Psychologists out there would have a field day with his lovehate for Nadia.
Hold on.
Nadia. One of the co-op pirates. Was it about her father? She’d called him by his first name. As much as she’d tried to gloss over it, that had seemed significant.
Had Richard conned her into it? But why Nadia, of all people? She was no pro.
It didn’t matter. She was in trouble, and he had to get to her.
Driving along the dark highway, he sensed that he alone knew what it was to be a bull seeing a red flag. It wasn’t about love or hate; it was about the universe shrinking to one blazing point. And he had to get to her.
He felt so sleepy, but he could do this. Accept the sleepiness. Accept the danger. Accept the exhaustion.
Kill whoever shot her.
He rolled down the window, gulping in the fresh air, laden with dew, or maybe drizzle.
Thorne made good time—just twenty minutes and he was there. He’d only been to Reedsville once. Hangman didn’t use that one much because it wasn’t near the coast—their peso exchange money laundering operations were all about importing and exporting.
He parked in the road in front of the neighboring warehouse and suited up—leathers, firearms, throwing stars. A little fucking old school, but that was his mood. He was going to take some guys down. He’d come at them like a ghost.
He took off at a jog, passing a large pickup and a silver Accord that looked a little bit familiar. Very familiar. He quickly peered in; it was one of Miguel’s cars. The one he used to tail people.
Pinned down by Hangman. This was bad.
Thorne’s pulse raced as he put it all together—Jerrod had Miguel tail Nadia. Along with Skooge, probably. They surprised Richard and Nadia.
Two cars approached. Headlights off.
Somebody else joining the party? Thorne crouched as a red Jaguar passed, pulled over to the side, and parked. A black Mercedes followed suit, parking just in front of it. Doors opened. Blond-white hair flashed in the moonlight before somebody pulled a cap down over it. Arlo Slater.
The Slaters had arrived. Six of them—cousins of the ones who’d killed Thorne’s sister.
He tailed them as they moved stealthily through the shadows cast by the neighboring building toward the co-op warehouse parking lot. Three of them crouched behind a van at the edge of the lot; the other three stole ahead across the grassy divider and to the address sign that was surrounded by foliage.
He could see Miguel and Skooge out front, talking in the shadow cast by a truck.
Thorne stole up to the van, silent as night. Three men with their backs to him. A little unfair to take them out without announcing himself, but he couldn’t have them warning the others. He crept up and smashed two heads together, then he spun and elbowed the remaining one in the chin, an instant knockout. He took their weapons and scattered them. He donned Arlo’s cap, crossed the grassy divider, and went for the other three. They saw him coming, but they thought he was Arlo.
Until they didn’t. But at that point, it was too late. He did some quick damage, working fast enough that they probably didn’t recognize him, though they might figure it out later.
He’d deal with it then.
Thorne crossed the ditch and simply walked to the truck. No reason that he shouldn’t be there. “What do we have?”
Miguel looked surprised. Unhappy. “Where’d you come from?”
“What do we have?”
Miguel angled his head at door. “A situation. Co-op pirates.” He studied Thorne’s eyes as he spoke. “Victor’s girl and Barbarian.”
“Anyone else?”
“One dead,” Miguel said.
“And it’s just you two?”
Miguel frowned. Yes, then.
“I’m taking over.” And with that, Thorne walked in. That was one of the perks about being second in command—not answering to a soulless henchman like Miguel.
Miguel followed. “You can’t. I’ve got orders.”
Thorne walked around the desk and back, picking up his pace when he hit the hall. It smelled like gas. Thorne’s heart pounded. He came to a padlocked door with a tiny window in it, covered with safety glass. The mechanical room.
“It’s me, Thorne,” he called. “I’m coming in.”
Then he felt the butt of the gun on the back of his head. Miguel.
“I can’t let you take them out of there. I can’t let you do that.”
Thorne turned to find the gun barrel on his forehead, like a strange caress. “I’m assuming you have the key to that padlock.”
“I do,” Miguel said.
“You think I can’t take away that gun? The keys?” Thorne asked.
Miguel smiled. He looked a little wild. “I think you can take the gun away, but I’ll get at least one shot off while you break whatever bone you have to break. And that shot will cause a spark, and this whole place goes up. I don’t have to aim right to cause a spark. I just have to pull the trigger.”
And Nadia and Richard would die. Thorne spoke past the lump in his throat. “Sounds like a party.”
Miguel gave him a weary look. “Go for it.”
It was then that Thorne saw it: Miguel was willing to die. Miguel had nothing to lose.
Thorne had never been on this side of the equation. Facing a man who had nothing to lose. A willingness to die had always been Thorne’s strength. But he wasn’t willing for Nadia to die.
Thorne thought about the speed with which he could grab the gun. If it were only his life on the line, he would have done it by now.
A small voice from the other side of the door. “Thorne?”
“Yeah,” he said, trying not to betray anything, but betraying everything. She and Richard would be breathing the clear air from under the door. Gas filling the place. Even opening the door fast could spark off something.
“Do what you will,” Miguel said. “I can’t let them walk with you.”
Thorne’s heart beat out of his chest. His need to protect Nadia was like kryptonite, stopping him from being the fighter he could be.
“I’m taking them out of here,” Thorne said softly.
A bluff.
Miguel kept his dark eyes on Thorne. “Jerrod says different.” Miguel held all the cards, and he knew it. The sickly sweet gas smell billowed and bloomed around them.
“I don’t give a fuck what Jerrod says,” Thorne grated.
Something came into Miguel’s eyes. “You going up against Jerrod?”
“I’m taking them out of here is what I’m doing.”
“You going up against Jerrod?” Miguel asked again. He posed it as a challenge, like, You really want to fuck with me? That sort of question, but something else was in there, too.
Was he fishing? Interested in talking about going up against Jerrod?
“Everything okay?” Skooge walked up behind Miguel.
“Fine,” Miguel snapped. “Leave us.”
Thorne heard a distinct edge to Miguel’s words. He had never thought much about Miguel, aside from him being a black hole. Was Miguel worried about this guy he never seemed to notice?
“It smells like gas,” Skooge said.
“Thanks, Einstein. Get out!” Miguel barked.
Yeah, there it was. Fear. Since when did Miguel care about Skooge? But then, why didn’t much matter. Thorne snapped out a hand and grabbed Skooge around the neck, yanking him in. Now he had a hostage, too.
“So we all go,” Miguel said. The bleakness in his voice was unmistakable. The misery. Thorne had always been drawn to misery, those cracks in people where the truth came out. Like with Nadia on the roof.
Thorne felt drawn to Miguel in that same way. It was almost as though something inside Miguel matched something inside him.
A brother in misery.
He pulled Skooge closer, gun to his head, watching the pulse on Miguel’s neck go crazy. Miguel’s refusal to notice Skooge was an act—it had to be. Thorne could nearly taste Miguel’s misery, connected
directly to Skooge.
“What the fuck?” Skooge gasped.
The choking scent of gas filled the hall. To make an ally, you have to be an ally, Dax always said that. You have to trust.
Could he trust Miguel, of all people? How did a person do that—with anybody?
Thorne’s heart beat out of his chest.
What would it take to be an ally?
Be vulnerable. Bare his belly the way Dax had done with him.
Let the kid go—that would qualify.
He squeezed Skooge’s neck, feeling like his whole universe was shattering. His finger itched. It was so much easier to kill.
Thorne gritted his teeth and shoved Skooge away. He aimed his piece at the kid’s shocked face. “Go! Run!”
Skooge went.
Thorne had no hostage now.
He turned to Miguel, empty-handed. To make an ally you have to be an ally.
Miguel looked stunned.
“Yeah. I’m going up against Jerrod,” Thorne said, baring a bit more of his belly.
Miguel studied his face.
Thorne wished he’d say something—anything. The place could blow.
“You gonna kill Jerrod?” Miguel asked.
“Yes. Just as soon as I get my obligations handled.”
Miguel hesitated, then put his gun away, looking as unsure as Thorne felt. “Okay.”
Thorne pointed a gun right at Miguel’s head. “So we’re allies.”
Miguel smiled his toothy, junkyard dog smile. “You gotta understand, I’d’ve killed him by now if I could’ve.”
Thorne nodded. So Jerrod had some sort of hold over Miguel. It explained a lot of things.
“Here’s my idea.” Miguel extracted keys from his pocket and smoothly unlocked the padlock. “You take them out the back, and once you’re clear, you blow this place. As far and me and Skooge are concerned, those two in there are dead, you were never here, and we never talked.” He spit on the deadbolt, looking to reduce sparks, maybe. He slid it open and left.
Thorne eased open the door and Richard burst out, carrying Nadia, who held a cloth over her face with one hand and her leg with the other. Her hair was wild and her hands were covered with blood, but she was alive.
Thorne took her in his arms. “Out the back,” he said.
Richard ran for the back hall door and flung the door open.
“I got you, baby,” Thorne said, holding her tight to him. She wasn’t heavy at all. And what’s more, her weight felt right in his arms, as though his muscles had been saving up to hold her.
They all burst out the door and headed into the dark mass of scrub trees. Thorne pushed sideways and backward through the bramble, protecting her from the branches.
“Farther,” Thorne said when Richard seemed ready to stop.
Nadia looked so pale, it frightened him. He held her close, trying to squeeze away the fear, the worry, and the helplessness. When he deemed them far enough away, he laid her down.
“What the hell were you doing?” he growled.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“What the hell?” It probably sounded like anger, but it was all fear.
“Lay off,” Richard said. “She’s been shot.”
“I can see that.” He set a hand on her arm…her jacket. It was his jacket, the one he’d given her two years ago. His heart swelled. “I got you,” he said.
“Thorne,” she whispered.”
“I got you.”
“I’m bleeding.”
“I know.” Her eyes looked dilated. Was she going into shock? “We’ll get you patched up, okay? You guys have a vehicle nearby?”
“Way on the other side,” Richard said. “Maybe.”
“We’ll take another, then.” Thorne stood and clambered back up the hill. He aimed at a window and shot. The place exploded into a giant fireball. Car alarms blared near and far.
He went back and bent over Nadia.
“What the fuck did you do?” she asked faintly. “Did you just blow that building up?”
“You know me,” Thorne said.
“Raised by scorpions,” she said. “You don’t even know how to act right.”
Minutes later, they were speeding down the road in the Slaters’ Mercedes, which Richard had expertly hotwired.
“Baby,” Thorne said, adjusting Nadia’s legs to rest across his lap. “Tell me about the pain.”
“So you can go pain junkie all over me?”
“No, so that I can think about what to do.”
“It hurts, Thorne.”
“I know.”
“How’d you get us out?” Richard asked. “That was Hangman out there, right?”
Thorne had to be careful. “My interests don’t always align with Hangman’s.”
“You got somebody to let the co-op pirates go free,” Richard observed. “That’s some major nonalignment.”
“I made an alliance with a guy,” Thorne said.
“How? What kind of alliance—”
“It was an alliance, that’s all you need to know.”
Richard gave him a wary look. “You trust him?”
Thorne thought about the misery he’d seen in Miguel’s eyes. “Yeah.”
“Okay, then,” Richard said.
Thorne looked down again at Nadia, who winced with even the slightest roughness in the road. He smoothed back her brown hair. “It’s always better to be hit in the extremities,” he assured her.
She smiled weakly. “You probably say that to all the girls.”
“Where to?” Richard asked.
Thorne took a deep breath. There was nothing to do but go to his apartment—his real one, the one even Hangman didn’t know about. “Maxfield and 34th Street.”
“Southeast?”
“Yeah,” Thorne said.
“What is it?”
“A safe place,” Thorne said.
His safe place, to be exact. His refuge.
“It’s still in there,” she said. Meaning the bullet.
“We’ll get it out,” he said.
“We?” Richard barked. “She needs a doctor.”
“Jerrod has a line on all the hospitals,” Thorne said. “He’ll find you.”
“They think we’re dead,” Richard said. “Isn’t that what the explosion was all about?”
“Too big a risk,” Thorne said. “I’ll handle it.”
“You?”
“I handle all my own stuff.”
“What?” Nadia said. “Like bullet wounds? Like, cut your fingernails and dig a few pesky bullets out of your skin?”
“That’s right, baby.” He stroked back her hair, loving her beyond anything. “I got you now.” He meant it. He didn’t care what she’d said on some long-ago recording; it was a fact of life that he had her now, and he wouldn’t be letting her go. He’d take care of her and see that she was okay. He’d protect her with his life. And whatever she was into, he was officially involved now. “I got you,” he said again.
Chapter Twenty
Even half out of her mind with pain and having to be carried, she could recognize the simple, comfortable place as 100 percent Thorne. It was the familiar edges of his taste, the contours of his heart, like a suddenly remembered dream. Everything earth tones. Aligned on a grid. A movie poster of Enter the Dragon on the wall. A notebook on a little desk in the corner filled with brushstroke calligraphy.
“You’re learning Japanese?” she asked.
“It’s Chinese. And no.” He carried her on through to his bedroom with Richard following close behind. This room was spare, too—barren, really—aside from a bed, a bedside table, and a book on a chair. The chair was positioned next to the window. A place to sit and gaze. He set her on his bed.
“I’ll get blood all over.”
“What do I care?” Thorne said.
“Your place—”
“You going to make me regret bringing you here?” He walked out.
Her leg burned, but she burned even more to know what boo
k was on the windowsill. And what was the view? And what was with the brushstroke lettering if he wasn’t learning Chinese? And a million other things.
Richard whispered, “You need to tell him.”
“I know.”
“Not just about your mother,” he said.
“Richard—”
“All of it. He came for you.”
“So Benny can grow up with guards 24/7? Always in danger?”
“He saved our asses.”
“I don’t want somebody in Benny’s life who thinks it’s cool to be associated with gangs that run sex slaves and sweatshops.”
“Hangman doesn’t run sex slaves and sweatshops.”
“They’re friends with gangs that do,” she said.
“Nadia—”
“He’s still in Victor’s world. A dangerous criminal. A man everybody wants to kill. No way.” She shifted; the wound shot pain like shards of glass in her calf muscle. “Crap.”
“He came for you.”
“Come on, I’m doing the best I can,” she said.
“You’re doing great.”
“Right,” she said, so tired of acting confident. Confident as a mother, confident taking part in the raids. All such bullshit.
“You are.”
“Sometimes I feel like, all the other mothers, they know how to do it, you know? Like spiders, they just build these magical, amazing webs, like it’s inborn in them, and I don’t have that.” She looked toward the kitchen, feeling hopeless. “I’m the spider that builds the lopsided web. Look at me; I get fucking shot. Maybe I don’t know what’s right, maybe I have no business being a mother, out getting shot at like an asshole—”
“You’re putting your family together.”
She felt tears heat her eyes. “I feel like, if I find my mom, that would help me be a real mom.”
“You are a real mom,” Richard said.
She shook her head. He didn’t understand. And Thorne was back. He sat down with a medical kit and took out a syringe, scalpel, clamps, cotton, and gloves, arranging them on the bedside table.
“What the fuck?” Richard said. “You’re just going to do this? Operate?”
“There’s a bullet in there. She’s at risk for infection.” Thorne looked up, met Richard’s glare. “Hey, I’m not the asshole who dragged her into a co-op raid.”
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