Fearless

by Lauren Gilley

  Ghost leaned in close to Fielding before he followed them, his voice just audible between the two of them. “Just a heads up, Vince. What you’re doing to my club? It’s not going to be a smart move for you in the long run.”

  When he joined his crew again, he did a fast headcount. Collier was missing.

  **

  Shade was hard to come by out on the football field. It was only ten, but the sun was at a hard slant and climbing, and without a screen of clouds, it poured relentless across the open stretch of tent-studded grass. Maggie regretted her waffle weave shirt and denim jacket in a big way.

  She bought a cold bottle of water at the concession stand and leaned against the chain link fence as she sipped it, watching the bustle of the sale. Olivia had been right. It was a big event, and it was drawing a sizable crowd. She watched shoppers pick through piles of secondhand goods and new handmade art pieces. Local artisans had taken advantage of the turnout, and were selling knitted scarves, hand-tooled leather purses; someone had used old barn wood to make decorative signs. Then there was the usual assortment of clothes, old shoes, kids’ toys and unwanted furniture. Items were moving, people backing trucks and minivans up to the field’s entrance to load their purchases.

  She sighed. Had the state of affairs with the club and the city been different, she would have unloaded all of her crap by now.

  Through the crowd, she caught a glimpse of salmon and turned away. “Shit.” She didn’t want Olivia gloating in her face about what a miserable show of goodwill this had turned out to be.

  There was a line of blue porta-potties on the other side of the gate, and she bypassed them with a muttered “yeah right.” They were discouraging yard salers from entering the school, but like hell did she need to pee badly enough to go into one of those blue boxes. She’d risk getting chastised by some errant PE coach.

  She entered the nearest set of double doors and stepped into a long cool hallway that smelled like locker rooms. She spied the signs up high along the ceiling, marking just that, and kept walking, heels clipping over the white tile. She’d just walk a little farther, find a restroom deeper in the school.

  Behind her, she heard one of the heavy metal doors grate open. The light swelled around her. And then it closed with a sharp slam.

  She turned and saw a man haloed in the incoming light from the windows. He’d taken four steps toward her before she recognized him.

  “Jace?”

  He came closer, and his face became more clear to her, as the sunlight faded behind him. He looked like hell. His eyes were runny and red, the lids puffy. His lips were chapped and his hair dirty and greasy. His pupils, she noticed, were too large, and they hadn’t reacted to the change in light.

  “Mags,” he said, taking still another step. He was shaking all over, his hand unsteady as he pushed it through his hair. “Mags, you gotta help me. You gotta talk to Ghost and make him understand.”

  “Understand what?” She frowned. “How’d you know I was in here? What did you take, Jace? You’re high out of your mind.”

  Proving her point, he gripped both sides of his head and grimaced, like her rapid-fire questions caused him pain. “I…I need to talk to you. I knew I couldn’t go to Ghost. He wouldn’t understand. He…Christ, look what happened to Andre! Ghost thinks I’m a rat, too. You’ve got to explain it to him.”

  His hand shot out, faster than she expected, and locked onto her forearm, squeezing until she felt the bones grind together.

  She tried to wrench away. “Are you a rat, Jace?”

  “No,” he snarled with sudden violence. Then he softened. “Please, Mags–”

  “Let go!” She managed to twist free and took a step back. Her heart leapt hard against her breastbone. All the warning sirens were going off in her head, telling her to get away as fast as she could.

  She lifted her chin. “I don’t know where you’ve been, or what you’ve done. Take it up with Ghost. It’s not my problem.”

  He grimaced again and made another reach for her that she dodged. “Please, Maggie! You have to help me!”

  Run, her conscience shouted. Run, run, run!

  “Go outside and get some coffee,” she said. “And do your explaining to your brothers. They’ll listen to you, whatever you have to say.”

  He shook his head furiously. “No they won’t. They won’t! I told Fielding – I told the cops. Oh, Christ, I did a bad thing. Very bad.” He ducked his chin and knotted his hands together and looked like a child who wanted to throw himself down and weep.

  “What did you tell Fielding?” Maggie asked carefully, edging another step back.

  “Everything,” he whispered, anguished. “The mayor wanted…and Fielding said…”

  God, he’d ratted all of them out. All that nosing around Fielding had done at Dartmoor, asking about old crimes, stirring up records that had nothing to do with the Carpathians. The mayor wanted the Dogs behind bars, and he was taking no chances. If the Carpathians didn’t get them, and the feds didn’t have enough to make a RICO case, then he’d pick them off one by one, fed by the confessions of rats.

  Maggie took another step. She didn’t think she could get around him and to the door. She didn’t know if he’d be able to catch her as intoxicated as he was.

  “You have to help me,” he burst out, head lifting suddenly, unfocused eyes pinning to her face. “You have to–” He saw her foot shift back, and his lips skinned back off his teeth. “Don’t walk away from me!”

  She bolted.

  Maggie took off at a sprint toward the opposite end of the hall, chucking the water bottle over her head, not knowing if it hit him, not daring to slow down and check. His boots thundered after her and she wished running was still part of her workout routine. She concentrated on her calves and thighs, willing the muscles to stretch and work. Jace panted behind her, gaining ground it sounded like. Her heart jackhammered and her lungs burned. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about what would happen if he caught her.

  The hall ended in a T and Maggie swung left, making an empty grab at the wall for balance as she skidded around the corner. She tripped, staggered. Gasped. “God!” She landed on one knee and the impact rattled up through her spine, hitting her in the teeth and the base of the skull, knocking the breath from her.

  She tossed a frantic look over her shoulder as she climbed to her feet.

  Jace wasn’t looking at her. He’d ground to a halt, back at the intersection of the halls, staring back the way they’d come, toward the doors.

  His mouth opened as if to speak –

  And a gunshot blasted through the cinderblock hall, a blast like dynamite in the close confines.

  Maggie watched, frozen, as Jace caught the round in the chest and glanced down in disbelief at the red stain spreading across his shirt. Like a toy running out of battery power, he sank back in slow motion, legs finally going to rubber, and slumped back against the wall. His head lolled onto his chest. Dead.

  Maggie heard the heavy tread of boots coming toward her and began to shiver, gathering herself for another run.

  It was Collier who stepped into view, his gun in hand, not a trace of sympathy on his face as he looked down at his slain brother.

  He glanced over at Maggie. “You okay?”

  She nodded.

  Then there was the sound of the doors flying open with screeching sounds. A tumble of voices, footfalls, moving toward them.

  “Hands up!” someone shouted. “Drop your weapon and put your hands behind your head!”

  Collier complied without hesitation, turning to face the stampeding noise of the police.

  Fielding stepped into view, face a thunderhead. He forced Collier down onto his knees and cuffed him as two officers went to Jace, and a third came toward her, saying, “Ma’am, come with me please.”

  “I killed Jace Bagwell,” Collier said, calmly. “And Andre Preston. And Mason Stephens Jr. and Ronnie Archer. I killed all of them.”

  Forty-Nine

&nbs
p; “Fucking traitors,” Mercy grumbled, and Ava glanced over at him sharply.

  She waited until she had his attention, then lifted her brows in silent question, daring him to dig the hole deeper.

  “Well, you are,” he muttered.

  She snorted as she resumed packing. Her cross-body purse was large enough to fit their cash, her gun and extra clip, all four of their phones – real and prepaid – and her wallet with all their insurance information. “You look like death warmed over,” she said, “but I’m a fucking traitor. Not your concerned wife, no. A fucking traitor.”

  “Don’t forget your brother. He’s one too.”

  “Right. Can’t overlook that.”

  She zipped the bag closed, slipped the strap over her head, and gave him a frosty glare.

  His fever was stronger today, a hot pulse that thumped against her palm when she pressed it to his forehead. “Your hand’s cold,” he’d complained earlier, when she’d felt for his temperature. His color was worse, his skin clammy. The wound looked angry and ragged. At the very least, it needed debriding. She was beginning to worry about the infection becoming even more serious, leading to sepsis.

  She’d dissolved into tears that morning, during her pleas that he go to a doctor. He’d finally caved, but he was being an asshole about it.

  “What if it was me who was sick?” she asked. “What would you do if I was sitting there, eat up with fever, my whole arm going putrid?”

  “Feeling dramatic, are we, Miss Brontë?” he asked.

  “Feeling abused,” she corrected. “Answer the question, Mercy.”

  He sat on the sofa, hands clasped in his lap, sick and miserable. He glanced away and said, “I’d take you to the ER.”

  “Exactly.” There was no sense of triumph in his admission. She wouldn’t feel better until he’d been examined and prescribed some heavy antibiotics.

  The phone rang and she stepped to answer it. “That’s Aidan. Are you ready to go?”

  He extended his arms to demonstrate that he was. Leather jacket, hair tied back in a queue, Colt in his waistband, shotgun propped against the sofa.

  She nodded and answered. “Hey.”

  “Hey, you ready?” Aidan asked, sounding only a little more awake than he had last night.

  “Yeah.” She gave him directions to Lew’s from the clubhouse, Mercy chiming in when she needed help remembering the street names.

  “Be careful,” Aidan admonished before he hung up, and it warmed her cold insides, made her feel like help was near at hand, just moments away.

  “Okay,” she said, turning back to Mercy. “They’re gonna meet us. We should get going.”

  Someone knocked on the front door.

  Ava jumped.

  Mercy lifted his brows. “Your brother get himself a teleportation device?”

  She ignored the joke. “That man we dumped – he was alone. I didn’t see anyone else with him. I didn’t–”

  Mercy lifted a hand, telling her to calm down. “I’ll just go see.” He stood and collected the shotgun. “You’ve got your piece on you?”

  She nodded, laying a hand on her bag and the shape of the gun within it.

  “Good. Stay behind me. If I tell you to, run. Okay?”

  Like hell was she going to leave him behind while he was in this condition.

  “Ava,” he said, firmly, like he was lecturing a child, “run if I tell you. Okay?”

  “Fine,” she muttered, and followed him to the door.

  Mercy leaned over and twitched one of the lace curtains aside first, before he unlocked the deadbolt.

  Larry O’Donnell stood on the small porch, wringing a pair of leather work gloves in his hands. Ava noticed the nervousness in him first thing, and figured Mercy did too.

  “Hey, man,” Mercy greeted. “Look, now’s not a good time. We’re heading out.”

  Larry didn’t seem to hear him. He twisted the gloves and swallowed, throat working. His mouth opened, lips quivering, his leathery face eerily slack.

  “Larry.” Mercy reached out and put a big hand on the man’s shoulder. “What is it?”

  It took three tries, the breath whispering through his shaking lips, before Larry finally said, “I didn’t want to. You have to believe me, Felix, that I didn’t want to.”

  “God,” Ava whispered, the blood draining from her face. Panic stole over her, rendered her motionless, stalled her heart for one awful second.

  Mercy lifted the shotgun to his waist, the barrel aimed at Larry’s stomach. “What did you do?” he asked, a ferocious darkness coming into his voice, hardening it.

  Larry wasn’t Larry in his eyes anymore, Ava knew. No longer the family friend, the trusted neighbor, the confidante. Now he was just someone who’d betrayed them.

  Tears welled in Larry’s eyes, bright like crystal in the morning light. “They have Evie,” he whispered. “I had no choice, Felix. Believe me. You’d do the same if it was your wife.”

  Then a man stepped into view, sliding from his vantage point at the corner of the cottage, stepping in close behind Larry and towering over him. He was a huge man, with massive chest and shoulders, no neck, shiny shaved head. He curled one massive arm around Larry’s throat, in a loose chokehold, and aimed the .45 he held to Larry’s temple.

  His voice thick and toneless, like the rest of him. “We don’t care about the girl. Come with us, Lécuyer, and she can walk away.”

  Ava shuddered hard. No one ever meant that, when they said it.

  She saw Mercy’s mouth curl up in an ironic half-smile. “Are you the Grim Reaper?” he asked.

  The big man frowned in confusion.

  Mercy shoved her to the side the same moment he pulled the trigger.

  The blast was deafening.

  As Ava landed on her hands and knees on the boards, she felt the slivers of splintered doorframe pelt her back and arms. She heard the thump of heavy bodies on the porch floor outside.

  As the gunshot was still echoing, a hand curled tight around her forearm and lifted her. Mercy got her on her feet and half-shoved, half-carried her through the cottage, toward the back door.

  “We gotta move,” he said. “Still got your gun?”

  “Yeah,” she said, breathlessly, as she stole one fast glance behind them as they whirled out the back door.

  The buckshot had torn through Larry and the man standing behind them. The porch was a pulpy red mess.

  Outside, Mercy scanned for more men, and then wasted no time heaving up the door to the tunnel. He gave her arm a rough yank, urging her to the hidden stairs. “Go.”

  Too shocked to do anything but comply, she scrabbled down the stone steps, gasping as she entered the utter blackness of the tunnel below.

  She turned, and saw Mercy come down behind her, pull the door shut behind him, sealing off every last scrap of light.

  She could see nothing. Her eyes might as well have been closed.

  She heard a metallic scraping, fumbling sound above her, at the door.

  “Merc–”

  “Ava, go!” he snarled. “I gotta lock this door. Go! Get to the church. I’ll catch up. Don’t wait for me.” He grunted as he struggled with the door in the dark. “Get in the boat. Get it started.”

  She didn’t move. She wasn’t leaving him. If he even suggested it –

  “Now!”

  Breath lodged high in her throat, she whirled and went, hands skimming along the damp stone of the walls, steps echoing dully in the low hallway. She couldn’t hear if he was following her yet over the pounding of her heart. She couldn’t remember how long the tunnel was, but it seemed she fumbled forward for hours, the panic winding tighter and tighter.

  What if Larry had told these men about the tunnel? What if there was an ambush waiting for her at the other end behind the pulpit?

  Something bit into her shin and she fell forward, catching herself with her hands against the ascending staircase. She’d reached the end.

  Patting her way upward, her hands slippe
d through moss and unidentified sliminess, until she found the door overhead. She braced her feet on the steps and heaved upward with all her might. The door lifted about an inch, then slammed back down, sending her to her knees again.

  “Damn it,” she hissed, making another attempt.

  She strained and strained…

  And then there was something strong and solid against her back, and the door was levitating up. Mercy, coming up behind her, his strong arms flinging the heavy metal door aside like it weighed nothing.

  He hustled her up the steps, onto the pulpit, into the abandoned, sun-drenched church that smelled strongly of jasmine and wild grass. He still had the shotgun propped on his shoulder, but was missing his belt; that’s what he’d used to secure the door.

  It was a mad sprint through the muggy heat, to the cypress cave, down those earth and wood steps until they were leaping into the bateau. Saints Hollow was abandoned in less than ten minutes, without a backward glance.

  Mercy handed her the shotgun before he started the motor. “You know how to use that,” he said, like he was reassuring both of them of a fact they already knew.

  “Yeah.”

  With his usual deft touch, he whipped the bateau from the lacing roots, out into the shallow water, and then they were flying, the narrow banks crowding close, the moss trailing against her cheeks as she scouted the way ahead. Through the last moss curtain and out into the open swamp. And then Mercy turned the Evinrude loose, the bow of the small boat lifting up off the water as the oversized motor propelled them across the glass-top water.

  Ava spotted the other boat behind and to their right. It had been circling, waiting, ready in case Larry and his gigantic captor failed to get the drop on them. She counted two men, and the slender, gleaming barrels of rifles.

  At a distance, a shotgun was no match for the .30-06s they carried.

  She gestured to Mercy, not able to shout over the roar of the motor, and he risked a glance over his shoulder, grim-faced when he turned back.

  He made a down gesture with his free hand, and she dropped down low in the bow, as Mercy arced the boat to the left and ran beneath a drooping branch. Ava saw the glimmer of a fat black snake as they passed beneath, a water moccasin sunning himself, and didn’t have time to be afraid of it.