Tough Justice Series Box Set, Parts 1-8

by Carla Cassidy

  The landing turned into a small sitting area with a hallway that ran through it. Lara’s head swiveled to the left just as the sound of glass shattering exploded from her right. Immediately Lara pictured the second-story window.

  “She’s going out of the window,” she yelled back to Nick, who came thundering up the stairs. She heard him switch directions, and, bending slightly over just in case Nadia decided to try a head shot, Lara pushed the door at the end of the hallway open wide.

  “Really?”

  She watched as Nadia dropped a floor lamp and jumped through the window. Lara ran and looked out in time to see the woman get her purchase on the wood surface that looked like it covered the patio.

  “Stop, Nadia,” Lara yelled out. But the woman didn’t hesitate. She took two steps and jumped off and out of sight.

  Lara knew that, sure, she could run out of the room, back down the stairs, and through the living room and kitchen and get to the backyard in maybe thirty seconds flat, but, in the moment, that was twenty-five more seconds than she wanted to spend. Nadia was proving to be resourceful and resilient.

  She hadn’t stopped running.

  So Lara wouldn’t stop chasing.

  She ducked through the window, mindful to not hit the jagged glass, and followed her perp’s footsteps to the end of the wood covering. Nadia was booking it across the backyard, nearly at the wooden fence. In hindsight, Lara could have shot her then—her aim was true—but a niggling feeling of worry that that action would cause them to lose the only lead they had kept her gun low as she jumped off of the miniature roof. She landed slightly off balance on the back deck, inches from Nick’s side.

  He didn’t hesitate either.

  Nadia flung open the back gate and cut left.

  They followed, guns still tight in their grips, gaining on her as she moved across the street and turned the corner to the right. The street was narrow and used to mitigate traffic away from the houses and back to the storefronts.

  “She’s heading back to the apartment,” Nick huffed out. Lara mentally retraced their steps and swore. Nadia was taking them in a box. If she ran the length of the street and turned left, she’d be only half a block away from where they’d started. But, did that mean she was running home or was she just running scared?

  Nadia ran across the street to the left sidewalk. Nick’s guess was paying off. Regardless of why, she was taking them back in the direction of their car. Lara had already gotten an okay idea of the lay of the land when they’d visited Dunst, and made a quick decision. She cut left down the alley that ran parallel to the storefronts between them and Nadia’s apartment. Nick didn’t follow her.

  Her footfalls echoed off of the buildings on either side of the narrow passage. She maneuvered over and around the random debris of boxes and trash and ducked her chin down a fraction. Channeling what she was hoping was her second wind, Lara put all of her focus into pushing her legs faster despite their burn. Like pulling herself up the fire escape’s ladder, she needed her body to show her what years of training had gotten her.

  While proving to herself that she hadn’t lost her strength during her time at the safe house.

  Her legs propelled her down the alley until she could see the red brick of the apartment building. It gave her another burst of speed until she came up to the space between that building and the one she was behind. Whipping around the corner she saw no sign of Nadia or Nick. Had she beaten them to this spot or had she misjudged the woman? Maybe they had taken their chase somewhere else entirely. Lara kept running until she neared the main sidewalk they’d first started running down.

  She skidded to a stop at the mouth of the opening, just inside. Not visible from the street. Her heartbeat thundered against her chest. Her breathing was rapid. Still, she listened.

  “FBI, move,” Nick yelled somewhere to her right.

  She smiled. Her body had done her good. She’d outrun them.

  Which meant Nadia was about to pass her.

  She held her breath and got ready.

  You can do this.

  Lara jumped out just as Nadia came into view and slammed her body into the woman. Nadia wasn’t expecting the attack at all and, in the tangle of limbs, dropped her gun. Lara’s own fell to the sidewalk as the full weight of her body pushed down on top of her perp. Nadia’s surprise didn’t last long as she struck up at her face, fist balled. But Lara was fast. It didn’t land, and she took the arm in her hand and used it as leverage. She twisted it hard. Nadia groaned and rolled onto her stomach on the sidewalk to try and lessen the pain. Lara lifted up enough to let the woman lie flat on her stomach. She then readjusted, so her knees put weight on the back of Nadia’s thighs.

  Nick was by her side with both women’s guns in his hands. He aimed them down. It gave Lara the comfort of security, so much so that she reached back for her cuffs and took a breath before slapping them on Nadia’s wrist.

  “In case,” Lara breathed out, “you don’t know, my partner has a gun aimed at your head.”

  “Two actually,” he added.

  Lara reached for her other wrist. Nadia twisted it away, so Lara put pressure on her thigh with a knee. Nadia yelled something out in Russian. It sounded nasty but didn’t stop her from cuffing the woman’s other wrist.

  “Remember, two guns, so don’t try to run,” Lara said, lifting off of her. “Our aim is much better than yours. I promise.”

  Nick took a more steady stance as Lara helped Nadia roll over into a sitting position. She took her gun back and trained it on the woman. Nadia’s face was pinched. Anger and aggression seeped through every angle. She fixed Lara with a stare that clearly expressed she wished her earlier bullet had hit its mark.

  “Now, Nadia Green, let’s talk,” Lara said, taking another breath to try and slow her racing heart.

  “What are you doing?” Nick said at her side. “You can’t do this here.”

  Lara didn’t turn to look at him. In the back of her head she knew she needed to read the woman her rights, sit her down, and ask the questions in an interrogation room with a recorder. But right then, at that moment, she didn’t care.

  “I have a question for you,” Lara said to Nadia, ignoring him.

  “Grant,” Nick warned.

  Nadia turned her gaze to Lara, steel in her expression. “Go ahead, question me. I’ll tell you everything, right here, right now,” she prodded. Nick’s voice became closer.

  “No, don’t listen to her,” he said. “We need to do this the right way.”

  “The right way?” Lara snapped. “There is no right way with people like this!” Before Nick could try to reason with her—because, again, in the back of her head she knew her emotions had fully taken over—Lara shook her gun to bring the hit woman’s attention back to it. “I’ve had a hard week. In fact, I’ve had a hard past year. So, believe me when I say, I will ask you a question and you will answer it.”

  “Agent Grant,” Nick almost growled.

  But Lara didn’t care. She was personally invested in this case—the one which Nadia might have answers for—and he wasn’t. He didn’t understand the depth of need, the desire, to close it.

  Lara leveled her gaze with the woman, finger on the trigger. When she spoke, her words were ice.

  “Do you know the name Mor—”

  A car driving by blared its horn.

  The sound almost covered up the now too-familiar heavy pop that cut through the air.

  And right in between Nadia’s eyes.

  “No!”

  Lara grabbed at the woman’s body as it tipped backwards, motionless.

  “No,” Lara repeated in a flash of immense frustration, helplessness and fear. She started to swivel around to find the trajectory again, but another shot sounded before she could even turn.

  She waited for the pain—waited for the sniper’s bullet to pierce her skin—but it never came. Confused, but grateful, Lara turned to Nick.

  His eyes were wide.

  Her frustrat
ion turned to fear.

  She hadn’t been shot.

  Nick had.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Time seemed to slow.

  Lara held the dead woman in her arms while looking at her partner with a feeling of such intense fear it paralyzed her.

  The world didn’t pick up until Nick grabbed the shoulder of her jacket. He pulled her along with him so roughly that Lara wondered if she’d been mistaken about the shot.

  “Are you okay?” he yelled. He had her pressed against the brick wall, inside the mouth of the alley she’d just sprung from. Shoulder against hers, eyes alert on the street. “Are you hit?” he bit out when she still hadn’t answered.

  “I’m—I’m fine,” she said. “I thought you—oh, Nick, you were shot!” Lara’s stomach fell. Nick was clutching his right upper arm. Blood was already between his fingers.

  “It’s just a flesh wound,” he said, eyes never leaving the street. Lara wanted to believe him, but the way his face was pinched led her to believe it was more serious than that.

  “Nick?”

  “Lara, I’m fine,” he bit out.

  “But—”

  He swiveled his head to her. “Lara, I’m fine.” His expression softened a moment. Then he was reaching for his phone, ready to call it in. Something she should have already thought to do. Hearing him give their location snapped her out of the fog that fear had placed around her.

  She turned to look at the lifeless body of Nadia Green. The way her body had fallen told a story all its own.

  “The sniper was behind us, down the road,” she guessed. “I might be able to see them if—” Lara started to push from under Nick’s protective stance, but he only pushed back.

  “I don’t think so,” he said, voice low.

  “We need to find him,” she said, her fear for his life turning to anger. “We can’t just let him keep killing as he pleases!”

  “Running toward the sniper? No, I don’t think so,” he growled, not bothering to move his cell to the side.

  “He’s the key,” Lara tried. Her voice cracked when she continued. “We have to stop him.”

  The pressure of Nick’s shoulder against hers lessened, but he didn’t completely let up. He was afraid she’d run. He was right to fear it.

  “Listen.” This time Nick moved the phone away from his mouth. “We will find and catch this son of a bitch, but, right now, I’m not letting you get yourself killed.” Whoever was on the other end of the line started to speak, but Nick looked away. For a moment all Lara could think about was the life behind his eyes. “Okay?”

  Lara didn’t want to, but she nodded. “Okay.”

  It wasn’t until Ty and Mei showed up on the heels of an NYPD squad car that Nick let Lara leave the alley. And even then he stuck close.

  “Did you move the body?” Mei asked, looking down at Nadia.

  “After she was hit, I tried to keep her from falling backwards,” Lara answered. She realized then that she didn’t know why she’d reached out for the woman. “But when we took cover I let her go.”

  “So she fell in the same direction she would have had you not touched her.”

  Lara nodded.

  Mei refocused on the hit woman’s bullet wound, then looked behind them down the street.

  “I think I might know where they shot from,” she said after a moment. She unholstered her gun, just as Ty produced his. “Stay with him. Victoria is on her way.”

  And then Mei and Ty were running down the street, two NYPD uniforms following. Lara felt the urge to go with them. To chase the elusive sniper, but then she heard the grunt of pain behind her.

  “Let me help.” She hurried, backing up to where Nick was leaning against the wall, currently struggling to get out of his jacket. He hesitated before taking his hand off of the wound and slipping his left arm out of the jacket. Holding her breath, Lara took in the tear in the fabric left by the bullet. Blood was all she could see in the hole. Gingerly she helped slide his arm out of the other sleeve. His shirt beneath it gave her the same view. Without asking, Lara unbuttoned his shirt and helped remove it, as well.

  “Undressing me in public,” he said. “Talk about one hell of a day.” Although he was trying to joke, there was no humor in his words. And there certainly was no humor in how she felt.

  “I thought you’d been shot,” she said, voice low. He raised his eyebrow and balled up his shirt, placing it over the bloody wound. It was true, the bullet hadn’t gone in or through his arm, but it had taken a part of it off. He’d need stitches. “The sniper has been able to shoot four people between the eyes with frightening precision,” she continued. “When I realized you’d been hit, I thought...”

  “That I was the fifth,” he surmised.

  Lara nodded. The acute fear and concern she’d felt had forced her into a new frustrating realization.

  She cared about her partner. More than a partner.

  Dammit.

  Sirens sounded in the distance. It broke through her thoughts of the shirtless man and what he meant to her.

  “They could have killed you, and me, easy, but they didn’t.” Lara eyed the blood on his arm. “Why?”

  “My guess? It was a message.”

  Lara’s eyes widened. Her confusion disappeared.

  “You were shot, and I wasn’t, as a warning,” she said. Nick nodded. “But a warning of what?”

  “We must be getting too close.” She hoped his words were true.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter now about my tactics,” she said as an afterthought.

  “No, it still does.” Despite what had happened, he still was hard on that point.

  “Listen—”

  “No, you listen,” he interrupted. “I know you think that I don’t understand how badly you want this case in our rearview mirror. You’re a lone wolf who likes control. I get all of that. But you can’t just go off book like that. What if she had implicated Moretti or admitted that she’d killed Elizabeth? I have a feeling she’s not stupid, and, if she was hired by Moretti, then we can almost guarantee that fact. One way or the other, whatever she had told us could have been thrown out of court on a technicality. Everything we’d done would be moot.” He lowered his voice. It came softer this time. “Emotions fuel us sometimes, and that’s okay, but we have to remember the job, too.”

  Lara blinked up at him. He was right, she knew, but her stubbornness was pricking at her skin. If he wanted her to apologize, she wouldn’t. If he wanted her to voice the fact that he was right, she wouldn’t say a word. However, Nick’s gaze left hers, and she also knew that he didn’t expect her to do either. He’d said what he wanted to and now was done.

  An ambulance blared up the street as more squad cars stopped for directions from the highest-ranking officer on scene. Lara hurried over to bring them up to speed while two paramedics checked Nick out. She pulled out her phone and took pictures of Nadia and the direction in which the sniper had been positioned. She wondered if Mei and Ty had managed to find any clues, because she certainly doubted they would be able to catch the sniper. He’d had too much time to get away.

  How had the sniper even known about the apprehension of Nadia? Had they been trailing the hit woman? Or did Lara now have a deadly shadow? Why not kill her, then?

  Lara ran a hand over her face and through her hair. She was angry. Frustrated. A dull pain from her hangover radiated throughout her head. Too many questions and so few answers. Nadia had most likely been a hired hit woman, but she had also been a witness. One who, like the others, never even had the chance to talk.

  How was the sniper getting to her?

  Is that how whoever was behind it all found out about the family upstate?

  Moretti’s ability to get information out of the prison had to be limited, but, at the same time, Lara knew the man was well connected. There was no telling who was on his payroll on the inside.

  Was Moretti even behind it all? Who else would be, if not him?

  Lara wanted to h
it something—namely the man with dark eyes—badly. Anger was building up fast within her. She hadn’t wanted to see Moretti ever again, and now he was always there. Standing on the edge of her thoughts, threatening everything she cared about without saying a word.

  “Agent Grant!” Lara turned. Victoria was making a beeline for her. Her badge and gun could be seen clearly on her person. Along with her absolute focus. “How’s Delano?”

  “He’ll be okay. I think he needs a few stitches, but that’s it.”

  Victoria gave a tight nod. “I’m glad. What about you?”

  “Angry,” Lara admitted.

  “You aren’t the only one.” Victoria’s phone started to ring. She fished it out of her blazer pocket but kept eye contact. “I know it’s a sore topic for you, but I want you to go pay Moretti another visit.”

  “You think he was behind this,” Lara ventured. Her boss had made the point that Moretti might not have had a hand in everything going on, but now she seemed certain.

  “Don’t you?”

  She took a second then said, “Yes, I do.”

  “Then go make the son of a bitch talk.”

  Lara didn’t waste time. After checking to make sure that once again Nick was okay, she took the car and made her way back to Long Island. Unlike last time, the closer she got to the meeting room, the angrier she became. Replaying the second sniper shot and then the fear that Nick had been fatally shot made her heat up in a way that wasn’t good for anyone.

  The same guard from the day before left her atop one of the three gray stools. She didn’t fret this time as she waited for Moretti to walk in. Instead, she eyed the door on the other side of the glass like a hawk. How exactly was she going to get him to talk when he wouldn’t less than twenty-four hours ago?

  He’ll want to brag about what he’s done.

  The door opened, and Lara, so angry that she couldn’t contain it all, almost yanked the phone off the wall. Moretti didn’t look surprised in the least at her visit. The guard released him, and he sat down with a smirk already across his lips as he picked up the phone on his side.

  “Lara, you keep visiting me like this, and people will think we’re dating.” He threw back his head and laughed. “Let me guess,” he continued with a cool, even tone. “Your day didn’t go as planned.”