Dare To Run (The Sons of Steel Row #1)

by Jen McLaughlin

  She let go of the couch, her mouth parted. “You what?”

  I swallowed the acrid taste of acid rising in my throat. Was I actually going to do this? Say this sappy shit? Yeah. I was. And I wouldn’t regret a single word. “I love you, damn it. So that’s why I dare you to run away with me. That’s right. I fucking dare you to run.”

  She gasped. “Wh-what?”

  I’d wanted to vomit before I’d said those words, but once they came out . . . damned if it didn’t feel amazing. I walked around the back of the couch and yanked her into my arms. She sagged into me, barely breathing. “I love you, okay? You made me realize I wasn’t as dead to the world as I thought, and I want to embrace it instead of killing it. I want to live in that little house with you, probably killing lots of flowers, and spend the rest of my life loving you. Making you smile. Making you as happy as you’ve made me, if that’s even possible.”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she smiled up at me. How the hell did women do that—manage to look both brokenhearted and ecstatic all at one time? “Say it again. I want to hear it one more time.”

  I cocked a brow. If she was asking me to say it again, that had to mean one thing. I’d gotten my yes. “I love you, Heidi.”

  She let out a sob and threw her arms around my neck. “I love you, too.”

  For a second, my arms hung limply at my sides. Not because I didn’t want to hug her, but because I was so stunned that she could possibly love me back. She was . . . she was her, and I was me, but she loved me anyway? “You love me?”

  She nodded, her face buried in my neck. “I do. I didn’t want to admit it for the longest time, but I knew I loved you that night we first made love. You kept telling me not to want you, or fall for you, but it was inevitable. I fell, and I fell hard.”

  I finally closed my arms around her, hugging her close to my chest. She clung to me, and I stood there for a second, just taking it all in. She’d said she loved me. Really loved me. Me. “Yeah, well, you fucking tripped me.”

  She laughed, pulling back and smiling up at me with shining blue eyes. “We’re really going to do this? Run away together and be normal?”

  She said that as if it was this horrible, dreadful thing, so I couldn’t help but laugh.

  And I couldn’t believe it, either.

  “Hell yeah, we are. So hurry up and pack before Steel Row gets here . . . or even worse? The Boys—not counting Scotty, of course.” I kissed her forehead. “Even though this is the shittiest section of Steel Row, someone might have called it in.”

  She nodded and let go of me, but her eyes held on to that sparkle. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  We scrambled around the apartment, packing clothes and computers but tossing the phones in the trash—all while stepping over dead bodies and pools of congealing blood. At one point, she stopped and frowned down at them. “Won’t they wonder why your body isn’t here, with theirs?”

  “Nah. Scotty will take care of it and Chris will play along. He won’t have a choice.”

  “Oh. Right.” She smiled at me. “He’s a cop.”

  For the first time since the crazy revelation, I let that sink in. My brother wasn’t a bad man at all—he was a good one. One with morals and a soul. I’d raised him right. I’d never been so proud of something I’d done before, and I’d never been so proud of him. It scared the shit outta me, knowing he was undercover among a bunch of ruthless killers who skinned cops alive, but still . . .

  I was so proud of him.

  Ma would’ve been, too.

  “I know.” A smile broke out on my face, too. “I didn’t fuck him up.”

  She came over to me, rose on tiptoe, and kissed me. It took all of my control not to hug her close, but we had to get moving. So I didn’t. “That’s because you’re a good man, Lucas Donahue.”

  For the first time . . . I almost believed her.

  The door opened, and I turned to it, gun held at the ready.

  Fully reloaded, this time.

  “Don’t shoot,” a voice I recognized all too well called out. “It’s me. Scotty. Are you guys ready yet?”

  “Yeah.” I slipped my bag onto my shoulder, my gun into the holster, and held my hand out for Heidi’s. She slid her small, soft hand inside mine and hugged my arm close to her side. We were bloody, bruised, and dirty—but we were free. “We’re ready.”

  Scotty looked at our joined hands and the bags on our shoulders. “Not so fake anymore, huh?”

  “I don’t think it ever really was fake,” I admitted. “We’re running, and we’re never coming back. I’m . . . I’m gonna miss you.”

  “I know.” Scotty shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m going to miss you, too. There’s one problem, though.”

  I stiffened. “Yeah?”

  “They’ll want a body, and so will the cops. You know it. No one leaves this life unless it’s by the gun, and they’ll want proof.” He took his hands out of his pockets. “You have to be dead, and everyone needs to know it. It’s the only way you’ll be free.”

  Heidi peeked at me, her cheeks pink. “But how do we do that?”

  “There are a bunch of dead bodies in here. Who’s to say one of them isn’t Lucas’s?” Scotty asked.

  She snorted. “DNA. That’s who. You of all people should know that.”

  “That’s why we have to torch the place and remove any evidence that one of these bodies isn’t mine,” I said, understanding where he was going.

  “Exactly. But even more than that, we need there to be two more bodies.”

  Heidi blinked. “Us?”

  “Yeah. I got in contact with one of my buddies at the morgue, and we’re getting two cadavers sent in—a male and a female—so it looks even more real. We’ll falsify the dental records so you can escape without anyone questioning anything.” Scotty crossed his arms. “You will be, for all intents and purposes, dead. No cops will come looking for you, and neither will Steel Row. CSI will confirm it’s you, and you’ll be free.”

  There was that word again. Free. “They would do that for you?”

  “I got people.” Scotty nodded. “So, yeah. They would.”

  Heidi trembled. “And then we just drive away.”

  “Yep.” Scotty stared at Heidi. “I’ll tell Steel Row I saw you go down in a blaze of gunfire and smoke, which the evidence will corroborate, and hung around to make sure it was you. Chris will back me up because he doesn’t have a choice.” Scotty lifted a shoulder. “Not if he truly wants the crown.”

  “I’m proud of you, brother,” I said. And I meant every word. “I’ll never forget what you’re doing for me now. I’ll never . . .”

  Scotty didn’t say anything, but he dipped his chin in acknowledgment.

  Emotion swelled within me, but I swallowed it back. He knew I loved him. And now I knew he loved me, too. But I had so many questions. “Why were you meeting with Bitter Hill the other day? I saw you.”

  “I have a guy in there. He was keeping me informed of Chris’s plan. It was all a setup.” We walked down the stairs, and he asked, “Where will you two go?”

  “I don’t know yet.” I squeezed Heidi’s hand. This whole thing felt like a dream. The best fucking dream ever, and I never wanted to wake up. “We’ll hit the road, turn left . . . and just keep going.”

  “And just keep going,” she echoed, smiling.

  “Jesus, you two . . .” Scotty made a frustrated sound. “Okay, off you go. I’ll take care of this. Go, before someone sees you.”

  I opened the door of my Mustang for Heidi, and she slid inside. She gripped the handle and looked up at Scotty. “My bar . . . and Marco . . .”

  “I’ve been watching you, so I’ll take care of them both.”

  She nibbled on her lower lip. “He’s on his way to Boston College.”

  “I’ll make sure he gets, and stays, there.” He rolled back on his heels, and the wind blew his brown hair. “Don’t worry about life here. I’ll take care of it all.”

  She s
agged against the seat. “Thank you . . . for everything.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “I’ll be right in.” I closed the door and turned to Scotty. “Make sure there’s nothing left.”

  He nodded. “You know it, man. You’re sure this is what you want? That you’re willing to walk away from everything you built and fought for, for a woman?”

  I glanced through the window. She watched us, her cheeks flushed with excitement as she nibbled on her lower lip. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  “Then go.” He patted me on the back in that man-hug we all did. “Go be happy. You deserve it. I’ll make sure Chris straightens his shit out . . . or I’ll have to finish what you didn’t.”

  Not willing to let him leave with a lame-ass hug, I pulled him into my arms and kissed his temple. “I . . . I love you, brother.”

  He hugged me back, his arms stronger than I remembered them being. “I love you, too. Take this start and make a real life. One Ma would be proud of—because she would be so fucking proud of you right now.”

  I swallowed past my aching throat. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Oh, I am.” He let go of me. “Now, go.”

  “Okay.” I walked around the trunk of the car and tossed our bags in. As I shut it, I nodded at Scotty once, memorizing his face one last time. “You do what you gotta do, man. Just stay alive.”

  He saluted me. “Always.”

  “If you ever need me . . . well, find me. I’ll be there.”

  Without answering, he headed back into my apartment. As I settled into the driver’s seat, I gripped the wheel tight. Last time we’d been in this car, I’d been so sure we wouldn’t walk away from this shit hole alive, let alone together and in love. I kicked the engine into gear. We backed out of the parking spot and drove down the road.

  We passed the Laundromat next to her bar and slowed in front of the Patriot. She ducked her head and stared up at it, resting a hand against the cold window, her shoulders hunched. “Good-bye, little bar.”

  I rested a hand on her thigh and squeezed. “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” She laid a hand over mine. “I’m sure. Where to?”

  “How’s Georgia sound to you?”

  “Georgia?” She turned to me, her plump pink lips wet and looking way too damn kissable. “Why Georgia?”

  “If they see through the whole death thing, no one would ever think to look for two city rats in the country.” I smiled. “Plus, you smell and taste like peaches, so it seems fitting.”

  She choked on a laugh. “I do?”

  “Yeah.” I slid my hand up her thigh. “Everywhere.”

  Her cheeks pinked. “Lucas.”

  “Yeah, darlin’?”

  “Make a left, and keep driving . . . till we hit Georgia.”

  “Okay, but first . . .” I curled my hand around the back of her neck and dragged her close. Our lips met, and we smiled as the kiss ended. “Any regrets? It’s not too late to go back.”

  “Keep driving, Lucky.” She let out a little laugh. “You’re stuck with me, whether you like it or not.”

  Closing my eyes, I hugged her close and breathed in her scent like air. A scent that I’d never have to stop breathing in. “Oh, I like it. I like it a lot.”

  We settled back into our seats, and I pulled up to the stoplight. When it switched to green, we smiled at each other, the joy in the car overwhelmingly sunshiny bright. If it had been anyone else, I’d have gagged and told them to go get a fucking room—or better yet, shoot themselves in the head or something equally harsh.

  But it was us. So I turned left, and just kept driving. Out of Steel Row, out of the city limits, and out of Massachusetts, too. Somewhere around the mountains inside Pennsylvania, I finally let myself believe that this was actually happening.

  For the first time in my life . . .

  I believed in happy endings, even for a villain like me.

  EPILOGUE

  LUCAS

  One year later

  Georgia

  I lifted the shovel and slammed it into the rocky soil. The salty sweat rolling down my forehead stung my eyes like a bitch, but I didn’t let it slow me down. The sun was shining down on me, and it felt as if it tried to bake me alive, but I didn’t give a damn. I had only a few more minutes to get this shit right, and I didn’t want to fuck it up.

  If Heidi came home too early and caught me, my whole plan would be ruined. I couldn’t risk her finding out my secret before I was ready to confess it all to her.

  Swiping my forearm across my forehead, I eyed the bagged item I was supposed to bury. This wasn’t my usual job, but I was determined to do it anyway. To prove myself, somehow. Bending down, I hauled the item into the hole and spent the next few minutes covering it up with dirt. I stood back, surveying my handiwork. Brown branches extended from the freshly tossed dirt, green leaves bloomed from the stems.

  Peach tree . . . planted.

  Take that, garden.

  Striding over to the picnic table we’d built together, I picked up my bottle of water and chugged it back, not leaving so much as a drop behind. The hot sun was trying to kill me, and it was only spring. I knew from experience that it would only get worse.

  And we both loved every second of it.

  We’d spent the last year trying our best at being “normal,” and it turned out . . . we were both a hell of a lot better at it than we thought we would be. I owned a mechanic shop that did a lot of business—though mostly because I was the only mechanic shop in town—and Heidi owned a bar right next door to my shop.

  Just like old times, only a hell of a lot better.

  She’d called her bar “the Dare.”

  Once, we’d gotten a card from Scotty. He hadn’t written his name, or ours, and he’d mailed it from a different state, but I’d recognized his writing. It had contained a lot of money—from the bar, more than likely—and that was it. Despite the fact that we’d ditched my car just over the Massachusetts border and changed our last names, he’d figured out our location.

  How? I had no fucking clue.

  But he had, and if anyone was gonna know our location . . . well, I was glad it was him. I trusted him, and so did Heidi. And that was good enough for me.

  I’d never been happier.

  “Lucas?” Heidi called out from inside the house.

  I set my water down. “Out here.”

  The back door opened and Heidi came out into our fenced-in yard. “Hey, I got home a little early. I thought it would be fun to head out to the movies and—” When she saw the rosebushes—all ten of them—and the peach tree I’d planted, she stopped in her tracks, her jaw dropping. “Oh my God. You planted a garden.”

  “We kept saying we would have that normal garden in our normal house in our normal town.” I gestured to the house. “And we got all of that other stuff, but we never planted our garden . . . until now.”

  She walked over to the tree I’d planted and touched its leaves. “What kind of tree is this?”

  Smirking, I walked up directly behind her. “Guess.”

  “I don’t—” She turned around and gasped.

  I stood directly behind her, holding a peach in my hand. Lying on top of the peach was something shiny and bright. I grinned. “It’s a peach tree, of course.”

  “Of—” She covered her mouth with a shaking hand. “Lucas.”

  “I thought of a million fucking ways to do this, you know. In a fancy restaurant, or on one of those ridiculous kiss-me cams at a baseball game, or in bed while naked. I thought of a million ways, and none of them felt right.” I dropped to one knee in front of her, peach in hand . . . and my heart, too. “And then it came to me. None of it felt right because that wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. A piece of the puzzle was missing.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “The garden.”

  “The garden.” I offered her the peach. She took it with trembling hands, her gaze locked on the ring on top of it
. “I love you, darlin’.”

  Reaching up, I grabbed her hand in between mine to steady it. Mine weren’t trembling, because I wasn’t nervous or uncertain. I knew what I was doing, and I was one hundred percent ready. “This is the second smartest thing I’ve ever done in my life. The first was daring you to run away with me.”

  She nodded frantically. “Yes.”

  “And I—” I frowned. Wait. “You can’t answer me before I ask you, darlin’.”

  “You don’t need to ask me. And you know that.” She fell to her knees in front of me, set the peach down between us, and framed my face, smiling brightly up at me. “But if it makes you feel better, go ahead and—”

  “It does,” I muttered. “I want to do this the traditional way, damn it.”

  Her lips twitched. “Go for it, by all means.”

  “Thank you.” I took a breath. “Heidi Greene Buchanan, light of my life, love of my heart . . .”

  She laughed. “Laying it on a little thick, huh?”

  “Darlin’,” I teased, kissing her briefly, “you’re ruining my proposal.”

  She mimed the act of zipping her lips.

  “I know you deserve better than me, and that I’m not a good man. I’m definitely not a good enough man for you.” She opened her mouth to argue, and I pressed a finger to her lips. “Sh. My speech. I get to say what I want, and you’re not allowed to argue.” I paused, waiting to make sure she’d let me talk. She stayed silent. “But since I know you deserve better, that’s why I’m the best man for you. I’ll constantly be trying to do better, to be better, because you deserve the best in everything.”

  “And I have it,” she whispered. “I have you. I know you think you’re not good, but to me . . . that’s all you’ve ever been. You’ve always been good to me, for me, and I love you with all my heart. And I love our normal life, and I love this garden.”