Buying Love (Marriage of Convenience With Twins Romance)

by Faye, Amy

  "What do we do? They'll have heard that."

  "Good. I'm counting on it."

  He reaches down and pulls a set of keys out left-handed and tosses them to me.

  "There's a rifle cabinet on the second story. Go on, take your pick of the litter, and I need you posted upstairs. How good a shot are you?"

  "With a rifle?"

  "Naw, with a catapult, babe."

  "I can hit what I'm shooting at, up to say fifty yards."

  "It'll do."

  His eyes don't go off his brother. I don't know if I want to be there when they say whatever they've got to say, and then I decide that I sure as hell don't.

  The cabinet's pretty easy to find, and one of the keys—the one that obviously isn't for a door, or for his old Indian—fits. There's a surprising selection, even considering that he's a gun runner himself.

  Everything about the house seems to be hard to coincide with what I've known about him. It's small, it's unassuming. It gets broken into all the damn time, if he's to be believed, and I'm starting to see evidence of that already.

  Sure, there's apparently a dozen-odd hold-out pistols hidden in various parts of the house, but… other than that, and you don't even know that to look at it.

  The closest he comes to the guy I thought I knew before I met him is this gun rack. It would fit in better in Texas than Arizona, but even this isn't outside the realm of the ordinary for some folks.

  I take a convincing-looking weapon with a composite body. I test the weight in my hands. Heavy enough to have some heft, light enough that it doesn't look like it'll tire me out. I take a magazine, test the fit.

  I haven't counted, but I'm fairly certain that this magazine wouldn't be legal in the state of California. We're not in the state of California, though, so I don't have anything to say about it. I should be looking into all of this.

  As a Special Agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms… well, it's right there in the name. But I don't have any interest in poking into the legality of these weapons right now, not when it's my ass on the line. My phone rings a minute later, as I'm settling into a chair by a window.

  I pick it up.

  "Yeah?"

  "You ready up there?" Beauchamp's voice is cool and calm. I don't know how he does it, because even though I'm not the one they're coming after, my heart's beating a thousand miles a minute.

  "Sure."

  "I need you to keep an eye out. Keep this line open, and you see anyone, call them out to me."

  "And?"

  "And nothing. Call it out."

  "What's the rifle for?"

  "Just in case," he says. The line doesn't go dead, but he goes quiet. I set the phone on the windowsill and prop the rifle between my knees. A deep breath in, a deep breath out.

  Nobody's coming yet. All quiet. A minute passes, then two. Two becomes five, and still, nothing. It's starting to be a little nerve-wracking. They're going to come. I'm sure of that.

  If they've got more than one or two guys coming in, then they're going to need to move them all together, or it'll be a slaughter. Which means that they'll be coming in, like it or not, right down the road I'm looking at.

  But if they're coming, how much longer could it possibly take? Why aren't they here yet?

  I hear it before I see it. A low growl. I'm not sure, but I think I know the sound. Then a front fender crests the edge of a house, followed by a wheel, followed by a bike, with a man sitting on top of it.

  Another comes after, and another. They're coming in two columns, and the columns split to accommodate a big, boxy European car. Pretty old.

  "They're coming."

  It takes a second to get a response. "How many?"

  I count as quick as I can. "A car, plus ten on bikes."

  He curses into the open voice line. "Alright. Stay calm. Maybe get that rifle ready. Don't shoot until you don't have another choice."

  "I won't," I tell him. It's true. I'm not planning on shooting anyone. But that's never stopped me before, I have to admit. If I have to shoot someone, I have to shoot them, and that's how it is.

  The rifle isn't light. I trace the line of bikes as they go. The scope's set for targets way further out than I'm using it for. As they pull up in front of the house, row by row, I could practically close my eyes and hit someone.

  A posse of people stands outside, and all I have to do is aim in their general direction and the bullet will be magically guided into one of them by the power of dreams.

  With that in mind I pull the rifle down. I don't have a lot of time, but I hope to hell I'll have enough. I start working the thumb-screws that hold the scope onto the rifle at a frantic pace and toss it back onto the bed behind me.

  The scope's already forgotten by the time it hits the fabric because I'm bringing the rifle back up into line. The sights on it are a hell of a lot clearer, now. I can see what I'm aiming at.

  I count them off. Scheck, Rosen, Dupree. That completes the set. Scheck stays in the back.

  "Dupree's coming up. I just lost sight of him, but he's coming up. Three other guns with him. Rosen and Scheck hanging back."

  I don't get a response from the other end. Instead, I hear someone put their shoulder into the door. I don't know how it goes for them, but I don't hear any gunfire. That answers the question, I guess.

  They put their shoulder into it again. This time I hear another pop, just like the one that put Carabello on the ground. Like someone downstairs dropped their phone book. Bang.

  Another a second later. Bang. I don't have time to wonder what's happening, how it's going. I have my eyes on Scheck. It's twenty yards to her, I figure, and so I can't be sure if I'm reading her face right, but she doesn't look happy.

  She doesn't look like her guy just got inside and put an end to all her problems. A different shot goes off. I can hear the pitch different. This one is sharper, higher-pitched. Like someone smacked chalk into a blackboard.

  The shots start all firing at once, now. Like the initial lull was all setup to what's happening now, to train my ears to get used to slow firing.

  I take a deep breath and move my finger onto the trigger. Do I take the shot? It would end several problems right away. Right now. All I'd have to do would be to squeeze a little tighter, and…

  I lift my finger back off. It would be easy. Very easy, in fact. Which is why I'd better wait for Ryan to tell me to do it.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  RYAN

  I can't stop thinking that I might have really fucked up this time. I don't recognize the guy whose body is clogging my door, but I'm not going to get it shut again, even if my only hope is to get myself out of sight.

  I have to move back. The dividing wall between the kitchen and the living room provides a nice place, but it opens me up too much. Two ways through means that no matter which way I'm watching, someone can come up either side. I take a deep breath.

  I could go up the stairs a little way, as well. Shorter sight lines, though, mean that I have to work on reaction a hell of a lot more. I'll know their coming, but I won't have more than a fraction of a second to aim and fire.

  Never mind missing, if I just wing a guy and he gets the chance to shoot back, I'm done. Two down, though. At least nine more to go. I take a deep breath.

  I raise the phone to my mouth. "Maguire?"

  "Talk to me," she says. She sounds alert. Ready. So different from how I'm feeling.

  "I'm sorry."

  "Where the fuck did that come from?"

  "Should've have gotten you involved in this."

  "Ryan, if you have time for that kind of shit—"

  "I don't want you to get hurt. So when you take the shot, I want you to get the fuck out of that window, you hear me?"

  "I'm not an idiot, Beauchamp."

  I hear the door opening. I hope they haven't gone around back, and I hope that Logan got away as best as can be hoped for in the time they took getting here. They'll be here in a second, and I have to do this
shit right.

  "I don't want you to take this the wrong way, Maguire, but if I die—"

  "Save it."

  "I like you a lot, babe. Take the shot when you're ready."

  Somewhere in one of my upstairs bedrooms, a small explosion goes off. I can about see the bullet hurtling through the air, see it smacking into Scheck's body.

  Two guys I don't recognize come around. I squeeze off a shot on the first one I can. I get lucky that he was the one who looked ready to shoot the second he got around the corner. The other takes a second to raise his gun, and in that second I adjust my aim and take a second shot.

  I hear shots firing outside. Probably firing into my bedroom window. The house is going to be destroyed before this shit is over.

  "Maguire? You there?"

  She takes a second to answer. In that moment, my chest gets tight, and when I hear her voice on the other end of the line, I feel like I can breathe again, all of a sudden.

  "You worry too much," she says. All surly, all toughness. That's her, alright.

  I don't have time to tell her so. Boots on the tile. I squeeze off another shot as another goon comes through, and another body litters the back hall of my house.

  Another comes around the other side. They're committed to this thing. I adjust my aim and start to squeeze. In that split-second, Dupree comes around the closer corner.

  The muzzle of my pistol drops. I squeeze and the gun erupts in my hand again. A shot goes wide, and now I'm in trouble, because the little guy is faster than anything I've ever seen, and he's coming for me. There's nothing I'm going to be able to do about it, not from here.

  I move back instead. He's closing the distance faster than I can open it, but as my heel steps up onto a stair-step behind me, time seems to slow down for half an instant, and my finger snaps again.

  My arm absorbs the recoil, and the bullet flies out of the barrel at twelve hundred feet per second. It might have slowed down a little by the time it smacks into Dupree's chest. Not enough to save him being knocked back, all his momentum canceled by the bullet in an instant.

  He falls back onto the guy behind him, and the other guy gets knocked back as well, not expecting a body to be falling onto him. I take the shot. I'm not above taking luck to the bank, and then there's another guy on the ground. Six down. I hope seven.

  "Maguire? What's the situation outside?"

  "They've moved around. Scheck's down. I don't know if she's dead or just wounded."

  "Don't worry about that. Who's left?"

  "Rosen's hiding behind the car. You got one unaccounted for, one behind the car with Rosen. Two more coming in, looks like."

  "You get a shot, take it and move."

  "You got it," she says.

  I take a breath. She's got a handle on things. She still sounds rock-steady. Better than anything I could have hoped for. I try to remember how many bullets I've got left in this magazine.

  In the seconds I've got before the next pair hits the stairs, I hit the magazine eject. Not enough rounds. I drop it on the floor and grab a reload. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

  I repeat it over and over in my head. Smooth is fast. The magazine clicks home and I rack the slide to chamber a round. We've already done it. I just have to stay calm long enough to keep this going for another few short minutes. No problem. I can do this.

  There's five more left, and one of them comes around. I take the shot, but not before the second can come into view. Like a shooting gallery. Bang. Bang. The second shot goes wide. A third bang, this one not from my pistol.

  I don't feel the shot hit me, so he must have missed. I adjust and fire again. Bang, and the target goes down.

  I take a deep breath. Another explosion from upstairs as the rifle goes off.

  "Another one down. Rosen remains, another unaccounted for."

  "I hear you," I said.

  It hurts to breathe. At first I think it's just the adrenaline catching up with me. Then I look down. My shirt, previously a nice olive green, is stained with red.

  God damn it. I pick the phone up. My hands are starting to shake a little. "Maguire, I've been hit."

  She curses softly. I don't know if I was supposed to hear it, but I do, clear as day.

  "Bad?"

  "I don't know."

  I hear a noise downstairs. That'll be the one unaccounted-for. He's taking his time. Going slow. A shot fires from downstairs. I don't know what he's shooting at, but something hits the ground.

  I bring my gun up as footsteps approach the stairs. My hands are shaking, but I can still shoot straight as they come into this funnel. That's why I stayed here, after all.

  "Jesus, what the fuck did you do, Ryan?" The gun lowers. Logan steps through the bodies. He's got a weapon in his hands. He looks up and sees me. "Fuck me, you're hurt!"

  I let out a long breath. "Yep. I think I'm shot."

  He rushes to my side, scoops me up and pulls me out of the stairwell. I didn't need him to do that, but he apparently decided that was what he wanted to do, and he was going to do it either way. I'm too tired to fight him.

  "Jesus Christ, Ryan, you fucked up. Why didn't you take the fucking money?"

  My eyes are getting a little fuzzy. Between my body feeling wrong after my head getting hit, and it being so hard to breathe, I don't think I'm in very good shape.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The God damned money that they offered you, Ryan. Why did you do it?"

  "You don't get it at all, man." I smile and lay my head back. I'm not sure if I'll open them again, but I don't have much choice in the matter. "It wasn't about the money."

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  MAGUIRE

  I'm watching outside when I hear the shot go off. Rosen hears it, too. He hears it, and he's apparently decided that it won't be the last thing he hears. If it's possible, he's hunkered down further.

  Which means I'm not going to get him from here. I take a deep breath and drop the rifle barrel toward the floor. I'm the one who has to end this.

  It's already been a blood-bath. But I'm a cop, and I don't just get to murder people with impunity.

  I step out of the room, and into the jungle. Bodies seem to be strewn all around the staircase, and Logan's sitting in a room across the hall, looking about as unsure as anyone I've ever seen.

  Something happened to Ryan. I know it. My gut tells me to go find out, to assure myself that everything's going to be alright. A voice inside me, though, says that I should go check on Rosen. On making sure that whatever happened to Ryan, it doesn't stop there.

  I stand there a long time. Logan doesn't seem to see me, though he easily could. His eyes just see right through me, chewing on the tips of his thumbs.

  The rifle hadn't felt heavy when I picked it up. When I fired it, when I was keeping it ready as I waited… it was a well-designed weapon. But now, I just want to put it down. I can't keep this up forever, and every second I look at Logan, panicking in his seat, is a second that I get closer to setting it down by the door.

  A deep breath in. I let the rifle down from its cradle in my arms and lean it against the wall as I come inside.

  "What happened?"

  Logan looks up at me, realizing I'm there for the first time even as he's stared right through me. "I—fuck. I don't know. He's hurt."

  "Calm down. Let's have a look."

  I look down. I've dealt with my fair share of people getting shot. I know what it looks like, and I know how to deal with it. More or less, anyways. That by itself should put me in a good position dealing with what I see.

  It still hits me hard. On first glance his entire body looks like a bloody mess. It takes me a second to start trying to relax, to try to be objective about what I was seeing. He was breathing, that's good.

  The breaths were shallow. It hit him in the side, near the floating ribs. There's a good risk, I know right away, that it could have hit his liver. That's bad news. The kind of bad news you migh
t not get better from.

  I can feel my blood surging again in my ears. Panic threatens to overtake me, and my hands are shaking bad. I need to be under control, though. I need to stay strong. Fuck.

  I close my eyes tight and reopen them. When I have them open it's easier.

  "We need to get him to a hospital, and we need to do it now. We take my car. There's one left outside. I'm going to go deal with him. When I call for you, you come and take your brother into the car. Here are the keys. I'll follow you in Carabello's car if I'm not right there with you. Do you need help getting him up?"

  Logan looks at me like I've just said all of that backwards and in Spanish, but his face starts to clear up after a minute of thinking about it.

  "Logan. Do you understand?" I hold my keys up for him.

  "Carry Ryan downstairs. Wait for your signal. Break for the car. Nearest hospital."

  "Yes. Do you need help getting him up onto your shoulders?"

  He looks down at Ryan. "You sure?"

  "I can't afford time to worry about that, Logan. Do you need help?"

  "Aw… no."

  I turn and pick the rifle back up. Logan's still got my service piece, to the best of my knowledge, and I'm not going to take it from him.

  I swallow my panic and my fear, keep it in a little box inside me. I can unpack it later, if I get the opportunity. Until then, I have to do the best I can.

  The door's clogged with bodies. With a shootout like this going on, it's only a matter of time until the cops show up, and they're going to find the place full of bodies.

  Well, I can attest as a member of law enforcement that he was only acting in self-defense… I don't know if I can make the same argument for myself.

  I step through the door.

  "Rosen!"

  He doesn't say anything, but I hear movement on the other side of the car. I bring the rifle up half-way. Ready to snap and fire if I have to, as best as I can anyways.

  "Rosen, show yourself. I want to talk."

  I hope Logan's getting along behind me, but I can't afford to wait and watch him do it myself. I have to trust that he's managing, or Ryan's going to run into trouble.