Chapter 5
FIVE
ELENA
“You’re going to let me pay for a better place,” Jamie ground out between clenched teeth. He didn’t even slow the car down. In fact, he sped up, passing the run-down hotel with its crumbling brick facade with a rev of the engine.
“Jamie! Stop this car at once.”
“You’re not staying there.”
“If I stay there, I can get by for almost a month. Anywhere else is either too expensive or outright dangerous.”
“You don’t think that place is dangerous?” Jamie glanced at her in the rearview mirror, snorting and shaking his head.
“It didn’t look that bad in the pictures,” Elena murmured.
“Well, it is that bad, so we’re going uptown.” Jamie swerved to the left just as the light turned, barreling down a side street.
Elena grabbed onto the back of the seat as her body tried to slide out from under her with the force of the turn. “Jamie!”
“Hold on, kid.”
“What the hell?”
“Hang on,” Jamie snapped, yanking the wheel to the right so hard the car bounced over the curb before straightening out. The engine roared as he slammed on the gas pedal, sending them shooting out into the first hints of evening traffic.
“What the hell is going on?” Elena tried to straighten only to be flung against the opposite door as Jamie executed another sharp turn.
“Someone’s following us.” Jamie glanced from her to the back window, features fixed into a dark scowl.
All the blood rushed from her head, making Elena dizzy as she turned to face the back windshield.
At first she didn’t see it, and then she wondered how she ever missed it.
The giant SUV chasing them down was many years this car’s junior, probably loaded to the gills with all the technological advances.
Its brakes didn’t lock up as it performed the same series of turns and switchbacks that made Elena’s old car groan and squeal.
“Get down,” Jamie shouted over the shriek of the tires skidding across worn asphalt as they accelerated down a straightaway.
Elena fell to the seat, covering her head with her arms. The pops of gunfire ripped through the air.
Glass exploded above her. Swallowing her scream so as not to distract Jamie, she worked her way down onto the floorboard.
Curling up behind him, she tucked chin to knees to make the smallest target possible.
This couldn’t be happening. Not after everything else.
If the one responsible for her father’s death now wanted her, why hadn’t they done it sooner? They’d let all the other women go. She’d been a prime target for days. If it was someone else entirely, the same question remained. There was nothing important about her anymore.
Elena whimpered as a spray of bullets destroyed the back window, shards of safety glass tumbling around her. The car swerved, the undercarriage grinding against cement as Jamie ran onto the sidewalk.
Swearing she could feel the SUV bearing down on them, Elena shoved her unhindered arm beneath the driver’s seat.
Patting around the shadowed space, her hand closed over the gun strapped to the underside.
Shaking so hard she was sure it would go off in her face, Elena awkwardly checked the clip and that there was a round in the chamber.
Thumbing the safety, she rose to her knees and braced her back against the seat.
This wasn’t the practice range Jamie took her to.
Nothing was still and quiet, there were no murmured instructions from him to correct her aim.
The stupid cast made her doubled grip difficult, and she had a mere moment to be thankful Valente hadn’t broken her dominant hand.
Elena bared her teeth and squeezed the trigger as the SUV veered around a taxi.
“Shit!” Mouth going slack as sparks flew off the shiny chrome of the SUV’s grill, she was beyond surprised it’d even hit anywhere near her mark.
Jamie swerved to the right, the SUV tight on their tail. Elena aimed for the windshield where three ghostly shadows appeared and faded as light fell on the glass. Releasing a shaky breath, she fired again.
The bullet slid off the windshield, skimming across the expanse of it before flying off somewhere to the side. By some miracle, there weren’t people lingering on the sidewalk.
“It’s going to be bulletproof, kid,” Jamie snarled over his shoulder. “Aim for the hood!”
Feeling like an idiot, Elena lowered the muzzle towards the hood of the SUV. Squeezing off two rapid shots, victory surged through her veins as a hole appeared. Only one, though, and it didn’t strike anything of importance if the bad guys were still edging closer.
For a split second, the glare of lights winked out as they passed through a shadowed tunnel of high-rises. The three men became clear, no longer blurred shadows.
She’d recognize those bright blue eyes anywhere. No longer warm or inviting, they were chips of long buried ice boring straight into her soul. Hatred lay deep within them, and eagerness, too. Excited for the chase.
Elena’s wordless scream was soon drowned out by the deafening thunder of the gunshots within the close space of the car’s interior.
One after the other, she fired rounds into the grill and hood of the fancy SUV.
The dull clicks as she continued to pull the trigger failed to register for a long moment.
Smoke poured from the front of the other car, but it wasn’t slowing them down. Pyotr would have what he wanted soon enough.
The crush of metal was a banshee scream rattling around Elena’s skull.
Pyotr and his men were there and then gone in the next instant, the broad side of another SUV crumpling under the impact against the far larger opponent.
Enough to stop both of them though. Glass and steel went flying in every direction before they grinded to a halt.
Elena stared wide eyed as bodies poured from both vehicles, the bright bursts of light from semi-automatic weapons lighting up the darkening street.
They were going to escape, and whoever had just rammed Pyotr’s car had saved her life.
Jamie’s hand came over the seat, shoving Elena back down to the floorboard.
He was yelling instructions, but she couldn’t hear him over the pounding in her ears.
This had to be shock. Every joint locked tight, keeping her paralyzed as Jamie maneuvered the car through the heavy traffic to more populated streets.
She didn’t just tremble, her entire body quaked.
When the car came to a stop, Elena could barely breathe.
Lungs crushed under heavy iron bands of tension, she shook as she knelt among the broken pieces of glass against the musty upholstery.
The door squealed as Jamie exited, another shriek of metal piercing the too still quiet as he opened the back door.
“You hurt?”
As if she heard him from underwater, Elena blinked at Jamie for the space of a handful of trembling heartbeats.
She understood his question, but the assurances wouldn’t come to her.
Tongue lying dead and silent in her mouth, she realized she didn’t know if she was injured.
Couldn’t feel a damn thing as cool numbness slipped through her veins.
Jamie waited her out. He didn’t reach in and grab her. Standing in the open space of the door sitting at odd angles to the body of the car, his gaze roamed. Watching her back, as he always had.
Once her heart stopped trying to break free of her chest, Elena took a slow breath and began picking her way out of the backseat. Using the cast as a brace, she levered herself over the worst of the glass until Jamie could scoop her up and away from the dangerous debris.
“Where are we,” Elena asked in a hollow rasp as she turned a slow circle. Taking in the scattered cars and tall banks of cement, lines etched their way across her forehead.
“Parking deck three blocks north from the Talbot,” Jamie said as he wrenched open the trunk with a grating moan of steel. Retrieving her larger suitcase, he held out the smaller overnight bag to Elena. “You’re sure you’re not hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” Elena stammered out, taking the bag and slinging the strap over her shoulder. Facing Jamie, she gave a low cry, hand stopping short of touching the slick red patch that was growing larger by the second. “Your arm!”
“It’s fine. Now come put these in your bag.
” Jamie fished out several clips and another gun from the case hidden beneath the rough carpet of the trunk.
Lips thinning when Elena stood rooted to the greasy cement, he snapped, “Elena, right now! I don’t know how much time that bought us, and we need to get you off the street. Now come put this in your bag.”
“But you’re bleeding…”
“It’s fine.”
“It is not fine, Jamie.” Still, she put the gun and clips into her overnight bag. She wasn’t stupid. Elena knew they couldn’t go to the hospital, but they had to do something. “You can’t very well walk down the street looking like that.”
“I’ve got it covered.” And he did, literally. Jamie shrugged on a black sports coat that looked only a little out of place on him. It wasn’t his, and Elena had no idea where he’d come across it, but it hid away the bright red swath.
After stowing away the rest of the ammunition and guns on his person and in a small duffle he unearthed from somewhere in the trunk, Jamie took her arm and led her towards the street level elevators.
He made her repeat the car’s position until he was satisfied she had it memorized.
Then he gave her directions to the hotel, a path that would lead her through alleys and backstreets should something happen.
Bringing her to a stop before they went out into the light of day, he wiped the tears from her cheeks she hadn’t even been aware of. Making her straighten out her clothes and hair, there was no helping the tiny pieces of glass caught in the thick waves until she could pick them out.
Nodding once, Jamie started them towards the Talbot hotel.