Chapter 3 Eian
EIAN
“Get the parabolic microphone,” I tell Mac as soon as Rory parks the SUV.
We’re one block away from the warehouse, but it’s in our line of sight, and I know we need to get ears in there before we do anything.
I need to find out if they even have this Colby.
It takes Mac only a couple of minutes, but then the sharp voice of a man comes through.
“Stop fucking lying,” he shouts, and the sound of a punch then a grunt follows. “Who do you work for?”
“No one,” a raspy voice answers, but it’s clearly a man. “Please, just tell me what time it is.”
Rory looks at me, confusion all over her face, and I don’t blame her. In all my years of experience in interrogation, no one has ever asked me what time it is.
“Why did he ask about the time?” Mac mumbles to himself from the back seat.
I grunt in reply because of course we don’t know. All we know about whoever this man is, is that he’s made sure Rory, Mac, and on occasion Blake, have gotten home alive, so I owe it to him to save him. Otherwise—
“He’s probably asking because of something to do with his daughter. Duffy did say he has a daughter, right?”
“That’s true,” Rory mumbles.
“Why?” Another voice comes through the speaker. “Is your pal coming to pick you up?” I recognize that voice. It’s hard to miss decades of smoking, and Di Leo—Enzo Sr—has a very distinctive voice.
“I don’t have any friends.” The raspy voice sounds tired now.
The sadness is hard to miss, though, and my heart squeezes at that.
I haven’t lost all my emotions to this life no matter how hard I’ve tried—I’m not gonna let any but anger and rage ever control my actions again, though. That ship sailed when I was fourteen.
“I’m done with this bullshit. You two make sure no one’s looking for this rat. Have a good night,” Di Leo says, and finishes with a mocking tone that puts me on edge.
“Go lock up, Tony,” the man from before says.
“I knew one of you was named Tony.” Since the last word is barely audible, I suspect Colby—if he even is Colby—is just about to pass out, or has already passed out.
I grab the binoculars and see Di Leo exit the warehouse, then another man comes jogging out. They talk for a minute, and then Di Leo gets in his car—I make a mental note of the licence plates—and the other man goes back inside.
“Let’s do this,” I mumble.
Rory turns on the car as soon as Di Leo drives off, and as she drives slowly, I take the bulletproof vest from Mac then check my two guns.
We have to wait for Rory to get ready as well, and then we head for the door.
I try it but of course Tony did lock up, so I make room for Mac to take care of that, and when he’s done picking the lock, we move in.
Our steps silent, we move methodically through the isles between crates to the back where only one door is closed.
It opens before we can get there, and the look of shock and surprise on the Italian footsoldier would be funny at any other time, but before he can reach for his gun, I pull the trigger and get him right in the chest.
Another man comes out, his hold on his gun sloppy as hell, and Rory drops him with a bullet in his left eye.
We keep our steady pace, because we can’t be sure there aren’t any more men here, but I do sneak a glance at the crates and see three that are empty but very dirty on the inside.
On my right, Mac checks each room quickly, and my jaw tightens when we finally get to the two dead bodies and I get a good look inside the room.
The man is only in his underwear, and his face looks deadly pale in the ominous artificial lighting of the room.
This time I do quicken my steps, and I fall to my knees next to the metal chair.
I first check for a pulse on his neck. It’s not the strongest but it’s there, so I put both guns in their holsters and grab the knife from my ankle, cutting the ropes around his ankles first, then the ones around his wrists.
The way his hands pinken tells me all I need to know, so I begin massaging them to get the circulation going.
As I do, I finally get a good look at his face.
Both eyes are swollen shut and there’s a deep cut on his lips, and another one on the bridge of his nose. Since it still looks straight I don’t think it’s broken, but the way his stomach and left side is bruised, I doubt that’d be the most concerning thing anyway.
“All good,” Rory says, her voice matter of fact as she looks at who I hope is Colby.
“Let’s go, then.” I put his limp arm around my shoulders, get a good grip across his back and under his knees, then I stand again. “Watch my back,” I tell Mac. And if my voice sounds angrier than usual, well, I have the reason in my arms, don’t I?
We don’t waste time cleaning up after ourselves, but just walk out the way we walked in—Mac even closes the door behind him—and when I get to the car, it’s to see Rory moving the middle seats so I can maneuver around them and put Colby down in the back seat.
I breathe deeply, trying to calm the adrenaline of the mission coursing through me. For some reason my gaze is drawn down to the man in my arms. The peaceful look on his face shifts something inside me.
The irritation vanishes as I watch him breathe deeply, but even the thought of that shift vanishes when his mouth opens, and then so do his eyes, barely a movement, but it’s there.
Then he groans. “Maggie. Misss Murphy.” He can barely speak properly. “Please,” he begs, and the worry and heartbreak in that single word is enough to turn that stirring into a hurricane inside my chest.
“What did you say?” I ask him. Suddenly I’m desperate to make things right, to help him.
“Apartment. Take me.” That’s barely a sentence, but his words come out clearer that time.
“We need to get him to the clinic, Boss. Look at his fucking face,” Mac says, still standing guard next to me.
“No,” Colby protests, his voice sounding pained. “Maggie.”
“Who the fuck is Maggie?” Rory asks.
“I guess it’s his daughter,” I mumble, still not looking up from his face. “Take a picture and send it to Duffy so we can make sure it’s him. We need his fucking address.”
Rory climbs down from the SUV, already taking her phone out of her leather jacket, so I go right in and set him down on the leather seats. The soft breath he lets out tells me he passed out again.
I take his head in my hands and move it gently to make sure it’s not crooked, and then stare at that bruised lip. The way it curled when he was talking, so worried about his daughter, isn’t something I see too often.
I’m faced with suffering every day no matter how much I try to make sure my men and their families have good lives. There’s no escaping it in my world, not when I’m still carrying out Da’s last order.
But the strength it must’ve taken for him to speak, to say his daughter’s name and beg us, I don’t have a single doubt that he loves her. Respect for him grows in my gut, and I can’t shake it off. There’s not a lot of people I admire, but I—
“Duffy says it’s him,” Rory says, and that gets me moving again. I can’t keep staring at him.
Colby.
Who the fuck is he?
Colby
“I told you, your pet is fine, he just needs to sleep it off. Like you.”
I’m really tired of waking up not knowing where I am or who is around me. It’s honestly getting boring.
I manage to open my left eye, just slightly, and look around frantically searching for Maggie.
When I find her, relief and happiness flood my entire system, but then . . .
Well, it’s him.
In a wheelchair.
Holding my daughter.
“Wha—”
“Shit, I told you to be quiet,” he snaps at someone standing behind him. I don’t bother looking up to find out who. I need to stay fucking awake this time so I can keep looking at Maggie. I need to make sure she’s safe and happy and—
Without missing a beat, he lowers Maggie from his shoulder so her head rests in the crook of his elbow, then offers her a bottle of formula.
A hitman is feeding my daughter.
And no one seems to be threatening me.
Where?
How?
Who?
What?
That’s really all I need to know right now, but I can’t seem to be able to move my mouth to ask any of those questions, and instead of having the time to keep trying, my body betrays me yet again.
I know it’s going to be different the next time I wake up. My thoughts are clear enough and my body is in less pain. So much so that my eyes open right when I want them too.
I see a crib on the left side of my bed—hospital bed, I realize, but first I have to look inside that crib.
I find the controls to move the bed up quickly, and though my movements are a little slow, I can actually press the button, so I’m sitting up in no time.
My vision turns blurry the second I lay eyes on her. My perfect little human, sleeping peacefully, she’s . . . That onesie she’s got on . . . I didn’t buy that for her. Did he? Have they been taking care of her while I’ve been no better than a potato?
I move my eyes away just long enough to find the help button and press it hard three times.
Soon enough there’s a nurse rushing in, smiling in a detached way that tells me nothing at all.
“What day is it?” It’s the first thing I need to know.
“November third,” she answers without missing a beat, and keeps walking to the monitors next to my bed. After staring for a long moment, she takes my arm, inspects the IV insertion, then nods to herself. “I’m going to call the doctor, let him know you’re awake and lucid.”
She seems to be missing the confusion on my face, or maybe I lost the capacity to show emotion, because she just walks out without another word.
Almost a week asleep and practically dead to the world and she’s got nothing else to say to me?
What kind of hospital is this?
Not a real hospital, it turns out.
I still can’t really wrap my head around the fact that the Dempsey family has a clandestine clinic where they actually operated on me.
And I’m still alive.
In perfect condition, according to the doctor who left me alone to stew in my shock.