“His time is over,” I said. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“We’ll get Ellie-May back.”
I had to agree. I couldn’t even contemplate a situation where we didn’t get our daughter back again.
We threw on some clothes and hurried to the front door, but Nicole stepped in our path.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“No, you’re not.” I tucked a gun into the waistband of my jeans, and then added a second weapon on the opposite side. I wasn’t going to let my father walk away this time. I was going to get Ellie-May back, and then I was going to empty the entire cartridge into his head, right between his goddamned eyes, and I wasn’t going to feel bad about it for a single second.
“She’s my niece,” Nicole said, holding my gaze, her eyes hard. For a moment, I saw myself reflected back. I guessed a part of me had rubbed off on her after all. “And not only that, I want to see him dead as much as you do. He took my mother, too, Vee, and he shot Mateo. Now he’s taken Ellie-May. Whatever hate you feel for him, I feel just as strongly. I’m not a child anymore, and I know how to shoot a gun. The more of us there are, the better.”
I glanced over at X to see what he thought about the matter. His lips were thinned, his jaw tight, but he nodded. “I think we could do with the extra set of eyes.”
Nicole looked over to him gratefully.
“Okay,” I relented. “We’ll all go. But be careful.”
“You, too,” she replied.
We left the house and hurried out to the car. I knew where we were going, so I drove, with X riding shotgun and Nicole in the back. My fingers were tight around the steering wheel to stop my shaking, my knuckles white. I leaned forward, as though doing so could push the car faster. I drove as fast as I dared, not wanting to get stopped by the cops and having to explain ourselves. With how heavily armed we all were, I didn’t think we’d get away with only a warning. We’d most likely be arrested, and then I didn’t dare think about what would happen to Ellie-May. I tried not to think of her, knowing I was torturing myself with thoughts of how distressed she would be without me. She’d already missed her feeding, and would be hungry, crying for me. I prayed my father would have some compassion toward his own granddaughter, but I doubted it.
I drove across the city, and when we reached the road lined by several warehouses, I cut the headlights. We crawled the car a little closer, until I also cut the engine and allowed it to coast a little further, not wanting my father to hear us approach. It was four a.m. and the place was deserted, everyone still sleeping at this time of night. He knew we were coming, but I still wanted to have some kind of advantage.
We climbed from the vehicle.
Memories of that fateful day rushed over me. I’d been snatched on the street by a couple of my father’s men, and bundled into the back of a car. I hadn’t known what was going on, but they’d driven me here. I’d been anxious, completely clueless about what was going on. It hadn’t even occurred to me that my father had found out about the affair, or that I’d known about it. I’d searched my mind trying to work out what was going on, and of course the men who’d snatched me wouldn’t say a word. We’d arrived at the warehouse and they’d shoved me out, pushing me along with them. I’d tried to fight back, but they’d pulled a gun. I hadn’t been armed that day, though I’d end up with a weapon placed in my hands before too long. When I’d gone into the warehouse and seen my mother on her knees on the ground, tears streaming down her face, the reason for me being there had dawned. What I didn’t understand was why my sister was with her, also on her knees, beside my mother. I soon found out when my father put a gun in my hand and told me I had to decide which of them lived.
A shiver ran through me at the memory.
X slipped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed me tight, but I couldn’t allow myself to give in to his affection. I needed the old Vee back now, the tough one, the hard one. Motherhood had softened me, but now I needed to be strong for Ellie-May. If my father saw any weakness, he’d use it.
A thin wail of a baby’s cry cut through the night air.
“Ellie-May!”
We broke into a run toward the warehouse. There was a smaller door set in the larger doors intended for vehicles. I yanked it open, and the sound of my daughter’s crying immediately grew louder. I felt X’s hand on my arm, but I wasn’t going to hold back, not when I could hear her distressed like that.
I stepped into the empty warehouse. “Where is she?” I could hear her cries, but in the cavernous space, couldn’t pick out where they were coming from. The light was dim from the ceiling far above our heads, but I could still pick out the exact spot where my mother had been kneeling when I’d shot her. I thought, if I looked closely enough, I’d still seen stains from her blood.
Movement came from the back of the building, and a figure stepped out of the shadows.
I took a sharp breath in shock. The left side of his face hung haggard from the bone, as though it had melted. His lip drooped down, his eyelid dragging to cover half his eye. The strong, handsome man I’d grown up with was gone. My father was a Halloween mask version of himself, and he held a gun in his hand.
“Where is she?” I demanded. “Where is my daughter?”
“You have a child now.” His words came out slurred and slow, as though he struggled to speak. “How would you feel if she ever betrayed you?”
“I’d never do anything that would make her want to betray me.”
“Oh, you think it’s all so easy, don’t you, Verity? This parenting thing. You’ve been doing it for a couple of months, and you think your daughter will always look up to you, and love and cherish you. Well, that’s not how it works. She’ll grow up and become strong-headed and willful, just like you were. She’ll decide she knows better than you, and she’ll go against every single thing you say.” He stopped to suck up drool that had leaked down the paralyzed side of his face, and then continued, his words forced and slurred. “Parenting isn’t some happy little bubble, Verity. It’s tough, and it’s painful, and it’s messy. One day you’ll see that, and maybe you’ll realize I was right all along.”
I laughed, though the situation contained nothing to find humorous. “You think I’ll ever do to Ellie-May what you did to me? To Nicole, too? I don’t care what she does, I’ll never make her choose between the people she loves. You’re a sick son-of-a-bitch who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”
He tried to smile and the result was gruesome. “Ah, yes, now you’re on the topic of Nicole, I think there’s something we need to bring out into the open. A family meeting, if you like. You’ve always been so protective of your little sister, haven’t you, Vee? Did it ever occur to you that she was the one who started all of this?”
My mind blurred. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“How do you think I found out about your mother’s affair? About the fact you knew and were keeping it a secret from me, too.”
“One of your men told you. They found out. They saw Mom and that guy together.”
“And that you knew? How do you think I found that out, too?”
I didn’t know. I’d always assumed Mom had told the guy she’d been seeing, and he’d let it out before he’d died.
I glanced over to Nicole, who’d paled.
“She always was my favorite daughter,” my father continued. “You wouldn’t keep secrets from me, would you, Nickie? You’d tell your old dad if your mother was having an affair and if your sister had been hiding it from me, too.”
I shook my head. “No, Nicole. You didn’t. You wouldn’t have.”
But she wouldn’t meet my eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Vee. I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t know how this would all turn out.”
Her betrayal struck me through the heart. “No, how could you?”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
My emotions were in turmoil, but I couldn’t focus on the p
ast now. Nicole had been a different person back then, not the same sister I’d grown to know over the past few months. I had a baby-girl who needed my help and that was what was important, not something said so long ago.
“It’s okay, Nickie. I forgive you. You had no way of knowing what was going to happen.”
The non-paralyzed side of my father’s face twitched. “So, you forgive her, but you don’t forgive your own father?”
“What she did is nothing like what you did. I’ll never forgive you, ever. Now tell me what you’ve done with my daughter.”
“The crying is coming from up there,” said X, pointing to the mezzanine level above us.
I looked around us. “How do we get up there?”
“There’s an industrial elevator at the back.”
Mickey Five Fingers started to laugh. “You think I’d make it this easy for you? That you can just get in the elevator and go and get your daughter?”
My stomach clenched. “What are you saying?
“To get the elevator to move, you have to hold your finger down on the button.”
“So what?”
“You’ll see.”
I hesitated. What was he planning?
“You sick fuck,” said X, pointing the gun at my father’s head. I wanted X to shoot him now, but I didn’t trust him. What if he’d done something to Ellie-May to stop us getting to her? I wouldn’t put it past him to have locked her in somewhere with a code, and if we’d shot him we wouldn’t be able to get her back.
“We can’t kill him, X,” I cried. “Not yet. We have to get Ellie-May back.” Only when I had my daughter safely in my arms again would I risk shooting the son-of-a-bitch.
“What are you waiting for then?” Mickey said. “Can’t you hear her crying? She needs you, and you’re still down here. What kind of mother are you?”
“Go,” X told me, keeping the gun pointed at his head. “Get our daughter back.”
“I’m coming,” said Nicole. “You might need me.”
I nodded. I didn’t know what we might have to face, and besides, I didn’t want her to think I no longer needed her because of what our father had revealed. We ran to the elevator and pulled open the heavy glass door. Unlike regular elevators, this one was manually run, with glass all around. We stepped inside and the door swung shut behind us. Nicole found the operating panel. There were only two buttons, an arrow pointing up and another pointing down. She jammed her finger on the one to take us up and held her finger down as the elevator jolted to life, taking us to the mezzanine level. The door wouldn’t open without her taking her finger back off the button, and I shoved it open.
My daughter’s shrill, angry cries cut through me, and I broke into a run. Where was she?
“Ellie-May!” I cried, even though I knew she wasn’t able to call back to me. I hoped hearing my voice would somehow soothe her. “It’s okay, baby. Mommy’s here.”
Her crying grew louder. Several doors led off the main catwalk, and I shoved at them, some of them swinging open, but revealing nothing, others locked. Was this what my father was talking about? Had he put her somewhere I wouldn’t be able to find her, or even reach her?
But as I rounded the corner, I saw a cardboard box on the floor. Her crying upped another octave, and I realized she was right in front of me. “Oh, God.” I ran to the box, dropping to my knees beside it. Ellie-May lay inside, her little face bright red and screwed up in anger, her fists bunched. Several lines of red ran down her cheeks, but I knew this was where she scratched herself in her frustration. “Oh, baby. My poor, sweet baby.” I scooped her up and held her against me. Her cries became muffled, snuffled sobs as she twisted her face and tried to gum me. She was hungry, and I regretted not thinking to bring her a bottle.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. We’ll get you home. Everything’s going to be okay now.”
“Is she all right?” Nickie asked, stepping forward and stroking her small dark head.
“Yes, she’s fine. Just hungry. We need to get her out of here.”
“What about Dad?” she asked.
“We’ll kill him.”
Chapter Thirty-three
V
Holding Ellie-May close to my chest, my palm supporting the back of her head, we hurried toward the elevator. As far as I could see, there was no other way down from this level.
X shouted, “What’s happening, Vee?”
“It’s okay, I’ve got her. We’re coming back down.”
I heard a laugh and recognized it as my father’s. I didn’t trust him for a second. What did he have planned? Did he have men outside, waiting to ambush us the moment we tried to leave? As far as I knew, he no longer had any contacts. All his men were working for us now. No one else even knew he was still alive. They’d all speculated that his body had been dumped in the Hudson River months ago.
“Do you want me to shoot him now?” X yelled back.
“No. I want to do it.”
Nicole and I got back in the elevator. She pulled the heavy door shut with a bang, and then went to work the control panel. She pressed the button for down, and the machinery moved with a jolt, slowly lowering us to the bottom level.
Just as we hit the first floor, my father called out, “I’d keep my finger on that button if I was you.”
We both froze and I glanced over at my sister, who had paled, but done as he’d instructed.
“Why?” I yelled back.
“The moment you got in that elevator, a timer started. There were fifteen minutes on the clock, and I’d say you’ve probably used up at least half of that.”
My heartrate tripped. “Fifteen minutes for what?”
“Explosives are attached to the top of the elevator. Enough to blow out most of the warehouse.”
My blood ran cold. “What?”
“Ah, but here’s the really clever part. If Nicole takes her finger off that down button, the clock will automatically be triggered to zero.”
I stared at him in horror, and then back to Nicole who was still standing with her finger pressed on the down key on the panel. Her hand was shaking, and she stared at me in fear and horror.
“So, you’re saying if Nicole takes her finger off, this place is going to blow.”
He gave his horrific smile again. “That’s right. Taking all of us with it.”
“No! You have to disarm it. Now!”
“Not going to happen. You deserve this, Vee. I don’t care about my life anymore. Look at me. I’m a shadow of the man I once was, all because of you and your sister. So, what are you going to do? Are you going to try to take your sister’s place and risk the bomb going off and killing you and your baby, and everyone else?”
He was doing it again. Making me choose between the people I loved.
“No!” I cried, my heart wrenching. “Nickie!”
Behind me, our father started to laugh. Rage like I’d never felt before burned through me, a white-hot flame. Though I was holding Ellie-May, I shifted my grip to free up one of my hands, pulled the gun from the back of my jeans, pointed it at my father and pulled the trigger.
He fell back in a violent motion, as though I just shoved him with both hands. He lay on his back, staring up at the roof, his eyes blank. A round bullet hole was directly between his eyes. Only knowing there were explosives in here, and that I was holding my daughter, prevented me from putting several more bullets in his lifeless body.
X rushed forward to take Ellie-May from me. I was shaking, but our daughter had given up on her hunger and fallen asleep. I was amazed she’d slept through the gunshot, and hoped she wouldn’t have to sleep through anything louder.
“What are we going to do?” I asked X, feeling helpless.
“I’ll swap places with Nicole,” he said. “I’ll hold the button. You get out of here with the baby.”
I shook my head, frantic. “No, you can’t. I can’t lose you.”
“You can’t lose your sister, either, Vee. I know what that will do to you.”
“No, Nickie. There must be something else we can do.” The possibility that this might really happen, and I would lose my sister, dawned on me, but I didn’t want to believe it.
“It’s okay,” said Nickie, shaking her head. “I’ve got this.”
“No, stop it. No, you haven’t. You’re not going to die like this.”
“Please, just go,” Nicole begged. “Your daughter needs you. X needs you. No one needs me.”
“I do!” I cried. “I need you, Nickie. Please, don’t do this.”
“We don’t have any choice,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “One of us has to hold it, and it can’t be you.”
“There must be another way.”
“There isn’t. We’re running out of time.”
I shook my head in desperation. I couldn’t do this. Not again. Choosing which one of my family members got to live and which died. For the first time in as long as I could remember, tears sprung to my eyes, making my sister’s face swim before me. The tears spilled down my cheeks, and I tasted salt.
“Vee, this isn’t your fault. You’ve been the best sister a girl could wish for. You were there for me when plenty of others would have given up on me, and I love you for that. This was never your fault Vee, it’s him. It’s always been him. But he’s dead now, and you, and X, and Ellie-May can go on and live a nice, normal life. Do that for me, okay?”
I was sobbing now, my face contorted in anguish. But she was right. I needed to be there for my daughter, to watch her grow up.
“Please—” I managed to sob, reaching for my sister one last time.
“Go!” she yelled at me.
Still my feet felt like they were glued to the floor. Ellie-May squirmed in X’s arms, as though she sensed something terrible was about to happen.
“Please, Nickie.” I still wanted there to be some way to change this.
“Go, Vee. Let me do this for you. Let my life mean something. And tell Ellie-May about her Aunt Nickie, okay? Tell her how much I love her, and how much I love her mom.”
Judged (The Mercenary Series Book 4) Page 19