Merciless

by Sybil Bartel

  “Copy.” Sawyer jogged off.

  “Fuck you.” I coughed, and the slight movement made my head fucking spin. “I can walk.” I’d been shot before. “My legs work fine.”

  “You’re bleedin’ like a stuck pig,” Talerco countered.

  “I’m not gonna bleed out on some rich fuck’s lawn.” I tried to get up. “Just fucking tell me where I need to go to get to her.”

  Talerco looked at me and half his mouth tipped up. “First it was the kid, now it’s her.” He shook his head as he pressed something into my shoulder.

  Pain shocked my system and my vision narrowed. Letting out a roar, I slumped back. “Jesus fuck, Doc. What are you—” My words died as Nathan Fucking Lewis came up behind Talerco.

  Gun drawn, Lewis glared at me. “Where the fuck is she?”

  Talerco stiffened, but he didn’t turn around and he didn’t take his hands off my shoulder. “You shoot me or him, and you’ll never find her.”

  “Where is she?” Lewis yelled.

  “He’s bleedin’ out.” Talerco casually rubbed his hand over his left thigh before reaching for his kit.

  My ears started ringing.

  “Don’t move!” Lewis stepped closer. “What are you doing?”

  “Why don’t you save the Q and A for another time?” Still holding the front of my shoulder, Talerco grabbed a bunch of gauze then leaned over me as he pressed it to the back of my shoulder. “Like when he’s conscious.” Talerco dropped his voice. “Anytime now, Sniper.”

  “Where the fuck is Brookelyn?” Lewis roared.

  My head spinning, my vision going, I still knew my training.

  I was a Marine.

  I was a sniper.

  I knew what the fuck to do.

  Reaching with my right hand for Talerco’s thigh holster, I grabbed his 9mm. Flicking the safety off, I yanked it out of the holster and aimed over Talerco’s left shoulder.

  No hesitation, I fucking unloaded.

  Lewis recoiled as each of my shots struck him square in the chest, but he didn’t fall until a large caliber bullet pierced the left side of his skull and blew out the right, decimating the side of his head.

  His body hit the ground.

  My arm burning, I dropped the 9mm.

  Still holding the gauze over my other shoulder, Talerco tipped his chin. “Nice fuckin’ aim, Sniper.”

  I didn’t respond.

  My vision tunneled and everything went black.

  NEIL DROVE NORTH THROUGH PRICEY beachside neighborhoods. He didn’t say anything, because that seemed to be the type of man he was. No words, all action. I didn’t speak because he intimidated the hell out of me, and I was silently losing my shit over Garrett. I was garnering the courage to ask Neil to call Talon so we could get an update on Garrett when Neil’s cell phone rang.

  He answered the call through the car’s speakers. “Ja.”

  “Christensen, it’s Brad Olsen.”

  Neil didn’t respond.

  “You know why I’m calling,” the man said.

  “I presume nothing,” Neil answered.

  “Cut the bullshit. I’ve got dead bodies all over the fucking place, including one Nathan Lewis with an entire clip unloaded dead center on his chest and his head blown out. You and I both know my agents don’t shoot like that. Not to mention two of your men were spotted carrying a wounded man off and getting in what I can only assume was one of Luna’s vehicles.”

  My heart stopped, and my body froze. Nathan. Dead.

  “I do not have any men,” Neil stated.

  Nathan was dead.

  “You denying you were there?” the man asked.

  Shocked, relieved, numb—I didn’t know what I felt.

  “Why are you not calling Luna?” Neil avoided the man’s question.

  “Because he’s not answering his phone, and one of my agents saw a boat take off after the shooting started, and his description of a seven-foot giant with muscles driving the boat sounded eerily familiar.”

  “I am not seven feet.”

  “I’m not calling to dick around, Christensen. Lewis is dead. His guards are mostly dead. The few alive aren’t talking, and Brooke Barrone is suspiciously missing, even though we have hours of surveillance footage of her on that estate every day for the past year, with her son. So I am calling, and I am asking. Do you know where Brooke Barrone is?”

  “Ja,” Neil answered without hesitation. “She and her son are with me.”

  Sheer panic robbed me of air.

  “May I speak with her,” the man clipped with forced patience.

  “Thirty minutes. The Golden Beach house.” Neil hung up.

  “Who was that?” My voice squeaked.

  “ATF,” Neil stated as he dialed his phone.

  Oh God. “And they want to speak to me?”

  “Ja,” Neil answered before his phone was ringing through the car’s speakers with a new call.

  “Neil Christensen,” a man answered without saying hello. “I’m assuming this isn’t a social call?”

  “The Golden Beach house,” Neil said with zero intonation, like he said everything else. “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Client consultation?”

  “Ja.”

  “Who is it?” the new man asked.

  Neil took another turn and kept driving north. “Nathan Lewis’s wife.”

  I started to protest, but Neil threw me a look that made me snap my mouth shut.

  The man on the phone, however, was not quiet. “Are you kidding me?” he asked, incredulous. “The answer is no. I’m not getting involved in that. I’m not about to—”

  Neil interrupted him. “Nathan Lewis is dead.”

  The man exhaled. “Did his wife kill him?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you need me at your house in fifteen minutes?”

  “She is going to be questioned by ATF.”

  “If ATF wants to question her without her lawyer present, they’ll come up with any excuse to keep me out.”

  “That will not happen.”

  The man hesitated. “And you know this, how?”

  “She is not involved,” Neil lied to the man. “You have ten minutes now.” He hung up.

  I was plenty involved, but Neil intimidated the hell out of me and I was afraid to outright tell him so. “The last thing you told him…. It’s not exactly true.”

  “Are you going to continue to make three weekly money drops?” he asked without hesitation.

  Oh God. I glanced at Mav in the car seat behind me even though I knew he was sound asleep. “Of course not.” Nathan was dead. This was my out. This was what I’d been praying for.

  “Then you are not involved.” Neil glanced at me. “You are a mother. That is all. That is what you will tell the ATF agent.”

  Thinking, I nodded slowly. Could I do that and get away with it? Wouldn’t they have footage of me at the drops and be suspicious? And both Neil and the ATF agent were wrong. “I was never married to Nathan.”

  “How long have you been in residence with him?”

  Since he’d told me to move out of my father’s house before we took the bank deposits. I’d been with him in apartments, motels, hotels, rented houses and then finally the estate he’d bought without telling me. He’d simply told me one day that he had a surprise and brought me to the house, which was already fully furnished and had so many bedrooms, I couldn’t count. He’d said he’d bought it for us and our “family.” Except he knew damn well it wasn’t his baby I was carrying. He was just manipulating me into staying. I’d stormed off to the pool house in protest and never left. For reasons I would never know now, Nathan had never demanded I move into the main house.

  Soul-deep exhaustion weighing me down, I counted the years. “I’ve lived with Nathan since I was eighteen.” My entire adult life. “Nine years.”

  “Then you were his common-law wife.”

  Emotions and thoughts swam in my head, not the least of which was that I would never see
Nathan again. I thought I should feel something about that, something about the way he died, or how it happened, but all I felt was fear at being questioned by the ATF and if I would lose Mav.

  Sinking into despair when I should’ve been relieved that I was finally free, I didn’t pay attention to how long we’d been driving, or register the first, then second gate Neil drove through. But when he pulled up a driveway to a house on the beach and there was already a car parked with a man standing beside it, I panicked. “Who is that?”

  “Your lawyer.” Neil parked beside the man’s car.

  The panic got worse. “I can’t afford a lawyer.”

  “You are not paying him.”

  I looked at the imposing man behind the wheel who could have passed for an ancient Viking on one of those TV shows. “Then who is?” No one worked for free.

  “I am.”

  “I don’t even know you. I can’t ask that of you.” I’d never hired one, but I knew lawyers cost a lot of money.

  “You asked me nothing.”

  I didn’t know if I was infuriated by his cryptic responses or intimidated. “Please. You don’t understand. I’ve spent my entire adult life indebted to someone. I finally have a chance to be free of that. Please don’t pay him on my behalf.” I’d figure something out. Or I’d talk to ATF on my own.

  Neil turned to look directly at me. His eyes were the color of ice, and the angles of his face were so sharp, I was torn between thinking he was handsome and truly terrifying.

  “I am not paying the lawyer in cash. He will do me this favor. I will do him a favor.”

  Oh God. What favor could he possibly do for him? For all I knew, Neil was a criminal who was a thousand times worse than Nathan. “What are you going to do for him?” I dared to ask.

  “He is in a rented apartment.”

  I frowned.

  “I am a contractor,” he added.

  “You build houses?”

  Barely moving his head, Neil inclined his chin. “Luxury high-rises and condominiums.”

  Holy shit. “So you’re going to give him a condo for talking to me?”

  “No. I will sell him one at a price he can afford.”

  Nathan was dead, but my life was getting more complicated by the minute. “Why would you do that for me?”

  Neil redirected his gaze out the front of the truck. “I am not doing this for you.” He pulled the key out of the ignition. “I am doing it for the child.” Pushing his door open, he got out and spared me a glance. “Talk to the lawyer. I will get the child.”

  LIGHT SO FUCKING BRIGHT, IT made my head pound even with my eyes closed startled me. Then I felt myself being lifted and pain shot through my body like a motherfucker.

  “What the fuck?” My eyes popped open and I saw Talerco.

  “Nice of ya to join us, Ivy.” His words were joking, but his face was dead serious as he looked at some fuck in scrubs next to him. “BP dropping, three GSWs in the left shoulder, graze wound on the right. Hemorrhaging, LOC twice.”

  The man nodded and shouted something over his shoulder.

  Bright-as-shit lights everywhere, suddenly shaking like a leaf, I closed my eyes again. “It’s cold as fuck,” I muttered. “And loud.” Goddamn, I needed to sleep.

  “You’re in shock, but we gotcha to the ER, and the doc here’s gonna sew you up,” Talerco drawled. “You’ll have two workin’ arms for your old lady in no time.”

  Oh fuck.

  Fuck.

  Brooke.

  Shit came back.

  All of it.

  I forced my eyes open, and tried to grab Talerco by the shirt, but my arm didn’t move. “Hey,” I barked. “That fuck Lewis. Get his cell phone. He recorded Brooke. He’s got shit on her.” Jesus fuck, we needed his cell phone. “Send Sawyer back.” Where the fuck was Sawyer anyway?

  Talerco shook his head. “That ship’s sailed.”

  “Then call Dane.” He’d get it.

  Talerco’s face shut down, but he pulled his cell out. “The Feds might’ve found it by now.”

  I didn’t care. “Then get it back. Protect her.”

  The man in scrubs looked down at me as something sharp bit into my arm. “Are you allergic to any medications? Do you have any existing medical conditions?”

  Ignoring him, I looked at Talerco. “Get that phone,” I warned. “Make sure she’s safe.” I tried to focus on Talerco, but shit was tunneling again.

  “No allergies, no preexisting conditions,” Talerco answered the doc when he should’ve been making a call.

  “Call… Dane,” I slurred, my mouth suddenly slack.

  Talerco’s lips moved, but I didn’t hear shit.

  Everything went black.

  MY HEART POUNDING, MY NERVES shot, I got out of the SUV and walked toward the tall, dark-haired man standing in front of his car.

  “Mrs. Lewis?” Dark-framed glasses, muscular but also lean, the man held his hand out. “I’m Mathew Barrett.”

  He didn’t look like a Mathew, because he was a dead ringer for Clark Kent. “I’m not his wife. Not legally.” I shook his hand. “Brooke Barrone.”

  Mathew Barrett’s shoulders visibly lowered. “Excellent.” He nodded toward the house. “Shall we talk inside?”

  I glanced at the truck, but Neil was already walking into the house with my son sound asleep on his shoulder.

  I nodded, but I didn’t want to talk to a lawyer, much less the ATF, but the sooner I got this over with, the better. I followed Neil into the house and the lawyer followed me.

  Neil turned on a lamp in the expansive, expensive living room. “I will put him down in the master bedroom.”

  “Please put some pillows around him so he doesn’t roll off.” Mav slept like a rock, and he’d slept with me in the king-sized bed in the pool house so many times, he knew how to get in and out of bed, but just in case.

  Neil barely gave a tip of his chin and disappeared down a hall with my son.

  The lawyer pulled one of those cross-body messenger bags over his shoulder and set it on the dining room table. Pulling out a yellow pad, he sat in one of the chairs and nodded toward one opposite him. “Please, have a seat.”

  “I was one of Nathan’s runners,” I blurted.

  The lawyer set his pen down on his pad and looked at me. “Okay.” Then he didn’t say anything else.

  “That’s it?” He wasn’t going to… lecture me? Turn me in? Tell me I was going to lose Maverick?

  His feet planted apart, he dropped his arms to his thighs and clasped his hands. “Brooke…may I call you Brooke?”

  I nodded.

  “My job isn’t to judge you. My job is to advise you of your legal rights, defend you in court if necessary, and counsel you on your options if a crime has been committed.” He paused. “Or if you’re the victim of a crime. And frankly, I’m thinking the latter. I’ve been practicing in Miami for years, and I am well aware of Nathan Lewis’s reputation.” He indicated the seat again. “Now please, why don’t you sit down and tell me about what’s going on? As I understand it, ATF is going to be here shortly, and I’d like to know what I’m dealing with.”

  “Okay.” I sat down.

  Then I told him everything.

  He didn’t take notes, he asked a few pointed questions about the logistics of the crimes and when I finished, he stared over my head for a moment.

  “Okay.” His gaze came back to mine. “Were you aware at any time where the money you took on your drops was from or where it was going after you dropped it off?”

  “No.”

  “Were you in fear for your life when the jewelry store robbery was committed?”

  “Fear for my life?” I didn’t know how to answer that. Was I afraid? Yes. Did I feel like I had no other options at that time? I didn’t know. I didn’t feel well and truly trapped until he’d cut my wrist, then came for me after I ran away. “Nathan never outright threatened my life,” I tried to explain. “That wasn’t his style. He evaded, he hinted, he made sugges
tive comments.” Inhaling, I pushed my blood-splattered long-sleeved T-shirt up my arm and held my wrist out. “He carved his initial on me.”

  Mathew’s face transformed to pure anger. “And you didn’t feel threatened by that?”

  “I did.” But how did you explain to a man that you didn’t want to be seen as a victim. I wasn’t ignorant, I was victimized by Nathan. I knew that. But I also didn’t tell Nathan I wouldn’t rob those restaurants I worked at. “That’s when I left him. The first time,” I added.

  Mathew let out a quiet curse then picked up his pen and, for the first time, made a few notes. When he was done, he put his pen down, leaned forward and clasped his hands again. “Okay, my advice is that you tell ATF exactly what you know, which is nothing. You ran Lewis’s personal errands, and you stayed out of fear because the one time you did try to leave him, he hunted you down and dragged you back after cutting you. Show them your wrist, tell them you feared for your and your son’s lives and leave it at that.”

  “That’s it?” It sounded too easy. “What about the recording he took on his phone of me talking?”

  “It is being handled,” Neil stated.

  I jumped in my chair and looked over my shoulder. Standing against the wall, as imposing as a silent sentry, Neil stood with his arms crossed. I didn’t even know he was there. “What do you mean?” How much had he heard?

  “The launderer’s phone is being handled.” Neil looked at the lawyer. “It will not be an issue.”

  Mathew nodded, and someone knocked on the front door.

  For the second time, I jumped in my chair, and my hand flew to my chest. Neil went to answer the door, and the lawyer’s hand landed on my shoulder.

  “If at any time you are uncomfortable or don’t want to answer a question, just look at me, and I’ll take over. Okay?”

  I barely had time to nod. A middle-aged, haggard-looking man in a navy blue shirt with an ATF logo followed Neil in.

  “Ms. Barrone?” His voice was stronger than his appearance.

  I shrank in my chair.

  The lawyer stood up and held his hand out. “Mathew Barrett, attorney.”

  The ATF agent shook the lawyer’s hand, then looked at me. “Ms. Barrone, I’m Brad Olsen with ATF.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. “I’ll cut to the chase.” He set the piece of paper in front of me and spun it to face me. “Where did you get the money to purchase a fifteen million dollar estate… with cash?”