One wanted the best for her.
The other thought the only way to keep her safe was to kill her.
“Bomb squad and a hostage negotiator just arrived.” Agent Bennett gave him a once-over. “Let them handle this.”
King nodded his agreement, having no intention of sitting back and doing nothing. Controlled chaos reigned around him. He let agents Bennett and Cruz and the bomb squad leader bat around one idea after another. He filled in the negotiator with as much information as he knew about Cara’s uncle.
“Extremists like this are tricky. They hold on to their ideas even when confronted with logic and reason. Compromise is difficult when they are deeply rooted in their beliefs.”
Not exactly a positive or encouraging sentiment to make right before calling the man holding the woman he loved hostage.
He slipped away from the group and leaned against the back of the tactical vehicle.
Agent Bennett caught him reaching to open the door. “You know I can’t sanction you going in there.”
“Damn it, Jay, I love her. I’m not leaving her in there to die alone.” He never used Agent Bennett’s first name on the job, but this wasn’t a job. This was personal. “I’m going in whether you like it or not.”
Jay’s phone pinged, not dinged, with another text, signaling King that this one wasn’t business, but personal. Jay turned the phone over and quickly read the message. King caught a glimpse of it himself.
Alina: Call me back NOW!!!!!!!!!
King tilted his head and eyed Jay and the way he tried to hide the phone and embarrassment in his eyes. “Why are you getting text messages from Caden and Trigger’s sister?”
Jay swore. “After the bomb and nearly dying tonight, I texted her a message better said face-to-face.” Jay couldn’t even look at him.
King clamped his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I get it, man. That bomb made so many things clear to me. Like what and who are important to me. As much as I’d love to call my family and connect with them, Cara is in there facing everything bad in her life. Whatever I have to do, I’m getting her out of that building alive.” He squeezed Jay’s arm. “Call Alina, then you can say you never saw me sneak away.”
Jay leaned in past him and grabbed a bulletproof vest out of the tactical vehicle. “Put that on and take this.” Jay handed over his gun. “You’re the best shot we have—take them down.”
King pulled the vest over his head. It hurt like hell to move his injured arm and a bolt of pain shot through his skull when the vest brushed the lump on the back of his head so Jay had to help him secure the side straps.
“I’m barely on my feet after that bomb nearly blew us to hell. I don’t know how you’re still standing with that head injury.”
King didn’t want to tell him it had more to do with sheer will than waning adrenaline. He’d wasted enough time.
“Don’t get killed.”
King wasn’t making any promises. Not when he knew what had to be done to get Cara out of there. “Tell everyone out here not to shoot when I send her out.”
“You mean when you come out with her.”
“However it goes down.” He was going in knowing he wasn’t coming out, because he’d sacrifice everything for Cara to have a long and happy life—even if he wasn’t in it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nothing Cara learned in the last hour made any sense. Flash worked for the DEA. Her uncle worked with her father. Which led her to believe everyone around her lied and justified it by thinking they were trying to avoid hurting her. But all it did was serve as a means for them to follow their own agenda and get what they wanted while assuaging their guilt.
Tandy and Flash died because of their lies.
The despair she felt for their loss swamped the anger inside of her. They didn’t deserve to die for what they’d done.
Despite the anger and despair she felt now, she didn’t want to die.
Her uncle and father squared off like they meant to kill each other. Maybe she should let them, but her uncle intended to add her to his body count and she wasn’t going out like this. She refused to let him fall deeper down the rabbit hole. He needed help and to be locked up where he could never hurt anyone again.
“Uncle Otis, please don’t do this. It’s not worth it. It won’t solve anything.”
“It’s time to end this.”
The office door opened behind her. “Let her go, or I’ll end you.”
Cara spun around and faced the man whose voice had become as familiar to her as her own, though his words came out strained and with a deadly edge.
She took him in with one look—from the red scrapes on his face, to the bloody bandage on his arm, the paleness of his skin, the bright intensity in his eyes, and the bold DEA letters across his chest. He’d survived the explosion, but the pain in his eyes told her he hadn’t gotten away unscathed.
“You’re alive.” She breathed the words out with her relief.
“Not for long.” Uncle Otis fired, shooting low, knowing hitting Flash in the bulletproof vest wouldn’t make him bleed. The bloodthirsty look in her uncle’s eyes made her believe he wanted Flash to hurt, the way he’d hurt her.
Flash lived up to his name, dodging to the side. Fast, but not quite speedy enough, the bullet hit his thigh, sending him sprawling on his side. He swore, clenched his jaw, and pressed his free hand to the oozing wound.
She jumped in Flash’s line of fire the second he raised his gun to shoot her uncle. With her hand held up in front of her, she blocked her uncle. “Don’t!”
Flash’s mouth drew back in a thin line. “He’s going to kill you.”
She shook her head, unable to believe her uncle truly meant to go forward with his plan to annihilate his whole family in some perverted attempt to save them all from themselves.
“Let her go,” Flash pleaded. “You’ve got me and Iceman. We’re the ones you want to pay for hurting her.”
Uncle Otis didn’t back down. “You came here to use her to get her father.”
“It’s true. I brought him here.” Iceman walked over to Flash and held out his hand.
Flash stared up at her father, some kind of silent conversation and acceptance passing between them before Flash took her father’s hand. Iceman pulled Flash up. He wobbled on his good leg, but her father steadied him before turning to her uncle.
“The DEA has been after me forever. If I’m not fighting rivals, I’m fighting them.”
“It’s that constant battle that has put your daughter in the middle of everything you do.” Uncle Otis kept the gun trained on Flash, but leveled his deadly gaze on her father.
“You seem to think you’re the righteous one here. That all the people who have hurt her deserve to pay, but what about you? You lie to her all the time. She sees that now. You blew up that farm she wanted with Castillo. You killed her best friend for working for me right under her nose.”
“You made Tandy betray her.”
Iceman shook his head. “Tandy came to me with the plan to use the truck drivers she was already screwing. It was a good plan, but I turned her down.”
“You did?” Cara couldn’t believe he’d pass it up. He hadn’t in the end. Tandy worked for him.
“Yes. All I ever wanted for you was a good and happy life. I didn’t want my life to touch yours, but for all my trying to keep you out of things, you get dragged in anyway. I told Tandy to cut the shit and be happy she had a decent job and a place to live with you. She wanted more. Said if I didn’t take her up on her offer, she’d find someone else. One of my rivals. Someone who would definitely use you to hurt me. I didn’t want to do it, but I had to keep an eye on Tandy and what she was doing to be sure she didn’t put you in danger.”
In her father’s weird way, he’d been trying to protect her.
It also hit her that her uncle blew up Manny’s ranch. “You had to know going after Manny would make him come after me again.”
Flash pressed his hand over the bleed
ing wound on his leg. “Manny couldn’t come after you, Cara. Your father made sure of that when he set up a meeting with Manny to broker a truce.”
“And the truce has held and Manny pays me every month because of what he did to me.”
Flash shook his head. “Your father tipped off the DEA to the meeting. He set Manny and me up.”
Iceman held Flash’s gaze. “You took the shot that killed him.”
“Just like you planned. You knew the DEA would have a sniper ready in case things got dicey when they moved in to capture you.”
“I counted on it,” Iceman confirmed.
“You couldn’t kill him yourself without starting a war between the cartels, but if the DEA, if I, killed him, you were in the clear.”
Cara pressed two fingers to her temple, trying to take it all in. “But you give me money.”
“He’s your father,” Flash said. “He wants to take care of you even if he can’t be in your life.”
“I want you to be safe, Cara, but more than anything, I want you to be happy.”
Flash stared at her with so much regret and sorrow in his eyes. “Which is why when I showed up and he saw us together at the barn house, he stopped coming around.”
She eyed Iceman, realizing he’d been absent longer than usual. “It has been a while since you dropped in unannounced.”
“He made me for an undercover cop when I inadvertently told him as much because I knew Manny was dead.”
“I saw the way you looked at him, the way he looked back at you. And there it was, my girl in real love, not living in some fantasy.”
“But he lied about who he is and you didn’t tell me,” she pointed out.
“I knew he came for me, but he really wanted you. I hoped he’d take you away from us for good. That you’d finally have the life you always wanted. So I did what I hadn’t been able to do all these years: I stepped out of your life, knowing for the first time that you’d be safe with a cop who’d protect you with his life.” Iceman held his hand out to Flash. “Look what he did. He walked right in here knowing my crazy-ass brother intends to kill us all. He gave himself up so Otis would set you free.”
“No one is walking out of here,” Uncle Otis warned.
Iceman turned on his brother. “You will let her go. You did all this so she could be happy, so I couldn’t hurt her anymore. Here’s your chance. The DEA is right outside. I’ll go peacefully. Flash can arrest me and walk me out.”
“It won’t matter. You’ll still be in charge. Your men will still follow you. Rivals will try to get to you through her.”
“She can leave with him. He’ll keep her safe.”
“He lied to her. He used her. He doesn’t care about her. He wants you behind bars and the accolades he’ll receive for putting you there. She will never be safe!” Uncle Otis aimed the gun right at her father’s chest.
Iceman shook his head, his gaze locked with Uncle Otis’s. “Don’t do this. I’m begging you. Shoot me, but spare her. I can’t change my life, but I will do anything to save hers. She means everything to me. Just like I know she means everything to you.”
“No one else has to die,” Cara pleaded, worried about the amount of blood soaking Flash’s pant leg and dripping on the floor. His pale face had turned pasty, but he stood there, stock-still, the gun in his hand held right at his side.
Why didn’t he shoot?
She didn’t want him to kill her uncle or her father. And that’s why he held perfectly still, waiting, hoping like her that they could solve this peacefully.
“Your father turned your life into a living hell. The man you think you love used you to get to us.”
Flash didn’t let that stand. “It’s true I came here to take Iceman down and went to work for Cara in hopes of turning her against her father. But she loves her father the same way he loves her. They know they can’t be together without destroying each other, so they live with the misery of wanting to be a real family but knowing they can’t ever have that. She wants her father to stop what he’s doing, but she doesn’t want him behind bars or dead. She just wants him to be a normal dad. It tears her apart that he won’t ever be that. But she thought she had you to be that for her, but you were lying, too. You work with Iceman, selling moonshine and blowing up rival drug labs.”
Cara gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. “No.”
“Yes,” Flash confirmed. “In his spare time, he sends threatening letters to government officials. He left me several notes warning me away from you or else.”
“I knew you were no good,” Uncle Otis said.
“Why? Because she cared about me? Because when you saw us together it looked like she could finally be happy and that she might actually leave this place behind for a life with me?”
“I will never let you take her away from me.”
Cara gazed up at her uncle, touched he cared so deeply for her, but sad and angry and hurt he’d take it this far. “I would never leave you, Uncle Otis. You have to know I would have taken care of you always.”
“That’s the kind of woman she is,” Flash said. “She doesn’t turn her back on the people she loves. But you thought she’d turn her back on you if I took Iceman down and found out that you were working with him.”
“You were meddling where you don’t belong.”
“I found your moonshine still, but I dismissed it as a mostly harmless distraction for a guy who lived as a hermit with only his niece as a tie to the outside world. When I focused in on Tandy, I thought she’d lead me to Iceman. Even if I had arrested him, he’d have never given you up.”
“You’re my brother, Otis. Blood. Family. Nothing they offered would have made me name you as a partner.”
“Partner?” Cara bounced her gaze from one man to the other, understanding just how connected these two men were in life and business. “If you got caught, Uncle Otis would have had to step up and take control.”
“The cartel would expect it,” Iceman confirmed.
She shook her head, her heart filled with disappointment and sorrow. “You lied. All this time, you were just like him.”
“Your father turned out to be the better man.” Flash hissed out a pain-filled breath when he shifted his weight. “He didn’t lie about who or what he was.”
“Unlike you,” Uncle Otis accused, shifting the gun’s barrel back to Flash.
Iceman took her hand and slowly backed them away from Uncle Otis.
“That’s all I lied about. Well, and that Tandy didn’t have anything planned tonight. I didn’t want Cara anywhere near Tandy when we took her down.” For the first time, Flash looked her right in the eye. “I didn’t want you to see your best friend arrested. Her betrayal hurt you, but seeing it up close and personal would have crushed you. I wanted to spare you that much.”
“Instead, I watched her blow up. I thought you were dead.” Her voice cracked.
Flash held his arms out to his sides, wincing when his bandaged arm pained him. “Apparently I’m not that easy to kill.”
“Sure you are.” Uncle Otis took aim at Flash’s head. Iceman pushed her away and rushed in front of Flash a split second before Uncle Otis fired. The bullet hit Iceman in the back of the head as he stared at Flash. She rushed to her father as his knees hit the ground and he fell face first at Flash’s feet. Blood gushed out of a deep gash across the back of his skull.
She kneeled next to him and pressed her hand to his cheek. “Daddy, no! No! Don’t die! Don’t leave me.” She brushed her fingers through his bloody white hair. “Why did you do that?”
Her father rested his hand on her thigh. “Because you love him.” He’d sacrificed himself to save Flash for her.
She leaned over and pressed her hands and forehead to his back and felt his last breath leave his body. She fisted his shirt in her hands and closed her eyes, squeezing the tears past her lashes and onto his back. Now wasn’t the time to cry. She’d have plenty of time for that later.
If she got them out of he
re alive.
She tilted her head up and looked at Flash.
“I’m sorry.” The whispered words held a deep, sad truth. He meant them, because he understood that while she and her father had fought most of her life, he was still her father. She loved him. And he’d loved her more than he ever let show to keep her safe.
“All of you want to protect me. All of you go about it the wrong way.” She rose and stepped over her father’s body. “You lie. You push me away.” She glanced at her uncle still standing there holding a gun on Flash and the bomb detonator. He didn’t need to shoot anyone. All he had to do was push the button. But that wasn’t so easy when it meant your own death.
She stood in front of Flash, looking up at him. Regret and pain filled his blue eyes. He didn’t have much time before the blood loss and head injury dropped him. She needed to get him out of here and to a hospital.
He pressed his scratched and bloody hand to her face and brushed his thumb softly over her cheek. “The truth was in my words and actions. Even if you can’t forgive me, please believe that.”
“Get away from her.” Uncle Otis cocked the gun behind her.
She sighed, knowing what she had to do and hoping she had the strength to do it if she couldn’t talk him down. She took the gun from Flash’s hand. His strength waned so badly he only put up a token resistance to her disarming him.
Taking her uncle by surprise, she spun around and pointed the gun at him. “You are done. If what you wanted is to keep me safe and out of my father’s—and your—world, then you’ve accomplished that. He’s dead.”
“It’s not over. Like him, I can’t walk away.”
She gave him a sad smile. “But I can. There’s nothing left here for me. You’ve made sure of that.”
“Don’t say that, chipmunk. You said you’d never leave me.”
She shook the gun at him. “Don’t. Don’t you dare call me that and act like I mean anything to you while you destroy my life.”
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