Chapter 4
Lucien
I duck on instinct, then fly forward and grab Brooks on my way into a roll.
We hit the concrete in a ball, my body tucked around hers to cushion it, and the moment we come up we’re running toward the black SUV.
I don’t look for my men. I don’t even wonder whether they’re safe or not.
They have their own car, and one responsibility.
Protect Brooks.
I told them when we arrived that our meeting might be interrupted, and if it was, that their job was to make sure Brooks got out of there safely. I could handle myself, I said, and they all know it’s the truth.
Looks like I’m handling Brooks as well, though, because I’m not willing to leave her to whichever of my men are still around.
She’s too important. I dash toward the car, her hand in mine and her body echoing my movements.
The girl’s got the instincts of a cat, though I already knew that.
She doesn’t stop to ask stupid questions about who’s shooting at us or why.
She’s running like she already knows what’s going on.
Like we’ve been doing this together for years.
Devils, we should have been. If there was any justice in the world, we would have been married years ago and living as partners in crime down in New Orleans.
A bullet whistles past my ear and hits the SUV, and I put thoughts of our past to the side. Now isn’t the time to get riled up about Brooks having skipped town when we were supposed to get married. I’ll take that up with her—again—once we’re out of range of whoever’s shooting at us.
“Who the fuck is shooting at us?” she snaps, breaking away from me and running for the passenger door while I jump into the driver’s seat.
I hit the ignition and shove the car into reverse, waiting only seconds for her to find her seat. Then I jam my foot down on the gas and swerve off the curb, moving backward away from our other car. My men are crouched behind it, shooting madly at the line of vans coming down the street.
The flashes of gunfire from those vans tell me there are at least ten men in there with guns, though. I only brought five men. Good ones, but I’m not gambling on them being able to take out the vans. We have to get the fuck out of here.
I spin the wheel while we’re still moving, sending us into a steep turn, and then jam the car into first and hit the gas again. Second. Third. Soon we’re going 50 down a residential street in New York, and I’m trying to remember where we are and how to get out of here.
“Remember how I said you had a hit out on you?” I snap, eyes on the rear view. My men are holding the line, but one of the vans smashes right through their gunfire and is on our tail. And based on how they’re driving, they’re a lot less concerned about potential pedestrians than I am.
Fucking devils.
“How would they even know I was here?” she snaps, her hands busy on the gun she pulled from somewhere.
I pause for a moment, wondering where the hell she had it. She’s dressed in tight jeans and an even tighter top, and she doesn’t have a bag. Where the hell had she stuffed a gun?
Probably the same place she had that fucking knife, I realize.
Maybe she had a secret compartment built right into her body. It wouldn’t surprise me.
“They have sources better than you can imagine,” I reply. “Better than you and me put together. The guy you were talking to is probably one of theirs.”
She snaps a magazine into her gun and cocks it, and I can feel her gaze burning a hole into my cheek. “No. Duca is all Rossi. He’d never sell me out.”
I don’t know who this Duca is, but the fact that he’s a man makes me immediately hate him. Who is he to Brooks, and how does she know he’s so loyal? Was that who she was meeting with up there? In that swanky, sparkly club with all the drugs and booze?
I’ll kill him.
Though that’s not my problem right now, the voice in my head whispers. Focus on driving. Focus on living. Worry about Brooks’ man—men—once you’re safe.
Fucking voice, always being right.
“Well someone did,” I respond. “Someone’s been reporting what you’ve been doing. I don’t know who, and I don’t know who they’re reporting to. But they’re bigger than the Rossis. Bigger than your family or mine.”
She stops what she’s doing long enough to stare at me. “And how the fuck do you know that?”
I reach out and grab her wrist, turning to stare at her despite the fact that we’re now going 50. “Because things are going badly in New Orleans, and I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. And your name has come up in places I shouldn’t be seeing it. Multiple times.”
Her face goes slack with shock for a moment. “And why would you care about that?” she whispers.
Because I love her.
Because I’ve loved her since she was twelve and I was sixteen and we met on a playground where I was running cons. And when I think she might be in trouble, I will stop at nothing to save her.
I don’t say any of that. Instead, I glance quickly at the gun she’s holding and toss her the one I keep strapped to my chest. “That doesn’t matter, love.
There’s a van following us and I don’t know how many men are in it.
Shoot for the tires and the engine and get them off our tail so I can get you back to my hotel. ”
She takes my gun, ejects the magazine, and checks that it’s full in such a smooth set of motions that I almost don’t see it. When she slams the magazine home again, she shakes her head.
“Not your hotel. Get to Brooklyn. Head for the Rossi brownstone.”
Then she turns, breaks through the window with the butt of the gun, and leans out like she does this sort of thing all the fucking time.
She’s shooting before she gets all the way out, the gun booming with each shot, and I spare her one glance, then jump on the gas of the car and send it speeding down the street.
The street is wide here, and mostly empty thanks to the late hour, but there are too many fucking cars parked along the side and I don’t have as much room as I want.
I swerve around a car that’s parked too far out, then jerk the wheel and swerve in the other direction to avoid some other guy who’s decided now is a good time to cross the street.
Once I’m clear of him I slam my foot on the accelerator and ask the car for greater speed.
Behind us, the van on our tail is shooting with what sounds like multiple tommy guns and I cock my head, wondering what’s going on.
No modern gun would give that rat-a-tat sound. Even machine guns sound more like explosions at this point.
What did they do, bring antique guns to the fight? They’re sophisticated enough to be running a multi-city trafficking ring and yet they’re shooting at us with–
The back windshield explodes and I duck instinctively, then reach over, grab Brooks by the back of her blouse, and jerk her back into the car.
“What are you doing?” she gasps. “I just got a bead on the driver!”
“And they’re close enough to shoot out the back window of the fucking car,” I snap. “Which means they’re close enough to shoot you. We’re done with that project. Time to run.”
She splutters something about doubting whether I’m up to the task, but I’m not listening. I turn the wheel and take us into a spin, using every inch of the street for the slide and praying we’re going to make it.
We don’t.
We’re turned almost all the way around when I realize that we don’t actually have enough room and yank the wheel the other way, trying to regain control of the vehicle.
It doesn’t work, though, and we hit one of the parked cars, the door on Brooks’ right crumpling with the sound of metal dying.
Brooks is jerked to the right, but I grab her before she can fly out of the window.
I jam on the gas again and the car tears away from the truck it just hit, metal screeching in protest as we fly away.
We pass the van that was following us and I have enough time to look over and see the driver looking at me, his mouth open and his eyes wide with shock.
Brooks shoots through my window and hits him right between the eyes before he can try to follow us, though, and my last look at him tells me that he’s already dead. His eyes are blank and his mouth hangs open with the weight that only death can bring.
I don’t pause. I put his picture into my memory for later and tear up the street, trying to remember how the fuck to get back to my hotel from here.
And wondering whether any of my men are still alive.
***
Brooks still hasn’t said anything to me when I come to a sharp halt in the circular driveway of my hotel. I look up and see the valet looking at us, but wave him sharply off.
Usually I’d be all for having someone else park my car. But I need to deal with the angry woman in my passenger seat first. And come up with a story for why I have broken windows, spent bullet casings, and guns lying around a car that needs to go back to the rental agency.
“I don’t need your help, Lucien,” Brooks says suddenly, breaking her silence.
I turn to her, wondering if she’s finishing a conversation she’s been having in her brain. Because I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about. Still...
“The past twenty minutes seem to prove otherwise,” I snap.
She sneers at that. “And I could have taken care of them on my own if you’d given me the chance.”
I reach out, grab her wrist, and yank her toward me. “You would have been killed if you were on your own. Or worse, kidnapped. Don’t be stupid, Brooks.”
She looks up at me, her eyes dark in the fluorescent lighting coming from the shelter above us, and swallows heavily. “And why would you care about that? It’s been a long time since I was any of your business.”
I almost laugh, because it’s such a ridiculous thing to say.
I don’t, though, because I’m too busy trying to breathe around her scent.
Trying to remember that I’m angry with her, and use that against the way my body wants to pull her into my lap and remind her of what we once had.
“Except a week ago, you showed up in New Orleans asking for my help again. And that makes this situation my business. You might not be, but the war is,” I say quietly.
She douses the tension as quickly as it began. “So you admit that I’m not your problem.”
Right. Same old Brooks. I can need the girl like the air I’m breathing, but she’ll never admit to needing me back.
And I’d be a fool to expect anything else.
I shake off the feelings that had been growing in my chest and reach into the pocket on the door, then toss the file I find there onto her lap.
“The file of everything we found on the girls who are missing from New Orleans. Your friend’s in there, too.
Aislyn. Something is going on, and it started in New Orleans.
You want to find her? Come home. Let me keep you safe while we figure this out.
They’re already on to you, and they’re going to find you eventually.
If they do, you’re not going to be able to save anyone. ”
I close my mouth and let a beat pass, watching as she processes everything I’ve just told her.
“Let me help you, Brooks. Just this once.”
She catches her lower lip in her teeth, and it’s just about the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Not that I’m looking.
“I don’t need your help.”
I shrug. “So you’ve said.”
“Are you going to get in my way?”
I smirk. “Define getting in the way.”
She narrows her eyes, shooting sparks at me with those blue orbs, but snatches up the file I gave her. “This doesn’t make us anything. And it doesn’t mean I’m coming home for you.”
And now I’m angry enough to be finished with the banter. “What makes you think I want to be anything with you?”
When she answers, I hear that she’s angry, too–though I don’t know why. “Because I know you. And I know how you think.”
She jerks on the handle of the door, having to try twice to get it open, and flies out of the car without a backward glance.
I watch her go, eyes narrowed and mind tearing through all the possible implications of this situation.
I came up here with the intention of bringing her home, not only for myself but to fulfill the contract that’s been forced on me.
I want her home with me, and thanks to that contract, I have to have her there. Regardless of how she feels about it.
But I don’t want to do it this way. Taking her home angry... was never part of the plan.
Then again, I suppose I was stupid to expect anything with Brooks to go to plan. It almost never does.
And I’m just now realizing that I don’t know her well enough anymore to be able to make plans that include her, anyhow. Not really.
Sort of like how she doesn’t know me–or my motivations–nearly as well as she thinks she does.