Chapter 5
5
I lunge for Alicia as she dashes toward the door. She reaches the handle before I can grab her, and now we’re really in the shit house. The door bursts open, and two men storm into the condo. Instinctively, I draw my gun, but they’re armed too.
“Move back, both of you,” one of the men growls, motioning with his weapon.
Alicia stumbles back. I grab her arm and pull her behind me, shielding her with my body. Something in the back of my brain is ringing an alarm. If they want her, I should be using her as a shield, not protecting her with my own body.
“She’s mine,” I say the words sounding oddly appropriate as they get out of my mouth. “Got to her first.”
They both frown as if they don’t understand English.
Nah, they just don’t get what I’m saying.
Okay, so they’re not competition. Not another bounty hunter I could negotiate with. Fuck!
“What do you want?”
The same guy talks again, waving his gun as he speaks. “We’re here for the girl. We’ve got no beef with you. Hand her over and we’ll just go.”
I glance at Alicia. Even when she’s terrified, she’s hot. Also, she doesn’t cave under pressure. Looks like having a meltdown didn’t even cross her mind.
“You’re not taking her anywhere,” I say, my grip tightening on my gun.
The first man takes a step forward, his weapon aimed at me. “Don’t be a hero; she’s not worth it. Hand her over…”
Nope, that won’t happen. No serious bounty hunter gives up that easily. But that’s not it. There’s this protective urge washing over me. Now is not the time to think about it. I’ll do that later, or not. Introspection’s not really my thing. I just know that I can’t let them take her, no matter what.
“Not happening,” I growl, my finger tightening on the trigger as I aim for the first man’s leg. He goes down with a cry of pain. Instead of shooting back, his partner watches him fall to the floor.
Perfect, it’s amateur hour.
I use the moment of confusion to shove Alicia toward the balcony.
“Go!” I yell, firing again at the other man’s right arm to keep him at bay.
Following Alicia outside, I scan the area, looking for an escape route. We’re two stories up, but there’s a small ledge running along the building.
“We have to jump,” I say, holstering my gun and reaching for Alicia. “But not here, over there.”
She stares at me and then looks down again toward a dumpster I’m pointing at. She shakes her head and whispers, “I don’t know if I can.”
“You can,” I insist, pulling her close. “I’ve got you.”
We climb over the railing, and I hold her tight as we inch along the ledge. I hear shouts from inside the condo, and there’s a new voice in the mix. Fuck, they have reinforcement. Unless it’s some neighbor complaining about the noise…
Hopefully, we’ll never know. We need to jump. It’s a risky jump—the dumpster is filled with construction debris—but it’s our only chance.
“Do you trust me?” I ask, looking into Alicia’s eyes.
She hesitates for a moment, then nods and whispers, “Yes.”
I pull her into my arms, and together, we leap off the ledge, aiming for the dumpster. We land with a crash. My breath’s knocked out of me, but as far as I can tell, it was a good fall. Nothing’s broken. And we’re alive, and for now, that’s all that matters.
“You’re okay?” I ask, reaching for the side of the dumpster.
She tentatively moves her arms and legs, stretches, and nods.
“Good, then let’s get out of here.”
As we scramble out of the broken pieces of sheetrock, I’m reconsidering my first assessment of Alicia.
Not the part about her being crazy hot and sexy—that remains the case even when she’s covered with white plaster dust. I have this flash of me pulling her under a hot shower and… I push those thoughts aside.
Right now, I have more pressing concerns, and what I’m questioning is her guilt. Because someone else is chasing her, I’m ready to consider the possibility that Alicia could be innocent. But there’s another option. Those men could be her partners or someone working for partners she tried to screw over. That’s something I have to figure out. I just need to keep her safe while I do it.
“Come on,” I say, taking her hand. “We need to get out of here.”
We run for the car and as soon as our belts are on, I gun the engine and peel out of the alley, putting as much distance as possible between us and the condo. My mind races as I try to make sense of what just happened. Those men were definitely not there to bring her to justice. No, they had something else in mind.
I glance over at Alicia, who’s slumped in the passenger seat, her face pale. “You okay?”
She shakes her head. I can tell she’s shaken. I get it. This case just got a whole lot more complicated.
I pull out my phone and dial Ice’s number. He picks up on the first ring. “Ace, what’s up?”
“I need a safe house, boss. Things went sideways at the girl’s place. Some goons showed up. I shot one in the leg, one in the arm, and we made it out.”
Ice is silent for a second while I hear the clicks of his mechanical keyboard. “Okay, I got you. Head to the shack behind the old clubhouse. I’ll have someone meet you there with supplies.”
“Will do.”
“Call me when you get there. In the meantime, I’m going to do a little snooping. If those guys were not the competition, then something doesn’t smell right.”
I hang up and try to focus on the road. Ice is right. Something’s off about this whole situation. I glance at Alicia again. She doesn’t look like a criminal mastermind to me, but then the successful ones never do. All good con men or women have one thing in common: they appear trustworthy.
“Who were those men?” I ask, breaking the silence.
Alicia shakes her head. “I don’t know. They didn’t really want me. They couldn’t care less about me; they only want the money, that’s for sure.”
“What do you mean?”
She hesitates, as if debating how much to tell me. “Look, I’m guessing what you’ve heard about me. But whatever you heard is not the whole story. I didn’t steal that money for myself.”
Fuck. My house of cards crumbles. So much for her being innocent. “Oh really? Then who did you steal it for?”
“It’s not like that.” She shrugs and folds her arms. “If I told you what happened, you would never believe me.”
“Try me anyway.”
“Well, it’s… it’s complicated.”
The truth is never complicated. It’s the lies that are.
My brains want to dismiss her claims as a desperate attempt to save her own skin. My gut, which has saved my life countless times when I was a cop, senses there might be some truth to what she’s saying. And then there’s another part of me, one that shouldn’t be used for thinking, which argues that there’s a better way to make her talk… and the image of me dragging her under the shower to help her clean up crosses my mind again.
Thankfully rush hour traffic takes care of my raging hard-on. I hate tourist season. It takes us twenty minutes to get to our destination. One prospect is already there, his ride parked next to the gate. He opens the garage door for me so I can hide the car and closes it behind us.
I guide Alicia outside the building, through the overgrown backyard and into the shack. As we pass the door, I put my hand on the small of her back and she shudders… Yeah, it’s freezing in here. Why do they keep it so cold?
We refer to this place as the shack, but it’s really a large studio complete with a shower room and a small kitchen. From the street it does a great job of masquerading as a garden tool shed. It’s a little too small for two strangers, but it will have to do.
Inside the studio, another prospect closes the fridge door as we step in.
“You have enough food for a few days,” he says rushing out the door.
“We won’t be here that long,” I answer, pressing the electronic lock behind him.
That could just be wishful thinking.