Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
RACHEL
Sasha’s gone upstairs to talk to Trick about intel they’re getting on Leone, so I take the opportunity to shower. My pussy tingles from where he gripped it after we had sex.
“Stay still for a few minutes,” he said, that giant hand cupping me, keeping his cum inside.
“It won’t work. Not yet.”
He didn’t answer. Just kept his hand there stubbornly. And deep inside me, I could’ve sworn I felt a sort of pinch and tingle, like something had changed. Just imagining things, I think. He wants it so much, and now that I get why, I find myself wanting it too sometimes.
I towel off and put on a robe. It’s too long on me and skims the tile, but I like the thickness of it.
I dry my hair and put on mandarin-scented lotion.
Then I hear him moving around the room. I’m glad he’s back.
I don’t really care that we missed dinner at a nice restaurant.
Getting to spend time alone with him, being close, is what matters.
I open the door and step out, but it’s not Sasha.
The blonde girl who’d been sucking Trick’s dick earlier is standing in the center of the room, and she’s not alone.
Alberto Leone is with her.
ANVIL
The alert on my smartwatch sounds. I frown and look down, thinking it can’t be right. She should be right below me. Twenty feet away at most. But the alert says she’s more than a hundred yards away and moving. She wouldn’t have left the hotel without telling me.
“Let’s go,” I say, cutting Trick off.
He falls in step with me as I haul ass out of the room and down the stairs. I open the door to our room and walk through. Her purse and phone are lying on the floor.
“He has her,” I say, my voice low and calmer than I feel. Usually, I am as cool as death when I’m under pressure, but losing her has my heart pounding. I jog down the hall and punch the button on the express elevator.
“What do you know?” Trick says.
“Nothing except that he has her, and she’s in a moving vehicle headed south.”
“C’s landed. You want me to text him?”
“Yeah,” I say as we get in the elevator. C’s been in New York, talking to some people to insure that if a war starts with the Leones, we have allies.
“The bounty on Leone just doubled, but I only pay out if I get her back alive. Spread the word. Nothing else matters. Only her.”
I call the burner phone Leone had days before. It’s been disconnected.
“I’ll navigate. You drive,” I say.
We get in the Rover. Trick peels out of the parking spot, and we hit the street like we’re the only ones on it and we’ve got places to go.
I watch the blip on the map.
Think, I tell myself because I know I’m distracted. Adrenaline is running through me like I’ve mainlined it. I don’t want to get into a high speed chase because I don’t want Leone to crash with her in the car. “We’re parallel to him. Slow down.”
“Which way? Left to cut him off?” Trick asks.
“Just drive straight. No chase. When he stops, we’ll box him in.
” The words sound cool as fucking ice, but deep down I’m rattled.
Did she fight when he tried to take her?
Did he hit her? Hurt her? The locket doesn’t tell me if her heart’s still beating.
And it can’t tell her that I’m half a block west and coming to get her.
She knows, I tell myself. She knows I’m coming. She’s smart. She’ll do what it takes to survive until I get there.
RACHEL
I’m in a trunk, and, despite the musty darkness, I’m happy about it.
Leone called me a whore and slapped me in the face for calling him an asshole, but I’m all right.
I’m safer here than in the car with him.
I yelled at him, so I’d seem scared. I had to resist a little or he might have gotten suspicious.
My hands shake from the adrenaline, but mostly I’m okay. I have the locket on. I’ve touched it several times, trying to calm myself. I don’t know if Sasha’s discovered I’m gone yet, but he will. And then he’ll come.
I don’t need to do anything yet. I just need to wait. If I have a chance to get Leone’s gun though I’ll take it.
The trunk opens. We’re in a parking lot near warehouses. I smell salt water. Near the docks?
Leone drags me from the trunk, using both hands.
Now, I think. Right now.
I grab his gun.
I’m falling. My back slams against the concrete and the shot goes low and wide, tearing through his slacks.
He yells, falling too, and rolls away.
I hear a sound, like popcorn popping. Gunshots!
I roll under the car, looking around. There are men advancing on the car, but they fall down, one by one.
I recognize Sasha’s shoes.
I roll from under the car.
He hauls me up and looks me over, turning me around and then back.
“I’m okay. Not shot. I’m okay,” I repeat, the gun still gripped tightly in my shaking hands. I am trying to keep it pointed straight down so I don’t accidentally shoot him.
“Blood. She hit him,” Trick calls, running across the asphalt toward a warehouse.
“Come this way,” Sasha says, pulling me with him as he follows Trick.
We enter. Inside things are cool and dark. I try to control my panting breaths.
Sasha puts me behind a piece of construction equipment, a giant metal shovel thing that’ll be good cover. “Stay down. But if you get a shot, take it,” he whispers. He kisses my forehead, then he moves away silently.
There’s a whistle. I suspect it’s from Trick.
Something heavy skids across the ground.
What are they doing? Trying to draw fire, so they’ll know where he is? I took Leone’s gun. I don’t think he has another weapon on him. Unless he picked one of the mercenaries’ weapons up, I realize. And do I even know that Leone’s the only bad guy in here? No, I don’t.
There are other small noises. Soft snapping sounds.
The door near me is shoved open, and I see Leone’s silhouette mid-sprint. Before I even raise my gun, he flies forward as I hear two shots.
Then someone whistles, and it sounds like a deflating balloon.
“Funny,” Sasha says. In seconds he’s standing over me again. “He’s down, Raven. Lower that.”
I drop the gun’s muzzle and stand.
Trick pushes the door all the way open and stands in the doorway, letting light pour in.
“You don’t have to look. If you want to close your eyes, I’ll carry you out.”
I shake my head, but hold out the gun to him.
He tucks it away and guides me to the doorway.
“Nice whistling,” I say to Trick.
He winks at me. He could be shooting a Calvin Klein ad. His hair’s not even mussed.
Alberto is face down on the ground. There’s blood dripping from the back of his head and saturating the back of his shirt. Both shots hit him.
A car screeches to a stop and the door flies open. C emerges and jogs over.
“Rachel?”
“I’m okay. Not hurt.”
He catches my chin and turns my face to examine what I imagine is a puffy red mark from the slap.
“I’m okay,” I repeat.
C looks at the body on the ground with a hard expression.
I think about the past few days—and farther back—to Alberto’s spiteful brutality toward me and his tendency to hire mercenaries to kill C Crue members. What choice did he leave us? None. He brought this ending on himself.
C glances at me and gives my shoulders a squeeze. “Go get in the car. Zoe’s there.”
“I don’t need to—”
“Go on,” C says firmly.
I glance at Sasha who gives me a small nod.
As I’m walking away, I hear C ask, “Who made the kill shot?”
Neither speaks.
“Who had the head?”
“Me,” Trick says.
“It was a tough shot from his angle,” Sasha says. “I went for the bigger target to drop him. Easy to finish the job.”
“That’s why I had to go for the head shot,” Trick says.
“Had to?” C asks.
“Yeah. There was a half-million-dollar bounty on this asshole.”
“From who?” C asks.
“‘Vil.”
There’s a moment of quiet, then Sasha says, “Asshole,” before both C and Trick start to laugh.
I don’t laugh, but I’m glad they are already walking away from the body and walking off what happened. Thank goodness Trick can always lighten a mood. I finish my trek to the car and climb in. Zoe drags me to her for a hug.
“Are you all right?” she demands, her dark curls spilling over her shoulders and me as she leans in.
“Yes, I am now,” I say, exhaling.