Line Of Fire

by KB Winters

  My feet were listening to me heart, not me brain, and I walked up and leaned against the banister next to her and stared out at Lake Michigan.

  “I thought you might not come,” she said, her voice soft. Her hair hid her face from view.

  “I thought I might not come either,” I said, though it pained me to admit the truth. “But I’m here. And I’m here happily because I adore you, Ava. And I wanted you to know that. I wanted to show you that.”

  She turned to me at last, tears glimmering in her eyes. “Then why would you not want to see me?”

  I pulled her to me and kissed the tip of her nose, then her cheeks–which were wet with tears, and then finally her lips. Anything to stop her from crying. Anything at all.

  “There’s just so much you don’t know about, sweetheart,” I whispered, scared to be even skirting the edges of the truth like that. “So much I can’t fuckin’ tell you.”

  “I have secrets of my own, Ian,” she said. “And I know I shouldn’t feel the way I do about you, but I can’t help it. I can’t help the way I feel.”

  I nodded and gave her a small smile. Yeah, I knew that feeling all too well.

  “So, what are we going to do about it then?” she asked, surprising me with her question.

  I sighed, unsure of what to say. I couldn’t just come out and tell her who I was and what I did for a living. For one thing, all of the lies I’d told her were too big. No one could get past those kinds of lies. But not only that, I had to worry that if I told her everything about me that she’d go to the police with it. I worried about whether or not she’d turn me in for it all. There was more than just my life at stake there. The lives of my crew were on the line too, and I had to be careful in what I said. I couldn’t be a selfish prick and unload everything on Ava just to ease my own burden of guilt.

  “I don’t know, Ava. Maybe just enjoy the time we have together and see where it goes from there?” I surprised myself with my answer. It was almost like I’d had time to think about and prepare for it. But truthfully, it just felt right. The words just felt right coming out of my mouth, and they conveyed exactly what I’d wanted.

  As I stared into her green eyes, she nodded. “Okay. We can try that.”

  “Let’s grab some tacos, what do ya say?” I asked. “I’m starved.”

  I wiped the remaining tears from her cheek and forced myself to smile. The fact that this girl would cry over me–a bad, horrible man like me–threw me for a loop. Over all the years in the life, I’d been trained to kill, rob, steal and do whatever it took to get ahead. I had my brothers, and that was all I needed.

  Or so I’d thought.

  Ava nodded and wiped her nose with her sleeve, smiling just a bit. There was something in her eyes, though, something that seemed to mirror how I was feeling as well. She was torn. Conflicted. Perhaps even haunted about something. I could see that she had some inner turmoil. But about what? I wondered.

  Our lunchtime date continued as normal, for the most part. No talk of work or personal lives. We talked about Chicago, food, what we do for fun and the books we’ve read. It was nice, getting away from Colin and Isaak and all that shit. I did exactly what I’d told her we’d do–enjoy our time together.

  And for the first time in my life, I felt like a normal man.

  And I didn’t hate it—in fact, I kinda liked it.

  Nineteen

  Ava

  What the fuck is this man doing to me?

  My call to him was initially an act. It was mostly to get him to meet up with me again so I could pump him for information. I knew Ian was at ease talking to me, and I hoped I could get him talking enough that he would reveal something that would help me build a case against him. But as I waited along the pier, staring over the briskly chilled Lake Michigan, I fought to convince myself that this meeting was strictly work related. I needed to be honest. If with nobody else, then with myself–I was truly falling for him.

  I was being torn in two, pulled in opposite directions. I was caught between my job and the truth, and a man I’d just started to get to know but felt insanely deeply for. Originally, when I’d set my eyes on him, I wasn’t sure how anyone could fall for a vicious man like him, knowing what I did. Knowing the things he’d done. But now that I’d spent time with him and had gotten to know him on a personal level? Well, it was hard to remember exactly who I was dealing with sometimes. And my feelings were very real.

  Too real.

  If I thought about it, I could honestly see myself settling down with this man at some point down the line. But I knew this entire charade was a fraud. I wasn’t some administrative assistant like I’d told him, and Ian wasn’t, well–Ian.

  “I’m sorry for everything, Ava,” he said, holding my hands in his. “I’m sorry for making you cry, for making you think I was running away from you. I’m just worried and a little scared if you want me to be honest. This is all new to me, and my life is a shit storm most days.”

  “I understand,” I said. I knew all too well what he meant.

  “I’ve never considered a woman with more than my dick. How I made her feel, if I made her happy. But believe me, sweetheart,” he said as he pulled me closer, holding me in his arms now. “No matter what, my feelings for you are very real, I just don’t understand it all.”

  His eyes were soft and filled with nothing but adoration and love. And when he looked at me, he reminded me of a sweet, innocent child. There was no guile, no deception–nothing bad in those eyes that I could see. They were clear as day, but that look never lasted too long. The darkness always overtook them at some point, just as it took him over, too.

  “My feelings for you are…” I hesitated, unsure if I wanted to admit the truth out loud just yet. He tilted his head and eyed me quizzically, waiting for the words to fall from my lips. “True, deep, real. Completely unexpected, Ian.” And I meant it. No matter what happened, I knew deep down how I felt for this man–or at least the man I thought I knew, even if I didn’t want to be honest with myself.

  He kissed the tip of my nose. “I know you have to get back to work, my sweet Ava. So do I, sadly enough. Even though I’d like nothing more than to spend the entire day out here with you.”

  I leaned my body against his and stood on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to him. I conveyed every pent-up emotion I was too scared to express into that kiss. I wanted him to know. To feel it. Because I knew that this very well could be the last kiss we ever shared.

  All this time, he’d thought my tears were for thinking he’d run away from me. That was only partially it. I was crying because as soon as I got back to the police station, I would have to talk to Chief Wheeler and turn him in.

  I’d have to face the truth. The man I was in love with wasn’t Ian, an executive who ran his family’s import business. The man in front me was someone much darker. Someone infamous for his brutality. The man in front of me was given to fits of rage. And his name was Flynn O’Brien.

  The leader of the Irish Mob.

  And the son of the man who killed my father.

  ***

  I walked toward my car, my head down and my heart dragging on the ground behind me. I had no intention of looking back. I couldn’t. I refused to let myself, but I knew that if I dared look at him, I might change my mind and talk myself out of it.

  But I had to do this. I had to go through with it. I had to turn over everything I knew about Flynn O’Brien and the new leadership of the Irish Mob over to Chief Wheeler. They didn’t know how I’d found most of this out–that I’d gone in undercover. No one would have allowed me to do that.

  I’d made the decision for myself and had done it on my own, mainly because he’d made it extremely easy for me to get close to him once he’d started flirting with me at the bar. But this, well, this was beyond anything I had imagined for us. Falling in love with an O’Brien—the man I was building a case against so he could face justice in the state penitentiary–now that was a first.

  Especially s
ince our families were sworn enemies.

  I clicked the lock on my key fob and heard the doors of my car unlock. But as I reached to open the door, I felt something pressed against the center of my back. He stood behind me–too close for comfort actually, and nearly pressed me into the car.

  “Who are you?” the voice tinged with a heavy Russian accent asked me.

  “My name is Ava, what do you want?”

  “What were you doing with Flynn?”

  “Who?”

  I felt the weapon press harder on my back. I’d been around guns long enough to know what they felt like without having to have eyes on it.

  I closed my eyes and said a prayer to whoever was listening, asking that someone might see us and come to my rescue. I was trapped between this man–a very large man–and my car. The gun between our bodies.

  “You fucking know who I’m talking about, bitch,” he said.

  “No, I don’t–”

  His free hand wrapped around my face. Something pressed up against my mouth, and before I knew what hit me, my entire world went black.

  Twenty

  Flynn

  “I fold,” Emmett called, tossin’ the cards on the table. With all the shite stirrin’ with the Russians and Sean’s death, we decided to lay low a few nights. We were at the Golden Shamrock at our usual corner booth, tossin’ back Guinness and good Irish Whiskey while playin’ a few hands of poker.

  Lax moments such as these were few and far between these days, and when I thought about all the shite we’d dealt with lately, I wondered if it was all worth it. To carry out my father’s namesake and uphold the syndicate he’d built from the ground up with his own blood, sweat, and tears. There was no room for mistakes in this business, but it seemed that’s all we’d been faced with lately was one monumental fuck up after the other.

  But I knew, moments like this would pass. The more I lingered on the thought, I was sure there was a rat bastard among my crew, but fuckin’ who? Who would be so ruefully intent on bringing us down that they’d work against us? And better yet, why?

  Colin shuffled the cards and began dealing out another hand. My phone buzzed against the table, and I considered ignoring it, but ya never know when business calls.

  We have something of yours.

  The text message came in from an unknown number. I looked at it, confused at first. And when I tried to reply, the phone was already out of service. Obviously, a burner. Which meant that I was dealing with somebody who wanted to stay off the radar. Something I could relate to. I stared at the message, trying to figure out who’d sent it to me and what they had that was mine. I was confused and had no answers to the million questions swirling about in my head. I looked around the table at the men surrounding me: Colin, Red, Emmett, and four other soldiers.

  “Colin, have you talked to Aidan?”

  “Aye, boss. He was busy workin’ on a case, so he didn’t have anythin’ to say,” he grunted out.

  What the fuck did they have—and better yet—who the hell was I dealin’ with?

  My phone rang a few minutes later. Another unknown number. Another burner phone. Obviously, the same person who’d sent me the text. I was curious and had a growing sense of unease settling down around me. There was something ominous about those words, and I had a strong feeling I wasn’t going to like what they had to say.

  “Talk,” I answered.

  “We don’t have much time.” The accent was Russian. Mother fucker. “We have your girlfriend.”

  My heart raced. “Ava? You have Ava? Why? What the fuck are you doing?” I darted up from the table, knocking glasses over, spilling whiskey over the cards and cash that was on top of the table.

  “Fuckin’ hell, Flynn, what’s bloody got into ya?” Red barked, but I didn’t have time for his fuckin’ nonsense. The Russians had Ava.

  “Yes, the redhead at the pier,” the voice sounded with a sneer. “Very pretty, that one. I have to say, you’re an asshole, but you have good taste.”

  “I’ll fuckin’ kill ya!” I shouted without considering my audience. Red and Colin’s ears immediately perked up as their bodies tensed, watching my demeanor go from calm to nuclear within seconds.

  “Temper, Mr. O’Brien. I’d tread cautiously, we do have someone very precious to you, after all.”

  “What the fuck do you want?”

  “We want you, Flynn,” he said. “You’ll get a message with an address on it in two minutes. If you’re not there in fifteen minutes, the pretty little redhead will die. So, don’t be late. She’s depending on you.”

  The line went dead.

  I held the phone in my hand, looking at it and shaking as I waited. My gut was twisting into knots that were constricting painfully. They had Ava. Or so they said. What if they didn’t? What if this was some elaborate ruse? Maybe they were lying. But to what end? What was the goal here? Why would they be lying and why would they claim to have Ava?

  All they knew was…she was a redhead and she was at the pier–had they been watching us? As I waited for the text, I used my personal phone to call Ava.

  Straight to voicemail.

  Shit.

  “Boss, what’s bloody gotten into ya? Is it the Russians?” Emmett asked, but I ignored his inquisition, dialing Ava’s number again.

  Voicemail. Motherfucker.

  I raked my hands through my hair, considering the severity of the situation with an unlevel head. My brothers could sense my agitation, and my silence only strengthened the urgency that whatever the fuck I was dealing with was huge.

  “Flynn, the hell is goin’ on?”

  “The fuckin’ Russians have Ava!” I seethed, trying to keep my voice calm and steady, but my blood was boiling.

  Suddenly, the burner phone buzzed. I opened the text message screen and found that there was indeed an address.

  It buzzed again.

  In case you didn’t believe us.

  And there was Ava. Tied up and gagged, blood seeping from her nose. Her eyes were closed as if she was asleep or unconscious. Hell, or even dead. I squeezed the phone tightly, clenching it in my fist to the point something cracked.

  I tried to calm myself. To keep my head straight.

  “Calm down, Flynn. We’ll get her back,” Red declared.

  No matter what, I had to save her. It was my duty to protect her, and I swore to myself that I would.

  ***

  When I pulled up outside the warehouse that matched the address I’d been given, I checked to make sure my guns were ready to go. I had a knife strapped to each of my ankles as well. There was no way I was going in there to face God knew what without being heavily armed. And there was most certainly no way in hell I was going down without a fight.

  Taking a deep breath, I walked toward the warehouse with four minutes to spare. As soon as I stepped up to the doorway, Alexei opened it up. I looked at him in shock and fought down the urge to take one of my knives and stab him in the forehead.

  “Weapons,” he demanded, his hand outstretched.

  I handed him the most obvious gun.

  “The others, too,” he said, almost sounding bored when he spoke. “Must we really play this game? I know you have more weapons. You know you have more weapons. Let’s cut the bullshit, Ian.”

  “That’s it–”

  “Bullshit,” he said, turning me around and patting me down. He found my other gun and both knives, dropping them on the floor inside the warehouse before giving me a look of strained patience and irritation for me having lied to him.

  Perhaps just to be a dick, he made sure to check me over a second time very thoroughly.

  “Aren’t you going to check my asshole, too. Just in case?” I asked, the sarcasm dripping off my tongue like honey. “Because I could be hiding a machine gun somewhere on my body, it’s just concealed really well.”

  “Do I need to check you again?” Alexei asked, sounding a little less bored and more irritated than anything. “Because I think we can arrange that.”
>
  “Smartass,” I muttered to myself.

  After Alexei was sure I was clear of any weapons, he bound my hands behind my back.

  “Really? You have all the fucking guns and you’re binding my hands? Am I that big of a threat?” I asked. “What am I, a ninja or something?”

  He didn’t respond to my insults. Instead, he just pushed me through the doorway and into a dark corridor where armed men stood guard. I couldn’t see much, but I could tell we were headed toward the back of the warehouse, to an office I assumed.

  Isaak opened the door to the office as we arrived, revealing Ava sitting in the chair she’d been photographed in. Her eyes were wide and afraid, but she was alive. Thank God, she was alive.

  “I don’t know what the fuck is going on here,” I started, “but whatever it is, she had nothing to do with any of this. What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Isaak?”

  He backhanded me across the face, snapping my head backward with enough force that I heard my neck crack. But I’d been through worse. I didn’t even cry out when the big Russian had landed the blow, even though my face burned and I felt the swelling in my cheek and jaw begin immediately.

  “You think you’re so fucking smart, Irishman,” Isaak said. “Thought we wouldn’t find out who the snitch was?”

  “If you know, I’d really like to know, too–”

  He smacked me again. This time, something cracked in my face and blood flowed from my nose.

  “She wouldn’t tell us anything, but if you think we’re going to buy your little story–that you didn’t know–when someone has been working for the cops, you’re in for a big fucking surprise.”

  “I don’t really like surprises,” I stammered.

  Suddenly, all fuckin’ hell broke loose. Footsteps trudged heavily through the warehouse, which surprised Isaak and Alexei. Alexei grasped the base of my head in his hand and smashed me to the floor. Thankfully, I somehow managed to avoid breaking out all of my teeth, but my nose cracked, breaking my fall, and I felt the blood flowing. His boot-clad foot slammed into my ribs, and I rolled to my side, sucking in a heaving breath. He tore the office door open and rushed through the warehouse where all-out war seemed to be taking place. Gunshots resonated through the space, and the harrowing sound of death fell all around us.