by Winters, KB
When I was a teenager I never understood what my mother had been thinking, deciding to marry my dad and have children with him. He was great, charming and handsome, rich and funny. All great things if you forgot his clients were mobsters, felons and other criminals.
It wasn’t until I was seventeen and she sat me down to talk to me about what to do in an emergency that I realized how much she loved him. Really loved him, too. She didn’t withhold affection based on his job. She just loved him, flaws and all.
“I know your father inside and out, love. Trust me on that.”
She had the sweet Irish lilt of her hometown from the old country as she always called it, and it was the one thing that hadn’t yet faded from memory.
I trusted her even if I hadn’t understood at the time. But as I crept into the back door of my house and went to the dark blue canvas bag in the back of my closet filled with clothes and cash, I understood.
“Always have a bag ready to take you to a new life. It’s necessary in our life sweetheart.” She hugged me tight that day and whispered in my ear something I’d never forget. “It just might be your way out of this.”
It took me many years to understand the significance of her words but now that I had, there was just one thing left to do.
Run like my life depended on it, because it did.
Chapter Twenty - Nine
Rourke
After all the bullshit of the last few weeks, I woke up with a big smile on my face and the curvy little redhead beside me was the main reason why. Last night had been incredible, she’d been incredible, and the sex was out of this world hot. I couldn’t remember the last time I was so insatiable for a woman, but Margo had given it back ten-fold.
Twice.
I turned over with a smile, cock already hardening in anticipation of soft, creamy curves. My smile quickly faded when my gaze landed on the empty space beside me. The cold empty spot in the pillow. Margo was gone.
She couldn’t have gone far but still, something pulled me from the warmth of the bed, and I stepped into yesterday’s jeans and went to her room. Her door was unlocked and immediately I was on edge, pushing my way into her room slowly.
“Shit.” She wasn’t in there either. I went back to my room to find her damn shirt and some jeans. It was unlikely I’d find Margo relaxing in the kitchen with the staff or having breakfast in the dining room with Patrick and the girls, but I looked anyway.
“What’s up, son?” Patrick frowned at me but I ignored him to let my gaze fall on every seat at the table until I was sure Margo wasn’t among them.
“Nothing. Everything good?”
“You tell me,” he shot back, suddenly suspicious.
“Everything is fine.” I hoped it was, but as the seconds passed I knew it wasn’t. Margo was nowhere to be found, which was a big goddamn problem. She had left on her own.
Directly in the crosshairs of Danny Milano.
My emotions bounced from worry to angry. Worry for her safety but angry that she’d obviously played me. Fucked me to let my guard down so she could leave.
This was one more problem I didn’t need, and now I had to figure it out without Patrick knowing. I sent a text message to my cousins.
Meet me in the garden in 15. -R
I paced the garden, looking for signs of weakness in the security on the property when the surveillance footage hadn’t shown anything to worry about. Not one second of footage showed Margo’s face, her wild red hair or her heart shaped ass. Nothing.
Eamon showed up first. “What’s up?” A deep vee creased his brows, highlighting the stress of the past few months. “You got some info?”
“In a way,” I told him cryptically because I didn’t want to have to explain this shit twice. Eamon would give me plenty of shit and so would Shae. Conor wouldn’t give a shit, if anything, he’d be happy to have something else to do.
“What the hell does that mean, Rourke?”
“It means I need your help, and I don’t want to have to say this again.” He stared at me and I stared back, not at all intimidated by my cousin. Even if he was a glorified hitman. We’d grown up together and I knew his weaknesses as well as he knew mine so I stared him down until his posture relaxed.
“Fine. But if this is about that goddamn Byrne chick—”
“—Then what? If I recall it was your inability to keep your dick in your pants that started this mess in the first place.” If he wanted to do the blame game, I was happy to play along. “So we can talk about that or you can stop trying to act like Patrick Junior and be a fucking human being.”
“Looks like we showed up just in time,” Conor joked, giving Shae a backhanded smack in his abdomen.
“Watch it, asshole.” Shae shoved him as they walked up to me and Eamon, forming a perfect circle. “So Rourke, what’s up?”
“Margo’s gone.” It was like ripping off a Band-Aid, quick and painless.
“What?” Eamon asked.
“Impossible,” Conor and Shae said at the same time.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too, but I spent the better part of the morning looking for her and she isn’t here.” It was embarrassing to admit it, but now wasn’t the time for pride.
Shae crossed his arms, a slightly amused look on his face as he looked at me. “Any particular reason you were looking for her so early in the morning?”
I nodded and told them about our night together in as little detail as possible. “I should have realized last night, but it wasn’t until I woke up and she was gone that I began to have a bad feeling.”
Conor nodded. “You did the right thing coming to us first. Patrick will have a shit fit if he finds out before we get her back here. What do you need?”
“She took a burner phone with her, at least I assume she did since it wasn’t in her room. Or mine. Here’s the number.”
Conor took it and turned away. “I’m on it,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll let you know when I find something.”
“Find her, Con.” He looked back and saw the seriousness in my expression, giving me a sharp nod. “If Danny scoops her up and something happens to her, this won’t end well.”
He nodded again. “Got it. Talk soon.”
“What do you need us to do, Rourke?” Eamon’s question surprised me because he’d given me nothing but shit since we’d got back to the mansion.
“I don’t know. First we need to figure out how in the fuck she was able to get out of here without being seen by any of the cameras or the guards.”
“And fix it before Patrick guts everybody,” Shae added unnecessarily. “What are you gonna do?”
“I’m going to find Margo.” Even if I had to drag her back against her will, again, I would. She wasn’t safe out there on her own no matter how badass she thought she was.
Chapter Thirty
Margo
Staying in a shitty roadside motel wasn’t my best idea and it certainly wasn’t nicer than the over the top-ness of Patrick Connelly’s mansion, but it suited my needs. Nicer hotels, the kind with more security and higher thread count sheets wanted things like credit cards and identification. Things that could be tracked if people were looking for me. And they were.
Unfortunately for me, everyone looking for me was the wrong kind of people. Friends, family and foes alike, I couldn’t count on any of them doing what was best for me so I had to do it for myself.
After going home to grab my go-bag with enough cash to start over, a prepaid phone, and a few changes of clothes. I sought out any cash I had lying around, along with my favorite photo of my mom and me. Then I locked the place up tight, not knowing if I was saying so long for now or goodbye forever. Since I hadn’t eaten much in almost a week my first stop was the nearest fast food drive thru. And then the closest pizza place because the more I thought about food, the more food I wanted.
I sat inside the crappy hotel room with the decades old flowery bedspread underneath me, my back resting on the pine headboard, and a flat w
hite pillow pretending to provide some sort of cushion. The round table in the corner matched the headboard, which also matched the nightstands, all of it stained and scratched, and somehow each flat surface wobbled. Simply put, it was the height of crackhead chic, and it was the depressing background to the most disgusting food binge of my life.
The table, the nightstand and the bed were littered with burger wrappers, containers for fries and nuggets, a clamshell that now held half a salad, and a mostly uneaten pizza. My eyes were bigger than my stomach, that much was true, but it was also true that I had no idea where I’d go next. Where it would be safe to go and if there would be access to food there. It was strange how quickly something like food could be taken for granted. Days without it and suddenly my plans factored starvation into the equation.
I hadn’t slept at all last night after checking in to the hotel. It was both too loud and too quiet to sleep, the sounds of the prostitute on one side of me and the drunken masturbator on the other provided the soundtrack to my first sleepless night of freedom. Sort of anyway.
All told I’d probably gotten a bit more than two hours of sleep, which meant I needed something more than fat and grease as fuel. But that was a worry for another day. Today I needed to replenish my nutrients, gather my energy and make a plan for my future.
The first step was getting the fuck out of Rocket, putting as much distance between me and these goddamn families as humanly possible. I wasn’t foolish enough to think this crappy little place provided me with more than a temporary reprieve. Hell, for all I knew the fucking Connelly’s had men going hotel to hotel until they found me. And I didn’t even want to think about what they would do if they found me. In a perfect world, they’d leave me the hell alone, but I wasn’t in a perfect world, nor that stupid or naïve. Not anymore.
Trusting Rourke had cured me of that.
I didn’t even want to think his name because his name caused feelings to slosh around inside of me that I wasn’t ready to deal with. Hell, I might never be ready to deal with them considering who—and what—he was.
I thought of a plan to get the hell out of here. I had to choose someplace unexpected if I stood a chance at living a normal life. That meant big cities were out because that would be the first place they’d look. Forget about small towns; newcomers stood out like a horse at a dog race, which only left mid-size cities.
I spread out the map I’d gotten in the motel lobby and put a star in red marker over four different spots. Austin, Texas, was a good bet because it was Texas and no one would bat an eyelash at a woman carrying a gun. Champaign, Illinois, was big enough to allow me to work as a paramedic without being found out. Bend, Oregon, had its benefits among the hippies and upwardly mobile young people, but Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, was gorgeous and just big enough to get lost in. They all had the bonus that no one would think to look for me there.
“Shit,” I whispered when a loud knock sounded on my door. I stayed stock still with my hand gripping the bat I’d taken from the hall closet just beside my own front door, certain the person on the other side of the door had the wrong room. I’d chosen a corner room on the first floor for just this reason, despite the manager’s assurance that the second floor was safer for women traveling alone.
“I’m not traveling alone,” I reminded him quickly and in no uncertain terms. I’d signed in as a couple in case he got ideas about visiting my room after his shift ended.
When the second knock sounded, I found myself tiptoeing to the back of the room so I could peek out the window and see my car parked out back. There were no signs of anyone out there and my shoulders sagged in relief. If I needed to leave fast, I could.
Another knock sounded, this time louder and harder and with a hell of a lot more energy than the first two. Creeping over to the keyhole, I slid the cover to the side and peeked out at semi-familiar laughing brown eyes almost shielded by a crop of messy chestnut brown hair. Handsome and vaguely familiar.
“I can hear you in there, Margo.”
Shit. He knew my name, which meant he was more than familiar. I looked again and took stock of his features, not at all similar to Rourke’s but familiar all the same. I knew it! I’d seen him before. He was the man who’d been in the dining room with Patrick eating sandwiches.
“What do you want?” I asked, doing my best not to show any fear.
“I need you to open the door.” His words were neutral and firm, not threatening but definitely not harmless.
That pulled a harsh, bitter laugh from me. “That’s not happening.” I didn’t know this man so the door would stay as it was. Closed. Locked.
I wasn’t crazy enough to think he’d just walk away at my refusal so I scanned the room, happy I kept everything packed and ready for a quick getaway. The man knocked again, but I was busy shoving some of the leftover food into a large plastic bag that I tied around the handle of my duffel bag. I was set to leave with nothing more than a handful of bags.
“We’re trying to keep you safe,” the guy said in that long suffering tone that men used when they wanted a woman to do what they said without question. His voice was firm and certain, meant to soothe, but it had the opposite effect.
I snorted again at his words. “Our definitions of safety don’t quite line up, and I’m not interested in your help. Tell that crazy Patrick Connelly that you tried and failed.” Because the chances that I would ever set foot inside that God-awful mansion again were slim.
“Can’t do that, sweetheart.”
He knocked again, one hard sharp knock that was forceful enough to rattle the door.
“Well I can’t open this door, either.” My gaze slid to my go bag and I knew what I had to. I slid another glance at the door to make sure nothing had changed in the past fifteen seconds while I was planning my escape, jumping back with a gasp when a kick shook the door and the windows on either side of it.
Tires screeched out in the parking lot and a bad feeling settled in my gut, the same feeling that hadn’t gone away over the past few weeks since my life had turned into a bad mob drama.
“Seriously, Margo. I’m trying to help.”
The front door and the distance between us muffled the man’s words as I chucked my bag out of the bathroom window and followed, at a much slower pace thanks to my swollen ankle wrapped in a tight bandage. I limped over to where I parked my car between two eighteen wheelers as one gunshot sounded followed by two more.
“Shit!” I kept my head down and started the engine, backing out slowly just in case some gun-toting maniac found his way to me.
Cautiously, I tapped the gas and eased into the main parking lot, certain I would see a gang of men waiting to kill me or kidnap me again. Neither of those were good options as far as I was concerned, and when I saw one lone, dark colored Cadillac burning rubber out of the lot, my whole body sighed with relief. Then I saw the man at the door of my room.
Doubled over.
Blood spreading out from his side as his skin grew pale.
He’d been shot.
“Double shit.” I smacked the steering wheel and made a sharp right so the passenger’s door was almost on the sidewalk, rolling the window down barely an inch. “Fuck my life. Are you all right?”
He glared at me but his brown eyes showed pain around the edges as he shook his head. “I’ve been shot. How the feck do you think I am?”
I shrugged. “I don’t care how you are, mister. Get in or don’t, you have three seconds to decide.” His hand was on the car handle before I finished speaking.
“Ah, thanks.” His grin was sheepish, but I knew it wasn’t because he was shy or vulnerable—it was only because he wanted me to think that.
“Sure. How are you feeling?”
His brown gaze narrowed again. “Shot, Margo.”
I rolled my eyes and let out a long, please save me from killing this dickhead, sigh. “Where are you shot? What the fuck’s your name, anyway?”
Understanding dawned as I turned out of the pa
rking lot and went in the opposite direction of the Cadillac. “The shot went straight through my side.” His words were clipped and shallow as I was sure the pain made it hard to speak clearly.
“You look fit enough that a love handle shot won’t be fatal.” Even as I said the words, my gaze kept sliding to him in the passenger seat. The man’s eyes kept falling shut, and I knew he needed medical help before the blood loss turned to shock.
“I don’t have love handles,” he insisted with a strained smile.
“Whatever.” I kept looking in the rearview mirror, expecting to see a caravan of cars following us. “We need to get that wound fixed up. Now.”
He nodded. “Just take me back to—”
“Not happening so don’t even think about it,” I told him and swung into an underground parking garage, stopping at the last spot on the bottom floor, someplace hard to find that would give us at least a few minutes of privacy.
“I have some first aid supplies in my trunk. Can I trust you to not steal my car?”
His brown eyes looked up into mine, etched in pain but there was a determination in them that was hard to mistake for anything other than male stubbornness.
“Fine,” I said, snatching my keys. I grabbed the supplies from the trunk, scanning the parking lot, making sure we had no eyes on us.
“Not exactly in a position to run am I?” I knew he was trying to put me at ease but it didn’t work.
“I would have said the same thing about Rourke Flannigan, but we went from ally to enemy without batting an eye.”
And that was the last I’d think of him. Ever. The man opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it. I opened the passenger door and hit the handle that sent the passenger seat back at an angle. I got down to kneel beside him. Fortunately, his wound was on his right side so I had perfect access.
“I’m going to sterilize, disinfect, and then close up the wound. All I have is a local anesthetic cream so this won’t feel good. Bite down on the towel if you need to.”