Appreciation filtered through me for not only his help, but also for the fact that he didn’t demand an immediate explanation as to why I’d shown up.
I scrambled through his room and into the bathroom, my nose wrinkling up from the smell. I knew single men were infamous for being slobs, but Anthony’s apartment was the worst I’d ever seen.
After changing into the clothes, which were a bit too loose for my liking, I walked back out into the living room to accept the warm mug of coffee from his hands, and take a seat on the ratty, beat up couch.
“So, spill, Holly. What the hell happened to you?” His brown eyes were filled with suspicion and concern.
I took a long swig of the coffee, the warm liquid moving down to my stomach, noticeable against the chill that consumed me. Locking my eyes to Anthony’s, I started to cry when I said, “My best friend was killed tonight.”
My voice wavered when I admitted the truth, but I was able to gather enough strength to explain exactly what happened. Once I’d finished my story, I looked at Anthony silently, praying that he would believe me.
“Whoa,” he finally said, running his hand through his tangled hair once again. “That’s some messed up shit, Holly. What are you going to do? You need to go to the police.”
I barked out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, no thanks. The captain of the force was on the boat, together with attorneys, judges and congressman. All of whom are friends with Oliver. There’s no way anybody is going to believe me, but I have to find some way to prove he was the one who killed her.”
Tears welled in my eyes, memories of Diana and I growing up together – the happiness that was alight in her eyes only hours before her new husband so cruelly murdered her. Adrenaline and shock had kept me from feeling the pain of her death, but now that my body and mind were slowing down, now that the knowledge and reality that Dianna was gone was seeping into my conscious thoughts, pain washed over me in vicious waves.
“You can stay here,” Anthony offered. “I know it’s not much, but I doubt anybody will look for you here.”
Turning to give him a weak smile, I shook my head in refusal of his offer. “That’s really sweet, Anthony, but I’m not dragging you into this any further than I already have. The police will be looking for me and I need to go somewhere safe that’s far enough away that nobody will find me.”
As soon as the words rolled off my lips, thoughts of my stepbrothers flooded my mind. Both of them were tall and built like powerhouses. Thick arms, broad shoulders and bodies that appeared to be created by the loving hand of a master sculptor. With blue eyes and tawny, brown hair that framed their faces in soft waves, they were gorgeous beyond words – which only lent to the arrogance that made me despise them.
Cocky was too soft a word for Gideon and Gage, they were something else entirely.
Unfortunately for me, they were as intelligent and money-hungry as they were beautiful, and I knew it was only a matter of time before they offered to hunt me down like an animal and turn me in to the police. They would lock me away without a second thought, uncaring about what truly happened on Oliver’s yacht.
Chasing down fugitives was a game they played well. They never lost, they never failed – and it’s what made them so popular. Overnight, and after catching one of the most elusive criminals in the country, they were celebrities that had bad men running scared and good women willing to do whatever the twins wanted just to get a minute of their time.
Finally able to control the terror and pain in my voice, I asked, “Turn on the news, will you? I want to see if anything has been reported about what happened tonight.”
Anthony grabbed the remote and clicked the button. After flipping one channel, we saw what I feared would happen. An impromptu news conference had been set up at the marina, the chief of police, Oliver and several other heavyweight politicians begging the public to look for me and bring me to justice. They even went so far as to warn the people of New York that I was considered dangerous and not to approach me should they see me walking the streets.
“Shit.” The word rolled off my lips as my face fell into my hands. “I’ve got to get out of this state.”
Anthony’s hand landed on my shoulder in a gesture of comfort. “You can take my car.”
“I can’t do that. How will you get to school and –“
“I have a motorcycle, and city transportation will get me everywhere I need to go. Take my car, please. I can’t offer you much more than that.”
* * *
Parking Anthony’s beat down sedan on the side of the bank, I made sure to keep it out of sight of any cameras that would be near the ATM. I’d wanted to withdraw as much cash as possible near a bank close to my apartment hoping that, once the police discovered I’d accessed my account at a bank close to where I lived, they would assume I was staying in New York. Unfortunately, my purse was still on the boat where my best friend had been killed and I didn’t have a spare debit card with which to access my account.
Grief and shock had messed up my thinking and it didn’t occur to me that I would need the card until I’d already pulled up to the bank.
Thankfully, Anthony had given me five hundred dollars, and it had to be enough to get me to the only place I knew I could hide. I had a full tank of gas and enough cash to get me to the small ranch house in Texas that was owned by my mother, but barely ever used. There wouldn’t be any power, but I didn’t take issue with roughing it until I could think of something better.
With some oversized clothes that Anthony had graciously given me, I would find a way to eat, sleep and bathe in the sparse accommodations to which I was headed.
Climbing out of the vehicle and approaching the ATM so the cameras would capture my image, I hurried to climb back in, turned the key and hit the gas, tearing through the streets of New York as the sun rose over the distant horizon. I wouldn’t leave a paper trail for the police or any other person to follow and I prayed that nobody would think to look for me at a property that hadn’t been occupied since my father died when I was a child.
I prayed the well at the ranch still worked, and I could at least have clean water. It wasn’t much, and I knew it would be hard to survive off the land, but I was a strong woman who’d been taught how to take care of herself in tough conditions.
An hour passed before I crossed the New York state line heading south, my heart torn apart by the reality that my best friend was dead.
Pushing the pain aside, I only made room for fear: fear that life as I knew it was over, fear that nobody would believe me if I was caught and told the truth, and fear that the people who’d be chasing me to the ends of the Earth were two beautiful twins that hated me as much as I hated them.
Chapter Two
“You take the back and I’ll go in the side door,” I whispered to my brother in a harsh tone. I didn’t really need to tell him what to do. Being identical twins meant that we were almost telepathic at times like this. Our likeminded train of thought was useful for busts because we complemented each other’s moves, always watching each other’s backs, and always catching whatever loser it was that we were chasing.
But, for this case, I couldn’t risk our entire reward on almost. There was too much money at stake, and we had to be absolutely certain.
We had been following Tony “Snake Eyes” Milano, the most wanted man on the FBI’s top ten list, for a little over a week now.
He was a notorious mob boss, but he was mostly wanted for heinous crimes committed during a hit a few months back.
His target had been picking his kid up at school. Tony Milano had opened fire, his rage getting in the way of his strict moral code of never killing kids.
Kids had been killed that day, three of them to be exact, and Tony’s rival had escaped with his life.
The FBI wasn’t too worried about the mafia, but kid killers made for bad press and they knew he had to be brought in.
That’s where Gage and I stepped in. We possessed an almost uncanny ability to
find the creeps and crooks nobody else could, and law enforcement used us regularly.
Last year we’d been picked up by a network for a reality show based on our lives and had become instant celebrities. Overnight our lives had transformed into something almost surreal, being recognized everywhere and having women throwing themselves at us every chance they got. I never understood the fascination of our fans, and after months of thinking it over, I decided that men wanted to be like us, and women viewed us as the ultimate protectors.
Gage glanced at me and stalked slowly down the side of the cement building we were approaching.
It was an old storefront in Chinatown, long since abandoned as a retail space, but still in use for the underground crime syndicates in the area.
Tony had some ties to Triad, the Chinese mafia, and we’d been tipped off that he was hiding out here.
I counted down on my watch, knowing it was perfectly in sync with my brother’s, hit zero, drew my gun and slammed myself against the metal door.
The frame shattered under my weight and expertise. I had done this hundreds of times before.
I heard screaming and yelling in Mandarin as I rushed through a narrow short hallway right into a brightly lit room draped in plastic. Naked girls in plastic caps and gloves raced all around me.
A quick glance told me they were processing drugs, most likely meth, but that’s not what we were there for.
“I got him!” Gage’s voice rang through from the back. I heard a scuffle and a gunshot and Gage yelled, “Motherfucker!”
I raced around to find him in a back room, Tony cowering on the floor and blood pouring down the side of Gage’s head.
I knelt down, slapped the plastic zip cuffs around Tony’s outstretched hands and beat his head against the wall a few times for good measure.
“Nice timing,” Gage growled in pain. “Let me get shot and you make the take down.”
“Thanks, bro,” I replied and clapped him on the shoulder, humor obvious in my voice. “This is just payback for that dude in Las Vegas last year. Because of that, my shoulder still aches when it’s about to rain.”
“What are you, a seventy year old lady?” Gage asked and rubbed the side of his head, wincing.
“Where’d he get you?” I asked.
“The ear,” he said and pulled his hand away. The tip of his ear was gone, probably about a quarter of an inch sheared off.
“It’ll grow back,” I grinned, “right?”
“Sure,” he said and rolled his eyes, “That’s not as funny when you say it to me.”
Tony groaned and I kicked him once in the stomach to shut him up.
In no time at all, we dragged him to our Hummer and were heading downtown to collect our reward.
Tony rolled around in the back seat cursing us in Italian and English, and a couple other languages. I drove like he wasn’t in there, taking sharp corners and getting a sense of smug satisfaction when I heard him grunt in pain.
He was a scumbag, shooting those kids like that. I didn’t care that it had been a mistake. When you’re playing the games that Tony was, you didn’t have room for mistakes.
And now he would pay for his.
A small crowd of press and the local Chief of Police met us as we pulled up. Bennett was his name, a real ball breaker and known for his tough stance on crime.
“So here’s the lowlife,” Bennett growled as we dragged Tony out of the back of the Hummer. We had the undivided attention of the reporters and Bennett was playing it up for the cameras.
We made a show of dragging Tony into the police station. Our contact from the FBI met us there and Bennett stayed out front to give a press conference.
As we walked away we heard people yelling our names, screaming questions, trying to get our attention.
Gage and I knew better than to take the spotlight away from Bennett though. He was power hungry and we knew our place when working on his territory.
“Boys,” Agent Gabriel Sandosa said as we walked to the back of the station where the FBI were waiting to take custody of Tony. “Another successful take down I see.”
“He was a little slippery,” I said, “but we pinned him down some time last week. A little surveillance, and somebody on the inside, and we got him.”
“Well, we’re happy to take him off your hands,” Sandosa said, “I think there’s another big fish lined up for you already.”
“Oh good,” Gage laughed as he clapped me on the back, “This one starts to get surly if there’s not enough action going on.”
“Well the way your ratings are going, I won’t be surprised if there’s a sudden spike in female fugitives just to get you two after them,” Sandosa laughed.
Bennett’s assistant pushed through the front doors, and motioned for us to follow him back outside for the press conference. I raised my brows at Sandosa and he smiled. If Bennett was willing to share the stage, this had to be a high profile fugitive.
My heart started beating faster and I felt the familiar rush of excitement that happened every time we got a new case.
Especially one as big as this one appeared to be.
“And in conclusion, I want you to know that I will not rest until this murderer is caught. I am sending the nation’s finest after this despicable coward, so rest assured, this chase will not be long,” Bennett was speaking to the crowd of reporters on the steps in front of the police station. He turned back and looked to us, motioned for us to stop and stay where we were standing.
“Please, refrain from asking them any questions, but put your hands together for Gideon and Gage Hollister...the best bounty hunters we have to offer!” Bennett made a grand sweeping gesture towards us, as if he were solely responsible for our success rate.
Politicians, I tell yeah.
We smiled and took a manila envelope from Bennett’s assistant. I clutched it in my hand and waved for another moment or two, grew bored, turned to Gage and said, “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
“Fuck yeah,” Gage said through gritted teeth, “I can’t stand this showboating any longer.”
We turned and took the stairs two at a time back into the precinct.
“I never thought I’d hear you grumble about showboating,” I laughed, “Must be one of the signs of the apocalypse or something.”
He punched my shoulder and replied, “I don’t mind my showboating. It’s Bennett’s style of parading around like a banty rooster that I can’t stand.”
“I hear ya, bro,” I said and stepped into an empty side office. I opened the manila envelope and pulled the papers out. I read the description of the crime, was startled that it was a woman we were after and that she was wanted for the murder of her best friend.
And my heart stopped dead when I read the name.
Holly McAllister, our little stepsister. Our mousy little introverted snotty stepsister.
I couldn’t speak. I was in absolute shock.
“What is it, Gideon? All the color just drained from your face.” Gage asked as he reached for the papers.
I slid the folder across the table to him and watched his face as it dawned on him who our next target would be.
We were going after our little sister, now wanted for killing her best friend on the night of her engagement party.
“What are we going to do?” Gage asked, his mouth hanging open.
I narrowed my eyes, hardened my heart and stuffed down any conflicting feelings I may have had about going after a family member.
“We’re going to do our jobs,” I replied in a low tone, “We’re going to bring her back and bring her to justice. No matter how long it takes.”
“Fuck man,” Gage commented, “They’re offering two million as a reward for her capture. Who the fuck is funding this?”
I shrugged my shoulder as Holly’s face came into my thoughts. She’d always been such a pretty girl, but she’d never broken out of her shell, and she’d always been a complete bitch when it came to Gage and I.
“Not
sure. I assume the fiancé of the woman who was murdered. And I’m not asking any questions, either. We need that money. If it takes dragging Holly in, then that’s what we’re going to do. I don’t give a shit if she’s family.”
There was a sliver of doubt piercing my heart at my words though. As much as I was dedicated to my job, the thought of dragging her into our world, and the public eye, made me ill.
She’d always been aloof and distant with Gage and I, but I still thought of her as family. And I’d been raised to not hurt your family.
But what happened when your family turned out to be a murderer?
Chapter Three
The ranch wasn’t anything like I’d remembered it to be. But, then again, I hadn’t seen it since I stood by the wooden fence, watching in wonder as my father attempted to break a horse that no other man wanted to deal with.
My father had always been an animal lover, and he’d instilled that kindness into me when I was young. It didn’t matter how big or small the creature was; if it came across my path, I did anything I could to help it. My dad had been the same way, and it was that same love and kindness that had gotten him killed in the very field on which I now stood.
My heart broke as I looked out over the field that was now taken over by nature. I could clearly see my father with the black stallion, could hear his voice carry in the wind as he attempted to ride the beast for the first time. The stallion had failed to free himself of my father’s weight the first couple times he reared into the air, but I guess my father grew tired after days with a beast that wouldn’t be tamed.
I hadn’t been watching the moment my father was thrown, but my attention had been pulled in that direction as soon as I heard my mother scream.
Glancing left, I could barely see the top of the large stone that my father’s head had hit when he fell to the ground, the stone that ultimately caused the damage that killed him.
Gideon & Gage, Book One Page 2