Bounty

by Aubrey St. Clair

  “Zis again,” one of the Russians interrupts. “Ve are not all ze same Ruskies. Not all one, you see.”

  “You buy that?” I ask April. She just pretends to be terrified. “You’ve got the bruises where I broke your nose,” I point to the one on the left. “I can see how badly you want to shoot me. Let me tell you, the feeling is mutual.”

  The man lurches at me, but one of the Irishmen holds him back. Damn.

  “Ye dinnae have to goad them. You’ve already got a gun to the lass’s head,” the man says. “Just tell us what you want.”

  Damn people who cut to the chase.

  “I’m sorry, April,” I say, trying not to sound too sorry. I already told her, but I know she isn’t sure yet whether it’s true. I hate to drag it out into the light and put her through even more trauma, but it’s the best chance I can think of to keep this going. We didn’t have enough time to really plan out all the details here, so I’m flying by the seat of my pants.

  “Devlin,” I say, putting a smirk in my voice. “You said I could call you Devlin, right?”

  He doesn’t glare, exactly. It’s somewhere between a glower, and a cocky expression of expectation. He’s waiting for my first move. A game of verbal chess.

  “Sure, son.”

  “Can you please explain to your daughter why you’d bring these men under your protection, after they so brutally attacked her?”

  There. One of the Russians leans in too close. A short one, right next to the bruised one. Perfect.

  “This fucker!” I lurch at the bruised one, and April slips out from between my bound hands. Which aren’t really bound.

  We work in tandem. She swivels around me, grabs the short Russian’s gun hand, where he isn’t holding onto his AK tightly enough, jerks it towards her, twisting, and I slam the butt of my gun down on the wrong side of the elbow until we hear a crack.

  Now we each have a gun, our hands free, and we’re pointing them out into the crowd. My gun is on Sullivan. April keeps her back to mine, and trains it on the Russians.

  The threat has shifted from me shooting April, to April shooting them. It’s delicious.

  Her father is actually, truly surprised, and that’s delicious too.

  “Get him!” one of the Irishmen yells, but Sullivan shrieks over him.

  “No, stop! You might hit April!”

  But April’s gun is aimed at the last man who attacked her. Pointing his friend’s weapon in his face and glaring at him is too much for the man’s pride. His face crumples into a snarl of rage. I see it, and spin her out of the way as the man lets a bullet fly.

  It’s chaos, after that. The patrons downstairs begin to panic, their shrieks piercing up to us on the second floor, both distracting and insistent. The regular cops will be here soon, too, now. The Russians have broken rank, some of the Irish are shooting at me, and some at the Russians, to defend Sullivan’s daughter. Sullivan himself is pointing his gun at me.

  But April drags me behind a pillar as the edges of it explode in a cascade of shattered marble.

  “I’ll cover us!” she shouts, and I marvel as she pokes her hand around the corner and begins laying down suppressive fire. Not to hit anyone, but to keep it impossible for them to take aim, to concentrate, without risk of getting hit. Fucking smart. She’s got a lot of bullets in that AK, after all.

  Men begin to dive behind pillars, too, and now we’re all entrenched.

  “Don’t shoot!” Sullivan calls out to the entire room from behind his own pillar. “Stop shooting at my daughter. April, honey. I know you’re confused right now. But you’re with us,” he says, gentle. Understanding. “This is everything we’ve fought for, together. All your hard work, and mine. Everything we’ve built is here.”

  I can’t let him play that angle. I trust April, but… I call out. “What happened to April’s mother?”

  Sullivan freezes, then every mobster freezes. You could hear a pin drop in the room. It was a gamble by me, nothing but a suspicion I had, but the sudden silence is all the evidence I need to know my hunch was right.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he says.

  “Dad? What happened to Mom,” April says, stepping out from behind the pillar before I can stop her. “Don’t lie to me.”

  I peer around to watch her in amazement. She’s the safest, I suppose, with all the Irish men pointing their guns at the Russians to protect her, and the Russians mostly swinging their aim back at the Irishmen. But I don’t like to see her there, in the middle of the room. I keep my eyes dancing between potential threats to her.

  I should be by her side. But Sullivan’s gun is still on me. One wrong move and we’re all shot.

  April creeps close to her father.

  “What. Happened. To Mom?”

  Even in a stand-off, her father manages to look composed. “She was in an accident,” he finally answers.

  “I said don’t lie to me!” April roars, and it’s a miracle nobody fires on reflex. Devlin continues to underestimate how smart his daughter is.

  “It’s no lie,” he says. “It wasn’t a car accident, but it was a mistake. The man responsible was swiftly taken care of.”

  “You got her killed…” April says. “She got caught in the cross-fire.”

  “Yes,” Sullivan finally relents. “Yes. It was because of me, and that’s something that I have to live with every day.”

  “No. That’s something I had to live with every day. Do you know what it’s like to grow up without a mother?”

  I do. It’s something else we share.

  Sullivan merely shakes his head.

  “Then, you might not understand… But Dad, I don’t want to lose you too.”

  Oh shit.

  34

  April

  Before anything else can happen, before my dad can react or move, I shoot the gun out of his hand. It was a good shot, but not completely clean – I’ve mangled his fingers, but hopefully saved his life. But unfortunately, as soon as I fire, it sets off a storm of bullets from the other mobsters, and Liam immediately dives out to knock me to the ground and drag me to safety. The Russians might want to shoot at us, but they’re pretty tied up with my dad’s men. And my dad’s men don’t want to shoot at Liam for fear of hitting me.

  And I shot my father.

  I watch him stumble back against the wall in shock. As he does, he jerks again, hand going to his leg. He’s been shot again.

  I can’t help it, I wrench free from Liam and sprint towards dad.

  He needs to be brought to justice, that’s the only way this ends, for all of us. I don’t want him to die.

  Not only because I don’t want to lose another parent, but because I still need answers.

  Tears spring to my eyes as I grab my father and help him get to the floor. Liam is soon hovering behind me, trying to convince me to leave, but I can’t quite hear him.

  “April —”

  “Just stay down, dad,” I say, holding my gun to him. “Please don’t make me shoot you again.”

  “Helluva shot, though, lass.”

  “The cops are on their way,” is all I can respond with. It’s tearing me up inside, feeling shame for what kind of a person he is, but still not wanting to lose him completely.

  I imagine it’ll be something I struggle with for the rest of my life.

  Liam finally seems to understand, because he stops yelling at me to leave and instead just lays down more suppressive fire, making sure my father is positioned between us and anyone who might want to shoot us.

  I finally hear sirens. Thank God.

  “April,” my dad’s voice is getting weaker.

  “He’s bleeding from his leg a lot,” I say to Liam.

  “Paramedics are on their way,” he says. “Tie this above the wound.” He removes his belt for me to use as a tourniquet.

  “I can’t believe… mine own daughter.”

  “Yes, well…” I say. “You should probably go to jail, dad.”

  “I did all thi
s for you. It was all for you,” he whispers.

  “No, it wasn’t.” I shake my head slowly. “You did this for you. For your ego. All I ever needed was for you to be my dad.”

  “I am your father. I love you, sweet pea.”

  “Well, this isn’t the right way to do it,” I say. “I would have much rather had a dad that was around, especially after mom…”

  “Fuck,” my dad groans. “I fucked up.”

  “Yeah. Either that, or you didn’t work hard enough to indoctrinate me,” I whisper.

  While Liam once again single-handedly fights off gangsters for me, I continue tying the belt around my father’s leg until the police arrive.

  There is significantly less gunfire after that. Liam is leaning against a wall, recovering from… no.

  No!

  Liam is not okay. Really not okay. There is a lot of blood gushing over a spot on his torso where he has his hand pressed.

  As soon as I notice that, I drop my dad. Literally. One moment I’m helping him to his feet, and the next I’m letting him fall back to the floor as I rush over to Liam. Dad is okay now, but Liam needs me.

  I sprint to Liam and ease him down, in almost a comic parody of what just happened.

  I lift his jacket away from his torso and see only red.

  “Oh my god,” I say. “You got shot.” While I was sitting there, chatting with my criminal fire, Liam was covering us both and got caught by a stray bullet.

  “You got shot for me,” I correct, feeling light-headed.

  “Well, I love you,” Liam says, but now there’s blood on his lips, and…

  “Can I get some fucking help here?” I shriek desperately.

  I lay him down and apply pressure over the wound. That’s all I know to do. And I yell at him. I scream that he’s not allowed to die. That I need him.

  He isn’t passed out, not yet. I can see the deep ocean-moss of his eyes, but he can’t talk.

  “EMTs! EMTs! Help!” I keep screaming, like a siren. Finally, there’s a woman there, pushing me aside. Then another, with tools. Then a gurney appears.

  “Wait,” I say. “Bring me with you. Please.”

  “Are you injured?” It’s a fireman, I think.

  “No, you have to take me with you,” and suddenly I’m sobbing. “I can’t leave him.”

  They let me ride with him to the hospital. I hear snippets of information. Blood loss. Old concussion. Acute stress response.

  Going into shock.

  Oh wait. Maybe that’s me.

  35

  Liam

  When I come to, April’s face is the first thing I see. Radiant. Golden.

  Her smile washes over me, and for a few moments I don’t know and I don’t care if I ‘m dead or alive. Gazing at her makes me happy.

  Then I realize she’s trying to talk to me.

  “Mmmm,” is the only sound I can make come out of my mouth. It’s very tiring, so I go back to sleep.

  When I come to the second time, I’m much more myself. April is asleep next to me, crammed into the small space of the hospital bed. One of her smaller clocks is on the bedside table.

  Ah, so it’s been a while.

  Her form pressing against me feels warm and good. I have bandages all over, but I’m feeling surprisingly okay.

  “Am I on drugs?” I ask her. My mouth and brain feel sluggish. “No wait. Don’t answer that. First, how are you?”

  She smiles into my shoulder.

  “I’m fine. How are you?”

  “On drugs.”

  We giggle.

  “How’s your father?”

  “Pissed off. In custody. But alive.” She lifts her eyes so she can gaze at me. “He might lose part of the leg.”

  “I’m so sorry, April. I never meant for anyone to get hurt, you have to know that. I just bring people in. I don’t shoot people.” I stop. “Well, unless I’m forced to.”

  “I know, Liam. I talked to Vicente while you were out. Learned a bit more about the bounty hunting business.”

  “I’m sorry about your father.”

  “Well, I’m the one that shot him in the hand.” She shrugs. “And he brought this on himself when he decided that making money was more important than being a good person.”

  “You’re a good person,” I say.

  “So are you,” she points out.

  “I almost took the money, instead of doing the right thing,” I say. “I have be honest with you. The night I went to meet up with you… I wasn’t sure what I was going to do until the last second. Until I told you I had to tell you something. I wasn’t sure if I was going to sick the Feds on you and your family or not.”

  “Honestly,” she picks at the threads of my shirt. “I love you for what you chose. You chose me. But I think taking down my dad, that was also the right decision.”

  I nod. “Even with the bounty?”

  “Funny thing about that,” she says, a little smile curling up along her lips. “With you out cold, it was actually me who handed my dad over to the FBI.”

  “You’re taking my bounty?” I ask, both boggled and impressed.

  Her face takes on a serious look for a moment. “It was Vicente who pointed that technicality out, actually.” She pauses, but then can’t hold back her smile and laugh any longer. “I told him we did it together. So it can be ours.”

  “That sounds like a good deal,” I nod. I can’t think of a better way to ensure that April sticks with me. Besides, it was far more money than I needed.

  “But more importantly, the FBI are far more concerned with using the information my dad has, and I’ve convinced him to share, to cut a deal, maybe get out of prison before he dies of old age. He can help dismantle his entire empire, maybe deal a blow to some of the others. Get a lot of weapons and drugs off the streets. Keep even more people from getting hurt.”

  “Essentially completely destroying what your father built,” I say. “Aren’t you afraid of retaliation?”

  She only shrugs. “It feels like the right way to make amends, he’s brought this on himself.”

  “Okay, but I was more talking about you. Plenty of his people know you are his daughter, and obviously others do as well, like the Russians. We need to get you a security detail,” I say.

  She ignores this. “I lived with my head in the sand for so long, benefitting from his exploitation of others.”

  “You really are an amazing human, April Fitzpatrick.”

  She winces and shrugs again. “Speaking of the Russians, I got the full story about them, too.”

  “Don’t tell me —“

  “No, he didn’t order them to attack me or anything like that. Apparently their two gangs were in the midst of some heated negotiations and some of their crew thought they’d think outside the box, so to speak. You know, add some pressure on him in order to get the terms they wanted. Of course, when he found out about it, he was furious and threatened all out war. The Russians decided to instead meet his demands in the negotiations, as way of making up for it. In turn, he agreed not to retaliate against those responsible.”

  “So…” I don’t really want to say it, but she finishes it for me.

  “Yeah, so he basically forgave them in order to get a better deal. Everyone has their own priorities, right?” I can see tears welling in her eyes, but she holds them back.

  “It’s okay darling. It’s okay.” I stroke her hair, and we just rock together for a while.

  “At least it’s all over now,” I say.

  “You still want to be with me? Even after you got attacked and then shot? Even after I sold you out?”

  “You still want to be with me? Even after I lied to you and took advantage of you?”

  We lock eyes, my breaths coming low and shallow.

  And then she nods, and I nod, and she swoops in for a kiss, and no amount of blood loss or drugs could keep me from feeling that thrill of arousal when her lips are on mine.

  “I can’t wait to make you mine,” I say.

>   “And I can’t wait to let you,” she says. “And I promise this time we’ll go on a normal date. No guns, no knives, no airplanes or gangsters.”

  “Maybe some clocks?”

  “Maybe,” she allows, and then she’s giggling, and I’m laughing too, and I know that as long as April is by my side, I have more to look forward to in the future than I ever have before.

  * * *

  The End

  * * *

  But the reading doesn’t end here! Continue on for more Aubrey St. Clair, as this copy of Bounty includes 3 bonus books as well as a special early description of my upcoming series. Click to read about that right now, or just wait until the end of the bonus books to read about it!

  Bonus Material

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  Bonus Book 1

  The first bonus novel is Fighting for Salvation – my debut MMA romance novel.

  1

  Joel

  "Don't get in my way, boy!" Joel's father yelled, his eyes a blaze of fury.

  "Leave her alone!" the boy yelled, arms outstretched in front of his cowering mother.

  The back of the man's hand moved like a flash and the boy spun as he was struck, arms flailing as he hit the ground. "I warned you. Never fucking listen to me, a day in your life. Like your bitch of a mother."

  Joel's father advanced again, both hands clenched into fists of black iron, dirty from an afternoon of fixing cars and strong for the same reason. He was lurching unsteadily, so his advance was slow enough that Joel was able to scramble back to his feet and throw himself between the two adults again before his father could close the gap. His mother stood hunched against the kitchen counter, hands held protectively in front of her face.