Arnie’s hand closed over mine. “Then I guess we better get some good intel tonight,” he said.
“What if your guy doesn’t know anything, though?”
“Don’t worry, darlin’, we’ll think a’ somethin’.”
I blew out a tense breath. Everywhere we turned, the net was tightening and time was slipping away.
“Arnie, maybe it would be better if you called Kane and told him you’re coming in,” I said. “You haven’t done anything wrong. If you and Kane work together, you might be able to nail James and find Nichele, and you’d be protected just in case James has a contract out on you, too.”
“I ain’t gonna leave ya,” he said with a touch of irritation. “When’re ya gonna get that through your head?”
“But, Arnie, you’d have a better chance of saving Nichele that way.”
“I ain’t tradin’ your life for Nichele’s,” he growled. “Lemme talk to my guy tonight, an’ we’ll take it from there.” He consulted his watch. “Better get goin’.” He pulled off into a strip mall parking lot. “Aydan, ya better drive, just in case I gotta make a fast getaway.” He grinned. “I might just fake it so ya stand on it again. That was a blast.”
“A little hard on all our hearts, though,” I pointed out. “Let’s aim for boring, okay?”
“Yeah, darlin’, I hear ya.”
Back on the road again, I followed Arnie’s directions to the Foothills Industrial Park, and we drove the deserted streets in silence.
“Park over there.” Arnie indicated a spot under a burned-out streetlight. “This shouldn’t take any longer’n last time. Same thing, get ready to run.”
He leaned over to kiss me, and I trailed my lips around to his ear. “Come back in one piece,” I whispered. “I want to stroke your stickshift and rev you out to redline later.”
He chuckled and turned to nuzzle my ear in turn, sending shivers down my neck. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, darlin’,” he rumbled. He swung out of the car and vanished between two buildings.
Dave and I sat in silence while my shoulders slowly climbed toward my ears. I drew in a deep breath and tried to release the tension, but to no avail. I shifted to yoga breathing, slow and deep.
Dave’s voice made me jump. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” I blew out another long breath, trying to convince my heart to slow down. “I’m just doing some breathing exercises to keep calm.”
“Does it work?”
I twisted around to survey his tense face in the semi-darkness. “Yeah. Just breathe from your belly. Long and slow. Think about ocean waves rolling in… Jesus!”
A tap at my window made me snap around in the seat, adrenaline pumping. My heart achieved panicked-gerbil rate when I recognized the source of the sound. A gun barrel. 9mm. Pointed right at me.
“Shit!”
Chapter 33
“What do we do now?” Dave’s voice cracked.
I realized there were two shadowy figures outside the car. I couldn’t make out the faces, but the gun barrels against the windows were crystal-clear. One for me, one for Dave.
“You. Out.” The gun barrel rapped against Dave’s window. “Slow. Or she gets it.”
“Okay,” Dave quavered.
Another tap on my window. “Don’t try anything, or you’re both dead.”
Frantic thoughts rocketed half-formed through my head. Why hadn’t I left the car in gear? I could have stomped on the gas…
The rear door clicked open and I felt the car’s suspension lift as Dave got out.
The driver’s door opened from outside, and the gun barrel stared me down. “Now you.”
“I just have to tie my shoe…” I started to reach for my ankle holster and pain exploded in my head. I vaguely heard a scuffle and Dave cried out. A hard yank on my hair made me stumble up and out of the car to avoid being half-scalped. The ground heaved under my feet. I clutched at the car for balance.
Suddenly, I was sprawled facedown over the hood while rough hands groped me intimately. My head throbbed and sour bile rose in my throat. Dave yelled again, but I couldn’t tell whether it was pain or defiance.
The hands were efficient. In seconds both my gun and my waist pouch were gone, and another jerk on my hair indicated that I should stand.
This time the world stabilized, and I focused on Dave’s drawn face. He was clutching his chest.
“Dave!” I reached for him, but was yanked back by my hair, pain shooting through my head again. “He’s having a heart attack!” I shrieked, pure terror pumping through my veins.
Dave’s knees buckled and he sank to the ground. His breath came in shallow gasps while his fist clenched over his heart.
“Yeah, I think he is.” My captor sounded amused.
“Help him!” I plunged toward Dave again.
“Hold still.” A jerk on my hair accompanied the command, and the cold gun barrel jabbed under my chin.
“Dave!” My breath caught in my throat, my heart galloping as if it would beat for both of us.
It wasn’t enough. Dave crumpled, head bowed. At the last second, his trembling hand reached out to the leg of the man beside him. The arc of the stun gun flashed in the dimness, and both bodies collapsed to the ground. One twitched and quivered.
The other lay still. So still.
“Dave!” My throat tore with my scream and I lurched forward, heedless of the gun under my chin and the hold on my hair. I swung wildly with one arm and my captor swore when I connected with his nose. His hold released, and I flung myself to my knees beside Dave’s motionless body. My throat burned, and I realized I was still screaming.
I was reaching for Dave when electricity sizzled through me. I only vaguely registered my impact against the ground.
A confused jumble of activity. By the time a measure of comprehension returned, I was slung over a hard shoulder in a fireman’s carry while my captor strode along. Moments later, the breath jolted out of me when he dropped me.
“You didn’t kill her, did you?” a male voice demanded.
“I’m not stupid,” my captor growled. A foot nudged me none too gently. “Had to stun her. Dumb bitch acted like she didn’t give a shit whether I shot her or not.”
“Where’s the other one?”
My captor grunted. “Dead. Hit Larry with a stun gun and then croaked. Heart attack. I left them both there. Larry can deal with the body when he wakes up.”
“That’s convenient. One less body to dispose of. We can just prop him up in the car, and it’ll look like a natural death.”
I tried to marshal my twitching muscles into some useful movement, and failed. My breath came shallow and fast while my heart thudded in my ears. Come on, for shit’s sake, get it together. I struggled for control.
Too late. A rough grip jerked my hands behind me and the cold click of the handcuffs sent despair trickling through my veins. At least they hadn’t tied my feet. Yet.
I lay unmoving, trying to get a sense of where I was by peering through half-closed eyes. My face was mashed into the floor, so my view was limited to a blurry dark object barely inside the range of my peripheral vision.
I was beginning to get control of my breathing when I was grabbed by the shoulders and pulled upward.
“On your knees,” commanded the second voice.
My muscles refused to cooperate and I fell. The back of my head smacked against the floor, sparks dancing behind my eyes in fireworks of pain. A hard blow to my shoulder wrenched an inarticulate cry out of me, my tongue still not working well enough to form words.
“Cut it out! She can’t! The stun ain’t worn off yet!” Arnie’s bellow made me pry my eyes open, and the mystery of the blurry dark object was solved. He knelt on the floor a few feet away, his feet tied, hands bound behind his back.
“Man up, little brother, you always were a whiner.” James’s precise diction would have made me shudder if I’d had sufficient muscle control. He crouched beside me and turned my head to look into my eye
s. “Hello again, Aydan. How nice to see you.”
My uncooperative lips formed the words, “Fuu… u.”
“How uncivil.” He stood, and I lost sight of him as he moved away. “I have private business here. Go and wait for the buyer.”
There was a mumble of agreement, and I heard the door open and close.
He spoke again from outside my range of vision. “These are two lovely gifts you’ve brought me, little brother. Nichele has been very useful, and now you’ve given me Aydan, too. How can I ever show my appreciation?”
“Ya could choke on a dick an’ die.”
“Now, now. Is that any way to talk to your big brother? I was thinking of a different kind of reward. I’ll let you live, and I’ll set you up in the family business. You’d have to work your way up the ranks, of course, but there are many opportunities for advancement.”
Arnie snorted. “Ya ain’t my fuckin’ family, an’ I’ll take a fuckin’ bullet to the brain before I’ll get in your line a’ business.”
James burst back into my field of view as his arm scythed through the air. The blow that hit Arnie’s face sounded like a rifle shot, and he pitched over to land heavily on top of me.
“Arnie, oh, God,” I mumbled, realizing how incredibly painful that had to have been after all his earlier injuries. I managed semi-controlled movement at last, craning my neck in an attempt to see him.
James seized Arnie’s shoulders and jerked him to his knees again. Arnie made no sound, his nose misshapen while blood poured down. His eyes burned with hatred.
“Why aren’t you crying, little brother?” James taunted. “Little baby Arnie, always crying about something.”
When it became clear he’d get no response, he spoke again into the silence. “Think about it, little brother. This is your chance to make something of yourself.”
He shot a contemptuous look at Arnie’s jeans and leather jacket. “You’re pathetic. All your life, people have bent over backward to give you special treatment, and look what you’ve done with it. You’re a loser. Nothing but a biker wannabe, riding around on your Harley. You can’t even string together a grammatically correct sentence. You live in a tiny apartment, and you’ve got no money to speak of. I had to fight for everything I got, and I made something of myself.”
“Yeah,” Arnie mumbled thickly. “Ya made a fuckin’ asshole a’ yourself. ‘Course that ain’t no stretch. Ya always were a fuckin’ assho…”
His last word exploded into a grunt when James drove a fist into his stomach. Arnie doubled over, gasping, and James grabbed a handful of beard and yanked Arnie’s chin up to glare into his face. “I started out as a sleazy little gangbanger, and I taught myself to speak and act like a businessman. Now the gangbangers answer to me. I got where I am today through my own brains and balls, not through handouts and coddling.”
He bent closer, snarling. “I have money and respect and power, and I damn well deserve it. I can crush you like a bug, little brother.”
Arnie spat in his face.
I saw the kick coming, and heaved my uncoordinated body in James’s direction.
His foot struck a glancing blow to the same shoulder he’d kicked before, and the pain lanced through my bones. I clenched my teeth on a cry that jerked out anyway.
James smiled down at me. “Well. You’re back with us, I see. On your knees, then.” He hauled me up by the shoulders, and I managed to balance precariously. “So you’re fond of him, are you?” he asked.
He turned to Arnie. “What is it with you? All you have to do is cry, and women give their lives for you. Aren’t you getting tired of hiding behind pussy yet?”
Arnie’s eyes burned holes in him and his shoulders strained his jacket while he fought the ties on his wrists.
James returned his gaze to me. “Didn’t he tell you, sweetheart? That’s how our mother died, too. Trying to protect little Arnie.”
He snapped a glare back at Arnie. “Poor little Arnie. He cried and cried. Why couldn’t you just shut up and take it like a man? Like I did. Like Don and Cathy did. She wouldn’t have died if you hadn’t been such a snivelling little shit.”
“He was five!” I burst out. “Half the bones in his face were broken! How can you expect -”
I tried to duck the blow, and partially succeeded. Instead of hitting me in the face, his fist struck above my temple with such force that the floor rushed up dizzyingly and the breath slammed out of my body when I landed.
I blinked tear-blurred eyes as Arnie lunged awkwardly to his feet, bellowing. I heard an impact and a hoarse grunt, and Arnie crashed to the floor beside me. Blood spattered across me and the floor, and terror clutched me.
An instant later, he was struggling up again. He had made it to his knees when James planted his hands on Arnie’s shoulders and pushed his face up close.
“Look at her,” he said, and the edge in his voice turned my spine to ice. “Lying there. Suffering. You did that. Just like you killed our mother. Remember her lying there, bleeding out? Remember that, baby Arnie?”
He slapped Arnie viciously in the face, sending another shower of blood flying. “Why aren’t you crying, baby Arnie?”
“Stop!” I knew it wouldn’t help, but I couldn’t prevent the word from jerking out of me.
James smiled down at me. “He’s not worth it, you know. He’s just a pathetic loser.”
“You’re a pathetic loser. Arnie is twice the man you’ll ever be.”
His face twisted, and Arnie threw his body in front of the kick that was meant for me.
James kicked him savagely again, grinning. “That’s more like it, little brother. Show some guts for a change.”
He straightened and took a deep breath. “Well.” He shook out his arms and shoulders before stooping to wipe his blood-smeared hands on Arnie’s shirt. “I feel so much better now. Those prison shrinks knew what they were talking about after all. That was quite cathartic.”
He grabbed my shoulders and hauled me onto my shaking knees again. Arnie lay unmoving, but I could still see the rise and fall of his chest. Despair bowed my shoulders. There was no way James would let us live. Dave was already dead. I wondered why James was wasting time. Why not just shoot us and have done with it?
What the hell. Get this over with.
“Arnie said you were smart, but I guess he was wrong.” I tried to hold my voice steady without much success. My heart thudded violently in my chest. “Your hit man couldn’t get the job done, so why not just kill us now and get on with life?”
James laughed. “Little brother thinks I’m smart. Isn’t that nice. He doesn’t have a clue how smart I really am.” He stooped and patted my cheek. “Aydan Kelly.”
He straightened and crossed his arms, smiling down at me. “Yes, about the hit man. Do you have any idea how few professional hit men there really are? It’s not like you can just look them up in the Yellow Pages.”
He shrugged. “Of course, you can always find some stupid little thug who’ll kill somebody for you if you offer enough money, but the true professionals? Almost nonexistent. You have to have connections.”
“Which I do.” He smiled. “But do you know, all my connections have connections, too. And when I let the contract out, I discovered something very, very interesting.”
He stooped again and stroked my cheek, his touch repulsively gentle. “Remember Fuzzy Bunny?”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach.
Chapter 34
“I see you do,” James purred. “They were quite eager to find out whether you’re the same Aydan Kelly whom they thought was dead. And it appears you are.”
“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” I quavered. “Who or what is Fuzzy Bunny?”
“Please don’t play dumb. It’s unbecoming.”
I tried a derisive snort. “Insults. I’m hurt.”
“Not yet, but you will be.” He bent to pull Arnie onto his knees again. “Sit up and pay attention, little brother.”
Arnie straightened slowly, his eyes glittering dangerously through the mask of blood.
James patted him briskly on the shoulder. “Now that I’ve exorcised my demons, I’m going to give you another chance. Your little Aydan here is a very valuable commodity. She probably hasn’t told you exactly how valuable. Let’s just say that Fuzzy Bunny was more than happy to compensate me for the deposit I lost when I cancelled the contract on her life. And in fact, I’ll make a handsome profit when I hand her over.”
Arnie said nothing, and James frowned at him before continuing. “You’re not being very gracious about this, but I forgive you. After all, blood is thicker than water, as they say.” His lips quirked up as he regarded Arnie’s smashed face and the blood-spattered floor.
“Aydan is so valuable they agreed instantly to the price I asked. Which is sad, really.” He frowned and tapped his lips thoughtfully. “I must have left quite a bit of money on the table. Most unfortunate. However.”
He squatted in front of Arnie, out of range. “I’m prepared to offer you a generous finder’s fee. In exchange for keeping your mouth shut. Confidentiality is quite important to my contacts. And I’d hate to have to kill my own brother.”
“Fuck off,” Arnie growled.
James’s face hardened and I thought he would hit Arnie again, but he stood instead, staring down for a few moments.
“You’re really beginning to irritate me with your holier-than-thou attitude,” he said at last, his tone conversational. “I’ve tried and tried to reach out to you, but you just keep pushing me away. That’s quite hurtful, you know.”
“Prison shrinks teach ya that touchy-feely shit, too?” Arnie grated.
“Touchy-feely shit.” James sighed. “Aren’t you the tough man? Little Arnie takes a beating and never sheds a tear. But I’m terribly hurt. And do you know, despite what the shrinks say, I find vengeance is much more healing than forgiveness.”
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