Chapter 50 Teetering on the Edge
TEETERING ON THE EDGE
Matteo
The lane is a tunnel of hedges and rain against the backdrop of my manic heartbeat. The car hits the gravel hard enough to fishtail, and the cottage bursts into view. The kitchen window is a shattered frost. The back door hangs crooked. Blood prints the threshold in two distinct shades.
“Cat!” I am inside before the driver throws the car into park.
“Cat, where are you?” Brian is yelling behind me, but I can’t stop.
Noreen lies by the table beneath a pool of blood, her braid like a rope thrown and missed.
Leo is slumped at the jamb, eyes to the ceiling, already past hearing.
Dio, no. Fury and pain scorch through me at the sight of my guard, my old friend.
I touch each of them once because I need to understand it’s real, then I’m moving again.
“Cat?” I shout at the top of my lungs, my heart a jackhammer to my ribs. Please, Dio, don’t let me lose her again.
Once I’ve cleared the cottage, I race outside and vault down the steps. I’m losing precious seconds to find Livia, but I can’t leave without her. “Cat!”
“Mr. Rossi!” Brian’s shout from outside registers first.
I sprint toward the door.
“Out here.” Her voice floats from down the lane, raw and stubborn. She stands braced against a tree down the road, one hand clamped to a towel soaked through her shoulder, eyes blue fire.
I sprint down the lane and reach her in seconds.
“I tried to follow after them…” She collapses into my arms, her entire body trembling.
“Damn it, Cat. You should’ve stayed in the house.”
“Quarry road. Black van. He took her.” She swallows, eyes unfocused. “Sean, my Manhattan contact.”
I don’t know a damned thing about the man, but his name tastes like murder. I’m going to fucking destroy the bastardo. I rip my shirt, then bind her shoulder tight and fast. She doesn’t flinch.
Then I scoop her into my arms and turn toward the house.
“Where are you going?” she squeals.
“I’m leaving you with Brian, and I’m going to get our daughter.”
“No.” She pushes out of my arms, trying and failing to hide the wince. “I’m going with you. It’s Livia.” That name on her lips wrecks me all over again.
Gritting my teeth, I nod, despite every bone in my body yelling at me to keep her safe.
So we go, leaving Brian at the cottage to call for backup.
We’re in the car in seconds, my foot pressed to the gas.
The car claws the lane and eats the distance.
With my phone already plugged into the console, I punch the screen for a local camera net I paid too much money to borrow, fingers flying.
Plate readers cough up a black van that blew through a stop sign two minutes ahead, headed west toward the old stone quarry.
“Hold on.” I squeeze Cat’s good hand before returning mine to the wheel.
She braces with her good arm. She is breathing like a fighter, not a victim, and pride hits me so hard it almost knocks me off the road.
Then I call Ale. He picks up on the first ring.
“What happened?”
“They took my daughter.” Saying it cracks something and welds it in the same breath. “Sean Murphy, one of Tiernan’s Manhattan guys. Black van. I’m sending you my location. I need eyes, and I need the noose dropped around his neck.”
“You have both.” His answer is immediate. “I’m dropping a net on all exits. I will vector our boys to block the county line. Send me your feed.”
Cat’s phone vibrates on her thigh, drawing my attention. A picture flashes. Livia in the passenger seat, cheeks slick but expression stubborn. The caption is a knife to the heart.
Come alone, Rossi. Or I’ll teach your brat to swim.
Cat’s face crumples for an instant before it hardens. “I’m going to ring that shitehead’s neck myself.”
“We are not playing by his rules, Cat. Hold on.”
The hedges peel away to low scrub. The quarry road is a gray ribbon toward the gravel pit and lake below.
I kill my lights and decelerate. A battered lorry lumbers out from a service turn, so damned wide it takes up both lanes.
Get out of my damned way. I can just make out the black van ahead.
As if Sean’s seen me too, he swerves and clips the sidewalk.
Pressing my foot to the gas, I overtake the lumbering lorry and appear at the van’s side.
I nudge the rear quarter of the vehicle, carefully—my baby is inside—but enough to sting.
The van skids, gravel sprays, and then sputters to a stop only a few feet from the quarry ahead. I trail after him into the outer yard where rusted conveyors and excavators cross the sky and the lake sits black as spilled oil.
Slamming on the brakes, I dart out of the car. Cat is out with me, gun high in her good hand.
The van’s driver door kicks open. Sean spills from the vehicle with blood dried on his forearm and a smile that says he’s teetering on the edge. He hauls Livia across the front seat with his free arm and keeps her tucked into his side like cargo.
Cat’s breath catches, a choked sob. “It’s okay, a stór. Mammy’s here.”
Rage hemorrhages through my veins, but I keep the monster at bay for her. Livia’s eyes are locked on mine, her bottom lip trembling.
“Let go of my daughter.” My voice is an eerie calm I barely recognize. My fingers are inches from my gun, but I don’t dare move when he’s holding my baby.
“Not a chance, Rossi.”
“Why?” Cat’s voice cuts across the yard, cracked and cold. “Why her? Why now?”
He cocks his head, amused. “Because you took Eoin from me.” His eyes glitter.
“Didn’t know he had a brother, did you? Half-brother, to be exact.
Tiernan’s bastard the family wouldn’t claim.
Your Eoin was the only one who treated me like more than a dog.
Now Tiernan’s dead and someone has to do the honors. ”
He lifts the pistol, not at me. At Cat.
I lunge for him. He anticipates and pulls Livia in front of him.
I go for his wrist. He twists, and the gun barks, hitting the driver’s side window.
Glass shards bite my cheek. He shoves Livia back into the van and slams the door behind her.
She pounds the glass with tiny fists, and the sound spears straight through me.
“It’s okay, baby. Everything is going to be okay.”
“Drop the gun,” he shouts, back pressed to the door, leveling his weapon at Cat. “Or the mammy gets a second hole.”
Cat sets her gun down slowly, palms high, and fury trembling in her fingers.
“Good girl,” he croons. “Now both of you step back.”
We do, three steps, four. He grins and pivots, sliding into the driver seat.
Cat moves first. She circles around to the passenger side with the edge of the lake to our backs and the quarry yard to our left.
That van is too damned close to the pit for my liking.
She toes her pistol across the gravel and slides it under the van so it wedges against the front passenger tire where the axle meets the frame.
Sean must throw the car in drive, then curses when it doesn’t move and jumps out once again.
Dropping to a knee, he shoves his arm under the bumper to grope for it.
I drive into him from the side, shoulder to ribs, and knock him off the van and flat to the ground.
He fights dirty, getting a forearm across my throat, and bouncing the back of my skull on the gravel.
White sparks shoot off across my vision.
He twists, trying to bring his gun up over my shoulder.
The van lurches forward, Cat’s gun somehow loosened from the gravel.
“Livia!” I cry. Cat slides across the hood of the van, climbs into the open driver door, and slams the shifter into park.
The rear wheels bite, the whole chassis lurches, and Sean’s aim snaps wide.
His shot punches through the back window instead of me.
But the damn van keeps moving with Cat and Livia inside. It bumps over the gravel, hops once, and then pitches nose-first toward the edge of the pit.
“Cat!” I cry out as the van rocks on the ledge.
She hauls the wheel left and slams on the emergency brake. The slide stops with both front tires hanging in space, rear tires slipping on loose gravel and chewing at the edge. The body wobbles on the lip while Livia sobs in the cab.
“Papà!” Livia’s voice tears at the hinge of my heart.
Cat climbs across the front seat, struggling with Livia’s seatbelt.
I sprint. Sean catches my ankle, but I kick him off. I reach the passenger door and yank. Locked. I slam my elbow through the glass. Thank Dio, it gives. I bleed all over and do not care.
“Matteo, get her out!” Cat cries.
I reach for her belt, but the buckle has spun and jammed. The van shudders again. The front wheels grind stones, and the lake waits below.
“Knife,” I gasp.
Cat finds the small folding blade she wears beneath her shirt and tosses it to me.
I catch it and cut the belt. Livia tumbles into my arms like she was made to, then I pull Cat along with us.
I back away, crouched, shielding both of them.
The van’s nose dips an inch. Then another before sliding into the lake with a crash.
My heart lurches up my throat.
Sean is up, limping. Rage and something worse darken his eyes.
I pull out my gun and level it at the asshole.
Sidestepping an excavator, he snatches a length of rebar from the rubble and comes at me.
He swings and I pivot, my shot going wide trying to protect my girls and taking the hit on my forearm.
My nerves scream upon impact and the gun slips through my fingers, but I clench my teeth and breathe through the pain.
He swings again using the excavator’s handrail for maximum impact.
I duck and shove Livia and Cat behind my back, and the rebar cracks off the door with a church bell clang.
“Run with Mammy,” I say into her hair. “Now.” I shove her toward Cat, her bright eyes meeting mine before she bolts, fists up like a tiny prizefighter.
“No, I won’t leave you,” Cat hisses.