Chapter 32 #2
She was momentarily disappointed until a chime came from Shawn’s pocket, interrupting the discussion.
She glanced at her new husband with a look that said seriously?
He ignored it and produced his phone, examining the screen.
She watched him scroll through the message, and her look morphed into one of annoyance.
He sensed it without even looking up and typed out a quick reply. “I suppose yours is off already?”
Kara prepared to say something, only for her purse to begin ringing. She sighed. “Is that you calling me?”
“Perhaps.”
“You’ve made your point, Ehemann.” Husband, she’d called him.
While Shawn flashed a smile, Olivia hovered awkwardly beside me, and I understood in an instant. This was her employer, and it was time for her to get to work. I wasn’t sure if kissing her goodbye was appropriate, or if she’d even allow it, but I was going to try anyway.
I dropped my head down to hers and leaned in, taking her mouth without permission.
She parted her lips instinctively, welcoming it, but then she seemed to remember where she was. She pulled back, and annoyance streaked across her face. Not with me, though. Her head swung to the hangar doors.
“What is that guy doing?” she groaned under her breath. I followed her gaze to the fuel truck that rumbled toward the hangar. “We don’t fill in the hangar.” She abandoned me beside the tail of the plane and hurried toward the approaching truck, waving her arms. “Stop. Halt.”
She was fifteen steps away from me when she abruptly froze, her arms motionless in mid-air. “Ethan.” Her voice was an urgent warning. “It’s Carlo.”
Gio’s security guard. Here, in Munich.
My stomach felt like it had a brick inside it, but I kept moving. I yanked the SIG free from my holster, stretching my body up to its full, alert height. “Everyone in the cars, now.”
I scanned the hangar left to right. By the doors, an airport staff member in coveralls lingered. It’d be easy to hide a gun or two beneath that baggy uniform.
The truck pulled to a stop just inside the hangar bay, its engine still roaring, the driver’s side angled toward us.
Doors flew open. I didn’t recognize the driver, but the passenger was the menacing Carlo, and both men’s guns came up into view.
Olivia turned and fled, heading for cover behind Jason’s SUV while the rest of the flight crew panicked and stumbled up the stairs into the plane.
Gunshots.
I slid into cover behind the fender of the Audi as pieces of taillights exploded onto the pavement, and the car sustained fire.
Safety off. I sighted their position as the bay doors began to fold closed with a whine of metal on metal. The guy in coveralls was drawing down now, having finished activating the shutters that soon would prevent escape by vehicle. Fuck.
When the line of bullets swept to my left and began to cut into Jason’s BMW, I steadied the grip of my gun on the trunk of the sedan and opened fire, focusing on Coveralls by the door, so the man wouldn’t be able to flank.
My first shot missed. How the hell had I missed? My second one was center-mass, and the next was to the head. The impact pitched Coveralls backward, headfirst to the ground.
Smooth metal was at my back as I dropped behind the Audi wheel well. My shots had drawn their fire back in my direction. The backseat window shattered, raining glass down all over me. Shit, I couldn’t stay here where I was pinned down, but I couldn’t move either.
Gunfire ripped from the other side of the Audi, much too close to be an enemy. Jason, was returning fire. The marshal probably always carried, thank fuck. Again, I slung my SIG over the car, and this time its trunk was full of holes and ricochet dents.
I sank several bullets into the door of the truck, trying to reach the ugly, greasy-looking driver who was hiding behind it. Carlo was even harder to get at on the other side of the vehicle.
There was a huge crash as the hangar doors attempted to shut, jammed open by the fuel truck.
Wasting ammo, that was what I was doing.
I burned through several more rounds before returning to cover. Shit, I was going to have to get smart quick about this. I only had fifteen rounds in the magazine to begin with, and now I was down to seven at the most.
When I had to kill, I didn’t do it out in the open. I was trained to be silent. The never-see-it-coming kind of kill. But this was a brute force strike. The two gunmen in the truck undoubtedly had more ammo and would outlast me and Jason like this.
There was a sharp, male hiss of pain followed by a thud on the other side of the Audi.
“Jason!” Laurel screamed through one of the BMW’s shattered windows.
A door opened, and someone climbed out of the SUV.
Fucking no, I wanted to yell at her, but there wasn’t time.
I dropped my shoulder to the pavement, ignoring Jason’s form slumped there to the side of my field of vision, and focused on the truck.
It took two shots to hit one of the driver’s legs that wasn’t shielded below the truck’s door.
And as I had hoped, when the man reached down instinctively toward his wound, his head dipped into view for a split second. More than enough time.
Both of my bullets sent blood and brain splattering across the side of the fuel truck.
More gunshots rang out, a volley from my side of the vehicles, but it didn’t make sense. Jason was still down on the cement.
Once the driver had been killed, there were no more gunshots from the fuel truck. Only the sound of Carlo’s fading footsteps as he fled.
Glass crunched under my shoes as I rounded the car, sliding the magazine out to check my ammo. Two fucking bullets. That was all I had left. Jason was flat on his back, his left hand over the blood pouring from his right shoulder.
I jerked to a stop.
Olivia crouched beside the SUV, Jason’s Glock clenched in her fist.
Holy shit.
It wasn’t Laurel who’d gotten out of the BMW in the middle of a gunfight—it’d been Olivia. She’d left the safety of the car to help me return fire.
“Go,” Jason ordered. “I’m all right.”
My brain was chaos, but I pushed every thought aside except the immediate one and focused on the gun she held. “I’m almost out.”
She offered it without hesitation.
“Spare mag,” he said through clenched teeth, “in the console.”
I holstered the SIG, grabbed his Glock, and reached in through the shattered window to access the console. I refused to acknowledge the empty infant car seat that had bullet holes in it and found the magazine quickly, shoving it in my pocket.
“Stay down,” I commanded, loud enough for everyone to hear, and tore off for the fuel truck.
Since the shutter doors had jammed shut on it, the fastest way was through the cab.
I barreled in and out the other side, sweeping my gun across the landscape to make sure I was clear.
Carlo had a considerable headstart and was only twenty feet from a sedan parked against another hangar, clearly his target.
The trigger was spongy.
The kick on the Glock was different than my SIG, too. Sharp and powerful, and I had to stop running and brace my hand if I wanted accuracy. My shoes skidded on the pavement as I struck my stance, gripping the wrist of my firing hand with the other.
Carlo bolted into the car, his head disappearing from my view when I unleashed the full fury of the weapon. I splattered a line of bullets across the back of the sedan, shattering the back window, and only stopped because the magazine was spent.
Brake lights flicked on, followed by reverse.
He was still alive, at least well enough to operate the car. I dropped the spent magazine from the gun, jerked the spare one from my pants, and slammed it in, losing time as the reverse lights went dark and the car lurched forward.
I fired then with the new goal of disabling the vehicle, even as I sensed the security vehicles rolling in on me.
When Carlo sped off and disappeared behind another hangar, I stopped firing and stared at the Glock extended before me, filled with disbelief.
Everything was unraveling.
The security personnel were out of their vehicles, rapidly approaching me on foot, and screaming at me to put the gun down.
I put the safety back on and got down on my hands and knees, then set the gun on the ground beside me. I followed their orders without hesitation, flattening my chest to the pavement, gravel digging into the side of my cheek as I crossed my hands behind my head.
Carlo had escaped. What the fuck had just happened?
I tried to explain to the officers I was part of Shawn Dunn’s security team and informed them of the SIG Sauer in my holster.
That I had a permit for the weapons, and identification, back at Mr. Dunn’s car.
I left the Polezei with no choice but to bring me back to the hangar before taking me into custody.
How the fuck were the Abramos still giving orders?
Carlo wouldn’t make a move this big without permission, and I highly doubted he had the smarts to pull off the task on his own. The spray of bullets had been directed at the Dunns.
What if Laurel’s son had been in the car?
Every muscle in my body tensed and ached.
I needed to use my phone and figure out what had happened, but I couldn’t do that. An officer put a knee roughly in my back as he latched a handcuff around one wrist, then twisted my arms behind my back to do the other. Then I was yanked to my feet.
With every thought racing through my mind, the loudest was my fury with myself.
If I hadn’t been so selfish, if I had turned Olivia over to Daniel when I’d gotten her away from the Abramos like I was supposed to, her life wouldn’t be in danger.
Carlo had seen us together.
It proved I’d lied about her death. It meant she could be useful to Vitale if he wanted information on me. And she had witnessed Gio murder Renzo. Both Abramos would want her.
I sure as shit couldn’t protect her from inside a jail cell.