18. Crash
eighteen
Crash
“Before we go up,” Mikey said as the DS Security Solutions building came into sight, “there’s something I want to show you.”
Brandi arched a brow at his odd statement and shifted slightly in her seat. “As far as euphemisms go, I imagine you can do better.”
He snorted, but she saw his lips twitch in a flash of amusement. He flicked the blinker on and slid into the turn lane to wait out the oncoming traffic. “When I want you on your knees, kitten, I’ll just tell you.”
Well damn. She supposed she’d walked right into that one.
“You need to be given access for the central hub beneath the office,” he said after a beat.
She blinked, her distracted brain needing a second to catch up to his words. “The what?” Her gaze slid forward as the car turned, as if she could suddenly see through walls and layers of concrete and asphalt to see for herself what he meant. Movement in her peripheral vision, on the wrong side of the road, didn’t register when it should have.
“The baseme—fuck!” Mikey’s exclamation was nearly drowned out by a terrifying, overwhelming explosion of straining metal and snapping glass. The car was forced violently off-course by the impact of something—another vehicle—slamming into the rear driver’s side and sending them spiraling. They spun until the back end smashed into one side of the not-so-decorative gate-style fence that bordered the property lot. One of the windows finally shattered from the second impact and Brandi jerked sharply against her seatbelt.
She could barely breathe. There was no way that hadn’t been intentional and she didn’t even know how to process the idea that someone might just have made a kamikaze attempt on Mikey’s life. Right out in the open, right in front of his business, where God only knew how many people had seen. “M-Mikey,” she gasped, realizing only as she pushed his name past her lips that she definitely recognized the distinct, coppery tang of blood in her mouth.
“God- fucking -dammit,” Mikey said on a low, strained groan. His hand reached over the console and curled around hers, squeezing almost too hard. “Are you hurt?”
Brandi sucked in a deeper breath at the strength in his voice. She thought she also heard pain, but she had to admit that was understandable. At least he hadn’t stuttered, or worse, not responded. She opened her mouth to answer—to make him answer back—when her vision finally finished clearing and she processed the sight beyond the horribly cracked windshield.
Fresh fear and a sharp jolt of adrenaline shot through her. No. No, no, no. “Mikey,” she said, her voice a useless whisper and her wide eyes locked on the approaching monster. “It’s him.” She swallowed hard. “How … how the hell is he walking?”
Mikey grunted. “He won’t be after today.” He released her hand, tugged at his seatbelt, and finally sliced it off with a knife he’d pulled from a pocket.
“What are you doing?” Brandi hissed, the fear in her chest rising higher. “You can’t go out there. You’re already hurt!”
He reached underneath his seat, came up with a pistol, then slipped his phone from his coat pocket and unlocked it before tossing it at her. “So is he. I’m ending this. Call Berto and tell him to send me backup, then call Dante.”
Brandi opened her mouth to argue, but he was already throwing his weight into shoving his door open. Her gaze flicked outward again and she realized stopping him was pointless. He’d made enough noise to draw her murderous stalker’s attention, and Ralph George had shifted course. Tears of fear and frustration burned behind her eyes even as Mikey’s door flew open wide. “Don’t you dare die, Michele,” she said to him. She wasn’t sure he heard her. She wasn’t sure he could hear anything at the moment over whatever angry thoughts were in his head.
She worried that even if he survived, when the anger faded, he’d realize he was in more pain than he was prepared for. Adrenaline could be a real bitch like that.
“I can see my sweet Brandi in that car of yours,” George called, his voice cutting through the air like a battle axe.
Brandi made herself pull up the contacts list in Mikey’s phone and hurried to scroll down to Berto’s number. She couldn’t remember the man’s last name, but Mikey had him listed simply by his nickname, so she didn’t have to worry. She wedged the phone between her ear and her shoulder and began fumbling with her own seatbelt.
“Hey, I just got word something’s goin’ on outside, you want me to—”
“Berto, it’s Brandi,” she said, cutting him off. He made a strangled sound that she pictured as him snapping his mouth shut. “Send help outside. Mikey’s trying to face off with my goddamn stalker, but the asshole just crashed into us and the car’s the wrong way on the road and I think he’s hurt.” And she couldn’t get her seatbelt to unjam. “Give them guns.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Berto said. He didn’t ask a single question before disconnecting and she found herself bizarrely reassured by that.
She screamed a little when the first gunshot went off just beyond the car.
Her gaze snapped out, the seatbelt clasp falling from her fingers, and she realized she couldn’t see much more than Mikey’s back and raised arm. George was somewhere in the direction his body obscured from her sight. She was sure of that, and sure that it wasn’t a coincidence. That idiot! She had never once asked him to die for her. She wouldn’t have.
Stuck in the car, all Brandi could do was continue reaching out for the help her startlingly meat-headed husband had asked for. She scrolled swiftly down in search of Dante’s number and found herself confused when she didn’t find it, only to realize it was listed under Big Brother . That would have struck her as cute any other time.
More gunfire punctuated the ringing as she held the phone to her ear and prayed she wasn’t about to become a widow.
“Get down, Brandi!” Mikey shouted at her between bursts of gunfire.
The line connected as Mikey’s words reached her ears, and before Brandi could even wonder how she could possibly acquiesce, another De Salvo spoke. “Of all the days—”
A bullet pierced the already cracked windshield and whizzed past her shoulder, biting into the headrest. She jerked sideways as best she could, pain screaming up her spine. She must have made a sound outwardly, enough to carry over the bursting explosions, because when Dante spoke again, he obviously had a better understanding.
“Brandi, tell me where you are so I can help.”
From her slightly altered perspective she could see George again. The monster had moved back and was half-ducking behind the wide post, taking blind shots in Mikey’s direction. And she thought she finally saw movement coming from the office.
She sucked in a breath and managed to say, “Work. Kind of. We got hit, I think Mikey’s hurt, and now he’s being stupid, and I can’t get out of the ca—” She cut herself off with another unintentional shriek as a bullet sliced through the air next to her head and embedded into the window she was leaning against.
“Make yourself as small as possible. Reinforcements are coming.”
The accident had happened so fast Mikey had barely had time to see it coming before the unfamiliar vehicle was on them. That alone would have pissed him off to no end, but the fact that it was Ralph George who’d ambushed them and the fact that the man had pulled it off in such a way that he’d been able to climb to his feet immediately after just sent Mikey careening over the edge. The fear that had colored Brandi’s voice when she’d spotted the bastard? Fuel for the fire.
They still didn’t know who George was working for, let alone how persistent that employer might be in recouping their lost money. More than likely George and his employer hadn’t yet realized their real target was dead, either. None of that mattered anymore.
Mikey’s car was wrecked. It hurt to stand. His head was throbbing. He didn’t even know how bad Brandi’s injuries might be. He did know that at least one bullet had gone too wide and blasted through the already compromised windshield—Brandi’s startled scream both reassuring and upsetting.
Ralph George was going to die, regardless of the answers they had from him.
It would be up to Alessa and their Vegas associates to hunt down and handle the rest.
George was shouting nonsense again, trying to get under Mikey’s skin with his vulgar commentary.
Ignoring the pain still burning in his arm from the bullet that had clipped it earlier, Mikey adjusted his aim. He noted his men finally racing through the parking lot in their direction. More than enough to deal with one deranged scumbag.
The sirens approaching from the distance were only going to complicate everything, though.
“Tony! Gio!” Mikey shouted in the moment when he saw George’s attention shift to the approaching crew. “Get my wife out of the fucking car!”
The two men broke formation and raced around to the passenger side, wisely tucking their guns behind them. The others spread out to form something of a wall between George’s position and the path Brandi would need to take to get from the car into the office. It was too far to walk if she was hurt worse than he feared, but Mikey couldn’t let himself think about that.
“ Wife ?” George shouted, a distinct tone of deranged incredulity coloring his voice. George’s gun swung back toward Mikey. “That little slut is—”
Mikey pulled the trigger, not interested in the shit coming from the man’s mouth. It wasn’t necessarily the solution his brother would have preferred, because a second after his gun went off, his men followed his lead. And where Mikey was at best an average shot, most of his men were better. This was what they did for a living.
Mikey lowered his gun as Ralph George fell to the ground, bleeding from every visible portion of his body. The sight was satisfying, even if Mikey knew the man hadn’t suffered nearly enough before he’d died. He was at least gone, where he could never terrorize Brandi again.
“Mikey!” Brandi called to him.
“Ma’am, wait—” Tony said.
Mikey turned, adjusting to balance himself on the busted-up hood of his car, and found his wife stubbornly limping toward him. “You shouldn’t be moving,” he said.
Brandi thumped the side of her fist into his chest when she was close enough, tears streaming down her face. “You idiot!” Her gaze trailed down his arm, her brow furrowing. “You got shot…”
“It’s nothing,” Mikey said. He opened his mouth to ask about her injuries, but she cut him off.
“It’s not nothing! You could have—” She clamped her lips shut and pressed her forehead to his shoulder, her fingers twisting in his shirt. “Don’t do that again. Please.”
Mikey shifted his weight to lean against the car, enabling himself to wrap his semi-protesting arms around her and pull her closer. He bent his head and pressed his lips to her hair as the first emergency responder pulled up to the scene. “I’ll always do what I have to do to protect you, kitten,” he said quietly. “But I’m all right. These wounds will heal. I promise.”
“Mr. De Salvo,” Chief Silva called, unhurried steps from the wrong side of the road assuring he was the one approaching. “What the hell is going on here?”
Brandi tensed in Mikey’s arms.
Mikey kept his hold firm and lifted his head to narrow his eyes at the other man. “Self-defense.”
Both of Silva’s dark brows jumped up his forehead. He made a point of sweeping his gaze around the veritable warzone in front of him. “You’re going to have to give me something better than that, Michele. Ten-on-one is not self-defense.”
Brandi twisted unexpectedly and Mikey swore he felt her temperature rise even as she opened her mouth. “What the hell would you know?” She straightened enough to swing an arm in the direction of George’s untouched corpse. “That monster was stalking me for weeks . He broke into my home, beat the shit out of me, threatened to rape me. This isn’t even the first time he’s come at me with a goddamn gun. He permanently disabled one of Mikey’s guards the last time he tried to shoot me. So how is it our fault that he was crazy enough to assault us in front of the office building where a bunch of armed men are known to work?” This time she indicated the car Mikey was still leaning against. “We were both in that car when he came barreling into us, from the wrong side of the road. All Mikey did was fight back to keep us alive.”
Silva frowned. “That doesn’t account for all the other bullet holes.”
Three black SUVs swung into position, mixing with the abstractly parked police cruisers. Another dozen men jumped out, Dante leading the way onto the scene.
The officers who’d been standing beside their vehicles, clearly uncertain what they should do, exchanged nervous looks.
“Rodrigo,” Dante said, “why does it look to me more like you’re trying to blame my brother for nearly dying rather than thanking him for taking a violent abuser off the streets? Have you offered my family an ambulance for their injuries?”
The chief of police turned to the side, but his frown held. “Mr. De Salvo. If you could please not further contaminate this scene—”
“There’s nothing to contaminate,” Dante replied. “All you need is to collect a corpse. I’m sure you’ll find more than enough information on him to not lose sleep over his abrupt passing.” He stepped close enough to clap a hand on Silva’s shoulder. “Do what you’re supposed to do, Rodrigo, and we won’t have any problems here.”
Silva’s eyes widened briefly at Dante’s low-spoken words.
Dante had already continued on, putting the chief behind him. He swept his critical gaze over Mikey and Brandi. “The both of you need a doctor. That’s not up for debate. Can you walk?”
Brandi drew a shuddering breath.
Mikey let his grip loosen just enough for his hands to slide down to her hips. “I’m … not so sure, actually.” He disliked admitting it, but he wasn’t going to lie in this situation, either.
Dante turned toward his men. “Help them into one of the SUVs, gently . We’re taking them to the clinic.” He faced the team from Mikey’s office. “If any of you are wounded, you’ll come, too. The rest will stay and coordinate cleanup. Someone call the fucking tow truck for Mikey’s car, salvage any personal belongings. Berto’s in charge until further notice.”
“Yes, Boss!”
Mikey allowed Brandi to slip from his arms in favor of both of them receiving help maneuvering to one of the SUVs. He noticed she at least seemed to have a little more stability than he did, and he found himself grateful. He wasn’t sure exactly how injured either of them were, but they were still on their feet, still conscious, so he knew it could be worse.
It was the idea of worse that made it hard for him to steady his breathing.
He’d been so enraged at the accident and the sight of the bastard who’d previously hurt her that he hadn’t thought about what he was feeling underneath that. He hadn’t thought about what, really, was fueling that fury. But now that the adrenaline was fading and the fight was done, his mind was racing. He couldn’t not think.
If they’d spun just a little differently, it could have been Brandi’s side that hit that post and caved in. If he’d stood just an inch more to one side, one of the bullets he was sure had gotten past the windshield might have hit her—might have done real damage to her. It felt like they’d survived this assault as much by luck as by any skill or pre-preparedness. He hated that. He hated it because it terrified him.
Brandi made a pained sound as she settled into her seat in the SUV and Mikey looked over at her, seeing her face scrunched up.
“Please try not to move your neck too much, ma’am,” one of the men helping them said. He carefully reached around her to click her seatbelt into place, made sure it wasn’t too snug for her, and straightened.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Brandi said on a heavy exhale.
Mikey pushed out a breath and allowed his own seatbelt to be buckled. He reached over and pulled her hand into his again, threading his fingers through hers. She was going to be okay. She was in pain, but it would be temporary.
When they were both healed up, he would find a way to tell her. The back of Dante’s SUV, with three unnecessary witnesses and when both of them were sporting numerous injuries, was definitely the wrong time. But he needed to tell her. It would complicate their original agreement if he was the only one … but he didn’t think he was.
The rest of the week passed in a dragging haze of pain and frustration, the former fading not slowly enough into the latter, as Brandi and Mikey recovered. They both developed unpleasant bruises in addition to assorted injuries. She had been warned that her whiplash would likely haunt her to some degree for many years, but she was grateful that the pain at the back of her neck wasn’t anything more serious. Mikey’s injuries were a bit worse, overall, but he could walk with an ankle boot and the one bullet that had hit him had torn through the outer flesh of his arm. It would scar, but not terribly. No permanent damage had been done.
Discounting the complete loss of his favorite car, of course.
Brandi’s biggest problem, after yet another nearly full week of being stuck at home recuperating, was that she finally felt well enough to really think about the things she’d been avoiding. Thing, singular, if she were honest with herself. She was stupidly frustrated about their forced abstinence for the past several days. It would pass. Hopefully soon. Her raging, distracting lust was only the surface of the problem, though.
She tapped on the door to Mikey’s home office and poked her head into the room. “Knock, knock.”
Mikey let out a heavy sigh. “I swear I’m not dead.”
“That’s good, but I don’t know that I love the enthusiasm in your voice,” she said, slipping into the room and walking up to the desk. The tell-tale sound of keyboard clacking confirmed he was still working on something.
It was Sunday, and neither of them had been back inside the office since the accident, but none of that meant they hadn’t been working. They had both spent the majority of the previous two days digging for any potentially useful crumbs to be gleaned from Gustavo’s car’s computer. Hours of screen time, muscle cramps, a frustrated Daria, and all for the glorious dead-end of one recently demolished lot in Connecticut. They never found anything else connected to Coughlan’s number, or any known Coughlan associate’s name in the paperwork for the lot. Brandi didn’t have the lifetime of bad blood with the mysterious asshole who’d labeled her an ‘acquisition,’ but she sympathized with Mikey’s frustration at the lack of results.
“No matter how hard we try, there’s always an idiot,” Mikey muttered, drawing her focus back to the moment.
Brandi smiled and leaned into the side of his chair, her eyes bouncing between his active monitors. Several still photos and a couple of running videos, one with a time stamp that confirmed it was from the previous day. “You know I probably could help.”
“This isn’t what you signed on for.”
Feeling impulsive, and perhaps a touch needy, Brandi let her fingers sift into Mikey’s hair. “Well, about that,” she said. She winced even as she spoke. It had been her idea to start this conversation, why had she not figured out a sensible way to say the words?
Mikey’s fingers paused on the keyboard. “About … what?”
Brandi licked her lips. “No, sorry, that was a terrible segue.” He’s busy. “When you have a few minutes, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about, that’s all.” She was a coward. This marked the third time since the accident she’d opened her mouth with one intention, and abruptly changed course instead.
Mikey closed out of an open file, dropped the video into another, and tapped a key that seemed to put the entire system to sleep. Just like that. He spun the chair around, dislodging her hand, and caught her wrist before she could retreat. “I just finished. I’m all yours for the rest of the day.”
Her lips twitched. “What if there’s another idiot?”
“I’ll feed him to the Dragon.”
Brandi laughed and obligingly eased back as Mikey stood.
“Come on, let’s talk somewhere more comfortable,” he said, keeping hold of her hand.
She walked with him easily and they made their way to what she had deduced was his favorite non-work area of the manor. The den. There were two other perfectly decent downstairs sitting spaces, one notably larger than the rest, but this was the one he tended to gravitate toward. He really was a creature of habit.
Brandi let him pull her onto the sofa at his side and her gaze dropped to the gauze peaking out beneath his T-shirt sleeve. “How’s your arm?”
He looked down briefly. “Doesn’t hurt anymore. Getting the stitches out will be a relief.”
She reached up, her fingers trailing lightly over the bandage before sweeping down the curve of his arm. “I don’t … I don’t ever want to be the reason you get hurt, or killed , you know?”
“Brandi.”
She folded his hand between both of hers. “You going out there like you did was stupid. I know you were mad, and you were trying to protect me, but all he had to do was put a bullet in your head and—”
Mikey curved into her and pressed his lips to hers, silencing her unintended, rambling lecture. He kept hold of her hands and brought his other up to cup her face, holding her close as he plunged his tongue into her mouth. The kiss was rough, almost bruising, and didn’t last nearly long enough before he eased back again. “Yes, it was stupid. Yes, I could have died. And yes, I would do it again.”
Too many emotions clogged her throat for Brandi to do more than frown.
Mikey stroked his thumb over her cheek, below what remained of one of the small cuts she’d gotten when her window had finally shattered. “You’re my wife, Brandi. The woman I love most in this world. Of course I’ll protect you, and if that has to mean risking myself, that’s what it means.”
In her mind, she watched him shove from the car with a gun in his hand. She watched him stand so as to obscure any line-of- sight between her and George. She saw him bleeding, she heard the gunfire, she tasted her own blood in her mouth.
The tears poured from her eyes without warning. “Don’t you dare die, Michele,” she said, repeating the words she’d said to him that day. Her nails bit into his skin, but she couldn’t let go. “I never even thought I knew what love was—I didn’t think it was something I could do—until you. So please, don’t be so reckless.”
His always bright blue eyes softened, warming in an unfamiliar way, and Mikey slid his hand to support the back of her head. “Only as a last resort, kitten. I promise.”
She tried to hum her consent, knowing she would never talk him completely out of such behavior, but the sound escaped as more of a whimper.
Mikey leaned in and brushed his lips over hers briefly. “You know, I think I like the way you say my name.” He angled his head to trail his kisses toward her ear. “I think I need to hear you scream it.”
A shaky breath escaped her. “Are you—”
“ Famished ,” he grunted against her skin. But instead of hauling her into his lap or all the way up the stairs, he lifted his head to meet her eyes. “And I’m completely fucking serious, Brandi. It doesn’t matter how we started. You’re the one.”
She exhaled weakly and finally unclenched her hands enough to raise them to his chest and twist them in the fabric of his shirt. Her voice was a whisper when she found it to offer him her reassurance. A quiet certainty she had finally recognized deep in her soul. “For me, too.” She pulled him in, kissing him again. “For me, too.”