Chapter 11
“I’m with you until the moment we… get Whitey. Then I’m heading to Sassy’s house. Without you.”
“You’ll be in more danger than I will,” she said. A spike of fear hit her, but she tamped it down.
“She’s right,” Cap said. “We have all the law enforcement and you’re facing explosives, possible traps and an ex-con on your own.”
“Don’t be a wiseass,” Dane said. “I’ll be with Joe and Ronnie and we’ll call in the bomb squad as soon as we can.
“How do we know if Eli is going to be there—or Sassy for that matter?” Shana said.
“Hate to spring it on you,” Dane looked at her. “but we have an ace in the hole.” He smiled. She knew how he loved holding back, just a little something.
“What?” she asked almost blandly.
“We left behind a little surveillance camera to watch the front door and driveway. If and when they leave, we’ll know all about it.
It’s motion activated and will beep. Joe will hold the receiver.
And you can watch out for any action yourselves.
I’m sending you the link to the feed so you can keep an eye on us on your phone, Cap. ” He tapped a few keys.
“What about me?” Shana said.
“You’re going to be disguised as a man. You don’t get to play with a cell phone at the funeral. You can’t do anything to draw attention to yourself.”
Uneasiness hit her. In this plan, once he went to Sassy’s they wouldn’t be working side by side, as partners.
As lovers who protected each other. The understanding seeped through her that she was grateful he’d be at the funeral with her, relieved.
But did she dare say to him that she wanted him at the funeral with her?
That she didn’t trust anyone else to have her back the way he did? No, not here and now with an audience.
She didn’t know what why he was now okay with her staying at his side. Unless he had a secret plan to lock her up somewhere. But even Dane, as underhanded as he’d been to leave her in Boston the way he’d done, wouldn’t resort to that.
Dane had no intention of letting Shana attend that funeral service.
He and Joe would pretend to drive her to Cap’s house to meet him there so she could go to the service with him.
Under the guise of dressing up as one of their elderly neighbors.
But Cap wasn’t going to be at home. Dane knew he’d be at the station.
He planned to put her in plastic cuffs and literally lock her in a closet.
If he was in a kind mood, he’d let her use the bathroom first.
That was the plan he whispered to Joe.
Now all he needed was the balls to carry it off.
Of all the ballsy things he’d done in his life, all the crazy missions, nerve-wracking daring fights, infiltrations and exfiltrations, this was the most dangerously outrageous he’d ever considered.
Because he was putting his relationship with the love of his life on the line. But if he didn’t protect Shana from Whitey Nash and bring the man down before he got to her, Dane would never forgive himself.
On the other hand, if he didn’t let Shana put herself out there in harm’s way, she might never forgive him.
The day started out as suddenly as a lightning strike.
But there was no thunderstorm outside. It was all in Shana’s head, likely brought on by last night’s tequila and Dane’s loudly thrashing phone alarm this morning.
She moved and realized he wasn’t lying beside her, only his phone sat there.
An instant of loss gripped her before all the memory, hurt, and anger seeped back in, dissolving the sense of loss like acid.
There’d been no choice but for her to sleep alongside him, close and intimate on the small cot.
Joe and Ronnie made do with chairs. She might have relegated Dane to the cement floor, but there were no pillows, nothing to soften or warm it.
And though her heart had been hardened and pained enough to make him lie on the hard, cold surface for the remainder of the night, the few hours they had left until dawn, she knew the others might object whether they said so or not.
Besides, they needed Dane to be in top form today. They were relying on him, as always.
That thought stung her into action and she rose, finding Dane brewing coffee at the makeshift table in the dim basement light. He turned, flicking on the overhead fixture as he saw her.
“Where are Ronnie and Joe?” she asked.
“Out foraging breakfast.” He looked her up and down, his expression softening, likely getting ideas that because they’d slept together, no matter how innocently, that meant she’d forgiven him. It was easy to aim a cold blank stare and disabuse him of the notion.
“You look like shit,” she said without feeling, knowing dispassion would unnerve him most. Strangely, it unnerved her too, as the unmistakable passionate anger rose in her.
Beating it back down, she reminded herself that they had a mission this morning and there was no room for distraction.
Too bad Dane, even with a biker bald head and tattoos—maybe even because of the sexy new persona—was a damn big distraction.
“You look like red-hot excitement.” He sounded like he meant it, like he wanted to take her and ignite her until they both incinerated. She shivered.
He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, no sunglasses and no leather jacket, and yet he looked dangerous, strong with overpowering virility. But that thought was probably just her own personal hell, the same hypersensitive physical reaction she’d had to him since day one.
She snorted, then gave him the finger as she went to the table to get a cup of his coffee, avoiding direct contact as she did.
Dane did no more than raise a brow, which was far more noticeable now with his head shaved. She was saved from dealing with the turmoil of loving and hating him right now as Ronnie and Joe bounded down the steps from the direct entrance though the bulkhead.
“It’s crazy out there,” Ronnie said. He ripped off his baseball cap and handed out donuts from the bag he carried.
Joe put a box of donuts on the table without enthusiasm. “Lines everywhere. Cops everywhere. Limos. I think I even spotted some feds,” he said to Dane.
“They all came to celebrate my demise.” He turned to Shana. “Or to grieve your loss.”
“Are we going to be able to get through or will we need to walk?” she asked Joe.
“We’ll take the van, but it’ll help if you know some back roads to Cap’s house.”
“We better leave now,” Dane said. “Joe, you drive. Shana, you’re with us.” He looked at Ronnie and she put a hand on his arm before he spoke.
“Ronnie, you go to Sassy’s and keep your eyes on the situation and keep in communication.”
“Don’t worry about me. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
“I know. But I don’t want anything to happen to you either.
I don’t want anything to happen period. Not until we have Nash and we can get back to you.
We’re assuming Eli will be with her, but even if he’s not, she’s likely still going to be wired or booby-trapped somehow and you need to wait for Joe—”
“I get it. I’ll do what needs to be done.” It was the hardest she’d ever heard him talk. He almost sounded like Dane. She hoped for Ronnie’s sake he never reached that level of stone-cold cynicism.
“We all set?” Dane came up behind her, touching her with his body, harnessing her as if he were a horse wrangler. She withheld her instinct to lash out, to rebel against him. She’d need to save that for when it counted, because she didn’t trust him to be easy about this.
“Let’s roll,” Joe said. “First stop: wardrobe. Cap’s house.”
“He’s not home. Do you have a key?” Joe said as he pulled the van into the driveway of Cap’s boring little house that reminded Dane of the kind of place someone’s maiden aunt would live.
He knew from experience it didn’t get much better inside.
Even if Cap was no maiden aunt, the place sure looked like and old lady had decorated it for him.
There were no lace doilies, to be fair, but it was tidy. Too tidy for Dane’s taste.
“Do you think the neighbors will be suspicious when a couple of bikers pull up in a van and break into Cap’s house?
” Shana asked. She got out of the car and Dane didn’t answer, just took her arm and half dragged her to the back door.
Joe followed on his heels fast and they went inside the screened-in porch where they’d be relatively unnoticed.
“Don’t suppose he keeps a key under the mat,” Joe said.
“No.” Dane pulled the sleeve of the leather jacket over his fist and punched a hole in one of the glass panes in the back door.
“Jesus, did you have to do that? Don’t you have any burglary tools you could have used?” Shana said.
Dane stopped to look at her while his hand reached inside the hole in the glass to feel for the lock on the door handle.
“I’d say my burglar tools are now a melted mass of metal somewhere in the pile of rubble that used to be my house—our house.
” It was cruel to remind her. It was too easy to forget they were homeless when all their focus had been on running for their lives and staying hidden long enough to catch up with Nash.
“I—”
“Forgot?”
“Hard to imagine how, but I guess I did.”
Dane twisted the lock, then the knob, and carefully pulled the door open. He pulled his hand from the jagged hole and winced only slightly when an edge caught his thumb. A shallow slice. Not worth another thought. He led them inside and disabled the alarm.
“Nice digs,” Joe said.
Dane resisted the urge to snort. The kitchen was a slick, state-of-the-art room and the only one in his otherwise old-fashioned house worthy of a state police captain in his opinion.
“Follow me. Cap said there were clothes in the back room.” They moved into the back to a corner room and though he’d kept his voice even, his heart rate picked up.
Because, of course, there were no clothes. There was a nice closet with a lock on it and there were supposed to be some plastic ties he could use. That’s what Cap had promised and Dane hoped he was true to his word because he knew the man was on the fence about Dane’s plan.
Shana followed him and Joe trailed behind. He was to block the exit. Dane had the hard part. Without hurting her, he had to subdue Shana, tie her hands and lock her in the closet.
The exact thing she would never expect him to do. She didn’t think he would go that low.
But he would. Because there was no way in hell, no way while he had a breath, that he would let her face down that bastard nut case.
Especially not since he knew the way she wanted the showdown to go.
She wanted to slice the bastard dead. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but knifing was a messy thing. Too much could go wrong.
Dane’s plan was to shoot the mother f—cker.
But first, he had to take down Shana.
“The clothes are in the closet.” He stepped aside and let her open the door as he slipped the plastic ties from behind the pillow.
Then, without taking a breath, without thinking another thought, as she stood looking in the open door, he grabbed her two arms and wrapped them in the ties before she knew what happened.
“What the hell, Dane?” Her shocked eyes met his and, in that instant, she saw what he was about. Her expression changed from shock to furious hatred.
Though he’d been quick, Shana was no slouch and she whirled, kicking out.
He barely ducked out of the way or she would have caught his balls and destroyed him.
Instead he threw his weight into her, pushing her into the closet, and slammed the door shut.
As he turned the lock, pulse racing, head pounding, he heard her muffled swearing and cursing.
He was okay with that. He deserved that.
But when she stopped the yelling, when he heard the muffled sob, he felt his heart split open, the pain of the chasm making him dizzy.
“Let’s go,” Joe said. His voice was grim but firm.
Dane steeled himself. This was no time to second-guess his decision to lock her away, no time to pay attention to the roiling pit in his gut, the gaping hole in his chest where his heart had been torn from him at the sound of her sobs. No time for any of that.
Dane had no sunglasses and no leather jacket. They were in the van. Only a shaved head and some fading tattoos to disguise himself. Joe walked fast back through the house, but Dane stopped.
“Hold on. I need something.” Something propelled him to go into Cap’s closet and pull a blazer from its hanger and toke a ball cap from its hook.
As he slipped them on, Joe walked past him out the back door.
Dane followed and was about to step through the door when he heard the sound. A loud wood-shattering crash.
Shana.