by Julia Harper
He looked up and met her beautiful blue eyes. “Pete. He’s holding the Gupta ladies, Neil, and Neil’s son. He wants to make an exchange of some sort.”
He waited, hoping against hope that she would trust him. His track record to date wasn’t particularly sterling. He wouldn’t be entirely surprised if she grabbed the baby and ran. Disappointed, sure, but not surprised.
But she simply sat on the couch and laid a light hand on Pete’s oblivious head. “What are we going to do?”
That we burrowed into Dante’s heart and made a home for itself. Now he just had to make sure he didn’t fail her trust.
“Keep Pete safe no matter what.” He held her gaze. “I don’t know what I’ll do exactly. Figure out a way to get the others away from him without handing over Pete.”
“Okay.”
He stood, aware that he wasn’t in top shape at the moment. His side burned, and his leg was starting to stiffen up. “First we need to find some transportation. Those assassins found us somehow. My BMW may have a tracker on it. I can’t think of any other way they could’ve found out where we are. We’re going to have to leave my car behind. I guess we can take the hit men’s truck.”
She glanced at the window, out in the direction of the car. Dante felt a pang of regret. He loved that goddamned car, bullet holes or not.
“You’d better get dressed,” he said. “Check the kitchen, bring whatever food and supplies you might need for Pete.”
“Okay.” She turned toward the kitchen and almost tripped over his gun holster. Zoey bent to pick it up. “Ouch.”
“What is it?” Dante took the holster from her. Something small and black was poking out between where the straps were stitched together. Dante reached for his trench coat. He had a folding knife in an inside pocket.
Behind him, Zoey said, “I think something broke on it. I’m sorry, I . . .”
Her voice died away as he pulled apart the edges of the leather and picked out a tracing chip with his fingernails.
Zoey’s eyes widened. “Is that—?”
“Yeah, it is.” Dante felt grimly triumphant as he examined the chip. “Guess it wasn’t the BMW, after all. It makes sense. Even if I ditched the car I’d always have my gun on me.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
He shrugged and placed both the chip and the gun holster on the fireplace mantel. “Leave them here. I’m not taking the chance that there’s another tracer on the holster.”
“But how will you carry your gun?”
“In my coat pocket. Listen, let me worry about my gun. You get yourself and Pete ready to go. I’m going to double-check the BMW.”
“Okay.” But still she hesitated, looking worried.
“Look.” He touched her shoulder gently, hating to see the shadows in her eyes. “I need to take a look at where DiRosa’s man is holding everyone in the motel, examine the layout a bit more, see what I can do. But I’ll come up with a plan. Believe me, I’m not giving up Pete.”
“I know,” she said simply.
She took two steps until she stood directly in front of him. Until her blue eyes were only inches from his. “I trust you, Dante.”
Then she kissed him, her lips soft and feminine and strong on his, and in her kiss was everything he’d ever longed for in life: trust, need, and want.
Maybe even love.
Chapter Sixty
Sunday, 9:34 a.m.
Two fucking months of twice-a-week anger management classes and this was what it got him: tied up in the corner like a chump while a hired pretty boy gunslinger waved a Glock in his face.
Neil twisted his hands behind his back, but the asshole had used duct tape, and the tape only tangled further. Fuck. If he got out of this alive he was quitting the fucking anger management classes. The coffee had sucked anyway, and they’d always had Fig Newtons to eat. He fucking hated Fig Newtons. Ash would just have to learn to live with his natural aggression.
And thinking of Ash made him realize how worried she must be right now. About the only thing halfway bad you could say about Ash was that she was a worrier. After he’d found Neil Junior, Neil had called Ash last night, just so she wouldn’t worry. He’d told her exactly where he was, mostly because she’d demanded the information. What was more, he’d promised her that he and Neil Junior would be home by two in the morning at the latest. Only of course they weren’t. There’d been that blizzard and the strange rice pudding, and then Neil had decided to take a little nap before driving home. He’d woken to find Pretty Boy standing over him, the Glock nearly up Neil’s nose.
So now he and Neil Junior weren’t home, and Ash was bound to be worrying, and that just wasn’t good. Last time he’d screwed up with Ash, she hadn’t talked to him for a month, just sent him fucking cold looks that still made him shiver. And he’d never even figured out exactly what he’d done wrong that time. This time he knew, which made it ten times worse.
The old ladies were sitting on the bed next to each other, aiming identical death stares at Pretty Boy. They hadn’t been real pleased when he’d called them Pakistani. Pretty Boy was still lounging in the only comfortable chair in the room, stroking the Glock like he was going to whip out his dick any moment and come all over it.
Fucking asshole. Probably didn’t have a clue how to do it with a woman. Or a guy, nothing wrong with that. Neil’s cousin Bernie swung that way, so he’d had to learn not to say “queer.” “Fag” was still okay. At least he thought so—he’d have to ask Bernie. Anyway, Neil was betting this motherfucker didn’t know how to get it on with anything warm, woman, man, or farm animal.
Pretty Boy’s eyes flickered over as Neil Junior dropped to his hands and knees and scooted toward Neil. His son grabbed the front of his shirt and crawled into his lap—what there was of it, considering that Neil had his knees crunched nearly to his chest by the duct tape. Neil Junior grinned up into his face and patted his cheek with a grubby paw. The kid was fucking cute, anyone but a stone-cold killer would admit that.
Problem was, Pretty Boy obviously was a stone-cold killer.
The guy glanced over now with his fucking creepy light-gray eyes and said, “I am told that one can push a thumb through the top of a baby’s skull if the bones are not yet fused. Do you think your son’s skull is fused?”
The ladies gasped, the round one making a little scream. Neil growled and lunged at the asshole. If he could get his hands on Pretty Boy, he’d fucking kill him with his bare hands. But bound as he was, Neil could move only a few inches, jiggling Neil Junior on his lap. The baby laughed and bounced. Probably wanted to play horsy.
Pretty Boy smiled like Freddy Krueger on crack. “Maybe I will let you watch. Maybe—”
But the rest of his sentence was cut off by a loud knock on the door. Everyone swung in that direction, staring.
Pretty Boy motioned with the Glock. “See who it is,” he told the taller lady.
Her eyes widened, but she moved toward the door. Neil bit back a groan. If this was that FBI agent’s idea of a fucking plan, they were all in trouble. Sure enough, Torelli stepped in the room.
“Where is the baby?” Pretty Boy asked.
“Safe,” Torelli said. He walked to the bed and sat down on the end. Neil noticed that he was limping a little.
Pretty Boy’s eyes narrowed. “I told you to bring her here.”
Torelli shrugged. “I don’t trust you.”
“You doubt my honor?”
“Yeah.”
Neil tensed, because it looked like Pretty Boy just might start shooting right then and there. But then the fucker smiled a nasty little smile. “You are smart.”
Torelli nodded. “You don’t need all these hostages. Let me take the baby outside.”
“No.”
Torelli sighed. “Look—”
Another knock sounded at the door. Everyone looked around.
Pretty Boy motioned with his gun to the tall Indian lady. She went to the door.
There was a murmur, and then the Indi
an lady stepped back from the door to reveal a hugely pregnant dishwater blonde in a flowered smock and stretch pants. She wore glasses, and her hair was cut short like a man’s, and she looked kind of like an accountant.
Neil groaned.
She swayed into the room, her belly leading the way.
Torelli stood. “Ma’am—”
The dishwater blonde frowned. “Which one of you is the guy who’s holding the baby hostage?”
Pretty Boy said, “Who are you?”
The blonde turned to him and pushed her glasses up her nose with her left hand. A big pink diamond sparkled on her finger. “You the tough guy?”
“Yes, I am.” Pretty Boy smirked. “What do you care?”
Neil Junior grinned. “Mama!”
And Ashley brought the Uzi in her right hand up from where she’d been concealing it behind her back and emptied the clip into Pretty Boy. The room kind of shook with the percussion. Pretty Boy slumped over and dropped his gun. He was very dead.
Torelli lowered the Glock he’d drawn. “Huh. So much for my cunning plan.”
Ashley put the Uzi on the bureau, scooped Neil Junior out of Neil’s lap, and planted a big kiss on the baby’s cheek. “That’s right, baby, it’s Mama.”
The taller Indian lady sat down hard next to her sister-in-law. Both ladies were gaping.
“Neil, honey,” his wife said to him. “I don’t want you working for Uncle Tony anymore. I don’t think it’s good for our family.”
Neil would’ve told her that there was no way he was going back to her crazy uncle, but the fucking gag was still in his mouth.
The shorter Indian lady gave herself a little shake and turned to her sister-in-law. “I think you should be the one to tell Rahul about the mess in his motel room.”
Chapter Sixty-one
Sunday, 10:37 a.m.
Ashley Janiowski was the scariest pregnant lady Zoey had ever seen. Of course Zoey’s perception might’ve been colored by the knowledge that Ashley carried an Uzi in her purse and had just blown away a man without even blinking.
“I can’t believe Uncle Tony sent Rutgar after his own grand-nephew,” Ashley was saying as she rubbed her swollen stomach under a pink and white flowered maternity smock. A cartoon mouse on the front held a sign that said BABY ON BOARD! “That’s cold, even for Uncle Tony. That’s really cold.”
They were all sitting in the Agrawals’ living room, making it pretty cramped. Mr. Agrawal had taken the news that he had a corpse in his motel pretty well, considering. He’d turned a little gray, sat down hard on a chair in his living room, and stared into space for a bit. Dante had asked him to wait on calling the police to report the hit man’s death, and Mr. Agrawal had merely waved a hand kind of vaguely.
The three Agrawal children were alternately playing with Pete and Neil Junior and watching a cartoon that involved a boy scientist with a weird German accent. The Gupta ladies were helping their niece set the table for brunch. Neil was sitting next to Ashley, alternately basking in her wifely concern and being blasted by her displeasure. She seemed to vacillate rapidly between the two.
And Dante lounged in an armchair, his body relaxed but his eyes intent. Zoey frowned. He’d been limping, but he refused to let her look at his leg or side. She only hoped that he wasn’t slowly hemorrhaging to death in his masculine stoicism.
“And you!” Ashley suddenly rounded on her husband, the pendulum obviously swinging back to displeasure. “What were you thinking, doing a job with Neil Junior in the back of your truck?”
Neil looked a little like a deer in the headlights. If he hadn’t been the one to snatch Pete in the first place, Zoey might feel a bit of sympathy for him.
“It was a little job, Ash, just a fucking little job. How was I to know that—”
Ashley let out a snort like a displeased pregnant buffalo. “That the FBI would double-cross Tony, and you’d arrive during a shootout between the FBI agents, and have to snatch a baby, putting Neil Junior in danger? I don’t know, Neil, maybe you should’ve thought ahead, you know?”
Ashley pushed up her glasses and shot a glare at Dante.
Dante raised his eyebrows. “I wasn’t the one shooting, Mrs. Janiowski.” He looked at Neil. “So you arrived in the middle of a shootout?”
Neil nodded, keeping a wary eye on his wife. “More like a fucking bloodbath. There were two Feebs down, and the third bought it as I walked in.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed, and Zoey remembered that the “Feebs” had been his coworkers. But his voice was mild when he asked, “How do you know the shooters were FBI, too?”
Neil snorted almost as explosively as his wife. “Suits, fucking military-cut hair, and the dead Feebs had let them in the room, there wasn’t no fucking forced entry. Didn’t take an Einstein to figure who they were.”
Dante nodded.
“Listen.” Neil sat forward on the couch. “I didn’t go there to take the kid, swear on my mother’s grave—”
Ashley shook her head angrily and muttered something about Neil’s mother, but he raised his voice over hers.
“Tony sent me there to make sure this FBI guy had done the job he promised and had had Spinoza offed.”
Dante looked up sharply. “The FBI agent was going to kill Spinoza for Tony the Rose?”
“That’s what he’d promised.” Neil shrugged. “I don’t know if Tony had paid him or had something on the guy. Don’t make any difference, because he must’ve backed out of the deal.”
“But why would the FBI agent have his own agents killed?” Zoey asked.
“SOP,” Neil said. “Standard operating procedure. You kill the guards, and then it looks like the place has been stormed and hit men killed the snitch. Only, as it turned out, the snitch wasn’t there to be popped, get it?”
“Oh.” Zoey nodded and then shivered. If Nikki and Ricky hadn’t fought and then sneaked out of the apartment, they would’ve been dead, too.
“Anyway,” Neil continued, “I get there, the snitch isn’t there, the Feebs are having a massive layoff of staff—you should pardon the expression—and the only other person in the apartment is the fucking kid. What do I do? You want I should go back to Tony the Rose empty-handed?” Neil shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“You aren’t going back to Uncle Tony at all, Mr. Boo,” Ashley said fiercely. The pendulum had swung again. “I don’t want you anywhere near that old fart.”
Neil looked at his plain little wife, his big, beefy face creased sheepishly. “I gotta report to Tony sometime, hon. Tony don’t like people walkin’ out on him without his say-so.”
Ashley frowned, looking uncertain.
Zoey cleared her throat. “If Tony were in prison, that wouldn’t be such a problem, would it?”
Everyone looked at her.
She shrugged. “I mean, he’d have other things to worry about instead of Neil.”
Dante shifted in his chair. “She’s got a point.”
Ashley narrowed her eyes. “How do you figure Uncle Tony’s getting in the pen? There’s no trial without Ricky the snitch, and Ricky’s kid is right here.” She nodded with her chin to Pete, playing on the floor with the rest of the children. “Will he take your word that she’s safe?”
“No.” Dante’s eyes were locked with Ashley’s. “But if I can get Pete back before nine o’clock Monday morning, Ricky will testify.”
“Nikki will make him do it,” Zoey murmured. “Believe me.”
“How’re you going to get that baby through both Uncle Tony’s men and those crooked FBI agents?” Ashley scoffed. “’Cause don’t think that Uncle Tony won’t be waiting for you all to show up.”
“I know,” Dante said. “But there might be a way to do it. If you’re willing to help.”
“Bring down my uncle Tony?” Ashley’s eyebrows rose behind her glasses.
“Yes.”
Neil looked concerned. “Now, wait just a minute. Tony the Rose is the biggest, meanest fucking outfit boss in Chicago. Don
’t nobody cross him.”
Ashley poked her glasses. “Yeah, well, Uncle Tony sent a hitman after my Mr. Boo and my baby Neil. He’s goin’ down.”
Zoey grinned. “You go, girl.”
“All is ready!” Mrs. Savita Gupta called from the dinner table. “Come! Come, sit down before the food grows cold.”
They all rose to go eat brunch. Dante was moving slowly, and Zoey hurried to his side to help him rise.
He arched an eyebrow at her. “You okay?”
“Better than you,” she retorted. “I’m not the one limping.”
He shook his head. “I’m okay.”
She frowned, but there was an even bigger worry on her mind than Dante’s wounds. “How can you go back to Chicago with the corrupt FBI agent still after you? He tried to have you killed this morning, Dante.”
“I know,” he said as they moved into the dining room. “I can handle him.”
“But he’s got the rest of the FBI believing you killed your colleagues. He planted evidence against you, and you aren’t even sure who he is.”
“Hush. I have a good idea who it is.” He lowered his head to brush a kiss over her lips, silencing her. “Besides, I have a friend I can call for backup. And I have a plan.”
“A cunning plan?”
He raised his head. Everyone was staring at them, and Zoey thought Neil might be blushing.
“Yeah. A cunning plan.” Dante looked at Mr. Agrawal. “Do you have a computer I can use?”
Chapter Sixty-two
Monday, 8:53 a.m.
This is the stupidest cunning plan in the world,” Zoey said to Dante as they walked up Jackson Boulevard.
He’d had problems finding a parking spot in downtown Chicago, so they were later than he’d wanted to be. They were walking at a rapid though not hurried pace, and his injured thigh was killing him. “Gee, thanks.”
“I mean, you’re an FBI agent. Couldn’t you have come up with a plan that involved secret codes or explosives?”
Dante felt his mouth curve. Zoey had been babbling since they’d hit the outskirts of Chicago. She was obviously nervous and probably scared, but she hadn’t said anything about turning back, and for that he was immensely grateful.