Breaking Bones (Mariani Crime Family #2)

by Amanda Washington

  The line went dead.

  Angel tossed me his shoes and started putting on his own.

  “You can’t come, Angel,” I said, steeling myself for a fight.

  “Like hell I can’t.”

  “This doesn’t concern you. It’s my fight. I can’t bring you into it. Carlo said—”

  Angel wriggled his foot into his sneaker. “I don’t care. I’m coming.”

  “Me too,” Markie said, putting her jacket on.

  I stared at Angel. “You’re gonna get me killed. You know that, right?”

  He frowned. “We’ll take separate cars. You tried to stop me. I followed.”

  “You think he’ll care? He told me to keep you out of this, and you’ve already pulled Tech in. This could all be a test, you know? You leave this condo, you’re signing my death warrant.”

  Angel ran his hand through his hair. “So I’m just supposed to sit here and let you walk into this alone?”

  He had to. They both did. “I’ll get her out of there, Angel.” But I had no idea what would happen to me.

  “What’s going on?” Markie asked. “Why aren’t we out the door looking for my sister?”

  Angel swore and kicked the chair into the table. Markie jumped.

  “I’ll let you know where to pick her up.” I hugged him, then Markie.

  “What? Why are we hugging?” Markie asked. She tried to follow me, but Angel grabbed her hand. “No. Bones, no. Why are we letting him go by himself?”

  I grabbed my keys and ran out the door.

  The trace on Natalia’s phone led me to a gas station parking lot on South Wynn Road. As I parked my Jeep in front of the air and water pump, Tech called. He’d pulled the condo’s security footage and saw Ariana leaving in a beat-up Subaru. He’d even gotten a license plate number, but the plates had been lifted off a totaled vehicle owned by an insurance company. He promised to keep an eye out for the vehicle and let me know if and when he got a visual.

  I got out of the Jeep and scanned the area. The gas station and mini-mart took up a corner lot with a used-car lot to the north, and across the street to the east and south were mixed-use buildings. Natalia said she’d leave me a note, but I searched the ground by the pumps and the parking lot and came up empty-handed so I headed into the mini-mart.

  The slender man behind the counter stood about five-foot-nine and was balding. I grabbed a stick of jerky and waited in line between two people paying for gas. When it was my turn, I leaned across the counter and introduced myself.

  “Uh, hello.” He pointed to his name badge. “Tom.”

  “Nobody gave you anything to give to me?” I asked.

  He shook his head, looking at me like I was a lunatic.

  “It would have been a note or a letter. A brunette would have left it for me.”

  He shook his head and rang up the jerky. I paid him and headed back outside, wondering what the hell to do.

  I had to be missing something, but what? Natalia wanted me here. She’d stayed on the phone long enough to make sure I’d get her location, so there had to be something here.

  “Chill out, Bones. I’ll leave you a note.”

  Was that a clue? I glanced back at the mini-mart and got an idea. Starting with the drink coolers, I searched every refrigerated unit I could find—nothing. Unwilling to give up, I asked the sales clerk if there were any other cool places I could look, but he shook his head before giving it so much as a moment of thought. “Not that I can think of, sorry.”

  I was about to head back outside when a little kid yelled, “Someone dropped a phone in the ice cream!” He stood in front of the small freezer wedged between two shelves of snacks. I’d missed it completely. I thanked him for finding my phone and powered it on.

  There was a note app open that read, Come alone and relax at the old cozy hub. We’ll pick you up at noon in the docking bay and leave your little skank behind. Your friends can pick her up at twelve fifteen. Don’t show, she dies. If I see them before twelve fifteen, she dies. Don’t be stupid.

  Noon. According to my watch, I had a whopping twenty minutes to figure out where the old cozy hub was and get there.

  The old cozy hub.

  It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  “You ever hear of the old cozy hub?” I asked the clerk.

  He rubbed the whiskers on his cheek. “Sure. Years ago there was a jingle on the radio… How’d that go, again? Come on down to the old cozy hub, the coziest seats around,” he sang. “Damn thing’ll be stuck in my head all day now.”

  Hub Furniture. Of course. “Where is Hub Furniture?”

  “Gone,” the clerk replied. “Been closed down for years. They used to have a warehouse not far from here, though. On South Highland Drive. Just north of that barbeque place.”

  I thanked him and ran for the Jeep. As soon as I was on my way I called Angel and told him where and when to pick up Ariana. I hoped this wouldn’t count as involving him, but chances are it wouldn’t matter anyway. I didn’t know what Natalia had planned for me, but she’d gone through a lot of trouble to catch me. She probably wasn’t planning to let me go.

  I screeched to a stop behind the warehouse, parked, and climbed up on the loading dock with three minutes to spare.

  Before I’d fully regained my breath, a nondescript white van came around the corner. It stopped in front of the dock, and the side door slid open enough to reveal a big man holding a semi-automatic.

  I held my hands up, trying to look as harmless as possible.

  “Get in,” he said, gesturing with the rifle.

  “Where’s Ariana?” I asked.

  A muffled cry drew my attention. The rifle-wielder opened the door enough to show Ariana sitting in the far back. There was a gag in her mouth and her hands and feet were zip-tied. Her eyes were wide and she looked like she’d been roughed up a bit, but she was breathing.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She tried to say something around the duct tape, but I couldn’t make out what it was.

  “They’ll be here to pick you up in fifteen minutes.”

  “Enough talking.” The guy waved his rifle around. “Get in or I’ll shoot.”

  I moved slowly into the vehicle and waited as he patted me down and zip-tied me. He picked Ariana up and tossed her onto the loading dock. With her hands and feet zip-tied, she had no way of catching herself when she landed. Her body slammed into the concrete as the door slid shut.

  “Hey, you bastard!” I stood, trying to get free.

  I barely registered the back of the semi-automatic connecting with the base of my skull before darkness took over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ariana

  THE VAN SMELLED of old pizza and stale beer, making my stomach clench. I hadn’t eaten since last night. Was my birthday dinner last night? It felt like an eternity had passed since I’d been on the stage singing for the crowd. No, singing for Bones. The lyrics of my favorite song had been so perfect, I’d belted it out at him, telling him he was the only one I wanted. Had he even noticed? Even cared?

  It seemed like a stupid thing to be worried about while my hands were zip-tied in my lap and the business end of a semi-automatic followed my every move. I’d probably be freaking out about it if I wasn’t still so groggy from whatever I’d been drugged with. Between that and the alcohol from my birthday, my mouth tasted like the inside of a communal barf bag on an international flight. Not like I’d ever flown internationally—or licked the inside of a barf bag for that matter—but I was pretty sure my mouth would pass for one in its current state.

  “Do you have any gum?” I asked Natalia.

  She shook her head no and glanced at her cell phone, her legs bouncing up and down. She had to be barely out of high school, but her dark eyes were way too serious for someone so young. I wondered what sort of messed up crap had put her here with a gunman and a driver, using me to bait Bones into a trap.

  “He won’t come for me,” I said, partly from fe
ar that he wouldn’t, partly just to get her to talk.

  The look she gave me in response told me she thought I was full of crap. “Yes he will. Trust me.”

  “That’s kind of a weird thing to say to someone you had kidnapped and drugged,” I pointed out. “And he won’t. Last night he made it perfectly clear where I stand with him.”

  Angel, Markie, and I will be leaving soon… The wound in my heart reopened at the memory. He wanted me to stay in Vegas—to be away from him—why would he come for me now?

  “I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Natalia said.

  She had? When? And uh… creepy. “Have you been stalking us? Wait. Are you in love with him?” I asked. If this chick was Bones’s vengeful ex-girlfriend, I was screwed. After his training in the gym I might have a chance if we were one-on-one, but the guy in the passenger seat with the semi-automatic trained on me, and the wiry, over-energized driver, didn’t exactly promise a fair fight.

  The driver was gulping down his second energy drink in the past half hour, and he choked. The gunman chuckled and beat on his back while still keeping an eye on me.

  “Puh-lease. I sure as shit wouldn't call it love,” Natalia sneered. “Now shut up. You ask too many questions.”

  We sat in silence as minutes ticked away. Natalia rotated between looking at her cell phone and staring out the window. I had to fight to stay awake.

  “There’s a Jeep pulling into the lot,” the driver said, startling me back to consciousness.

  A Jeep. Bones. He must have come for me after all.

  The idea delighted me until I came to my senses and remembered I was no princess and this wasn’t a fairy tale. And I still had no idea what Natalia wanted with Bones.

  “Is he alone?” she asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Good.” Natalia nudged me. “Your boyfriend isn’t playing games. You may live through this after all.”

  “What are you gonna do to him?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  The driver started up the van. My heart sped up.

  “What do you want from Bones?” I asked.

  There was still no answer. Natalia and the gunman switched seats, bringing the semi-automatic inches from my face as he duct-taped my mouth shut.

  We pulled into a parking lot behind what looked to be an abandoned warehouse. Bones stood on the loading dock, waiting. The van rolled to a stop in front of him, and the gunman opened the door a crack and redirected his aim on Bones. “Get in,” he said.

  “Where’s Ariana?” Bones asked.

  The door slid the rest of the way open and Bones leaned forward, squinting into the vehicle until his eyes locked on mine.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I tried to tell him to get out of there and run for his life away from Natalia, the crazy bitch, but my words were garbled by the duct tape.

  “They’ll be here to pick you up in fifteen minutes,” Bones said.

  They secured Bones, and then threw me out of the vehicle like a sack of potatoes. I landed shoulder first on the concrete. Pain exploded down my arm and across my chest, darkening my vision. I gritted my teeth and clung to consciousness, twisting and turning to see which way the van went. It headed east. Determined to somehow go after it, I wriggled, trying to get myself to a seated position. The zip-ties dug into my wrists and my shoulder screamed in protest. Helpless and hurting, I lay there wondering if that was the last time I would ever see Bones.

  No. He’ll be okay. He’s a badass and probably already working on a plan to escape.

  Gravel crunched under tires, interrupting my thoughts, and the Hummer rolled to a stop in front of me. Doors opened and Angel and Markie jumped out.

  “Ari, are you okay?” Markie asked.

  I started to nod but pain made my vision swim.

  Markie ripped the duct tape off my mouth.

  “Ow, ow, ow! Dammit.”

  Angel pulled out a switchblade and cut the zip ties off my ankles and wrists. My arm sprang loose and the pain made me double over. There was nothing left in my stomach, so all I could do was dry heave. Still lying on my side, I curled up like a pill bug.

  “What’s wrong? What hurts?” Angel asked.

  “My shoulder. I landed wrong and—” I tried to uncurl so I could sit up, but stars danced in front of my eyes, “—ohmigod it hurts.”

  “Let me look at it.” He gently righted me to a sitting position, holding my arm tight against my body. Then he had Markie keep it still as he checked my shoulder. “You popped it out of joint and I’m going to need to put it back in.”

  “You? Shouldn’t we get her to a hospital?” Markie asked.

  “Trust me, the car ride will hurt more than what I’m about to do. I need you to relax though, Ari.”

  “Relax?” Just the idea of him touching it made me want to throw up again.

  “Breathe, Ari,” Markie added, her words contradicting the panic in her voice. “Don’t watch him. Look at me.”

  I did as she said, forcing myself to breathe through the pain caused by the rise and fall of my chest. “You sure you know how to do this, Angel?” I asked.

  “Yes. No talking, just breathe and relax,” he replied.

  He started at my neck, massaging in a circle around my shoulder as he slowly rotated my arm. My eyes watered from the pain, but before a single tear fell, I felt a pop and the pain eased.

  “There. How’s that?” He raised my arm to make small circles with my hand, widening each time it went around.

  “Sore, but it doesn’t hurt nearly so much anymore. Wow. Thanks. How do you know how to do that?”

  “The Internet.”

  Of course. Angel would have to know how to treat all sorts of injuries with a friend like Bones...

  “Ohmigod, Bones! What’s the plan? What are we doing to get him back?”

  Something passed between Angel and Markie. It looked like a combination of frustration and anger.

  Fear crept up my spine. “We do have a plan, right?”

  Angel stiffened. “We’re going home so I can make some calls.”

  “Some calls? They could be killing him right now. Angel, your family is terrifying. Why aren’t they doing anything to help him?”

  Angel rubbed a hand down his face, and when he looked at me again, he’d aged at least ten years. “You think I don’t know that?” he snapped.

  “Come on, Ari,” Markie said, tugging me toward the Hummer. She climbed into the back with me and we high-tailed it back to the condo while Angel pumped me for information about the trio of abductors, trying to get details about where they’d been keeping me. Thanks to whatever Piper had knocked me out with, the whole fiasco was a blur, and there wasn’t much I could tell him.

  Angel’s frustration seemed to grow with each block he passed. He kept pulling out his phone and looking at it, but it never made a sound and he didn’t contact anyone. By the time we made it back to the condo, his face was fixed in a scowl. He went straight into his bedroom and shut the door, and Markie and I went into ours. I lay on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, wishing I could get a mulligan on the past day. If we could just rewind to my birthday dinner, I’d do things completely different.

  Markie sat beside me and stroked my hair out of my face like she used to do when I was little. It was comforting to have her there, but also strangely intrusive. I didn’t want to be with anyone but Bones. I needed to talk to him and find out why he’d pushed me away only to rush in and rescue me.

  “Talk to me, Ari,” she said.

  “This is all my fault. If I wouldn’t have left—”

  “They would have found some other way to get to him. Apparently she’s been watching Bones for a while.”

  “Yeah, she’s pretty much stalker status. But why didn’t Bones do something? He just turned himself over to her. It’s almost like he wanted to talk to her. Who is she?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” Markie gave my head a final tap before standing. “I�
�m gonna go check on Angel and see if I can do anything to help him. I’ll be back.” She slipped out the door.

  I closed my eyes and tried to focus, wishing I could remember more about what had happened. Natalia had to have dropped a clue about where we’d been or what she planned to do with Bones.

  Bones.

  His absence ached way more than my shoulder did. Longing for something tangible that would remind me of him, I went into the hall closet where he kept his bedding stashed during the day. His blanket was on the shelf, but when I reached for it I felt something hard beneath it. Curious, I unwrapped the blanket to find a glass jar with ribbons tied around the neck, securing a birthday card. Inside the card, Bones had written a note.

  Happy birthday, Ari. I know I don’t always say the right thing, but I want you to know how important you are to me. Here are just a few of my favorite things about you. Love, Bones.

  There had to be at least a hundred folded papers inside the jar. Wondering why he hadn’t given this to me on my birthday, I popped off the lid and grabbed the first paper. I unfolded it.

  Your smile, it read in Bones’s messy handwriting. Sweet. Smiling, I reached for another.

  The way you laugh.

  Your sarcastic sense of humor.

  The way you wrinkle your nose when you’re trying a new food.

  “I do not,” I argued aloud, reaching for another paper.

  Your neck.

  The way you always know what to say to calm me down.

  You hate the color pink.

  I smiled, happy he remembered such a silly thing about me.

  The way you raise your eyebrows when you swear.

  “And I don’t raise my eyebrows when I swear,” I muttered, looking at myself in the hallway mirror. “Do I, bitch?” Sure enough, my eyebrows rose. Who knew? Bones apparently knew. The realization knocked the wind out of me. I’d known the guy barely a month and he knew all these things about me. He watched me that closely. My legs crumpled and I sat down hard.

  Then I reached for another paper.

  The way you close your eyes when you take your first sip of coffee.

  How quickly you pick up on my hints. Even the ones I don’t want you to get.