by Red Garnier
Ivan was a no-show at Marcel’s Bistro.
At 12:39 P.M., as Cody sat at a small, round window table, he received a message from the waiter, informing him there was someone on the phone for him. Surveying his surroundings for about the hundredth time, Cody walked to the bar, lifted the phone, “Yeah?”
“Think he smelled a trap?” It was Zach.
Cody glowered, not for the first time, wondering if he should’ve informed his team of the meeting or have faced Ivan today—solo. “I don’t know, man, but he obviously thought you stank.”
Cody’s heart stopped when he spotted her through the window. Across the street, she was hard to miss. A bright spot of color in a sea of cement and buildings. God, she looked lovely in a pair of jeans and a yellow shirt, with her blond curls flapping behind her as she gazed up at the glaring red sign above the window that read MARCEL’S BISTRO.
His hands started itching with the need to go out there and just … hug her. Then, he noticed the man creeping up beside her. He’d been leaning against the lamppost, covered head to toe in a black gabardine coat. Yeah, a damned gabardine, in this stinking hot weather. Alarm bells clanged inside his head, and his instincts kicked into overdrive.
“Two o’clock,” Cody barked. “Megan’s here. Dammit. Fuck! Goddammit!”
He slammed the phone back on its cradle and pushed past the waiter and shouldered through a party of eight that was just coming in through the revolving doors.
“Excuse me! Move.” When no one seemed to think he was serious, he pulled out his badge and roared, “GET OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY!”
He charged outside, his heart thundering, his gun drawn, his thighs burning as he kicked them into the hardest run he’d ever taken in his life.
She was gone.
Zach Rivers stood there in their stead, his eyes shielded by a pair of aviators, but Cody didn’t need to see his gaze. The grimness of his stance, his mouth, said it all.
He took her. He took her. That murdering motherfucker took her.
“I’m sorry, man, he was armed,” Zach grumbled. “I couldn’t stop him without risking her getting hurt.”
For a wild second, Cody refused to believe what he was witnessing. Hearing. Zach fucking Rivers, a reckless motherfucker, just standing there while his murdering sonofadevil killer of a brother took Megan into the underworld.
“What the fuck are you doing standing here!” Cody exploded. He spun around and scanned his surroundings, wildly searching for a direction, a clue to where they’d gone.
“He wants you,” Zach’s words made him stop. “Just you. No monkey business. No wires. No cops. He asked you to meet him at the Tonto National Forest, and if you do, he’ll let her go and no harm will come to either of you.”
“Like hell I buy that!”
“Your call, man, just tell me what you want.”
And Cody had one second, one second, to decide. He would have liked to have an army follow him. He would have liked to drop a missile right over that sick gorrilla’s head. But he had Megan, and Cody wouldn’t risk a hair on her body.
His entire body, his entire system, was having a short circuit. He couldn’t think right, couldn’t focus. Every cell in his body burned with the need to kill Ivan Nordstrom. And get Megan back to safety, somewhere far away from Ivan. Far away from Cody.
“Just stay the hell put,” he snarled. “If I’m not back with her in half an hour—you know what to do.”
“Don’t piss him off, Cody,” Zach warned.
Cody charged to his car and yanked open the door with a glare. “You should’ve said that to him.”
As he drove full speed in the direction of the national forest, he told himself he was focused. Focused on one and only thing: Ivan. And getting both Ivan and himself out of Megan’s life forever. He was not thinking of what Ivan could be doing to her now—no, he couldn’t function if he considered the possibilities.
He was not thinking of how well her body fit to his last night. Or how hard they’d moaned.
Or the fact that he was completely, indisputably in love with her.
Yeah, this morning his mood had been perfectly morose. Even the guys at the station had wondered why he wasn’t joking today, or ribbing someone, or acting like all was well.
Because it wasn’t well.
It hadn’t been well for fifteen years.
And it would not be well until his brother was out of their lives. Until Cody no longer posed a threat to Megan—a danger.
He had, what? Like two hundred and twelve homicide cases under his belt? So why did he continue to feel like the foolish teenager who’d been too engrossed in his cock to see what was happening in his own home?
Because that woman makes you a nitwit! Now focus!
He pulled over into an empty parking spot, expecting Ivan to be waiting in the shed by the clearing. In the vast rocky terrain, there was plenty of space to hide a body or two.
Was that what Ivan planned?
Disturbed by the thought, he yanked open the car trunk, armed himself with as many weapons as he could without them being too obvious, then let the trunk slam shut behind him as he made his way through the dirt path.
To the right the clearing led to a lake, which usually allowed for campers to park their RVs, toast marshmallows by a fire, and dip their toes into water. But this afternoon the space was flat and empty, and the lack of noise lent a gloom to the area that Cody found quite the match to his mood. In fact, a morgue was quite the match to his mood.
He spotted Ivan sitting down on a red boulder, dressed like their mother used to dress them to go to Mass: in suits and ties.
Except Ivan was wearing Cody’s suit and tie.
So not only was his brother a murderer and a kidnapper, but he was a thief, too. A fact that Cody had noticed the day Ivan had broken into his home, but had not dwelled upon until now.
Yeah, in that silky blue tie that happened to be Megan’s favorite, Cody could tell Ivan thought he was the man. Cody planned to knock him down a peg or two.
“Nice tie, asshole.”
Ivan smiled. When he did, he looked regal. Decent. Exactly like the man that stared back at Cody from the mirror. “I hope you don’t mind it when I strangle you with it,” the bastard replied.
“Game on.” Cody took a step, flashing him a dangerous smile. “Now where’s Megan?”
Ivan signaled to his right, and Cody saw her, arms and legs tied, bundled inside a net and hanging from the branch of a mountain mahogany tree. “You all right, baby?”
She nodded, squeaked, and squirmed inside that net like a little fish.
“You know, I’ve heard my wooing tactics need a little softening,” Cody grimly told his brother. “I’ll bet yours need a one-eighty turn.”
A crimson color spread up Ivan’s jaw and neck, turning his face red.
“It’s over, Ivan,” Cody said, counting his steps to her—eighteen … nineteen … twenty …“ She’s not for you, man. And she’s not for me. She’s too good for both of us, so if she’s the reason you escaped, I suggest you do your time and reflect on what you did.”
“You made me do it!”
“Bullshit.” Hearing it, Cody realized that it was bullshit. He shook his head. “We were stupid boys, with hormones for brains.”
Ivan spat. “You lie. You took her already, didn’t you? She’s yours? She fucking loves you, doesn’t she? Doesn’t she?”
“No,” he began, intending to placate him while he found a way to set Megan loose, but Megan spoke out at the same time.
“Yes, I do. I love him. I’ve always loved you, Cody. Always.” Her voice broke near the end, and it could’ve been the last little string that held Cody’s sanity together.
A thousand emotions bombarded him at once. He felt hundreds of different sensations. Like when lightning strikes, and you land on a fire pit, and you’re trampled by a pack of elephants, and you fall from a parachute, all at once.
“You don’t love me, and what in Christ’s l
ast day were you doing at Marcel’s, Meg?” he demanded because she shouldn’t have been there.
She should not love him.
The monster, the monster had marked her little wrist, had bruised her lips …
“You were a bet, did you know that?” Ivan sneered. “Did loverboy here tell you?”
“She leaves, Ivan. Right now. This is between you and me.”
But Ivan was talking to Megan. “He knew I’d kill them if he took you out that day, and he still did it! He’s the monster, not I!” Ivan rammed his fist to his chest, shaking his head as he fought back tears. “I’ll bet fucking her has been the most exciting thing you’ve ever done in your life.” He shot the accusation like a missile at Cody and took a few steps forward. “How about I show you how a real man fucks?”
Shaking with fury, Cody spoke through his teeth. “How about you eat my shit.”
“Why don’t you eat this, brother?” Covering the space between them in a flash, he pulled out a Glock just like Cody’s and rammed the gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Cody shut his eyes as he expected to explode.
Click.
He didn’t.
He opened his eyes to meet his brother’s bloodshot blue ones.
The chamber was empty. Ivan’s sick laugh echoed in the forests silence as he shoved Cody back. “I’m not killing you yet.”
“I’m getting that sense,” Cody grumbled, reaching into the back of his waistband for his own weapon …
* * *
Heart pounding, watching both men below, Megan realized that she was a fool. She was an idiot. Cody was a professional. And she had thought to follow him and do what? Face your fears … Save Cody …
What an idiot! Now she was stuck in this net, and the man she loved was down there, at the mercy of this killer, all because he’d taken the advantage by kidnapping her—oh, God.
Cody seemed to be plotting. His eyes were narrowed by the sun, but she could see him reaching behind him, weighing Ivan, and measuring his distance to the tree.
“Let me down, let me down!” she screamed, hating the trapped sensation hanging here gave her.
Ivan cut the rope so swiftly, Megan crashed to the forest floor like a falling rock. The air was knocked out of her with a whoomp, and quickly Ivan put the knife away then pulled her to her feet, his face contorted as he forcibly untangled her. “You always got the pretty girls, didn’t you, Cody? Made the football team. Made Mom and Dad so proud. Even now, you’re a goddamned cop.” He smiled thinly, cupping Megan’s breast in his free hand as he put the gun to her temple. “Does it bother you when I do this? When I have something that you want?” He massaged, and Megan bit back a strangled protest, revolted by his touch, when Cody took a menacing step forward.
“Fuck you.” Cody’s breathing became ragged, his eyes so dark, they could’ve been black. Megan feared for him, for herself, kept remembering the bodies, the way this man, this man, had killed two adults at the tender age of sixteen.
“Fuck me? No, brother. I’d much rather fuck her.”
When Megan kicked his shin and broke free, it took Cody only seconds to reach for her, but by then Ivan had grabbed her by the throat. “You’re not going anywhere, Maggie.”
Cody whipped out his gun and aimed. “Let her go, Ivan.”
Ivan’s cold, hard laugh made the hair rise in her nape. “Ahh, Cody, always wanting to boss me around ’cause you’re a minute older. You’re not boss here, I am. I have the girl now.”
“She walks, Ivan. She walks now and we’ll settle this.”
“Oh yes? But you see … maybe she doesn’t want to walk—” he licked his tongue into her ear and her stomach roiled in disgust. “Do you know why I killed them, Maggie? Because of you. Did you know what your boyfriend did, Meg? Huh? Did you know what he did? He said he was taking you from me. My parents thought I was not good enough for you. Because I was not my brother.” He shot a look of venom at Cody. “But for a moment I was able to make you believe I was him, didn’t I? Last night?” he cooed into her ear. “When I touched you, you believed I was that guy, the perfect guy.”
Bile rose up to her throat at the memory, and she wanted to scrape her mouth clean of him once more.
What a fool she’d been.
So desperate to be touched, loved, by Cody, that she had not seen the difference of the touch, of his taste, until she’d seen him—the man she loved—with a gun pointed to his head.
They were nothing alike.
Ivan had tried to look like him, but his essence, his goodness, his decency, had a scent, a feel, a vibe. Oh God, she wanted that strength around her, that scent, that man.
Ivan curved his hand around her nape and wound his fingers into the blond curls of her hair. “You think I haven’t thought of this, too, Maggie Meg?” He massaged her scalp. “That I didn’t fantasize about this even when I was just a boy?”
“LET. HER. GO.” Cody’s trigger finger was trembling, and Meg wondered if she ducked … would he shoot?
Cody was so damned decent inside, she wondered if he’d kill his own brother. Despite the fact that he was a murderer, Cody had not killed him before.
Ivan yanked her head back so hard the pain burned across her scalp, tearing a gasp and a whimper out of her. “Toss me the gun. And the other gun. And the knife.”
“You won’t kill her, Ivan,” Cody hissed in a low, threatening voice, “but I have no qualms about killing you.”
“I’ll scar her for life! I’ll make her suffer, you son of a bitch!”
“We have the same mother, you moron.”
“Drop your weapons and she goes!”
The silence was deafening in the nature. And then, one by one, Cody tossed everything to the ground, and Megan’s hopes of coming out of this alive plummeted.
“Okay.” Ivan pushed her aside with a smile. “Forty steps, Maggie Meg. Make them quick before I change my mind and shoot.”
Megan began walking, uncertain as she sought out a pair of blue, blue eyes that seemed to urge her to do as Ivan said. As she passed him, the man she loved, Cody ground out under his breath, “Keep going.”
But it was difficult to take another step. “I don’t want to leave you,” she said anxiously, fearing Ivan would do another stupid thing, another crazy thing.
“Keep going, Banks.”
She still couldn’t. “I don’t want to!”
“Go, goddammit!” Cody exploded, framing her face between his hands. “My life is over if anything happens to you.” He kissed her hard and long, pushing his tongue into her mouth in a long, hot wet thrust that sent her senses spinning. “I love you. Now go.”
I love you.
Now go.
Megan didn’t know why she obeyed, why she headed out off the clearing, dazed with those parting words, taking those words into her heart, even as she heard Ivan curse Cody in the background for what he’d done. Fifty steps later, down the rocky path, eighty heartbeats later, and about a hundred haggard breaths later, it struck her: Maybe … Cody would never have said he loved her if he thought he’d have another chance to.
She’d certainly never expected him to say the words except at gunpoint.
Oh God. What had she done?
And where in the hell was Zach Rivers?
* * *
When Megan disappeared in the distance, Cody’s heartbeat roared in his ears, like a wave crashing against the open mouth of a never-ending cavern.
He was stalling for time, time for her to get the hell away from his crazy brother. He met those blue eyes just like his with a taunting smile, wanting to get Ivan’s gaze back on him rather than on Megan’s rear, the crazed man’s full attention on him.
“She’ll call nine-one-one, you know.” Cody smiled thinly, enough to goad him, but the victory in his brother’s gaze took him aback.
“I’m counting on it.” He smiled triumphantly. “By the time they get here, you’ll be dead. And I’ll be you.”
* * *
&nbs
p; Megan found a bar of signal after running around the forest like a lunatic. “Zach!” she cried into her cell phone when a male voice picked up. “Zach, where are you?”
There were men’s voices in the background as he answered. “We’re on our way. Are you okay?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid Cody won’t be. We’re at the—”
“Tonto National Forest, got that. Just whatever you do, get out of harm’s way or Nordstrom’ll kill me,” he commanded.
“Not if he’s dead!” Meg screamed, and hung up.
Putting the phone on silent, she started running back to the clearing.
Her heart felt like exploding with each step. And then, she heard it. Gunshots.
“Oh, no.” Megan kicked up her speed, her throat closing in. “Oh, no no no.”
She reached the clearing, and instantly Megan saw him, dead, on the ground. A pool of blood surrounded him. Him. Cody. It was him; she saw the tie he wore today, his most horrible tie, an orange color she wanted to throw away for the first time ever. Oh my God.
She began to shake her head, refusing to believe what lay right before her eyes, already feeling her heart begin to crack. Then she spotted him. Ivan laid back, clutching his chest, bloodied and panting. Megan’s eyes began to spill tears. She reached for one of the guns on the ground and raised it. “You son of a bitch!” she screamed, and shot.
“Mega—” His eyes widened when the bullet hit him, somewhere close to his heart, and he slumped back against the tree trunk. She squeezed her eyes and was about to shoot again when he barked, “Son of a bitch!”
She opened her eyes, lowered the gun. The voice. It was unmistakable, its effect on her, its timbre. “Cody?”
“Fucking hell!” He was scrambling to tear a fabric of his shirt to cover his wound, which was seeping red all along his right arm.
“Cody?” she screeched, dropping the gun to the ground. “Ohmigod, what have I done!” She took a tentative step forward, then halted, doubting herself, what she was seeing. That blue tie …
She glanced at Cody, dead, sightless, on the ground.
“Come here and kiss it better, damn it, stop looking at that asshole unless he’s better-looking than me.”
“Why is he wearing your clothes!” she protested angrily, then went to help him rip his shirt open. She was relieved to note the bullet had hit his arm and not his chest, but was still so shocked at what she’d done she considered using the gun on herself.