that she was forced to look into his eyes. “You scared me there for a minute.”
“You scared me,” she said. “What were you thinking, charging a guy with a gun?”
He ran his hands up and down her arms, as if warming her. She hadn’t realized she was cold, but this move made her realize she was shivering.
“I was thinking I love you,” he said.
Her heart stopped. Then restarted, painfully.
I love you.
Hearing the words was different than she’d expected. It felt like jumping into cold water, like leaping off the edge of a cliff. It felt humbling, and important, and like the best thing she’d ever earned. His eyes were clear now, without the rawness or guilt she’d seen before, and his hands were steady on her waist.
But there in the back of her mind, her memories whispered: I did all this before, I’m not sure I want to do it all again.
“How much?” she said quietly.
He tilted his head. Behind him, cop cars and ambulances had surrounded the scene. Marcos was giving orders to load Aiden and Connolly into the back of each cruiser. She watched, sagging in relief as they disappeared from view.
“Danny!” she remembered all at once, and pushed off the hood of the car.
But he was already being loaded onto a stretcher. She approached the ambulance with Mike at her side, feeling an unexpected relief as he argued with the medic.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” he said. “I’ll go to an urgent care.”
“It’s a gunshot wound,” corrected the medic. “You’ll go the hospital.”
“And then,” said Amy, looking down at the man who’d kidnapped their daughter, stolen her money, even pushed her down trying to escape a sociopath. “Then, you’ll go to jail, asshole.”
Mike rested a hand on her shoulder, gently rubbing. She could feel the tension diffuse a little beneath his warm hands.
“Something’s wrong with your nose,” he said to Danny.
More: A Body Work Novel (The Body Work Trilogy Book 4) Page 34