Chapter 27
Montrell felt someone slapping his face and recognized Vespa’s annoyed smack. He much preferred Beatrice’s light caresses.
“Wake up already!” Vespa snapped. “Fuck, you’re a wimp when it comes to substances.”
“Didn’t drink,” Montrell slurred as he forced his heavy eyelids open.
“No, but you were drugged.” Vespa’s face looked bloody and bruised as it hovered above him. “You with me yet?”
Memory started to return, and their foreheads almost smacked together as he pushed his body upright.
Vespa fell back on her ass, her right arm hanging limply at her side.
“Damn, Ves, you look like hell.”
Her working hand wiped under her nose, smearing blood. “Yeah, but they’re dead.” Her head nodded at the nearest body.
More than a dozen bodies surrounded them—a mixture of Irish and Italians in what looked like an underground parking garage. “You did all this?” he asked, giving his head an experimental shake. He was still feeling dopey as hell.
“Had a little help,” Vespa admitted, her eyes cutting to the side.
The Di Salvos’ pet assassin crouched near an open town car, his back pressed against it as he looked away from Vespa.
The last of Montrell’s annoyance at the hitman melted away. He was still trying to make sense of what had happened, but it was obvious Luka had helped. “Thanks,” he said as his eyes searched the area. His panic built when he couldn’t find the person he was looking for. “Where’s Bea?”
Vespa grimaced. “The Irish must still have her. I came to as they were dragging us out of the elevator, and I started putting up a fuss, and, well, here we are.” She nodded toward the bodies.
Montrell pushed to his feet, staggering, but with another shake of his head, he finally began to focus. “We have to get Bea.”
“Don’t go off half-cocked. I already called the boys, Montrell, but shit, this place is a fortress.” When he glared at her, she scowled back. “I’m not saying no; I’m saying let’s think this through! Walking in and getting shot won’t help our girl.”
Hearing the fear in her voice as Vespa called Beatrice theirs brought on even more panic. Montrell tried to think, but he kept imagining Beatrice with his mother, especially the longer he stared at Vespa’s injured arm.
Vespa nodded at the assassin. “What about you? Why are you even here?”
Luka stood but wouldn’t look at her, not that that was so surprising. Montrell had noticed the hitman avoided looking at most women, with only one exception. He’d never looked at Beatrice either.
Beatrice. She was with his mother.
“Meeting. Something off. Sent to follow.” The hitman’s half answers made no sense to Montrell’s mind, but he followed Luka’s gaze to the body of an Italian, focusing on the familiar features of the Lucchese soldier who had put his hand on Beatrice.
“We were being given to the Lucchese?” he asked, his fear only growing.
Vespa sighed. “Not exactly. The Lucchese were intent on shooting us. That’s what made me put up a fuss a little sooner than I intended.” She winced. “Managed to not get shot, but the results weren’t pretty.”
She looked like hell and needed a doctor.
Beatrice had something over her father. Something that made him want her silenced, not traded.
“When the boys get here, I want you to go.” Montrell looked toward the elevator. “I’m going to try to talk some sense into the O’Connells. Maybe I can convince my mother that—”
“Don’t be an idiot!” Vespa staggered to her feet, her face paling even as anger snapped in her eyes. “You won’t convince that bitch of a goddamn thing. We should have never trusted that woman. Going in there will just get you killed, along with your wife.”
Montrell moved to his friend’s side to steady her, careful to avoid her limp arm. She met his gaze, and he saw fear mixed with her anger. “I can’t leave Bea with her, Ves,” he said, knowing she’d understand. “I can’t.”
Vespa bit her lip, then shoved at his chest with one hand. “I know!” she snapped. “But help me pop this arm back into place first. Then I’ll grab another gun from one of these fuckers. I’m going down shooting.”
“Vespa…” Montrell didn’t know what he could say to convince his friend.
She already scowled at him. “If you’re going, I’m going. No way we’re getting out alive, but we’ll try.”
The assassin stepped forward. “I can.”
Montrell looked at him. Somehow, even in the fluorescent lighting of the garage, the man was blending in as if he were a shadow. This was partly because of his full black outfit, including gloves. Instead of gleaming, his shaved head was covered in tattoos that trailed down into his shirt. He was also slight of body, much smaller than Montrell would ever be.
“Like we trust you,” Vespa said with a snort.
Montrell wasn’t so hung up on semantics. He wanted Beatrice to live. He wanted them all to. “You really think you can?” he asked, trying to catch the hitman’s eyes.
Luka nodded without hesitation.
“For fuck’s sake, how?” Vespa asked. “This place is vertical. No way you can sneak in.”
Luka hesitated this time. He licked his lips before they parted, pressed together again, and then words slipped out. More than Montrell had heard him say yet.
As the assassin kept talking, Montrell felt a small glimmer of hope and clung to it.
Maeve’s giggling could only be heard between gunshots, but Beatrice hated the joy in the sound as she huddled on the floor, praying the couch would act as a solid barrier against bullets.
Montrell’s mother was insane.
Beatrice wanted to scream at the Irish mob that they were being idiotic. Crawling to try to find something a bit more substantial to hide behind seemed like a better use of her time.
From her vantage point, she could see Liam O’Connell’s eyes, wide with surprise below the hole in his head.
The couch above her creaked as Maeve peered down at her over the back. “She’s over here!” the madwoman called before laughing again, her laughter filling the sudden pause in the hail of bullets. When Beatrice stood with the gun pointed at her face, she squealed and then ducked.
Beatrice squeezed off enough rounds toward the door to make the soldiers jerk back. Then she grabbed a fistful of Maeve’s hair, satisfied by the shriek of outrage the woman released as her laughter died. Beatrice pressed the gun to her temple.
“Say it again!” she screamed in the woman’s face. “Admit what a piece of shit you are that you got off on torturing a defenseless child!”
There was no fear in Maeve’s expression. Her smile slowly spread again. “You’re just jealous. I’ll always be a part of him. He’ll remember me long after his soul has forgotten about you.”
Everything within Beatrice was screaming to pull the trigger. If she was going to die, she was damn well going to take this psycho with her.
She’d positioned herself behind the woman, and as she held her gun to her head, the room remained silent. There were no renewed shots.
Beatrice risked a glance at the doorway. The soldier there, or, hell, maybe one of the new reigning grandsons, stared back nervously.
It was her turn to laugh. The high-pitched noise sounded too much like Montrell’s mother in her frantic state. “Are you really worried I’ll kill her?” she asked the O’Connell. “She shot the head of your family on a whim! And you protect her!”
“They won’t believe your lies,” Maeve said. She was facing Beatrice, so the others couldn’t see her smile. “They know I loved my father.”
“You’ve never loved anyone but yourself.” Beatrice shifted along the couch, dragging Montrell’s mother with her for cover.
The soldier in the doorway’s face firmed. “Oh, we believe you.” He raised his gun. “Now hold still while I kill both of you crazy cunts.”
Beatrice dove behind the couch again. The bullets plowed into the curtains behind her, shattering through the wall of glass beyond and raining shards all around her. They cut into Beatrice’s palms as she scrambled for a new position.
Maeve screamed, though not in pain. No, the woman sounded furious as she rose to her feet with another gun and started firing.
The O’Connells must not have been expecting that. The one in the doorway was shot multiple times in the chest, and Beatrice watched other soldiers in the hallway fall as the woman kept firing while walking toward the door. When she reached it, she kicked the sprawled legs of a dead body out of the way before slamming the door shut and locking it.
Bullets plowed into the door from the other side, but unlike the glass, whatever the door was made of didn’t shatter or splinter or get pierced at all.
“My father always did like this room,” Maeve said. She paused next to Liam O’Connell’s body, her eyes glaring down at him. Then she spat on him.
Beatrice rose to her feet, lifting the gun she held as Maeve pointed her own.
“You ruined everything,” Maeve said, but her tone didn’t sound angry. Her eyes were cold as she pulled the trigger.
Her gun clicked, empty and useless.
Beatrice steadied her hand. She was shaking not in fear, but in fury. “This is for Montrell.”
Maeve’s face contorted as she shrieked and lunged. The bullet missed her forehead. Blood still splattered, but then the woman was on her.
Beatrice lost the gun as they fell to the floor, her head hitting the damn side table. Nails scraped down her face, and she lashed out with a punch. The weight on top of her kneeled on her chest, and she fought for breath, punching again. Her fist missed as she saw the mangled flesh of Maeve’s face. The bullet she’d squeezed off hadn’t missed. It had plowed through the woman’s cheek.
Her shock allowed Montrell’s mother to capture her arm in both of hers. Sudden pressure, and then excruciating pain as the woman snapped her arm.
Beatrice screamed.
Maeve’s smile was visible within her bloody cheek, and her eyes unfocused. “There,” she breathed. “There it is.”
Beatrice tried to focus through the pain. She headbutted Maeve right in that damn cheek, managing to roll them away from the table. Glass scraped her along with the nails. Maeve was scratching like a wild thing, not slowed by her own pain at all. She was a crazed animal with teeth bared and limbs flying.
The excruciating pain in Beatrice’s arm spiked again and again as she tried to roll them, tried to find purchase. There were scrapes all over her body, and a punch to her temple made the world spin and her stomach lurch. The nausea and dizziness collided as her body urged her to give in and pass out.
Her working hand landed on something sharp. She closed it around the piece of glass and stabbed it into Maeve’s goddamn eye.
Montrell’s mother howled as she finally jerked back.
Beatrice scrambled for the gun and shifted on the ground to face her. She didn’t miss from so close, emptying the clip into the monster until she lay still and staring.
The door burst open, and Beatrice forced her exhausted body to roll again, hoping the nearby fluttering curtains would hide her for even a moment. Her broken arm took the brunt of her weight, and vertigo hit her, along with the sudden view of the sky.
A blast of wind numbed her aching body as she panted on the ground of the balcony beyond the curtain.
She had to move. She knew she had to, but her body hurt so badly. It hurt worse than the time she’d dragged herself back to her father after her husband had broken her.
She lurched to her feet, swaying behind the foot or two of wall next to all that shattered glass just in time. More bullets punched through the curtains, spraying the area where she had just been.
Her lungs struggled for air as she tried to focus, tried to think through her panic and pain.
All she could think about was Montrell, how she’d only told him she loved him once. It seemed like such a waste.
Arms wrapped around her from behind. She appreciated her mind’s effort to give her the image she wanted. Only these arms weren’t thick tree trunks. They were skinny and covered in black, through to the gloves covering the hands.
The arms dragged her to the edge of the balcony, where they tumbled over it together. Beatrice didn’t have enough air to scream. The sky above her dimmed as her consciousness fell into the waiting darkness that had been calling to her tired body.