by Ciana Stone
“Because we planned it, you idiot. Jimmy would kill Tony and then I’d inherit everything Tony had, Jimmy and I would team up, and we’d get rid of you and Victor so we’d have all of it.
“I think you’re the one who ratted on Jimmy.”
“No fucking way.”
“No? Well someone sure as hell did and whoever it was didn’t want me and Jimmy to take over so if it wasn’t you, then who?”
“Shut the fuck up. Just shut up. You’re full of shit. None of that’s true.”
“No? Then how do I know that Jimmy and you are the ones who put your brother Vito in a body bag?”
Vitale went a little pale, and Mica thanked her lucky stars that Jimmy had such a habit of running his mouth about things he shouldn’t when he was using drugs and getting his jollies.
She let Vitale stew on what she said and tried to figure out what to do next. Unfortunately, she had not come up with a plan when he ordered her to make a turn off the main road.
Within minutes after making the turn, they arrived at a small airfield. Vitale directed her to a hangar and ordered her to park the car. The moment she did, two men emerged from the hangar. Vitale got out, spoke with them, and then walked into the hangar.
The two men approached the car, pulling weapons as they did. One of the men opened her door. “Get out.”
Mica considered locking the door and trying to drive away. She even went so far as to reach for the start button. Nothing happened. Of course, Vitale probably had the key fob in his pocket.
With no real alternative, she got out of the car and was escorted inside the hangar and upstairs to a private salon. Vitale was sitting on the sofa with a drink in one hand and his phone to his ear.
“Yeah, we should be there in a couple of hours. Have the place ready. We’ll have some fun with this bitch.”
Mica really hated how much those words scared her. She despised being afraid. Fear would only make her weak and rob her of the ability to think and now, more than any other time in her life, she needed a clear head.
She believed that Deacon and Mathias would come for her, but she had to stay alive and she had to stay on the ground until they arrived. She couldn’t get on a plane. But how was she going to stall Vitale?
An idea came to her. “If you really want to have some fun, I can show you how I made Jimmy so happy.”
Vitale looked over at her. “Jimmy liked to get his ass spanked.”
“And watch me with other women. He liked the way I punished them.”
“Do you see any women here?”
“There are bound to be hookers nearby. Have your men go get some. And while they’re out, have them pick me up some floggers, rope, and dildos, maybe a couple of strap-ons.”
“Are you shitting?”
Mica went over and sat down beside Vitale. “Look, I know Jimmy never let on about us and I know he didn’t want me to have anything to do with you. He was scared of you and also jealous. But that’s beside the point. He paid me ten grand a night because I’m the best. I made bank for Tony and honey, my clients are the reason Tony always got the contracts, never got building violations, and always had the politicians kissing his ass.”
She could almost see the wheels turning in Vitale’s head. “Tony isn’t the only one who benefited from my talents. You and I could not only make money, but more important, make you the most powerful man in Vegas.”
There it was. She saw it in his eyes. His tell. He blinked twice in rapid succession and his skin flushed a bit.
“I have other plans for you.”
“Yes, of course, rape, gut, and dissolve me, which will net you nothing.” She hoped her ability to act had not deserted her because right now she was scared enough to wet her pants. She had to hold it together, to press the advantage she’d discovered. “Think about it, Vitale. I don’t do you any good dead. You’re a smart man, so tell me, which means more? Revenge on me for something I didn’t do, or pick up where Jimmy left off and succeed where he failed?”
Vitale yelled to the two men stationed at the door. “Call Carmine and tell him we want two girls, a blonde and a redhead. And take a list from the bitch here and get what she wants. We’re gonna hang here for a while and have a little show and if we like what we see, we just might have a change of plans.”
Mica could have cried with relief, but instead, she smiled at Vitale and got up to make a list for his men. With luck, it would take them a bit of time to get to the nearest city, pick up some girls, and the things on her list.
Her hopes were almost dashed when the man who wrote down the items she recited merely took out his phone and placed a call to someone he identified as Carmine. Once he got off the phone, he called out to Vitale, “Carmine said he’d be here in under two hours.”
Two hours. Please get here, please come. She prayed. Mica would do what she had to do to stay alive, but she knew there was a better than average chance that no matter what she promised Vitale, his father would have the final say, and he wanted her head on a spike.
Chapter Eighteen
“That’s it,” Mathias announced as they circled the outer perimeter of the small landing field. “In that hangar on the southwest corner.”
Deacon looked over at Wiley. “Set us down at the hangar in the northeast sector. No one will think anything about us being there. Mathias and I will take it from there.”
“You’re going to cut me out of all the fun?” Wiley asked. “That’s cold, brother. Cold.”
“This isn’t your fight.”
“It is if I choose it to be.” When Wiley spoke those words, Deacon saw the man he’d known most of his life, the man who had saved his ass more than once and the man who could kill without batting an eye.
“Then set us down and let’s get to it.”
“What’s your plan?”
“You have ordinance that will take out that jet?”
“You know me too well, my man. Pull the seats out in the back and check the locker.”
“Mathias?” Deacon asked.
Mathias moved the seats and opened the locker, then whistled. “The man has a Stinger and a whole lot more.”
“We need to be able to communicate.”
“He’s got that covered,” Mathias replied. “Latest grade comm units.”
Deacon looked at Wiley, who shrugged. “You never know when stuff will come in handy. Like today.”
“You have a point. And since you came armed for bear, we might as well make use of the toys.”
“I smell a plan about to hatch. Talk to me, Deac.”
“Okay, the way I see it…”
*****
Vitale had been sucking down scotch and talking on the phone for the last half hour. Once he started drinking, his temperament went from bad to worse and the only way to make him believe she was being truthful was to give him something to hang his hat on.
So, Mica gave up one of her clients. He was a nasty piece of work, as far as she was concerned, who’d occupied a seat in government for a long time. He was someone she had enough dirt on to ruin his career and possibility his life, and he was also sailing in the same boat she occupied. He’d testified against Jimmy and had as much to lose as she did.
The reason she was willing to give him up was that she knew if she did, he’d run straight to the Marshals, and once they were alerted, they would make a move against Vitale.
Vitale’s mood turned gleeful, since he now thought he was using her as a weapon to threaten the man. It was clear from his end of the conversation that he was succeeding. Mica prayed that the man’s next call would be to the US Marshals Services.
“Sir?” One of Vitale’s men stepped into the room. “You might want to see this?”
“See what?” Vitale looked at his man who pointed to the bank of windows covering the front wall.
“I’ll be in touch,” Vitale said into the phone, then slid the phone into the front pocket of his jacket as he stood and walked over to the windows.
Mica followed. One loo
k and her knees threatened to buckle. Deacon was walking toward the hangar with another man, one as tall and about the same age. Dear God. What a sight that was. If ever a woman had wished for a hero, it was she and the men she now watched had hero written all over them. Along with something that she had no doubt everyone watching could see. Danger. Those were two lethal men.
If any of the thugs with Vitale had half a brain, they’d run like the devil was after them. “Get someone out there and find out who the hell they are,” Vitale barked.
It would have taken a nuclear explosion to dislodge Mica from her place at the window. She saw Deacon look up and felt something swell inside her. He had come for her. He hadn’t lied. He had come. She blinked back tears and watched as he and the man accompanying him walked to the jet.
Deacon positioned himself at the base of the stairs while the other man climbed the steps, then disappeared inside the plane. It wasn’t long before the door began to close, folding the steps up.
“What the fuck?” Vitale said from beside her.
“Isn’t that your pilot? Maybe he needs to fuel the plane.”
“It’s not my fucking pilot.”
“Then who is it?”
“The fuck I know.” He barked and pulled out his phone. “Who the fuck are those guys?” he bellowed into the phone.
Outside, a man approached Deacon.. The man said something to him and Deacon shook his head. The man made a move to reach into his jacket, but Deacon moved faster and in two seconds time, Deacon was holding the man’s gun, releasing the clip and popping the bullet from the chamber as the man lay unconscious on the ground.
Meanwhile the jet’s engines had started.
“What the fuck?” Vitale looked down to place a call on his phone. “Get someone out there to stop my fucking jet and shoot that old man.” While Vitale talked on the phone, Deacon tossed the gun aside and started toward the hangar.
Ten minutes ago, Mica had been terrified. Now, watching Deacon, the fear receded. What was it about this man that made her feel so safe? Why did she believe he could protect her against all the monsters and demons that lurk in the dark? Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe she was fooling herself because she needed it so badly.
Mica had never had a hero. Her husband Tony was good to her, and he had cared about her, but she’d always known that she came second to his family and she accepted that. She helped him become more powerful and he accepted her help and was even grateful for it, but never in all the time she’d known him had she felt safe with him. She’d always known that at any moment his family might decide she was expendable and she would be killed.
But Deacon? He looked up at her as he marched across the concrete and she was suffused with certainty that he would save her. Or die trying. That thought had a whole new kind of fear laying claim to her.
As she and Vitale watched, the jet taxied out to the runway, stopped, and a minute later the door opened and the man who’d accompanied Deacon got out and ran towards the hangar.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Vitale yelled into his phone. “Hello? Hello?” In a pique, he hurled his phone. “You fucking incompetent—”
At just that moment, the door opened, and Mica’s heart literally skipped a beat. Deacon stood framed in the doorway. “Mathias, now,” he said quietly and looked at Mica.
You came for me. It took every bit of will power she possessed not to run to him. He then looked directly at Vitale. “You have something of mine.”
“I got nothing—” Vitale looked at Mica. “Her? You’re some crazy old fuck, I’ll give you that. You realize I’ve got a dozen armed—”
“Had,” Deacon interrupted.
“Huh?”
Deacon’s chin tilted up in the direction of the window. Vitale wasn’t the only one to turn and look. So did Mica, and what she saw brought a smile to her face. Matty looked up at them, alongside the man she’d watched get on the plane. At their feet were six men.
The man with Matty held some kind of weapon she didn’t recognize, but as they watched, he turned, aimed, and fired. Mica involuntarily took a step back as something sizzled from the weapon and streaked across the tarmac, smack into the jet.
The resulting explosion rocked the building and had Vitale turning red as a beet and pulling his weapon from his jacket as he turned toward Deacon. “I’ll fucking kill—”
He never got a chance to finish his sentence. A spot of red appeared on his forehead at almost the same moment Mica heard the report of the gun. Almost simultaneously, the back of his head exploded, showering brains, bone, and blood all over the window, which was raining shattered glass.
Mica was too stunned to move until Vitale’s body fell and then she jumped back and stumbled. She might have fallen had Deacon not caught her and turned her into his arms.
“I’ve got you.”
She’d never heard anything more beautiful than the sound of those words. Since she walked into the Smithy and found Nellie Mae being held hostage, she’d held it together by sheer will and now that she was safely in his arms, all her strength fled, and her legs, gave way.
“Deacon.” It was all she got out before she succumbed and fainted dead away.
Chapter Nineteen
Deacon took a seat on the porch swing and turned up his beer for a long drink. It had been almost a month since that day at the airfield. A month since she’d fainted in his arms and a month since the US Marshals Services had shown up and taken her into custody.
Neither he nor Matty had heard a word from her in all that time. They’d both tried to get information, but all either of them were told was that things were being handled.
That didn’t sit well with him at all. He tried not to let his mind take him back there. Every night he relived it, every time he closed his eyes he was there again.
Even under the effects of whatever she’d been given to calm her down, her hands were tightened into fists on his shirt, clinging to him like her life depended on it.
Her face was pressed to his chest and he felt the dampness grow on his shirt from her tears “Please take me home. I want to go home.”
She pulled back to look and him and it was then she realized they were in an ambulance. “What’s going on?” She looked around. “Who are all those people?”
“The Marshals Services. They’re taking you into custody.”
“Why?”
Deacon looked at Mathias, who sat beside them and he shook his head. Deacon hated being the one to tell her. “They’re not convinced it’s safe for you to return to Cotton Creek.”
“But that’s my home. I have to.”
“Commander Johns?” A stout man wearing a US Marshals’ badge walked up to the rear of the ambulance.
“Yes?”
“Marshal Dodds. It’s time we left, sir. I’m going to have to ask you and Mr. Gray Horse to exit the vehicle.”
“No!” Mica clung to Deacon. “No. Please, don’t leave me. Matty, don’t let them take me.”
“We have to do what they say, Mica. To keep you safe.” Mathias leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Be safe, sister. I love you.”
“Matty!” She looked at Deacon with eyes so filled with hate and fear that his heart nearly broke right then and there. “Please, don’t let them take me.”
“I don’t have any power here, honey.”
“I’m scared, Deacon. Scared I won’t see you again.” She looked at the Marshal. “I don’t want to be in protective custody. I’ll take my chances and—”
“I’m afraid it’s out of your hands, Ms. Gray Horse. Commander?”
Deacon gathered Mica to him and held her tight. “I love you,” he whispered. “Remember that.”
“Deacon, no.” She cried as he pulled away from her and she scrambled to follow but two attendants in the ambulance restrained her.
It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, walking away as she screamed for him and fought to break free. His chest felt like something was squeezing it and unshed tears burned his eyes. He
got into the car where Mathias waited with Wiley and two Marshals. They were going to be taken and questioned and it would be determined whether charges would be brought against them.
He didn’t much care at this point. All he could think about was the woman who’d trusted him to save her and who had watched as he walked away.
“I should have stayed with her.”
Wiley had one hip and leg hitched up on the porch rail. “It wasn’t your call.”
“Maybe I should have made it my call.”
“Yeah, I can see you trying that,” Wiley remarked. “But like you always said, you gotta know how to pick your battles and this wasn’t one you were going to win.”
“I guess we’ll never know.”
“Nope, I guess not. So, I met Mason and he said you’re quitting your job here to go back on active duty, running the new training facility that’s under construction.”
“Correct.”
“You sure you want to go back?”
“I am. Or I was. Now…”
“Now you just want your woman back. I get it.”
“Do you?”
“You think I haven’t ever been in love, bro? I know what it’s like to love and lose and it sucks.”
“So what did you do when it happened to you?”
“Went on a week-long drunk, shacked up with three pretty senoritas down in Juarez and tried to convince myself it didn’t matter.”
“Did that work?”
“Not really, but the pretense helped me weather the worst of it, and in time I got past it.”
“And now? You have a woman now?”
“Nope.”
“So, what exactly are you doing, Wiley? Last I heard you’d gotten busted down several ranks for some stunt involving a fighter jet.”
“Yeah, the powers that be took exception to me proving that plane would do something they said it couldn’t.”
“That’s all there is to it?”
“Well, I might’ve taken it without permission. So, I took the deal that was offered, retired with a full pension, and went to work for the private sector, which pays a hell of a lot more than Uncle Sam.”