by Vivi Paige
“Son of a bitch.” Wade threw off help and squirmed to his feet under his own power. He clapped a hand over one half of his bleeding face, glaring at me with his one remaining eye.
“Let me see, Boss,” Heath said, pulling his arm away. Heath winced. “Boss, you need a hospital. Like right now if we’re going to save your sight.”
“Get off of me, you bleeding heart fuck,” Wade said, shoving him violently away. He gestured with an open hand toward one of the others. “Give me a goddamn gun.”
Wade turned a glare on him and sputtered again. “Gun. Now.”
A loaded semi-automatic pistol was placed in his hand, and he levered it my way. “Now, you punk ass little son of a bitch,” he sputtered. “I’m going to shoot you right in your fucking eye, and leave you where your daddy can find you.”
I looked him in his remaining eye, knowing he was dead serious. This was the end. I had figured I didn’t have much of a chance to get out of it alive as soon as we surrendered to Wade.
“All right,” I said. “Fine. You’ve got beef with my father, so I’m a dead man. Fine, just… can you please give a message to Ella from me?”
Heath looked at him with a frown. “It’s a last request, Boss, we should honor it.”
“Fuck you, Heath,” Wade snarled. “No, I’m not going to tell her a damn thing. Now look at me, you little turd. I want you to see your death coming.”
“Why? You didn’t see yours,” came a shrill feminine voice from the shadows. Wade turned his head just enough to take a bullet right between the eyes. He slid to the floor in a heap, and all hell broke loose.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Deryk,” I screamed over the din of gunfire, crouching near a sagging, glassless window. “Over here.”
He scrambled on hands and knees behind a stack of logs for cover and then worked his way toward me. The Coachmen had exploded into action, adopting covered positions and scrambling to avoid the fire from Will’s heavy machine gun. It tore bits of wood off the wall and rained it down in splinters and sawdust onto the already filthy floor.
Joe popped into view at the high aperture where logs used to flow through the sluice, aiming a semi-automatic rifle, which coughed and spat death down at the surprised mercenaries. It gave Deryk just enough time to rush to the open window and vault out. I took his hand and helped him to the ground below, which was a bit of a drop. We scrambled back behind the heavy gray trunk of a gnarled forest giant as answering fire came back at Will and Joe.
“You didn’t go back to my dad?” Deryk asked.
“Will called him, but we sort of went off the reservation.” I grinned. My hand gripped the pistol with a trembling grasp. I realized I had just shot someone, just killed a man stone cold.
“What’s the matter?” Deryk asked, but his voice seemed to come from a long way off. I just stared at the gun in my hand, realizing I had just used it to commit murder. Maybe not murder exactly, but a man was dead, and I was the direct cause.
I’d dreaded this exact thing when I broke up with Deryk back in prep school—being drawn into the dark web of his crime syndicate and changing from the person I was into a cold-blooded killer. I had crossed that line with nary a blink, not even hesitating in the slightest. Deryk’s life had been in danger. I loved him, so I squeezed the trigger. Simple as that.
But now that it was over, and he was no longer under the imminent threat of death, I found I was on the verge of a major breakdown. Deryk took the gun from my shaking hand and kissed me on the forehead.
“I’m sorry, Ella,” he said in a sad voice. “You should never have had to go through this. Never.”
The sound of renewed gunfire startled both of us. Deryk looked back at the log barn, worry creasing his face.
“Go,” I said. “Go help them.”
“But what about you?” he blurted. “I can’t just leave you here.”
“Yes, you can,” I said. “Besides, I’m not alone. I have Gus.”
Deryk laughed, and checked the pistol, loading a fresh magazine with a metallic click. “We’re not keeping that thing.”
I arched an eyebrow and put my arms akimbo. “Excuse me, it’s well after midnight and hours before dawn. You can’t tell me what to do, and I’m keeping my rat.”
“Fair enough.” Deryk paused and then turned back to kiss me intensely upon the mouth. We held each other tightly until Deryk broke the contact.
He crept to the edge of the trunk, keeping his body flush against it. Deryk squeezed off a few shots and then charged to plant himself against the underside of the window. A merc stuck his head out of the window and looked out, causing me to dive to the mossy turf with a frightened yelp. Deryk lifted his aim and shot the man through the chin up out of the top of his head.
I flinched, my belly twisting into knots. Deryk had just killed someone right in front of me for the first time. I didn’t know what to think. With a shock, I realized I wasn’t nearly as put off as I thought I would be.
Maybe it was because I had just killed a man myself. I don’t know. But I just didn’t feel as if what Deryk had just done made him an evil man. The Coachmen had come after me, after us. They picked this fight. What were we supposed to do, just accept it? Just let them shoot us dead?
I felt anger boil up in my belly. How dare these bastards come into my life when it was finally starting to get good? How dare they interfere with my and Deryk’s happiness, which had been hard-fought and harder won?
Deryk moved around the perimeter of the barn in a low crouched walk, eyes glittering like black diamonds in the dark. I watched until he disappeared around the corner and then my gaze seemed inexorably drawn to the ground beneath the window. The man Deryk had just killed had dropped his rifle onto the dirt below. I crawled over and picked it up, my heart pounding in my chest. I knew I probably shouldn’t be doing what I was doing, but the thought of leaving Deryk to face peril alone was too much to bear.
Besides, I was tired of being pushed around. My stepmother, my horrid stepsisters, my boss at work—all of them, all throughout the years since prep school. What Deryk and I did in the confines of our love life was different. I chose to submit to him.
I didn’t choose to submit to anyone else, and I decided I never would again. Deryk was my master, and everyone else was going to be in for a hard lesson if they thought they could control Ella Ashmore.
I slowed my breathing, trying to control my pounding heart. I knew there was likely a safety on the rifle. My fingers searched for it until I located it, and then I peered intently, moving the gun into a shaft of moonlight to check. The safety was off. I wasn’t going to fall into that trap.
But the gun was terribly heavy as I hefted it in my arms. I tried to remember the few things Deryk had taught me about shooting. I knew the stock had to be flush against my shoulder, or the recoil could injure me, perhaps causing a dislocation or fracture of my limb.
I also knew the rifle had a variable setting, but in the dark, with gunfire erupting all around, I couldn’t find how to change it. I figured the burst setting the Coachman had set it on would be sufficient. At that point I still hoped I wouldn’t have to shoot anyone else, but if I needed to in order to save Deryk’s life, or the lives of his friends, that’s what I was going to do.
I followed Deryk’s path around the barn, moving in a similar low crouch. I sighed at the sight of my torn, filthy, and disheveled dress. I wouldn’t be wearing it ever again. I came around the second corner and spotted Deryk kneeling behind a barrel glazed with rainwater.
“Ella?” he hissed as I crept up behind him. “What are you doing here—and where did you get that?”
“What’s the situation?” I asked with a grim stare. Deryk stared back for a long moment before his face split in a wide grin.
“All right, fair enough.” He pointed across the dirt expanse separating the barn from the tree line. “Joe and Will are pinned down behind that copse. Coachmen are moving in to flank them from both sides.”
“Then let’s give them something else to worry about.” I peered intently into the gloom, and I spotted shadowy figures creeping slowly toward the trees that sheltered Will and Navajo Joe. I set the barrel of the rifle on top of the wooden barrel—barrel on barrel action, I thought with a nigh hysterical giddiness—and then took aim and squeezed the trigger.
My first few shots were well-aimed, ripping into the woods and eliciting screams of surprise and pain. But as the gun continued to cough and spit, it grew harder to control. I fought in vain to keep it from moving up into the air, raking a line of fire up the roughhewn bark of a forest titan.
“Let go!” Deryk shouted above the din of battle. “Let go of the trigger.”
I released the trigger and regained control of my rifle. Shivering, yet blinking sweat out of my eyes and drenched in the salty stuff, I peered into the woods. The shapes were no longer visible.
“Did I get them?” I asked.
“I don’t know, at least one of them took a few rounds,” Deryk said. “Want to trade?”
I sighed and handed him the rifle while he returned my pistol. “Don’t go thinking you’re fucking Rambo, Deryk.”
“I’ll be careful.” He braced himself on the barrel, took aim, and fired. His burst lasted longer than mine, sending more accurate shots downrange, but eventually he succumbed to the heavy recoil, his barrel moving inexorably upward.
“Let go of the trigger,” I shouted.
Deryk did so and then turned a sympathetic, sheepish grin at me. “It’s a lot harder to think of that in the heat of the moment,” he said with a chuckle.
“See? Did you get them?”
“I don’t know,” Deryk replied. He peered out into the darkened copse where Joe and Will allegedly still hid. “Will? You still alive? How about you, Joe?”
“Don’t give away your position, kid,” Joe said, coming out of the trees with a rifle balanced over his shoulder. Blood flowed from a wound on his forearm.
“Did you take a round, Joe?” Deryk asked.
“Yeah, but it went clean through. Just another scar for my collection.”
Will eased out of the trees, shoving the red-haired Heath in front of him. “That’s all of them,” Will said. “Except this chicken shit, who surrendered.”
“Be nice to Heath,” I said. “He’s all right.”
“He was one of your kidnappers,” Deryk countered.
“And he gave me water, talked to me, and helped put me at ease. Stop busting his balls.”
Deryk shrugged and sighed. “He can live as long as he cooperates.”
“You going soft on me, boy?” Joe asked.
“Come over here and find out,” Deryk snapped. “What were you idiots thinking, bringing Ella along? She could have been killed.”
“She did pretty good from where I’m standing,” Joe said. “She’s got a higher kill count than you.”
Will laughed, shrugging Deryk’s way in apology when the latter gave him a black look. “He’s not wrong, Deryk.”
“Just one question,” Deryk turned to Heath. “Who hired you?”
“Agatha Ellis-Ashmore,” Heath said quickly. “Boss, that is, my former boss normally doesn’t work on commission, but he made an exception to get back at the Maynes.”
“You see how well that worked out for him.” Will’s tone was grim.
“I do. I do. I promise, I’m not going to mess with y’all ever again.”
Joe stared hard at Heath and then moved over to him. I cringed, fearing the big Indian would throttle or kill my former benefactor, but all he did was grab his chin and turn his face from the left to the right.
“Who was your momma, boy?” Joe snapped.
“Uh, what business is that of—”
Joe squeezed harder, smooshing Heath’s cheeks.
“That is, I’m only too happy to tell you,” Heath said in a garbled voice. “Melinda Powers.”
Joe let go of him and turned a baleful eye on Will and Deryk. “You might want to shoot this asshat right now,” he said. “Save us all a heap of trouble later.”
“Why is that?” Deryk asked, cocking his head to the side.
“Leave him alone, damn it,” I growled, but no one seemed to listen.
“Take a good look at his face,” Joe said, roughly turning Heath about. “See the bridge of his nose? The folds at his eyelids?”
“Son of a bitch,” Will sputtered.
“What’s going on?” I asked, suddenly confused.
“Years ago, Lucian had an affair—one of many—with a little redhead named Missy Powers. Don’t you get it? This guy is Deryk’s brother.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“What do you mean, he’s my brother?” I blurted, looking from Heath to Joe.
“It’s true, Deryk,” Will said. “I remember my ma talking about Missy. She and Uncle Lucy were pretty tight for a while.”
“So what if he is my brother?” Deryk said. “Doesn’t mean I owe him anything, and Dad neither.”
“The legal system might have some say in that,” Will countered.
“We own the legal system,” I snapped.
“It’s not as cut and dried as all of that. Yeah, the firm has a ton of influence, but if redhead here passes a genetic test, he might be able to sue for financial compensation.”
“I’m not like that,” Heath objected. “Look, man, I don’t know if I’m your brother and I don’t care. I just want to walk away from this alive. That’s it. That’s all. I never had a fortune and I don’t need one.”
“Maybe we should kill him,” I glowered, but Ella stepped protectively in front of Heath with her arms outstretched.
“Don’t touch him,” she growled. “If he is your brother, isn’t that all the more reason to keep him alive? Blood is thicker than water. Right?”
I sighed, deflating as my anger fled from my bones. I had no real grudge against Heath, and there had been enough bloodshed that night. Besides, it wasn’t my call.
“We’ll call my father,” I finally agreed. “See what he wants to do with Heath.”
“Let’s get back to the cottage first, where we can use Wi-Fi,” Will said. “My phone is struggling to find a signal.”
“That’s what you get for using a Steve Jobs product,” Joe cackled. “My ‘droid is working just fine.”
“You’re really snobby about your phone for an Indian, Joe,” Will said ruefully.
“Quit stereotyping. Didn’t that LCD television monitor work out a lot better for you than that outdated plasma screen?”
“Well, yes, it did, but you don’t have to be so smug about it.”
Ella and I shared a laugh as we walked hand in hand behind the tiny entourage. Now that there was no longer a threat from the Coachmen, I was more alert for another bear. I saw no sight of any, though I smelled their spoor everywhere.
Besides, the noise generated by Joe and Will’s argument was more than sufficient to keep any of the hairy beasts at bay, surely.
When we got back to the cottage, we ran into Jimmy the Bull, and surprisingly, Lucian. I stiffened, my mouth gone suddenly dry, when I met his gaze. He had that effect on everyone, including me.
Even Joe seemed to diminish a little in his presence. But you know who didn’t? My little Ella. She met Lucian’s gaze spark for spark and didn’t waver an inch. They remained in a gaze-locked stare-down for several long moments before Lucian smiled softly and gave her a subtle nod.
He likes her, I thought incredulously. He’s never liked any of my girlfriends.
“Deryk,” Lucian said, giving me the once-over as he rose to his feet and buttoned his blazer closed. “Will, Joe… and you must be Ella. Nice to meet you. I’m Deryk’s father, Lucian.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you.” She took his proffered hand and shook it. “Nice to finally meet you.”
“Sorry it took so long. I was pretty busy when you guys were in school.” Lucian gripped her hand in both of his own. “But belated is better than never. Welcome to the fa
mily. You popped your cherry. Didn’t you?”
I gaped in astonishment and glared at my father. “Dad!” I said. “What the hell?”
“Calm down, Deryk, I didn’t mean what you obviously think,” Lucian said, turning back to Ella. “What I meant was, little Ella has taken a life, and not long ago. Am I right, or am I right?”
Ella nodded, her face growing grim.
“Don’t worry,” he said, patting her hand. “It gets easier with time. If it’s them or you, you might as well make it them. Am I right, or am I right?”
“You’re right,” Joe pursed his lips. “What do you want to do with this individual?”
Joe shoved Heath forward a few stumbling steps, and the red-haired man licked his lips nervously. “Uh, hi,” he said, waving.
“Who is this?” Lucian peered intently with a narrow-eyed gaze into Heath’s face. “It’s not like you to take prisoners, Navajo Joe. Are you getting soft in your old age?”
“Ha, you wish. Besides, I don’t get old, I get younger.”
“His mother is Melinda Powers, Uncle Lucy,” Will interjected.
Lucian’s gaze widened, and then he moved in very close to Heath. Like Joe, but more gently, he turned his face from side to side. “Son of a bitch,” he said softly.
“Hey, nobody’s confirmed nothing. All right?” Heath shrank back as much as the looming Joe would let him. “I don’t want no trouble. I don’t want nothing at all, except to walk out of here in one piece.”
“You should kill him now, Lucian,” Joe said flatly. “It will only cause you trouble if you don’t.”
“I loved your mother, kid,” Lucian said. “But Joe is right. If I don’t take care of you now, it could bite me in the ass later.”
“Stop,” Ella said, stepping between Lucian and Heath. “Don’t kill him. Please.”
“He was one of the crew who snatched you right off the doorstep, doll,” Lucian said with an arched eyebrow. “Why are you so keen on showing him mercy?”
“Because he showed me mercy and humanity,” Ella said. “Without him, I might not have survived the kidnapping. Well, him and Gus.”