by Lisa Childs
That muscle twitching in his cheek, Nick shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how much time we waste,” he said. “I’m not putting you at risk.”
“With all of you there—” she gestured at the room crowded with bodyguards “—I won’t be at risk. I’ll be safer there than I would be here.”
“She’s right,” Nikki said.
“You’re just saying that because you want to go, too,” Logan accused her. He glared at Nick. “I told you that you could work for me only as long as you respected that I’m the boss. You can’t hand out assignments.”
“Nikki works for me,” Cooper said. “And I’m fine with Nick giving her a job.”
Logan cursed, but they all ignored him. Annalise was glad she wasn’t the only one they were ignoring.
Nikki spoke again. “Annalise is right about needing to be there. We can’t risk the Iceman finding that gun before we do. We can’t waste any time getting to it.”
Annalise reached out and grabbed the other woman’s hand. From the first moment they’d met, they had bonded. That hadn’t been just because they’d fought off armed carjackers together. It was because they understood each other so well.
Nikki smiled and squeezed her hand. And they both turned toward Nick.
Annalise couldn’t get through to him, but Nikki had. He released a ragged sigh and nodded. “Okay, but the priority is making sure that Annalise is never in any danger.”
She had gotten what she’d wanted. She was being included. But Annalise didn’t feel any triumph. Only trepidation.
Had she done the right thing?
Or had she put her life and her baby’s at risk?
* * *
Cooper spared a glance at Gage, who sat in the passenger seat of the SUV Cooper was driving. They were behind the one carrying Nick, Annalise, Nikki and Candace. Logan and Parker were in the front. Milek and Garek brought up the rear. He wasn’t certain which one of them was driving. They’d been arguing about it up until the moment they had all left the condo.
And as heavily as rain had begun to fall, he couldn’t see them clearly in his rearview mirror.
The convoy to Chicago brought back memories for Cooper. He could imagine the memories it brought back for the soldier who’d just recently returned from hell. But Gage was back now. Even before the Kozminskis had radioed about the tail, Gage had spotted it.
He glanced over at Cooper now. And there was fear in his eyes. But it was the healthy kind of fear. The kind of fear that was for the present, not for the past that couldn’t be changed. Gage was worried about his sister—not about the soldiers he hadn’t been able to save.
At the time, it had sounded like a good idea to bring Annalise along to search the storage units. But now...
Now she could wind up a civilian casualty. Cooper felt that worry himself and saw it in her brother’s eyes. But Gage was 100 percent again, which was a damn good thing, because they would need every team member fighting at full capacity.
They were being followed from River City to Chicago, but it wasn’t just one vehicle. There were several.
They were going into war.
Chapter 24
Nick had spent so much of his life pushing Annalise Huxton away from him. He should have been an expert at it by now. But when it had mattered most, he hadn’t pushed her away. Now she was in danger.
“What’s the plan?” Logan asked him, his voice emanating from the radio. Despite all his bluster about being the boss, he was willingly handing over the responsibility to Nick now.
Her brown eyes wide with shock, Nikki stared at him. Logan had surprised her.
But he hadn’t surprised Nick. Logan knew that this was Nick’s call. The woman he cared about—the woman who carried his unborn baby—was in danger. It was Nick’s responsibility to keep them safe.
If only he hadn’t put them at risk.
Now that he had, he needed to figure out how to mitigate that risk and keep them safe.
Annalise sat in the backseat with Candace. The female bodyguard had her weapon out, ready to fire, but Annalise didn’t look reassured. She’d heard everything that had come through the radio. She knew they were being followed. She knew she was in danger. Her fear was apparent in how shallowly she breathed, in how pale her face had become.
She should never have experienced the kind of fear she was feeling. She wasn’t like him or Gage. She hadn’t chosen a life of risk.
But she had chosen him. He wanted to ask her why. It was something he’d never asked her before. Why did she love him? He’d never given her any encouragement—until that night they’d made love. He’d never given her any hope that his feelings would change, that he could actually have feelings.
Why had she persisted?
Why hadn’t she given up on him?
He had—long ago. He’d given up the hope of ever having a family, of ever feeling as if he belonged somewhere. Now he had a family. They might not have embraced him at first, but they were there for him now. When it counted...
When it would keep Annalise safe.
“Do we separate and divide them?” Logan asked.
That would divide them, as well. Nick was used to going it alone. Even as an FBI special agent, he hadn’t often worked as part of a team. He’d gone undercover on his own to sniff out corruption in police departments across the nation. That was how he’d wound up with the assignment to clean up River City PD—because he’d been doing it for years.
Alone.
That was how he’d lived his life. Or had tried.
But Annalise had always been there. No matter how much he had complained, he hadn’t really minded. He’d actually appreciated her attention—her love.
He couldn’t lose her now.
“No,” Nick replied. “There’s safety in our numbers. We stick together.”
Nikki smiled her approval. She was in danger, too—just like her other brothers had feared she would be. But there was no fear on Nikki’s face. Like Candace, she had her gun out, grasped in a steady hand. She was ready.
Nick wasn’t. He didn’t want to lose Annalise. He didn’t want to lose anyone else, either. And if there were as many men following them as Milek and Garek had warned, there was a very good chance there would be a confrontation.
A shoot-out.
With that much gunfire, there were bound to be casualties—on both sides.
* * *
The bulletproof vest weighed heavily on Annalise’s shoulders—along with the burden of guilt. If only she had listened to Nick.
If only she had gotten rid of all of his mother’s things.
No one would be in danger. Now everyone was—everyone Nick cared about—because of her. She could tell that he cared for them. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to. After all, he was Nick, always so determined to be a loner.
But there were no loners in the Payne family. They all stuck together. Like Nick had said, there was safety in their numbers.
Yet Annalise didn’t feel safe—even with the bulletproof vest. It hung low, covering her belly. The baby would be safe from a bullet. But if Annalise took one in the head... The baby might not survive without her. The risks of his being born this early were too great. He moved restlessly inside her as if he felt her fear.
She was scared, not just for herself but also for everyone else. Milek and Garek were posted at the storage unit gate so the vehicles following them couldn’t get inside. Logan and Parker were nearby to back them up. Gage and Cooper stayed in front of the storage units Annalise searched with Nick and Nikki and Candace.
The rain was falling even harder now, beating down on the metal roof of the unit. Would they be able to hear if someone snuck up on them?
“There’s so much stuff,” Nikki murmured.
Annalise felt compelled
to apologize again. “I shouldn’t have kept everything.” But she hadn’t known what Nick might want, what could have meant enough to his mother that it would help him remember her.
She’d wanted him to have some fond memories of the woman who’d given birth to him. But she realized now that there were few fond memories to be had of Carla.
“What could she have hidden a gun inside?” Nikki asked the question.
Annalise had no idea. She knew what would stage a house, not what would hide a weapon.
“A book. A statue. A canister,” Nick replied. “Something out of character for Carla to own.”
“How is owning a book out of character?” Nikki asked.
“The woman never read,” Nick replied. “And she wouldn’t have kept anything that could possibly have been of value.”
“Are you sure she didn’t pawn the gun?” Candace asked. She stood at the door to the unit, staring outside as if looking for any sign of danger.
Maybe that was why no one had been able to find the gun—because it was gone.
“No,” Nick and Nikki answered in unison.
“It would have showed up in the system again,” Nick said. “The kind of people who buy guns from pawnshops use them, usually in the commission of a crime.”
Nikki snorted. “Yeah. And I checked records. Nothing matching its ballistics has been used in over thirty years.”
“So where would she have hidden something for thirty years?” Annalise wondered.
A book. Like Nick said, Carla had never read. But there had been a collection of books. A whole series about famous criminals. Annalise had thought they were Nick’s, something he might have had to read when he was in Quantico. But he had never returned home after leaving for the Marines. So she realized now the books wouldn’t have been his.
What had she done with them? She’d taken them out of the house shortly after Carla had died because she’d thought they were Nick’s and she hadn’t wanted them to go into probate in case Carla hadn’t had a will.
And yet Carla had had a will. Her lawyer had been holding that letter for Nick to be read after her death. That letter had given him a family.
There had been another letter, too—one they’d learned had been sent to the prison where Darren Snow had been serving out the last of his sentence. Maybe that letter would take away Nick’s family since it had sent the Iceman after Nick. And the Paynes had risked their lives for him and her.
She heard the gunfire...
It was even louder than the rain hitting the roof. It sounded as if it was near the gates.
“We have to get out of here,” Nick said. He grabbed her arm with one hand. His weapon was out in the other.
But Annalise resisted. “I know where it is,” she said. “I can find it.”
She’d put those books in the storage unit that contained her personal things. Her condo was so small that she had no place in it to store her holiday decorations and out-of-season clothes. She used one of the units for all that. It had given her a little spark of hope to see what she’d thought were Nick’s possessions among hers, as if they would one day be together.
Now she doubted that would ever happen, even if they survived. Nick would never stop running from her. He was trying to run now toward the SUV parked outside the unit. But once they cleared the door, Annalise jerked from his grasp. If it hadn’t been raining, she probably wouldn’t have been able to slip free of his hold.
She had the keys to all the units in her hand. She had to find the one that opened the unit on the end. Her hand was shaking badly, and the keys were getting wet like her hair and her skin and her clothes. She dropped the keys on the pavement. “I need to open—”
“There’s no time,” Nick said.
The gunfire grew closer now. The men had made it past Milek and Garek. Beneath the bulletproof vest, her heart pounded wildly with fear.
Nick was right. There was no time.
Then Candace and Nikki began to fire their weapons. Where were Gage and Cooper? Their SUV was still parked at the end of the row. The back door opened.
Nick swung Annalise up in his arms and rushed toward it. “We need to get you out of here.” But when he neared the SUV, it wasn’t Gage or Cooper who leaned out to grab her.
The man’s head was bald, his blue eyes icy with hatred. “Where’s the gun?” he asked.
Nick held up his own barrel pointed toward the Iceman.
But the killer laughed and pressed the barrel of his weapon against Annalise’s temple. “Try it,” he dared Nick. “And she’s dead before she and her baby hit the ground.”
That muscle twitched in Nick’s cheek. “We didn’t find it.”
The Iceman’s gun cocked. The sound echoed inside Annalise’s head. “That’s too bad.”
“I know where it is,” Annalise said. She wasn’t fighting just for her life. She was fighting for her son’s. He deserved a chance.
He deserved a life.
She couldn’t fight like she had the day the men had stolen her car. If she tried to claw at this man’s face, he would just kill her. He was that cold. She had to reason with him instead. “Let me get it for you.”
He didn’t loosen his grasp on her. Despite how wet her clothes and hair were, he held her easily. He was strong, so strong that he jerked her fully inside the SUV with him, onto the backseat. Now her body blocked his. He was using her as a shield as more bodyguards closed in behind Nick. Shots continued to ring out—bullets pinging off metal, shattering glass.
“No, he’ll get it for you,” the Iceman said. “He’ll get me the gun in exchange for your life.”
“I don’t know where it is,” Nick said.
“My unit,” she told him. “Number fifteen.”
“Find the gun,” the Iceman said. “And call me once you have it.”
“I don’t have your phone number,” Nick said.
“You have hers.” He reached for the passenger door to pull it closed.
“You won’t get out of here alive,” Nick threatened him.
“Then neither will she,” he said.
Tears stung Annalise’s eyes. But she refused to shed them. She refused to let either this man or Nick see her fear. She had to send Nick a message about where to find the gun without telling him exactly where it was.
If she blurted out that it was in the books, the Iceman might just kill them all right there and find it himself. He had brought enough men with him to outgun the bodyguards. But if it would take a little longer for him to find it, he wouldn’t risk it. Even now she could hear sirens in the distance.
The police were on their way. He wouldn’t risk sticking around for them to arrive.
“He’s a killer,” she told Nick, hoping he’d get the message. That he would look in those books about serial killers for the gun. “He won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”
The Iceman chuckled. “Listen to your girlfriend,” he advised Nick as he pulled the door shut.
“Drive!” he ordered the man in the front seat.
Where was Cooper? Where was Gage?
Had she gotten her brother back just to lose him here, when he’d been trying to protect her? She closed her eyes as grief threatened to overwhelm her. There had been too many shots fired. Someone had gotten hurt.
Or worse...
* * *
Darren clasped her phone in his hand. Why hadn’t it rung yet?
“What the hell is taking him so long?” he asked.
“Maybe he couldn’t find it,” the woman suggested, her voice quavering with fear.
She was smart to be afraid. She probably knew that even if Nicholas Rus brought him the gun, there was no way she was going to live. He couldn’t leave a witness like he had before.
He should have killed Carla thirty-
two years ago. Then he wouldn’t have spent half his life behind bars. He wasn’t going back.
There was no way in hell he would return to hell.
“You told him what unit it was in,” Darren said. “He should have found it by now.” And he probably had. The guy had a reputation for being squeaky-clean. He’d probably turned the damn gun over to the FBI.
Once they ran ballistics and DNA and whatever the hell else they could get off evidence nowadays, they would be able to link him to more murders. A lot of murders...
It wasn’t like the old days when all it had taken to convict someone was an eyewitness. A jury wanted solid evidence. The gun was it. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he told the driver. And he wasn’t talking about the alley where they’d parked the stolen SUV. He wasn’t talking about Chicago.
He needed to get the hell out of the country—to somewhere without extradition.
“What about her?” the driver asked.
He lifted the gun to her head again. She flinched as he pressed the barrel against her temple. “I’m going to kill her.”
And once she was dead, he would kill the driver, too. He couldn’t leave behind any witnesses anymore.
Chapter 25
Why the hell wasn’t the Iceman answering Annalise’s phone? She’d had it on her. She always had it on her. While she’d left her purse in the SUV, the phone hadn’t been inside. She must have put it in her pocket while they’d been searching the units.
Had Darren Snow given up waiting for him? It had taken Nick too long to get rid of the police, who’d showed up to investigate the gunfire, and find the gun. He should have realized what Annalise was telling him about the killer—about the trigger.
The gun was inside the books he’d found in her storage unit. The series of serial killer books had been out of place among her cheerful assortment of decorations and clothes. But it had taken him a few minutes to realize that was where she’d meant him to look.
Hell, she could have just told him. But she’d probably been worried that the Iceman would kill him then and just find the gun himself. She would have been more concerned about Nick’s life than her own.