43. Brady
Brady
Driving away from my wife causes me physical pain. An ache deep in my chest that signals an unsettling vulnerability. Even though I left her in the safest place possible, it doesn’t feel like enough. Especially not when she looked up at me with that defiant fire in her ice-blue eyes.
She agreed to stay put. She has no choice but to stay put. She’s fucking locked in. And yet, when I left her, the willful expression on her face reminded me too much of her lust for violence.
Tonight, that’s my purview. Not hers.
Speeding back to the high-rise, I call Connor. The kid has one final chance to prove where his loyalties lie. If he fails, he will receive no quarter from me.
For Cora’s sake, I hope I don’t have to kill her brother.
For my sake, I hope my wife hasn’t been colluding with a traitor. If it hurts me this much to leave her behind, interrogating her will be my own torture. And if she’s also guilty of betraying my family, I know the consequences. Killing her will destroy me.
When Connor answers, he’s predictably hostile. But he softens quickly as I explain my fake predicament.
“Cora’s pissed at me,” I tell him, which is the true part. That aggression in her eyes burned hotter than I’ve ever seen. “She chucked her phone at my face and then locked herself in her room. She’s been in there for hours. Can you come talk some sense into her?”
“Shit,” he says. “Yeah, she’s like that sometimes. Have you tried feeding her?”
“Feeding her?” She’s not a goddamn dog. Although I have locked her up like one. I shake my head clear of any weaknesses like guilt. It was necessary.
“Yeah,” Connor says, “like leave a plate of food outside her room. Something with chocolate. Tell her it’s there, then say you’re going out somewhere but you’ll be back in a couple hours. Make sure she actually hears you leave.”
What the fuck? I mouth to myself. This kid knows strategies that I don’t to outmaneuver my wife. I fucking hate how close they are.
“Will you please just come over and try talking to her?”
“Okay, yeah.” He sighs. “You said she threw her phone at you?”
“Yeah, it’s busted to shit. Landed on the tile floor.”
I assume Cora’s phone is with her in the safe room, but it doesn’t matter. I turned on my office’s signal blocker as I left.
“Alright,” Connor says, sighing again. “I’ll head over.”
I get to the penthouse a few minutes before he does. I ready my earpiece. Confirm everything with Finn and Blackbird. Lock the door to Cora’s old room. Check my Glock.
Then I load my Smith & Wesson with blanks.
When Connor rushes out of the elevator, he looks like the worried little bitch that he is. How the hell did Cora end up so strong and her brother so weak?
“Where is she?” he asks.
I point to Cora’s locked bedroom door. Connor hurries to it and tries the handle.
“Cora?” He knocks. “It’s me, Connor. Will you please let me in?”
The empty room doesn’t answer him. As Connor keeps knocking and pleading with his nonexistent sister, I pull up my phone’s app to freeze the elevator halfway down the building.
Connor gives up knocking pathetically quickly. He looks over at me, and I shrug.
“She’s been in there for hours and hasn’t talked to me once. Maybe she’s asleep.”
“Maybe. She has a bathroom in there, right?” He sounds concerned. It’s almost touching, how much he cares for her. Almost.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Alright, good. The longest she’s ever gone without food is five days. But that was a while ago, and she was pissed. What’s she mad at you for, anyway?”
“None of your goddamn business.”
“Alright, guy.” Connor holds up his hands. I glower at him for so long that he starts to get antsy, dropping his hands to tap his fingers against his thigh.
“Would you like to know what I’m mad about?” I ask.
“I mean, I assume it’s marital or whatever. You’re prolly mad at Cora bec—”
“I’m mad at you,” I say, deathly calm. Connor gulps audibly, and I take a step toward him. “Would you like to know why?”
“Not… really?” he squeaks. This might be too easy.
“Seven’s men showed up to the drop last night.” I take another step forward.
Connor backs up, but he’s stopped by the wall. One more step, and now I’m close enough to lunge at him. I plant my stance wide, barring him from making a run for it.
“Up in Wicker Park. You know, the drop we told you about. The time and the place. Seven’s men showed up.”
“I— That’s not—” he stammers. “You said it was in his territory, right?”
“It was.” I say it like a proud teacher, pleased that he’s catching on. “The thing is, there was no drop. It wasn’t real. And the only person we told about it…”
“I— You can’t mean—”
I take a half step closer, and Connor’s pointed chin quivers like he’s ready to cry. I begin a slow, benevolent smile down at him.
Then Finn’s voice comes through my earpiece.
“They’re here.”
“Fuck,” I spit.
Connor flinches back, his head banging into the wall. I flick my earpiece’s microphone on.
“Good,” I tell Finn. To Connor, I say, “Seven’s men are here.”
His pale eyes go wide, then wider still when I hand him my Smith & Wesson loaded with blanks. I cover my microphone and speak right in Connor’s face.
“You wanna prove you’re not a fucking traitor, you shoot every Vanleusen man you see.”
This makes him swallow hard and regrip my gun. At best, I’ve armed him with something to throw. Against men armed with every assault weapon Seven’s money can buy. Whether Connor passes or fails this test, there’s a good chance he won’t make it out alive.
“I’m going downstairs,” I tell him. “I jammed the elevator, but they’ll be able to break in through the emergency stairs.” I point out the stair door, then turn and stride away.
“Cora!” Connor starts banging on her door again. “Cora, open up! Seven’s men are here, it isn’t safe!”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Almost touching, how much he cares. At any rate, I doubt he’d risk shooting down the door.
“Jesus,” Finn says over the radio. “He sent a goddamn army.”
“Blackbird, you got eyes?” I ask. “What’s the count?”
I grab a towel from the bathroom as I wait for our sniper to answer.
“Forty-nine,” he says.
Goddamnit. Seven thinks he’s so fucking clever.
“As many as you can,” I tell Blackbird.
In the time it takes for me to walk from the bathroom to the elevator, I hear ten sniper shots from the roof across the street. As I manually force the elevator doors open, I hear ten more, then a spray of assault rifles down at the front entrance.
“Nineteen down, one injured,” Blackbird says over the radio. “Limping, but he’s made it to the lobby with the others.”
“Alright, thirty in the lobby,” I confirm. “Finn, that’s your cue.”
I peer down the plummet of the elevator shaft. The sensation of vertigo spikes my adrenaline. There’s more assault rifle fire from the first floor, and it echoes strangely up the elevator shaft.
A siren song to the violence within me.
I wrap my towel around the thickest cable, while Connor gapes at me from his position outside Cora’s door. He’s shaking bad, both hands clutching my gun.
I imagine the blanks inside rattling like dice.
“Every Vanleusen man you see,” I remind him.
Then I grab hold of the towel and rappel down the elevator cable.