Chapter Twenty-Three
Gavino
Ira and the woman had half a day ahead of us.
Assuming Daniel stopped to shop like Caitlin told him to, he probably lost two, maybe even three hours to gathering supplies—depending on how far out of the way the closest shopping center was.
So he’d probably arrived at the cabin around ten.
Spent some time setting shit up. Went to bed.
As for Ira, I had to assume that he went from the garage to Caitlin’s apartment—the address easily found in her wallet. It would have taken him at least an hour to toss the whole place. Probably closer to two.
Then who knew how long it would take him to remember to use the tracker.
Either way, the chances were high that Ira and the woman had made it to the cabin not long after Daniel.
Unless, by some miracle, he’d gone somewhere else first. Maybe to Daniel’s home he shared with the woman.
Maybe we’d get really fucking lucky and the signal of the tracker died out. From the looks of the listing, the cabin was out in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but trees around for miles and miles.
Honestly, I had to give Caitlin credit. If she did have to run from the mob, she would have been pretty damn safe all the way out there.
It was a tense drive, Caitlin and I in the backseat of Leo’s SUV. One of Leo’s soldiers was in the passenger seat. There was a car already ahead of us with a twenty-minute head start.
No one spoke, save to clarify directions.
Caitlin was a ball of nerves, every muscle tightening with each passing moment.
I rested my hand on her leg, but I didn’t offer her empty promises I wasn’t sure we could keep. If Ira had made it to the cabin ahead of us, there was a chance that Daniel was hurt. There was a chance he was dead. It all depended on if Ira got what he wanted yet or not.
Daniel was a big guy. He had a good chance in a fight. But if Ira showed up armed…
I shook the thoughts off.
It wasn’t going to help anyone to get myself worked up about this. I was just hoping Daniel was alive. I didn’t want to have to be the one to tell Caitlin her father had been killed.
“You okay?” I asked as Caitlin’s breath got more and more shallow.
“I’m glad you didn’t want to kill me,” she said, her hand going to her throat. “This is really claustrophobic. I don’t think I could have stayed in the cabin.”
We’d turned onto an unpaved backroad about forty minutes ago. The trees closed in tight around us, blotting out the sun, casting the car mostly in darkness. If you glanced out the window, all you could see were trees, not even a hint of sky.
She wasn’t wrong.
It was claustrophobic.
Almost sinister-feeling.
But maybe that was just how someone who’d lived in the city their whole life would feel.
“You never know. You didn’t even react to the bridge this time.”
“I had other things to worry about.”
“It’s the next left,” Leo’s soldier said, making the whole car tense. “Then a right into the driveway.”
“It’s at the end of a really long driveway,” Caitlin told us. “I remember that because I thought it would be good because I could see people coming from far away.”
Which meant they would see us coming.
It looked like the car that got ahead of us had the same thought. Because they were parked on the top of the crossroad just before the driveway.
“Talk to me,” Leo demanded as we climbed out of the SUV.
“I have two guys scoping out the cabin. Didn’t want to wait for you if shit was going down.”
“Good,” Leo said. “We are going in too. Can you stay with Caitlin?” he asked, nodding toward the car.
“Yep.”
“You have a piece?”
“Yes.”
“Keep her safe,” I demanded as I reached for my gun.
There was no time to tell her we were going, to offer her hollow reassurances.
So I just turned back to the SUV. The tint was thick. I couldn’t see her. But I knew she could see me. I gave her a nod.
Then I ran into the woods alongside the road, following Leo and his man.
Woods were great for staying visually undetected. But there was nothing quiet about littered underbrush.
I felt like my foot crunched leaves or twigs every other step, the sound amplified until I could swear the approach could be heard from inside the cabin.
Caitlin wasn’t kidding about the length of the driveway. It seemed to stretch on forever until, finally, the cabin came into view.
It was a small wood cabin with a steeply pitched roof and a slight overhang that covered the front porch.
Under different circumstances, I might have stopped to admire it.
But there was no time for it. Because not only was Caitlin’s car parked there, but so was an old pickup truck. With no one inside.
I took instructions from Leo to go around the back of the cabin.
The other guys who’d gone ahead were nowhere to be seen. Not until we rushed in through the doors to find them standing in the mess of the one-room interior.
There was evidence of Daniel all around—mussed bedsheets on the wood-framed bed shoved up against a wall, one of those noir novels Caitlin said he liked sitting on the plaid couch, a coffee cup in the sink, and at least a dozen reusable store bags sitting on the dining table.
They had to have been bags he found in Caitlin’s trunk since most of them were tote bags for various bookstores all around the city.
There were other things to notice right away, though.
The overturned chairs. The knocked-over end table. A shattered glass. A dropped steak knife. With blood on the blade.
My stomach twisted as I looked over at my brother, then the other men.
“It was like this when we came in. The back door was open. They were in here. They tussled. Then…” He glanced out the window at the woods.
Fuck.
“Everyone armed?” Leo asked, getting quick confirmations.
“Then we go into the woods.”
There was no more discussion.
We all filed out the back door and took off in different directions.
I felt the adrenaline surging, making my blood rush in my ears, until I tried to focus, keep myself calm. I needed to listen, to make sure I didn’t hear any grunts or footsteps.
I wove around trees, jumped over logs, pushing myself further and further.
But there was nothing.
No tracks.
No sounds.
Nothing.
Not until a shot sounded out, making my blood freeze as I came to a stop.
And turned.
That shot came from behind me.
But not straight back.
Not at the cabin.
No.
It sounded like it came from the road.
The road where Caitlin was parked.
A sitting duck in a car.
She had a guard, I reminded myself as I started running back.
But then there was another shot.
A third.
A fourth.
Then silence.
Bone-fucking-chilling silence.