His jaw clenches. “You aren’t coming with me. It’s out of the question.”
“This is my fight, too! You aren’t the only one who wants this over and done with.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“And yet you expect me to sit here and do nothing.”
“No, I expect you to sit here and be safe while I go out and get the Egg from your friend.”
“I’ll go crazy waiting, Conor.” My eyes are suddenly stinging with tears. “I swear to god, if I have to stand here and watch you walk out that door one more time…”
He steps closer, bending until we’re eye to eye. His voice is uncharacteristically soft. “Shelby. I will be fine.”
“You don’t know that! Evelson said the Evanoffs left the deli. That they’re in the wind, whatever the hell that means.”
“It means—”
“Oh, I know what it means!” I say crossly, cutting him off. “I just don’t think it’s very specific, seeing as he’s supposedly the master of surveillance. You’d think he’d be able to pin down their location a bit more precisely.”
“The Evanoffs are highly trained at staying off the grid. How else do you think they’ve managed to evade capture after decades on the Most Wanted list?”
“Not dumb luck, I’m guessing.”
“No. Nothing dumb about it. They’re virtually untraceable when they want to be. Like ghosts.”
“Coldblooded killer ghosts,” I mutter.
“Yes. They are. Which is precisely why you’re staying here, where they can’t get to you.”
“But—”
“Shelby.” His jaw is set stubbornly. “I cannot do my job effectively with you out in the open, exposed. Don’t you understand? I won’t be able to think about anything except keeping you out of harm’s way.”
“So you’re saying I’m a liability. That I’m your Achilles heel. Your kryptonite. Your weakness.”
His face softens. Leaning forward, he brushes his lips against mine in a gentle kiss that makes my heart flip over. “I’m saying that I am in love with you.”
The world stops turning.
The air freezes in my lungs.
The muscles in my body go completely rigid.
“What?”
“You heard me,” he says starkly. “I love you. I am in love with you. I have been for months, probably since the first time I saw you on Christmas night, sporting a black eye but still somehow smiling. Sitting on the floor of a dirty dog kennel, celebrating the holiday with a dozen mangey mutts.”
I suck in a breath.
He was there for that?
I’d felt so alone, that night. The whole rest of the world was with family and friends, singing carols and spreading holiday cheer… but I was alone, with nothing at all to celebrate except the ending of my marriage. I sat on that kennel floor replaying my morning over and over in my mind. Paul’s rage and my terror and the shriek of squad cars racing down Merriweather Street.
That was the moment I swore to myself I was done with love for good.
Coincidentally… the same moment Conor looked through a window at a lonely girl on a dirty floor and fell in love with her.
You can’t say fate doesn’t have a sense of humor…
At the time, I thought that was probably the worst day of my entire life. But now that I know it brought me straight to Conor…
I glance up. Right at him.
His eyes are warm. Ultra warm. Practically burning.
He loves me, I think, stunned. Conor Gallagher loves me.
At least… he thinks he does.
For now.
The panic hits so fast, it levels me — stealing away my fragile hopes in an instant. Suddenly, my mind is reeling like a merry-go-round. My heart is pounding far too fast to possibly be healthy. I think I’m going to need a cardiologist at the ripe age of twenty-nine.
Cause of death: sheer and utter panic.
“Shelby.” His voice is soothing; he can totally see me freaking out. “Take a breath.”
My head is shaking, thoughts tumbling over each other so fast it’s a struggle to force one through my lips. “What the hell are you thinking, telling me you love me? You can’t possibly love me. You don’t even know me!”
“I know you.”
“You only think you know me,” I whisper, shaking my head. “There are things you don’t know, things that might change how you feel or—”
“Shelby Quinn Hunt.”
My words dry up. “Y-yes?”
“I know where you grew up and why you got out. I know you like dogs more than cats, especially strays that don’t have homes to call their own. I know you prefer buying your groceries at a Farmers Market stall over a grocery store aisle. I know you have friends who love you, even though you keep them at arm’s length sometimes.” His mouth twists. “I know you can put your legs behind your head in a crazy ass yoga pose — and that it looks even better when you’re doing it naked, while I’m deep inside you and you’re screaming out my name.”
Oh, boy.
I think he’s done, but he’s not.
“I know the way you take your coffee, the places you run to clear your head, your favorite takeout spot. And I know you’re terrified out of your damn mind to hear me saying all these things to you right now, because the last asshole who told you he loved you ended up being the worst sort of liar.”
I’m stunned silent.
Utterly speechless.
“But because I know you…” His hands come up to cup my cheeks. “I also know that, in a few days, when you finish having whatever internal freak out you’re currently experiencing and let everything I just said sink in… you’ll realize that I’m right. That I know exactly who you are. And that I love you for it.”
I’m crying again.
Damnit.
I glare at him through the tears. “You know, if this was just some elaborate scheme to get me to stay here while you go running off to hunt down bad guys—”
His smiling mouth hits mine, swallowing the rest of my sentence. And I don’t even care. Because I’m kissing him back, my chest full of a lightness I’ve never before experienced, and there’s no need to say another word.
He loves me.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hmm?” I blink, still flying high from the drugging effects of his mouth on mine. “Honestly, when you’re kissing me, most of my executive functions stop working…”
He pulls back from me abruptly and walks into the kitchen. His muscles are tight, his senses on high alert.
“Conor, what’s goi—”
“Shh.” He holds up a hand to silence me, listening hard.
The only audible nose is the faint ticking of the clock on the wall, which informs me it’s just past six in the morning. At least, that’s the only sound to my ears. Clearly, Conor’s are more highly attuned, seeing as he reaches down and slowly slides his gun from its holster.
No, no, no.
“Thought I heard something outside.” His voice is almost inaudible.“I’m going to check it out. Lock the door behind me. And if I’m not back in two minutes, get inside the pantry and bolt the steel door.”
I make a small sound of protest, but I’m afraid to speak. Too afraid that, if there really is someone lurking out there, any noise I make might tip them off.
And get Conor killed.
His eyes cut to mine, holding for a long moment. He gives a small nod — as if to reassure me everything will be just fine, before walking to the door. At the last minute, he pauses, turns, and holds up two fingers.
Two minutes.
I nod.
He winks.
And slips outside, into the pink-edged dawn.
Two minutes.
You wouldn’t think they could possibly drag on so long. That one hundred and twenty ticks of the second hand could be so torturously drawn out. Leaning against the kitchen counter, I hold my breath as I wait — my eyes fixed on that thin, jerking dial as it makes its slow
orbit around the clock face.
Forty seconds.
He’s not back.
A minute.
Still no Conor.
A minute thirty.
No sign of him.
The tempo of my pulse kicks up a notch as it nears the two minute mark. I strain my ears, listening hard for any sound outside. There’s nothing — not the rustling of tree leaves, not the rattling of a trash can lid, not the sound of footsteps or — god forbid — gunshots ringing out in the early morning sky.
Two minutes.
Sighing deeply, I turn on leaden feet to face the pantry. The last thing I want to do is barricade myself in there… but even without him here to yell at me, I can feel the weight of Conor’s disapproval looming large over my head.
Bossy, infuriating man.
I’m halfway to the pantry when I hear the soft rap of his knuckles on the back door.
Oh, thank god.
He’s back.
I race across the room to let him in, fully prepared to scold him for scaring the shit out of me for no reason. After I kiss him. With tongue. And maybe a little butt-groping.
What can I say? The man has a killer ass.
“Two minutes on the nose,” I say, smiling as I pull the door wide. The smile falls off my face when I see the man standing just outside, grinning back at me.
“Shelby Hunt,” Lefty says in a faint Russian accent. “We meet again.”
A millisecond later, his hand rears back and slams into my face, knocking me out cold in a single punch.
Chapter Fourteen
GONE HUNT(ING)
When I wake up, I’m in a dark, enclosed space. It takes me a moment to realize it’s the trunk of a car. A car that’s moving — I can hear the distinct rumble of tires against the road beneath me. Where we’re headed, I have no idea.
Probably straight to Alexei Petrov, if I had to guess.
I try to scream, but there’s a piece of duct tape covering my mouth. I try to struggle, but the zip-tie binding my hands together makes that virtually impossible.
I suppose there’s a lesson to be learned in all of this about opening the door for strangers… but my head is pounding too hard to discern what it is. Probably due to the golfball-sized welt on my left cheekbone, swelling more with each passing moment.
Ow.
Lefty really clocked me.
I try to slow my breathing rate, dragging air in and out of my nose as I take stock of my situation. There’s nothing in the trunk that can help me escape. And, even if there were, I probably couldn’t reach it in my current predicament.
I’m barefoot, wearing nothing but a thin pair of yoga pants and one of Conor’s baggy t-shirts. It still smells like him, which might be a comfort if I knew whether he was alive or dead, right now. I’m relatively certain nothing in the world will be able to soothe me until I know the answer to that question.
So help me god, if the Evanoffs laid so much as a hand on him… I will make them pay.
Brave words for a girl tied up in a car trunk.
If I knew how long I was unconscious, I’d have a much better idea of where we might be headed. As it is, I’m cut adrift without any sense of time or place.
Minutes? Hours? Days?
If the latter, I could be anywhere in the world by now. Hell, I could pop out of this trunk and find myself in Moscow. (Okay, so, it’s more likely I’ll pop out and find myself somewhere like Malden or Medford… but the point remains the same.)
My head feels like it’s been detached from my body, put inside a dryer, and set to a sixty-minute tumble cycle. Everything is jumbled up. I try to focus on finding a way to escape, but it’s not an easy task. Between the blow to my face and the not-so-minor fact that, for all I know, the man I adore is lying somewhere in a pool of his own blood… my thoughts are one great sloshing wave of panic, ebbing and receding with each passing moment.
He is not dead, I tell myself over and over as the car rolls onward to destinations unknown. I refuse to even contemplate that possibility.
I spend the remainder of the ride screaming in vain against the duct tape while attempting to kick out the tail lights of the vehicle, hoping I might catch the attention of a passing driver at a stoplight or intersection. All I succeed in doing is wearing out my vocal chords and bashing my bare toes until they’re bruised and bleeding.
After a small eternity the brakes finally engage, slowing the vehicle to a stop. I flinch as I hear the sound of car doors opening, the crunch of boots on gravel as the Evanoffs make their way to the rear of the sedan. The trunk lid springs open and my eyes are immediately flooded by brilliant light from the sun blazing directly overhead. I blink away sunspots as I’m hauled out with all the gentleness of a farmhand tossing a bale of hay and slammed into a vertical position, the soles of my feet jolting hard against hot pavement.
My head is spinning and I’ve barely found my footing when a hand slams into the base of my spine. I careen forward like a rag doll, nearly face-planting onto the ground but catching myself at the last minute. For a second, I remain bent over as the world tilts around me — head bowed low, bound hands hanging by my knees. Hauling breaths through my nose in desperate puffs.
“Let’s go,” Lefty sneers, grabbing hold of my shirt collar and dragging me back into an upright position. “Now.”
“If you can’t walk, I’d be happy to drag you by your restraints,” Righty offers. I notice his accent is slightly thicker than his brother’s. Less polished. I wonder absently if he’s Viktor or Vladimir before a voice from the back of my befuddled brain reminds me it doesn’t matter.
They’re about to kill you, crazy pants. Who gives a crap what their names are?
They drag me away from the car, across the scorching hot pavement. I squint my eyes, trying to see where we are, but every time my head lifts one of them shoves me from behind again, sending me stumbling. I lose track of how many times I almost crash onto my face. They chuckle every time this happens, enjoying themselves quite a bit at my expense.
The little I can make out about my surroundings isn’t very helpful in narrowing down my location. I’m up on some kind of roof, judging by the flat expanse of poured concrete all around me.
The top level of a parking garage, perhaps?
No, that can’t be right. We’re not nearly high up enough for that. And there are no other cars anywhere in sight.
Where the hell are they taking me?
I’d ask, if not for the tape over my mouth. We reach a set of stairs and, evidently, even sociopaths have their limits when it comes to humiliation, because the Evanoffs stop playing their little Shove-the-Shelby game long enough for me to hobble down the steps. I keep my eyes on my feet to avoid falling face first down the flight, noticing belatedly that I’m leaving bloody footprints behind on the cement with each unsteady tread.
Funny. I can’t feel any pain at all.
At the bottom of the stairs we come to a shaded space, completely out of the hot sunshine. It takes me a moment to realize we’re now underground, standing in what appears to be the foundation of a large industrial building site. A project in the early stages of production, from the looks of it. Construction materials are littered everywhere, from cement mixers to excavation machinery to blasting explosives.
I guess this explains where they found the ingredients for their bomb…
Heavy steel beams lay in neat horizontal stacks, the bones of a building’s future skeleton. Fifty feet away, a half-poured elevator shaft rises upward out of the earth. I can’t help thinking it’s the picture perfect place to commit a murder.
No one around to hear your victim scream, and a pre-dug grave so deep no one will ever find the body.
A sudden sound from my left sends my head swiveling around— the sharp rap of approaching footsteps, echoing in the vast space like gunshots. My eyes drag from the source of the sound — a pair of ultra-shiny black shoes — up the navy suit, all the way to the heavily-bearded face of a man whose picture I hav
e studied in so many case file photographs and FBI mugshots, I could probably draw it from memory.
He’s older than his pictures. His beard has gone gray, his dark eyes are slightly sunken in to his shrewd face. But it’s him. Of that, I have absolutely no doubt.
At my back, I hear both Evanoff brothers shifting on their feet, standing a bit straighter as their boss comes to a stop about ten feet away. His eyes are locked on my face, full of cold curiosity.
“Niece,” Alexei Petrov says in an empty voice.
I begin to shiver despite the hundred degree day. Of all the things I expected him to say to me, ‘niece’ was not one of them. Hell, it wouldn’t rank even in the top hundred things I expected him to say. (Mostly because I figured he’d pull out his gun and put a bullet in my head without saying anything, but also because, last I checked, he wasn’t too pleased with either me or his nephew.)
His eyes move past me to the men standing at my back. “Why is she injured, Viktor?”
“Alexei…” Lefty sounds nervous. It freaks me out. I didn’t even think it was possible for someone like him to get nervous. “We knew she would struggle when we removed her from the safe house. Rather than draw unnecessary attention… I thought it best we keep her silent for the journey.”
Alexei says nothing for a long time. He merely stares at Lefty — Viktor — as his nostrils flare with rage, until the man is practically squirming by my side. He physically flinches when Alexei takes a step forward.
“She is married to a Petrov,” he says in a searingly chilly voice. “You do not spill family blood without my permission.”
“I’m sorry, boss. After the beating you had us give her husband, I didn’t think you’d care if we roughed her up a bit…”
“My nephew is a separate matter. He stepped out of line and needed to be punished accordingly. However, I do not punish the innocent without cause.” Alexei’s eyes slide to mine. “I am not a monster.”
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