Phoenix Romano Stark was not someone you crossed and survived.
Chapter Ten
The rain cutting through the sky turned the thawing spring roads into a slush mud pit full of potholes and spots so slick that if you didn’t know how to drive, you ended up in the ditch within minutes.
Zee wrestled with the wheel of the truck as we took a curve in the road, mud spitting out so hard, it peppered the side panels of the truck. We weren’t that far behind the man who’d walked into my house, and tried to warn me. His warning had also held enough of a threat that there was no way he was going to get far.
“What are you going to do when we catch up to him?” Zee didn’t look at me.
“He’s going to tell me everything he knows.” I kept my eyes locked on the road ahead of us. Whoever had walked into my house thinking he knew how to deal with me would not have gotten that far in this slushy mud. The tire tracks told me he was driving a car, low slung and more likely to bottom out on one of the deep ruts that showed up without fail in the Wyoming spring.
The gun rack in the backseat held a single gun, Zee’s Winchester thirty ought six. A hunting rifle that could take down a grizzly bear or even a bison at a distance with the right ammo. I leaned back and grabbed it off the rack, opened the dash, and found the ammo. Bolt action, I slid a round in, flipped off the safety and waited with the gun cradled in my arm, pointing toward the side window. We went up a hill and as we started down the other side, the car in front of us that I’d been expecting finally came into view.
The two guns resting on my lower back grumbled about not being used, but Zee was right. Where I could, I needed to find a way to use them less, or more accurately, not get so chatty with them. Magic could warp you, and the guns were most definitively imbued with magic. I could feel it if I focused when I held them. Their desire for blood quite literally infected me, and I saw it at the end of my career. Justin’s belief that I had killed a bunch of children for kicks was not correct. But I had ended up staring down the barrels of the guns at a pair of siblings that stepped in front of their father I’d been brought in to deal with. I hadn’t squeezed the triggers.
But I’d wanted to.
I didn’t need further warping, I was enough of a killer as it was.
“Did he really think we’d just let him walk away?” I asked as I rolled down the window.
“You’ve been gone a long time, Nix. People start to talk away the truth when they haven’t seen it in years. You aren’t the bogeyman you once were.”
I snorted softly and leaned out the window, sighting through the scope. The rear left tire was the first to go, followed quickly by the right. Rear wheel drive did shit when your tires were blown. The thump of the butt of the gun into my shoulder was a reassurance that warmed me, but it was also the shoulder Mary-Ellen had injured and the pain was no small thing. I gritted my teeth through it even as sweat dripped down the sides of my face.
The car slid to the side of the road and the man in black jumped out, a gun raised at us. What a tool. I shot him in the left knee with the Winchester, a blow that could almost take his leg off if I hadn’t aimed to the side. He went down, clutching at it, a scream erupting from his mouth. He raised his gun and I shot him through the elbow, again, making sure I just zinged him. I’d blow his limbs off later if I had to.
“Just like the little ducks at the fair,” I said as Zee put the truck in park and I stepped out. I left the bigger hunting rifle behind and pulled Dinah from my holster. Abe stalked along beside me, pinned to my side as if I’d glued him there.
The man no longer had his face covered and when I reached him, his eyes were wide. “I tried to warn you, and you’d kill me for it?”
“Who am I?” I whispered the words, the words I’d intoned before every person I’d brought under my thumb, under my father’s rule.
He swallowed hard. “The Phoenix.”
“That’s right. Which means we can do this the easy way and you can tell me everything you know, and I’ll let you go with only the wounds you have. Or we can do this the fun way.” I smiled at him, let him see the darkness I carried inside. Let him catch a glimpse of the violence as it welled up through my body. “They killed my son. If you thought I was dangerous before,” I leaned in and pressed the muzzle of Dinah to his lower jaw, “it’s nothing to what I’ve become.”
He was shaking, his blue eyes wide as he struggled to breathe. “What . . . what do you want to know?”
“Oh, he’s smarter than he looks,” I murmured.
Zee laughed. “Doubt that. He’s been watching you and tried to warn you. Which means he has a thing for you. It’s the only reason he wouldn’t have turned you in.”
I raised my eyebrows. “That right?”
He blanched. “I . . . I was sent to look for you. The more I looked, the more I realized you’d outsmarted everyone. I could respect that. I only found you last year.”
Eleven years he’d been looking. “My father sent you after me?”
“Yes, he expected me to find you. I kept looking even after he pulled me off. Someone . . . someone else is looking for you now. A new guy.”
My eyes narrowed. “My father gave up on you, but you kept looking.”
He blanched further, rain sliding down his face making him look like he was crying. Or maybe he was crying. Hard to say. I kept a hold on him as the rain poured down around us. Eleven years . . . and his face slowly came into real focus.
“I know you.” I stood, pulling him with me though he wobbled on his one good leg. He was only a little taller than my five nine, but I recalled him being thinner, the gangly arms and legs of a youth who sprouted too fast. Younger than me in more than years.
He nodded. “I just came into your father’s business, not long before you left.”
“Bradley,” I said his name and he smiled. I did not return it. “Knowing your name isn’t going to save you from me.”
He closed his eyes and a breath slid out of him. “The man coming for you, he’s not going to let you see him. He’s better than I am at this.”
“No shit, Sherlock. His name,” Zee growled. “A name and we’ll let you go.”
Bradley laughed, bitter and sad. “I am not a fool to think she’ll let me go. Not now. His name is Simon, that’s all I know.”
He had a point. I started walking back to the truck, dragging him with me as he flailed. “Phoenix, please! I could have turned you over to your father and I didn’t. I could see you were happy!” His begging did nothing. I didn’t feel a thing. Because that was the best way to handle this.
I opened the tailgate and shoved him up and onto the bed of the truck.
He sat there, like a well-trained dog. Which he was, only trained to someone else. I was going to take his allegiance and make it my own. “You abnormal?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Well, at least there was that, and when I took a quick breath and looked over him, he wasn’t lying. He was a normal.
“What are you doing, Nix?” Zee slid into the driver’s side as Abe and I got into the cab.
“Making use of the tools at hand.” I twisted in the seat and leveled Dinah at Bradley. Even from where I was, I could see him swallow hard.
“It makes no sense, Zee. Why would my father send an untrained boy after me?”
“He’s had some training,” Zee countered.
“Nothing close to what it would take to bring me down.” There was no ego in my words, just the truth.
“What are you going to do with him?”
“I need another set of eyes. I’m going to take him with me,” I said.
“Are you out of your damn mind?” He slapped the seat between us.
I shook my head. “You pointed it out yourself. He’s got a thing for me. I’ll use that. It won’t take much for me to force him to transfer his allegiance from one Romano to another.”
Anger radiated off Zee. I didn’t have to look at him to know he was pissed. “You aren’t one o
f your father’s dancing girls, Nix. You never went for the easy out with men—”
“I will do what I have to do.” The words were hard and cold.
He changed tactics. “There is still no explanation for why Bradley, and not someone more experienced like this Simon guy, until now.” Zee pointed out the niggling question to me again.
I closed my eyes, thinking about my father, doing what I could to get into his head. He had a way about him. How he liked to do things.
“My father is cheap,” I said. “If he sent an untrained man, he did it to use him as bait. If he showed up dead, my father would know where I was. Send in someone more experienced for a shorter period of time. Saves him big bucks that way.”
“That means Bradley has some sort of tracer on him then?” Zee asked. We stared hard at each other for a good ten seconds.
“I’ll check him when we get back to the house. He’s been there, so if he’s got a tracer in him, they’ll already know.”
Zee grunted. “Or he had no plans of actually finding you. Sending Bradley back there could have been a front to keep Mancini happy. You may hate your father, but he’s not a dumb-ass. He knows you know how to hide. He knows I’m with you, helping you hide.”
“You think the new guy, this Simon, he’s been sent by Mancini?” I asked.
“Fuck, I don’t know,” Zee grumbled.
I frowned as I stared out the front window, what I was seeing taking me from our conversation. “Is that smoke above the trees?”
“Son of a bitch.” Zee hit the gas.
The house came into view . . . and it was burning.
My first thought was that Mary-Ellen had somehow risen from the dead and exacted revenge on my home. But that was impossible when I’d lit her feathers on fire myself.
I leapt from the truck and winced as my body shot through with pain from my shoulder all the way down my spine.
Abe was right behind me as I bolted not for the front door but the big pane window that led into Justin’s office. I pulled my gun and let off two shots, shattering the glass seconds before I jumped forward.
Smoke billowed out, the sharp acrid scent of gasoline biting the inside of my nose and mouth.
“Legen.” I gave him the command as I did the same thing, dropping to my belly and creeping forward as I kept close to the ground. I needed to get to Bear’s Christmas gift. Everything else could burn, everything else of value was in the barn.
I slid toward the door as it was booted open, and a big man with a face mask stepped into the room. I didn’t hesitate. I lashed out with my right leg, sweeping it across the floor and into his legs, knocking him to the ground. Keeping my body pinned low, I raced up his legs and sat up on his hips as I pulled a knife from my thigh. I wanted him alive, and that meant keeping Dinah and Eleanor out of this at least for now.
I whipped the blade down and he jerked out of the way, blocking me, forearm against forearm.
“Fass!” I yelled.
The body below me jerked as Abe bit into his legs and started to shake the intruder.
I slammed a fist into his solar plexus, putting all my weight into it. My lungs burned with the smoke and growing heat, but I would not slow down. Whoever this shit was, he would have answers.
The bastard below me whipped his arms up and grabbed my elbows, and pinned them to my side.
I think not.
I jerked my legs up under me and drove my knees into his belly. His hold loosened and we rolled to the side until he was on top of me.
The cooler air against the floor was a welcome breath. I sucked it in as I wrapped my legs around the bastard’s waist and jerked him close to me. I still had my knife in my right hand and I twisted it, slashing upward, catching him under the chin, slashing through the mask.
He reeled backward, kicked Abe in the face, and was up and running, far faster than I would have thought a man his size could. Abnormal? I didn’t think so.
Before I could see his face, the smoke covered him more completely than any mask.
Abe whined. “Hinaus!” I sent him back through the window with the command and stumbled after the intruder. Smoke filled the hallway and I dropped once more to my belly. Better air, and a safer place with that asshole in here somewhere.
I crawled across the floors as they heated rapidly, my knife in my right hand. My bedroom door was open only a crack, and I pushed through it. Eyes watering, lungs burning, I struggled not to start coughing. That would give my position away like a damn homing beacon.
I made it to the dresser, reached up and fumbled until I found the still-wrapped Christmas present from Bear. I shoved it into my shirt and headed straight for the French doors that led onto the back deck. I pushed to my feet and ran for the door, hitting the handle and twisting it at the same time.
I spilled into the fresh air, went to my knees, and sucked in a big breath.
The crackling of the flames filled the air as the timber house went up like a roman candle. The man who’d started the fire, I had no doubt that he wasn’t done and I needed to find him fast. I pushed to my feet once more, and ran around the side of the house.
Zee had moved the truck back and he leaned over the back of it. I didn’t slow, but didn’t hurry my pace either. A part of me already suspected what had happened. “Shot Bradley, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, he came out the front door, picked the kid off first, then went for me.”
I looked Zee over. Didn’t see anything, no bullet wounds. “No return fire?”
He nodded. “I did, but the shakes. I missed him.”
I looked around for tracks, finding the ones I searched for finally. “Four-wheeler. Smart man, but human.” There was no way we’d catch up to him, not by the time I saddled up one of the horses. Even then, there was no way to truly catch him. Smarter than Bradley, anyway. Was it the mysterious Simon, though?
I had a feeling it wasn’t. Something about this man, the way he moved, led me to believe I knew him somehow. I just couldn’t put my finger on how, but I would. And when I did, we’d have a nice long chat.
Sirens lit up in the distance. Not the fire department, but the police from the sounds of it. Fuck it all. I wasn’t surprised they’d been called in. What could make it harder for me to move forward looking for Justin and Bear’s killers?
Being in jail would slow me down.
“Goddamn it.” I shook my head. “Zee, it’s a setup.”
This whole thing had been a goddamn setup. Bradley, the house, the man inside. A way to get me out of the way and stop me from poking my nose into the reasons behind Justin’s and Bear’s deaths.
“We’ve got to get rid of Bradley,” I said, “and fast.”
Zee nodded. “I’ll take him out back to my place, bury him in the compost. I’ll be back, wait for me here and don’t say anything to them.”
He got into the truck, started it up and was gone in a matter of seconds, leaving Abe and me to face the police.
I shook my head, a rush of adrenaline sliding through me, making my fingers tingle.
No, Zee was wrong. It was time for me and Abe to leave, I could feel it in my gut.
Zee would understand.
I jogged around the side of the house and down to the barn. At a rapid speed, I opened the secret room behind the saddle rack and grabbed my already prepped pack. Filled with cash, IDs, the coded papers, ammo and several weapons, I slung the backpack over my shoulder.
I took one last look at the sleepy horse heads hanging over their stall doors, watching. Big eyes blinked at me, and one mare cracked a wide, toothy yawn, flipping her tongue.
“I’ll be back,” I whispered and then shook my head.
Well, shit, it looked like Zee was right about me after all.
With my bag on my back, and Abe at my side, I hurried up to the main—and still violently burning—house.
As I stepped around to the front, the lone cop car pulled in. The fact that it was just one cop car, and no fire truck backing it up, said it al
l. They had come to make sure the job was finished. To finish me off.
Luckily, it was Officers Ryan and Schmidt.
Schmidt lifted his gun at me. “Put your weapons down!”
I raised my eyebrows and my hands, palm out. “No weapons here, Officer.”
Abe gave a low growl.
“Nein.” I held my hand out over his head, keeping him where he was.
“I said, put your weapons down!” Schmidt flicked the safety off his gun. So that’s how it was going to be. I was not a cop killer, but it looked like that was about to change.
I flexed my fingers. The weight of Eleanor and Dinah in my holster called to me. The weapons weren’t clearly visible, of that I was sure. I wasn’t holding them, not yet anyway. I didn’t want Zee to hear the gunshots and come running.
The moment slowed, stretched, as I dropped my left hand to my thigh and knife instead of Eleanor. I pulled and threw the knife in a single smooth motion that buried the blade into Schmidt’s forehead. His gun went off, but I didn’t flinch. The direction of the muzzle was off the second I nailed him. I started toward Officer Ryan. He pulled his gun but it got caught in his holster as I strode toward him.
“Fass!”
Abe shot forward and tackled the officer, grabbing him by the gun arm and dragging him away from the cop car.
Abe’s growls were no competition for the crackling of the flames, but I heard them as I drew closer. Deep and guttural, his dark eyes were locked on the young officer. Abe was not the sweet farm dog he’d once been, any more than I was the sweet ranch wife.
Officer Ryan got his second gun out with his opposite hand just as I reached him. I slammed my foot into his wrist, pinning it to the ground.
“Everyone is in on this? Taking me down?”
He spit up at me; the spit hovered, fell and landed on his own face. I frowned at him, though the frown turned into a half-smirk. “Not exactly the effect you were going for, was it?”
I twisted my foot, and his hand opened. Leaning over, I picked up the gun. “Aus.”
Fury of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 1) Page 12