Chapter 43
JUDAH
“Idon’t have a clear shot,” I said, voice low as I lingered in the darkness of the high roller room. Tension rippled through my arm as I stared down the barrel of my bureau-issued handgun. It felt so unfamiliar.
I had gone to the range to requalify with it after I was cleared to return to duty, but it had been a long time since I’d held a gun on an operation.
Valentine was never bothered by the fact that I didn’t use a gun. Frankly, he liked the discretion that came with avoiding firearms, save for selling them.
He had much more creative ways of inflicting pain than bullets.
Cole stood at my six, watching the door we had snuck in.
It was a door I had snuck people out of time and time again. One that wasn’t visible from the outside of the building unless you knew right where to look.
Valentine had never been arrested. He’d just gone into hiding, thanks to Agent Sanders.
I was still reeling from the day’s revelations, but I couldn’t focus on them. Not when Amelia’s life was on the line.
Al and Jeremiah kept bobbing back and forth, blocking Valentine as he stood hunched over Amelia.
My breath hitched as he used the knife to snap the zip ties, then yanked her arm out and held the knife out. Al kept her other arm restrained behind her back.
If he so much as raised the knife, I’d have to take two shots: one to get Jeremiah down and the other to take out Valentine.
It was risky. Jeremiah might not drop fast enough. He might move as I pulled the trigger. Valentine might move after the first shot. It could be a bloodbath.
I kept my sights trained on Valentine as he turned his head and shouted at the dealer to grab towels.
“If I go in, you grab Amelia,” I said to Cole. The last thing I wanted was to get made by someone just walking by.
“We’ve got company,” Cole said quietly as he watched the casino security feed that played on a small monitor so the bigwigs who came into this room to gamble and do business could see who was outside. “Backup is never early.”
“They’re not used to being backup,” I muttered.
Even though Valentine had the knife, Jeremiah was the current problem. He was beside Valentine, covering the opening I had to take Valentine out as he continued to antagonize Amelia.
John said something over his shoulder, but I couldn’t quite make it out. Whatever the dealer said back to him took him by surprise.
My finger twitched against the trigger as everyone’s attention moved off Valentine. Still no shot.
There were too many variables on the floor. And if the Newark field office decided to bust down the door before I took out Valentine, Amelia was as good as dead.
“Shit,” I whispered as a swish of blonde hair left the nearest blackjack table, heading toward the supply closet.
We were about to get made.
I didn’t have a backup plan. Hell, my backup plan was to walk in, hands up, and take her place. But I knew that wouldn’t work. I’d just die a slow, more painful death. He’d make her watch.
That’s when I saw it. Those fucking shoes.
“She’s one of us,” I said quietly as I adjusted my aim and held my breath.
“You sure? Your people tend to be dirty.”
“As sure as I can be.”
Jolie—the dealer—walked by, looked me dead in the eye, and kept walking.
I held my breath as Joel started to beg. Valentine backhanded him, adding to the gruesome mess that was his face.
When Jolie walked back to the casino floor with an arm full of bar towels, she passed by the cracked door and winked.
Fucking winked.
“Backup’s about to breach. Take your shot,” Cole said, watching the monitors.
Jolie joined Valentine but stayed just out of arm’s reach as she offered the towels. Ire flashed in his eyes as he pivoted his shoulders and yelled at her.
She drew him off just far enough for—
Jeremiah shifted his weight, and I fired.
Chaos erupted as I got off a second shot, dropping Valentine to the ground. Doors flew open as agents from the Newark field office and Atlantic City PD flooded the casino, but I was already running.
Shouts of “hands!” and “everybody on the ground!” piled on top of each other. Bodies dropped flat on the floor, accented with the clink of handcuffs.
I couldn’t get to Amelia fast enough. I couldn’t get her out of that chair fast enough. I couldn’t get her in my arms fast enough.
Cole worked to free Joel while Feds and local law enforcement secured the scene.
Amelia was stiff as a board as I pulled her into my arms.
“Amelia—”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t even make a sound. Her eyes were glazed over and staring in the distance at something only she could see.
Shock. It was the only word to describe it.
I looked over at Jolie as I cradled Amelia against my chest. “One question. What agency?”
She lifted her shirt just high enough to give me a peek at the wire she was wearing. “DEA. Sorry for encroaching on your territory. My team didn’t know the bureau had a UC here.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“How’d you know I was a Fed?”
“The shoes.”
Jolie cracked a smile. “I knew I shoulda worn my Chucks today.”
Paramedics swarmed in, getting Joel onto a stretcher first. I reluctantly eased off Amelia so she could get checked out, but she didn’t react. No tears. No shaking.
She might as well have been a corpse.
Her eyes—always cheery like spring bluebirds—were completely void. She was rigid as she was loaded onto a stretcher of her own. The paramedics peppered her with questions—her name, date of birth, if anything hurt—but she didn’t answer.
My girl was gone.
Saturday, August 30 | 4:08 p.m.
Three days had passed since I found Amelia and Joel at the Four Horsemen. Three days of trying to give statements and reports while refusing to leave the hospital because Amelia refused to leave the hospital.
She also refused to talk to Joel, which made the whole thing even more of a mindfuck.
She was doing what she always did—looking out for him. Protecting him—but she had hit a wall with how much she could handle. She had sacrificed every ounce of herself for him and had nothing left.
Amelia didn’t eat. She didn’t sleep. The nurses threatened to readmit her if she didn’t start doing the bare minimum while she waited for Joel to recover from yet another knee surgery.
The only thing she had communicated was a bare-bones email requesting a temporary leave of absence from her position at Alcott. Given the media maelstrom, they had agreed immediately.
No matter what I did, nothing seemed to pull her out of it. Cole had taken my place to keep an eye on the Hawthornes while I went to New Haven to get Amelia and Joel some new clothes and toiletries, took care of business in New York, and grabbed my own necessities from my apartment in Newark.
After this summer, I was done driving up and down the East Coast. I had a feeling Amelia was too.
If I never saw the New Jersey Turnpike again, it would be a good fucking day.
I strolled through the hospital’s sliding glass doors and checked back in at the front desk.
Amelia was still in the thick of her darkness, but I had shirked off some of mine and felt incrementally better for it.
I slapped the adhesive visitor’s badge on the front of my T-shirt and jogged to the elevator, anxious to get back to her.
Waiting for it to rise to the floor Joel was recovering on was excruciating. By the time the doors opened, I was running.
I knew Amelia was safe. She was with Cole; of course she was safe. But I needed to see her. I needed to hold her. I needed her to talk to me.
Three days and she hadn’t said anything. Not a fucking word.
I understood shock. I had seen it. I had felt it. But with her, I couldn’t stand idly on the sidelines.
Cole was seated in a cluster of chairs meant for family, speaking to someone on the phone.
The door to Joel’s hospital room was propped open and he was gone, which meant he was probably undergoing imaging or having a physical therapy session.
Amelia was sitting on a couch that was pushed up against the window, knees pulled up to her chest as she stared aimlessly at the glass.
“Hey, little fox,” I said as I let myself inside, setting the bags I had brought in on the long countertop opposite the hospital bed.
She glanced at me, then turned her eyes back to the window. I bit back a sigh as my heart twisted.
I unzipped the toiletry bag, grabbed her hairbrush, and slid behind her on the couch. Amelia stiffened as I began to brush her hair, starting at the ends and working my way up.
Even after three days, it wasn’t tangled. Someone would have to sleep to have bedhead. Amelia hadn’t.
Her taut muscles began to loosen as I brushed her hair, then combed back through it with my fingers.
“Close your eyes for me,” I said softly.
To my surprise, she complied.
“Remember when I brushed your hair at the cabin?”
I peered down just in time to see the corner of her mouth tighten.
“Just like this.” I kept my motions steady, not wanting to startle her with unexpected touches. “You said it felt good.”
Even though she didn’t answer, I kept running my fingers through her hair, feeling her grow more and more lax, hoping she was picturing it.
I kissed her temple as I did a long pass from her forehead to the ends of her hair. “Does it still feel good?”
Amelia tipped her chin in the slightest nod as her arms began to tremble and shiver.
“I remember that day like it was yesterday,” I said quietly as I continued.
Her fingers curled in on themselves as she dug them into her palms. A grounding technique? Was she trying to ward off a panic attack?
“Try to take a breath and hold it,” I said as I let the bristles of the brush scrape along the back of her neck, bringing her attention to the sensation against her skin.
Amelia’s chest jolted as she tried to inhale, but she couldn’t fill her lungs.
“I’m right here,” I said in a hushed tone. “Remember what we did when you were practicing getting into your office? Think on the inhale and act on the exhale.”
She managed a wheezy inhale.
“Picture somewhere safe.”