by Vivien Dean
It was slow and gentle, and when Ava parted her lips, sliding her tongue out to savor his, Gino’s breath hitched before he did the same. This was infinitely better than any fantasy he could ever have. He only hoped that it wouldn’t be the last kiss they shared.
It wasn’t turning out to be a good night. In spite of all her attempts, Maddy couldn’t get Lombardi to open up about what was bugging him. She ended up standing in the hallway with orders to get her caboose ready and the door slammed in her face. She would have stormed back in to tell the jerk exactly what he could do with his caboose, except Gino chose that moment to come rushing out of the dressing room with his tie askew and lipstick on his collar. Curiosity drove her back to Ava, and she spent the next hour listening to her friend gush about how wonderful Gino was.
It made Maddy miss Cash even more.
They took their time getting dressed, sticking around long after they should have gone out to the floor to make sure they caught every girl who was working that night. Not one of them had any kind of mark on her body that remotely resembled the drawing Kate had provided. By the time Maddy took to the floor, her spirits were sinking. She smiled and did the friendly thing with those who asked her to dance, but her heart wasn’t in it, especially when one elderly fellow kept trying to grab her breasts on the dance floor. If Cash had been around, he would have stepped in and broken it up, but tonight, she didn’t have that luxury. She simply had to grin and bear it, until the opportunity arose to get away from the gentleman in question.
Aaron lounging against the bar gave her the perfect chance. She broke away with a soft excuse and wove a path through the room until she stood at his side. “Buy a girl a drink?”
He laughed and waved the bartender over. As he was about to order, a man almost identically dressed came up and grabbed Aaron’s arm.
“What the hell do you think you’re doin’?” the stranger said.
Involuntarily, Maddy took a step away. He was as muscular as Aaron, though neither man was as large as Gino, with dark, sunken eyes that glittered in hatred. His nearly bald scalp had the ravages of some form of psoriasis, but the sneer on his thin lips commanded more of her current attention.
“You’re not seriously going to buy this bitch a drink,” he added.
Aaron yanked his arm free, his eyes cold as he straightened. “Back off, Marty. When Mack’s not around, I’m in charge, remember?”
Her gaze flickered between the two men. Aaron had described his status as Mack’s right-hand man, but with the owner out of commission, she hadn’t seen it in action.
Until now.
Marty pressed forward, forcing her to back up until the bar hit her shoulder blades. “Personally, I never saw what the boss ever saw in a whore like you,” he growled. He never touched her, but just his proximity made her palms itch to slap him. “If I were you—”
“But you’re not.” Aaron’s large hand came down on Marty’s shoulder, pulling him away and then shoving him toward a group of girls waiting for dance partners. “Go pick on someone you don’t have a grudge with.”
With one last menacing look over his shoulder, Marty stormed off, grabbing a willowy brunette by the wrist and dragging her onto the dance floor. Maddy sighed as soon as they were alone again.
“Why did you guys even come around tonight?” she asked, picking up the drink that was waiting for her.
“Marty was getting itchy hanging around the hospital,” Aaron explained. “I thought if I brought him back here, he’d work some of it off and I’d be able to help out with trying to find the safety.” He smiled at her in apology. “I’m sorry he got in your face. It won’t happen again.”
She shrugged good-naturedly. “I’ve had worse. There was one guy—”
The appearance of a familiar set of shoulders at the door cut her off. Aaron followed her line of sight, but when he saw Cash speaking with Gino at the door, he stiffened.
“I thought Lombardi fired him,” he said, his attention jumping between Cash and Marty out on the dance floor.
“He did.” Aaron wasn’t the only one concerned. After her little run-in, the last thing Maddy wanted was for Marty to go off on Cash. “I’ll go take care of it.”
Her determined strides marched her toward the door. By the time she reached it, Cash watched her with a calculating gleam in his eye and a hungry curl of his lip.
“Someone’s lit a fire under you.” He scooped his arm around her waist to pull her flush against him. His lips danced along her jaw, and for a brief second, Maddy’s stomach fluttered. “Guess my timing turned out to be spot on, after all.”
It took ignoring the sudden heat in her thighs to find the willpower to press her palms to his chest and push him away. “What are you doing here?” she hissed. “You hated coming in when you actually did have a job, and now that you’re fired, you’re still coming around?”
“I think you and Gino have the same twisted knickers,” Cash joked. Reaching out, he took her hand in his, entwining their fingers. “Relax. Tonight, I’m a paying customer. You think I’d pass up the opportunity to spend the night dancing with my favorite girl?”
He was too strong to break away from without creating a scene, so Maddy settled for lifting her chin and giving him her most furious glare. “Mack’s boys are here,” she said carefully, hedging her words with Gino standing so near. “And one of them has already tried to start something with me. You don’t need that kind of attention right now.”
Mention of trouble had both men stiffening, and the humor in Cash’s face hardened into something dangerous. “I know it wasn’t Keating. So what did that other wanker say to you?”
The last thing she needed was to make the situation worse. “Can’t you trust me on this?” Silently, she begged him to back off. “Or do you need to get shot again for anything to get through that thick skull of yours?”
“Maddy’s right,” Gino interjected. His gaze was glued to the dance floor, and Maddy glanced back to see Marty had finally noticed Cash’s arrival. “I can’t kick him out because he’s one of Mack’s boys, and you know as well as I do that they’re both packing. You stick around, and there’s going to be trouble.”
“I’m not a bloody coward,” Cash argued. “I don’t tuck my tail and run every time things look a little difficult.”
“But you’re not stupid, either,” Maddy aid. “You can’t beat a gun, no matter how hard you can hit.”
“You know guns aren’t my style anyway.”
She jumped at the sudden charge running along the surface of his skin. Though nothing was visible, she knew what Cash was doing. He’d explained more about how his magic worked that afternoon, and this had all the hallmarks of him getting ready to cast a spell.
“Not here,” she said, pushing him back toward the doorway. She didn’t care about a scene any more. She just wanted to get him out of the club before somebody else got seriously hurt. “You know that—”
“You’ve got balls of steel, Vinci,” Marty said behind her. Cringing, she turned around to see Gino stepping up to block the man from getting any closer, but Marty’s malicious attention was trained intently on Cash. “The boss is out cold and you have the nerve to show your ugly mug around here again? What is it about this dame that turns guys into complete saps?”
“No fighting in here, Marty,” Gino warned.
He held his hands up in mock surrender. “Who said anything about fighting? I just thought you might want some help sweeping this trash out onto the street.”
“He was just leaving,” Maddy intervened.
“Well, isn’t that a coincidence?” Marty’s smile was a death leer, making her blood run cold. “I was thinking of doing the same thing.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aaron come barreling through the crowd, but already, Cash was trying to push past Maddy, to face the threat himself. Nobody else seemed to be aware of the scene at the door, though in the background, Kate had shifted in her song to better observe the encounter from the bandstand.
> “If you have a problem with me—” Cash started.
When Aaron clamped a hand on his shoulder, Marty threw it off and shoved his way past Gino. “I’ve got a problem with the both of you.” He jabbed a blunt finger at them, and reached inside his jacket. “Nobody makes a fool of Mack. Definitely not a two-bit whore and her—”
The sudden flare of heat in Cash’s skin was unmistakable. Before he could release the power that had built up, though, Maddy pushed herself between the two men, acting on instinct to try to keep them apart.
The gunshot silenced the room for a split second before she heard Cash cry out her name. But all Maddy felt was the devastating pain ripping through her chest as she crumpled to the floor.
Chapter Twenty-Five
He never expected her to move.
Though he knew Maddy was trying desperately to avoid a confrontation, seeing the bastard actually approach had spurred Cash to face the threat head-on. Marty wanted a fight, and Cash didn’t see a reason why he shouldn’t give it to him. Maddy didn’t understand that men like the mobsters Mack employed responded best to the same kind of violence they were used to wreaking.
Then Marty went for his gun. For Cash, all bets were off at that point.
Maddy’s sudden intervening presence slowed Cash’s reactions, forcing him to try to deliver the spell around her so she wouldn’t get hurt. Marty didn’t have such compunctions and fired anyway, the gun’s retort tearing through the gentle sway of Kate’s voice in the background.
The air sucked out of Cash’s lungs as the bullet intended for him slammed into his lover’s chest instead.
“Maddy!”
He thought she might have heard him, her head turning ever so slightly as if about to call back and ask what he wanted. Instead, her slim body crumpled to the ground, the blue tulle of her skirts pooling out around her, almost softening her fall.
Any thought of further danger to himself fled as Cash raced to crouch at her side, scooping her into his arms and rolling her onto her back to better reveal the entry of the gunshot. Blood coated his hands where they slid from beneath her back, but all he saw was the spreading stain across the bodice of her gown.
Something that might have been a whimper escaped his throat. “You daft bint,” he murmured as his fingers flew to check her pulse. “You couldn’t have stayed out of the way, could you?”
Though it was weak and thready, her heart rate was even, allaying Cash’s immediate concern that she was dead. His gaze jumped to her face, noting her ashen color, the dark spidering of her lashes against her cheeks. There was no way for him to tell if she would even make it to a hospital. The bullet hadn’t hit him, which meant it was still inside Maddy. For all he knew, it had ripped a hole open in her heart or lungs and she was slowly dying right before his eyes.
A shadow appeared across her still form, and he glanced up to see Gino crouching down to help. “Is she breathing?” Gino asked.
Cash nodded. “But I have to get her out of here,” he said, sliding his arms back under her body.
There was one way he could guarantee Maddy survived this, but he couldn’t do it alone. As wary as they had been about revealing the truth of their identities, Cash knew it wasn’t worth losing Maddy over.
“Kate!” he bellowed as he picked Maddy up.
The smell of her blood choked his senses, but Cash kept it together to turn and see his sister racing from the bandstand. The dancers and patrons had scattered to the far edges of the room, while the employees’ entrance stood open for Sammy and Lombardi to come streaming through.
Lombardi blanched when he saw Maddy unconscious in Cash’s arms. “What the…?” he started, but shock made it impossible for him to finish the question.
“Marty tried to pop Cash,” Gino offered in explanation.
All eyes turned to where Aaron had pinned his so-called partner face-first to the wall. The offending weapon lay forgotten on the floor at their feet.
“Are you nuts?” Lombardi roared. He closed the distance and shoved Marty’s face harder into the ornate molding. “I had you doped for being smarter than that. You know what Mack’s going to do to you if she dies?”
Marty was turning red, but he sneered at the mention of Maddy. “Mack’s better off. She’s nothing but a whore anyway—”
It ended with a gurgle when Lombardi smashed a fist into Marty’s jaw, coming away with blood and broken teeth. “Moron. Maddy’s worth ten of you.” Turning back to Cash, he lifted a pointed finger toward the door. “What the fuck are you waiting for? Get her to the hospital! Now!”
Cash didn’t have to be told twice.
As he raced for the car waiting at the curb, he heard Lombardi try to stop Kate, but she came running to join him as the chauffeur jumped out to get the back door for Cash. It took only one exchanged look for her to nod, but when Gino came running out after them, sliding into the front seat before the car could pull away, Cash stiffened.
“Mr. Lombardi wants me to make sure you guys get the best at the hospital,” Gino said before Cash could speak. He twisted to look at them as the driver turned into traffic. “He told me which palms to grease to make sure that happens.”
It was too late to argue, so Cash simply nodded. He waited until Gino had settled back in his seat before reaching over to take Kate’s hand.
Healing spells were far beyond Cash’s area of expertise. Even after so many years hunting down the ne’er-do-wells, he and his crew had never considered their own mortality long enough to bother learning anything more than the most basic of magical first aid. By the time the debacle in Dubai happened, it was too late to do any good. The people he could have helped were dead, and Cash was running halfway across the globe to escape both their memories and their ghosts.
That didn’t mean he didn’t know it could be done. And it didn’t mean he wouldn’t tear down the walls of Hell itself to make sure Maddy didn’t die from this.
Kate’s grip was strong, her long, slim fingers curled through his. Cash led their entwined hands to Maddy’s barely moving chest, twisting them until Kate’s palm was pressed flat to the slick skin. His power was at the ready, poised from his near attack on Marty, and it took only a scant second before he felt the corresponding power begin flowing through Kate.
“Are you sure?” she whispered. “You know it’s going to leave her weak—”
“And alive,” Cash hissed. His eyes burned. “Now do it.”
To anyone not paying close attention, it would have sounded like Kate was letting out a long, slow breath. He knew differently. He could hear the faint stops and dips in her tone as she uttered the incantation, could feel the growing heat in their joined hands. Cash wasn’t even watching where the blood seeped through their fingers. His gaze was riveted to Maddy’s unmoving face.
She seemed so tiny. With all her fire and all her vibrancy, Cash often forgot just how small Maddy really was, imagining her striding across mountains as she charged through the world. Now, though, she looked fragile, ready to be taken away by a single whisper, and the hole that had started in the pit of his stomach when he’d realized she had taken the bullet meant for him ate its path upward. Impotence made the bile rise in his throat, and he had to clench his jaw in order to remain strong enough for Kate.
Maddy couldn’t die. He hadn’t finally found his purpose again only to lose her.
The magic seared across his skin while it worked, reaching into his gut and twisting painfully. If this was how healing spells were, maybe it was just as well he’d never learned them. They hurt like a bitch; he would have much preferred getting skewered by a saber than go through this every time. Biting his cheek kept him from drawing undue attention with his discomfort, but when he felt Kate’s hand tense and then curl into a ball against Maddy’s chest, he glanced at his sister in curiosity.
All color had drained from her face. Even her lips had gone pale, and she trembled as she pulled free from Cash’s grip. Slowly, her hand turned over and opened, exposing the bloody b
ullet that rested on her palm. Cash felt like shouting with relief.
He settled for a grateful smile.
“She would never have made it,” Kate murmured. She dropped the bullet into his hand. “It nicked her lungs. She was bleeding out.”
His fingers closed convulsively around the tiny piece of metal before slipping it into his pocket. “Thank you,” he said softly. Never had he meant any two words more.
“Whatever it was you two were arguing about, I hope it was worth it.” Her barely restrained anger was impossible to miss. If they had been alone, Cash was sure his sister would be ripping him a new one. “Because I don’t have the juice to do this again any time soon, you know. Next time someone wants to kill you in this world, I might not be able to do anything to stop them.”
Cash nodded. The prospect was sobering. “All the more reason for me to find our way home. You’ve put yourself at enough risk just by coming to tell me how to get out of here, and there is no way in hell I’m letting anything more happen to Maddy.”
“Somehow, I think she might have a word or three to say about that.” With a heavy sigh, Kate leaned her head back against the car seat, closing her eyes. “Wake me when we get to hospital. I’m knackered.”
It was clear she was done talking about it, and Cash shifted his attention back to Maddy. Though her dress still bore the bloody hole from the bullet’s entry, he knew her skin would be unblemished, healed by the powerful magic his sister wielded. When they reached the hospital, he would have to sneak her away, get her back to their apartment without notice. He had no idea how her disappearance would be construed by Gino, and by extension, Lombardi, but he would solve that problem as soon as he was sure Maddy was safe. Maybe Ava could help in the deception. Cash wasn’t going to ask Kate for any more aid if he could help it.
The car wove through the heavy traffic, taking risks to get to the hospital that were now unnecessary. More than once, Cash caught Gino glancing back, but neither man spoke, leaving the vehicle in a humming silence until the lights of the emergency room loomed ahead.