by Shandi Boyes
“If you want your sister to get out of tonight alive, I suggest you shut your mouth and listen to me.” My brutal tone immediately gets his attention. I doubt he’s even breathing. That’s how menacing my voice is. Although I’m not technically prioritizing Justine over Fien—it only takes one person to fill the gas tank, so I’m more utilizing my time wisely than fucking around—I still hate that I’m in this predicament to begin with. “Tell the goon manning the gate that you need to go to the Gauntlet, give him the passcode ‘cannon.’ When you arrive, fall to your knees and fucking beg. Say anything and everything Col wants to hear—”
“Dimitri…”I don’t know whether he pauses to catch his breath or to plot one of the many ways he plans to kill me. Whatever it is, he’s wasting time he can’t afford. My father has no patience whatsoever. Once he’s handed down a ruling, it is immediately executed. If Justine isn’t dead, she’s walking straight toward it. “What the fuck is going on?”
When Rocco nudges up his chin, wordlessly announcing the Range Rover is good to go, I say down the line, “You said you’d die for your sister, right?”
I hear Maddox swallow before he pushes out, “Yeah.”
While slipping into the makeshift seat in the minecart next to Rocco, I mutter, “Tonight is your chance to prove that. Your life for hers, Maddox. I don’t see Col taking any less.”
Stealing his chance to reply, I press the end button on the screen of my cell, stuff it into my pocket, then tap on the roof of the Range Rover telling Rocco to floor it.
I never wanted to be a hero until I looked into the eyes of my daughter.
Tonight is my chance to become one.
My lungs wheeze in protest to the stuffy conditions, and I’m covered in dust, but as predicted, we make it out the other side of the tunnel in just under twenty minutes.
“Leave it uncovered, we don’t have time,” I tell Rocco when he commences sheltering the mineshaft cart with the camouflage netting he pulled off a real-life Range Rover. “Smith sent logistics to the Range Rover’s mainframe. The airstrip is eleven miles from here.” I lift and lock my eyes with his so he can see the urgency in them. “I need to be here ASAP. The jet is fueled and ready to go.”
“Give it to me.” After sliding into the driver’s seat, he snatches my phone out of my hand. His eyes zoom over the screen as he calculates the quickest route.
Once he’s confident he has his bearings right, he jabs his finger into the ignition button, fires up the engine, throws the gearshift in reverse, then peers over his shoulder. There’s nothing but scrub behind us, which he parts like the Red Sea two seconds later.
Spotting my shocked gawk, he mutters out, “Why go around when we can go over?”
He flashes me a wink that has me forgetting the direness of the situation for a few seconds before he whacks the gearshift into first to commence our trek over sandy plains.
We pop out onto one of the many freeways servicing Ravenshoe a couple of minutes later. Since it’s late, traffic is practically nonexistent.
The frantic beat of my heart slackens when I realize how close to the blue dot we are. Rocco’s shortcut shaved a good three to four minutes off our travel time.
“Take the next exit,” I advise Rocco when a message from Smith pops up on my screen. He’s hacked into my system to advise us of the most direct route to take.
The further we travel up the ramp, the more the headlights of the Range Rover bounce off a figure coming from the other end. Although the ground is wet from a recent sprinkling, all the clouds have moved on, exposing a full moon. It adds to the deathly halo shrouding the petite blonde.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Rocco mutters under his breath when the brightness dims enough, we spot the streams of blood gushing down the blonde’s face. She’s barely walking, her wobbly strides more stumbling steps than polished strides. Her dress and boots are ripped like most punks pay out the eye for when selecting designer jeans, and her blonde hair almost looks red from how much blood it’s absorbed.
She’s either been in a car accident or run over by one.
Their list of injuries are about the same.
“Someone fucked her over good,” Rocco summarizes, stealing the words straight out of my mouth.
He glares at me like I’m insane when I demand him to keep going. Although he didn’t place his foot on the brake, he did loosen his pressure on the gas pedal, slowing our pace.
“We don’t have time. Fien’s jet could taxi toward the runway at any moment.” I can see the lights of a control tower just over the horizon. We’re almost there. “I’ll send someone back for her once Fien is safe.”
“All right.” Although he’s agreeing with me, he isn’t happy about my decision. He has a soft spot for battered women since his momma was one. His dad used to beat the living shit out of his mother. Discovering the reason for her many bruises saw him facing his first stint in juvy at fifteen. His second was for his father’s murder. I loaded the gun and handed it to him. He took care of business how I should have done with my father years ago. Regretfully, my surname means there are rules I must follow. Back then, Rocco didn’t face the same issue.
With Rocco’s jaw as tight as mine, he increases his pressure on the accelerator. The paintwork on my door gets friendly with the railing on the side of the road when he takes a wide birth around the stumbling blonde. I don’t pay any attention to the brutal grind. I can’t take my eyes of the one green eye popping out from a mattered mess of unbrushed locks when we whizz by the blonde.
I’ve seen that eye before—more than once.
“Stop!”
Rocco locks up the brakes so quickly, I’m winded when my ribs collide with the glove compartment. It’ll teach me for not wearing a seat belt. Ophelia was killed when she was flung out of the windshield of CJ’s ride. If she had been wearing her seat belt, she may have survived their accident.
With my mouth refusing to relinquish my words, it takes me a good three seconds to garble out, “Go back.”
“Back?” Rocco double checks, not willing to risk death if he heard me wrong.
Although certain I’m making a mistake, I scream, “Yes! Now! Go!”
Rocco thrashes the living hell out of the Range Rover’s engine after tossing the gearshift into reverse. We arrive at the bottom of the ramp in an instant, but the blonde is nowhere to be seen.
“Where the fuck is she?” My eyes go wild, seeking the reflection of her stark white hair. “We’re the only people out this way. She couldn’t have just up and vanished.”
My eyes stray to Rocco when he mumbles, “Why go around if you go over.”
When he spots the confusion on my face, he points to a section of the railing a few spots up from where we are. Bright red blood gleams off the silver material.
“Fuck.” I throw open my door and sprint three solid strides to the portion of the blood-stained railing. My lungs react as if they ran a marathon when I spot the battered blonde at the bottom of the ravine. She’s breathing, but only just. “Bring me a rope.”
Nodding, Rocco pops open the back of the Range Rover before sliding out of the driver’s seat. While he does as requested, I remove my suit jacket before rolling up the sleeves of my dress shirt.
I have one sleeve in place when Rocco arrives at my side with a used length of rope. How do I know it’s been used? It’s soaked with blood. Guns, knives, and Molotov cocktails aren’t the Cartel’s only source of weaponry. Everyday instruments can be just as useful in the right hands.
“Secure it to the railing.”
I don’t need to tell Rocco what knot to use. He knows all the tricks of this life, so he’s more than aware the last thing you want is for a rope to snap when your boss sentences a man to be hung.
“I’ll go,” Rocco suggests when I wrap the loose end of the rope around my wrist so it can support my scale down the gorge. I don’t need it to keep me safe, but it will come in handy to hoist the blonde out of the ravine.
A
lthough appreciative of Rocco’s offer, I shake my head. “I want to do this.” I don’t know why, and I’m reasonably sure I’ll regret it at some stage in the near future, but I want to do this.
Rocco nods for the second time before he steps back, so I can swing my leg over the railing. It’s slippery because of the recent rainfall, but I make it down the gorge relatively fast.
“Bring the car back around to the freeway. It’ll be quicker to walk her out than pull her out,” I shout after surveying the area. “I can see the interstate from here. It’s about the same distance as the height of the gorge.”
I wait for the lights of the Range Rover to disappear from above before kneeling at the blonde’s side. A massive crack splits her head from the top of her skull to the middle of her forehead, she has a number of bruises and scrapes on her arms and torso, and her legs are all types of fucked up. The only part of her that looks untouched is her midsection, so that’s what I toss onto my shoulder before hot-footing it in the direction I requested Rocco to meet me at.
The blonde grunts and groans with every step I thump, but it’s better than her being silent. Silent would mean she’s dead. Although she’d probably wish for that to be the case if I lose my daughter for the second time.
Rocco cranks open the back passenger side door. “Is she alive?”
“Just.” I place her onto the back seat of the Range Rover as gently as possible before slipping in next to her.
When Rocco slides behind the steering wheel, I scream for him to go. I’m in two minds, torn between wanting to assess the blonde for injuries and causing her more harm.
Because I acted on impulse instead of the cruelness I was raised by, I wasted precious minutes I don’t have—minutes that could have Fien torn away from me forever.
As Rocco races us back up the exit ramp, he strays his eyes to the rearview mirror. “Wrap your belt around her thigh. If the blood squirting out of her wound is a femoral artery, she’ll bleed out in minutes. Trust me when I say no amount of scrubbing will remove her blood from your interior if you let that happen.”
Under different circumstances, his murderous gleam would be entertaining.
Tonight, it’s anything but.
While yanking my belt through the loopholes of my trousers, I hear my phone buzz. Naturally, I search my pockets.
It isn’t there.
It’s nowhere to be found.
I return Rocco’s uneased gaze when he tosses my phone into my lap. “You left it in your suit jacket.” I haven’t been without my phone for a second over the past twelve months. Not once. It’s my only form of contact with the people holding my daughter captive. I don’t do anything without it being on me. Not a single fucking thing—except this.
Pissed at the fool I’m portraying tonight, I cinch my belt around the blonde’s leg with more force than needed. Blood stops oozing out of the gash in her thigh, but she barely rouses. From experience, I can tell you her chances of surviving are low. When you stop feeling pain, you soon stop feeling anything.
Guilt for hurting her leaves when I read the message Smith sent. Fien’s jet is taxiing toward the runway. My daughter is about to leave the state if not the country.
“Hurry the fuck up, Rocco.”
Hearing the desperation in my voice, he mounts the curb edging the entrance of the private airstrip and drives through the steel security fence instead of going around it. While he creates his own path over rugged, sandy plains, I signal for Clover to move. It’s fucked I have to warn him what will happen if he kills my daughter, but I’d rather him be cautious than go in bombs blazing like he usually does.
The scene replicates a stunt movie when our bumpy ride switches to a smooth one. We’re at the far end of the runway. The jet is heading straight for us.
If playing chicken with twelve thousand pounds of metal isn’t adventurous enough for you, you could always join Clover on the wheel of the jet. He’s hanging on like a real-life action figure, unconcerned about the speed the jet picks up the further it careens down the runway.
“What’s he placing on the jet?” I scream down comms when the placement of a metal box on the underbelly of the twelve-seater plane is quickly chased by Clover’s huge ass rolling across the asphalt. This is usually when I’d plug my ears in preparation for a massive blast. He’s a detonation expert as much as he is an assassin.
My heart stops punishing my ribcage when Smith’s gruff tone barrels out of my phone’s speaker. “Tracking device. Depending on the length of travel Rimi is planning to do, it may hold on.”
Even though he can’t see me, I jerk up my chin, understanding his objective.
Although I’d give anything to be handed a few minutes to deliberate, things are progressing too quickly for that. I have to once again act on impulse.
Fingers crossed it works in Fien’s favor as it did the blonde’s.
“What will happen if I shoot out the window of the jet?”
Fingers fly over a keyboard before Smith replies, “On the ground, nothing much. No guarantees on her staying in the air if she takes off, though. All aircraft have holes in them, and the pressurized system is capable of taking an additional one or two, but if you blow out the window…”
When his words trail off, I fill in the gap, “I could kill Fien?”
“Possibly.” He sucks in a big breath before continuing, “It’s like all aspects of life, Dimitri, you either take a risk and hope you don’t fail or sit back and let someone else control your life.” Even aware his comment was more a personal reflection on his life than our current situation, it still hits me square in the stomach. First, I let my father puppeteer my life, and now I’m letting a weasel of a man like Rimi Castro get the better of me.
This needs to stop.
“Pull over.”
Proof Rocco was born for this life is exposed when he yanks up the parking brake before he tugs on the steering wheel. He brings the Range Rover to a dead stop parallel with the jet still whizzing down the runway.
After grabbing an M16 stuffed behind the seat, I throw open my door, then climb onto the roof of the Range Rover. I’m not surprised when my glare down the scope has me stumbling on Rimi Castro in the pilot seat. He doesn’t trust anyone, not even a qualified pilot. That’s why he does everything himself.
I’m kind of the same, not that I’d ever admit that to anyone, especially not my enemy.
My target is locked and loaded, my finger is hovering over the trigger, but no matter how much my brain screams for me to fire, I can’t. Firing at a moving target takes skill and precision. I have both of those, but what if Rimi pulls Fien into the line of fire a nanosecond after I take my shot? What if I kill her like my father killed my mother? He may not have fired at her, but he did use her as a shield. He is the reason she’s dead.
“Five,” Rocco commences counting down a short time later, warning me that the jet will be in the air by the time he reaches zero.
“Four…”
I recheck my scope before wetting my lips, my mouth suddenly bone-dry.
“Three…”
While inching back the trigger until the clip is close to releasing a bullet, I suck in a final breath. It could very well be my last if my shot shatters the cockpit’s window, and Rimi still takes off. He’s stupid like that. He’d rather die in a fiery wreck than give in.
“Two…”
The vibrations of the jet’s engines overtake the shrill of my pulse in my ears.
“One…”
I take my shot.
My bullet perforates through the cockpit’s windshield exactly where aimed, but I fail to hit my target. Rimi slanted his head with barely a second to spare. His life was saved by less than a millimeter, and I’m too late to take a second shot. The plane’s wheels are no longer on the runway. They’re zooming past my head.
When the jet disappears into the moonlit sky, I discharge the remainder of the bullets from the M16 into the tarmac. Several of them lodge deep into the blistering surf
ace, however a handful ping off the rigid material, coating both my car and face with shrapnel.
The one that skims my cheek enough to scold my skin all but obliterates my last nerve. I’m fuming with anger and willing to take it out on anyone I deem responsible for the loss of my daughter for the second time in my life.
Seemingly having a sixth sense to my inner psyche, Rocco places himself between the back passenger door of the Range Rover and me when I leap down from the roof. “This isn’t her fault.”
“How is this not her fault? If we didn’t stop to pick her up, Fien would be here!”
It’s clear he has no desire to live when he replies, “Carrying her out of the gulley took about the same amount of time for you to line up your shot. If you want to shift the blame here, Dimi, you’re gonna need to look in the mirror.”
He smiles like a sadistic fuck when I dig the barrel of the colt under his ribs. I slant my gun upward, so it’s facing his heart before getting to within an inch of his face.
Most men would piss their pants by now. Rocco isn’t my number two for no reason. “You gonna shoot me, Dimi? You gonna gun down the only man whose always had your back?” He brings his face even closer to mine. “Who stood at your side when you buried Ophelia? Who helped you search for Roberto when he disappeared? Who has offered time and time again to pop bullets into your father’s stomach because you can’t?” The disappointment flaring through his eyes is as obvious as mine. “That was all me, D. Every fucking one of them was me. But if you want to kill me, go ahead because you ain’t touching that girl.”
“I need to kill.” I can’t put it simpler than I just did. The urge is so white-hot, it’s burning me up on the inside even more than the truth of Rocco’s statement. If I don’t kill someone, I’ll turn the gun on myself. That wouldn’t just end things badly for me, it would leave Fien defenseless. The only time women in the industry are seen as valuable is when their womb is ripe with the next leader of the Cartel. Fien is years away from that age. If I die, she dies. There are no guarantees in my life but that.