Chapter 28
Daniela sat at her desk to wait as everything downloaded.
She had her files backed up online but she wanted a physical record of every painting she’d sold, artist she’d signed, anything that she might need later for taxes…
or whatever. If she was going to walk away, she needed to bring her records with her.
The records she kept on her family’s businesses were stashed in a storage unit rented under the name of a friend who’d been in Singapore for the last year for work.
Her friend had rented two units—one for her belongings and another for Daniela to use as she pleased.
She’d only asked that Daniela check on both units occasionally, which she did.
Soon she was going to have to gather up everything she had and hand it over to the Feds. She was both dreading and dreaming of it.
When her cell phone buzzed, she nearly jumped at the intrusion. Everyone was gone for the day, except for Cormac who was currently locking up. She frowned at the number, surprised to see Edith’s name on the caller ID.
Edith ran her brother’s household. Daniela wasn’t sure what her official title was, but she cleaned, organized his personal calendar, took care of planning all entertaining events—Daniela was pretty sure she’d been the one to organize the recent engagement party.
But she rarely ever called Daniela.
“Hey, Edith,” she answered.
“Daniela, you need to run,” Edith whispered, her voice low and tight.
“Wh—”
“Julian’s been shot, he’s bleeding out. Logan is telling everyone you’re behind it and sending men after you. Whatever you’re doing, run and get to safety now,” she hissed before the call ended abruptly.
Adrenaline surging through her, she stood, knocking her chair backward. Before she’d taken two steps to the door, Cormac raced in.
“Something’s going on. Your brother’s guys are making a move on the gallery. Their weapons are drawn. We’ve got to run.”
“Someone shot my brother,” she said as she grabbed her purse. “Just got a call telling me to run.”
He cursed, but pulled a pistol out. “Come on—”
“Just hold on,” she muttered as she pulled up the security camera feeds. “We can see where they’re entering from and I can screw with the lights from here.”
There were two men at one of the front doors, both with weapons held low and out of sight for any passersby.
Cormac stood inside the doorway, vibrating with energy as she quickly set the lights in the gallery to a strobing effect. Then she armed the security system for the front door as one of the men smashed the glass with his pistol.
The alarm pierced the air, the sound mind-numbing.
She grabbed the external hard drive from her computer, then she and Cormac raced down the hallway that would lead to the back alley.
He kept pace with her, his weapon up as they hurried to the exit.
She pushed on the back door, sending it flying. It clanged against the outer wall as they raced into the alleyway.
“This way,” he ordered, pointing toward the front of the building. “I only saw two guys. They don’t have backup yet.”
But she had a feeling that backup would be on the way, given the phone call she’d received.
She had so many questions—like why would anyone believe she’d been behind shooting her brother—but they would all have to wait.
She wanted to know if he was going to make it but had no way of finding out now.
As they reached the end of the alleyway, Cormac held up a hand, then slowed. He eased up to the edge of the brick wall, peered around it. “Clear.” Then he handed her a set of keys. “That’s us, head for the white CRV.”
She’d seen it parked out front of the business next to her gallery since last week. She wanted to ask Cormac why he had another vehicle just waiting but the answer seemed quite obvious as she hit the key fob.
“Hey!” a male voice said from down the alleyway but she didn’t turn as she sprinted down the sidewalk, Cormac right with her.
In seconds she was in the driver’s seat, her hands trembling as she started the engine, pulled away from the curb. She started to do a U-turn, but Cormac rolled down his window as he shouted, “Go straight!”
Even though her instinct told her to turn and get as far away as possible, she did as he said. She gunned the engine. As they flew past the alleyway, Cormac started shooting.
Flinching at the noise, she gripped the steering wheel tight. She wanted to look, but didn’t dare take her eyes off the road.
Miraculously, the street was quiet. Maybe not so much a miracle considering it was four in the afternoon and most of the businesses were closing up or already shut.
“I hit one of them. Okay, now slow down,” he ordered as he jumped into the back seat.
It took her two seconds to realize what he was doing. Then he rolled down the back window and shot out the back and front left tires of the SUV following them, emptying his magazine.
As soon as he was done, she revved the engine, turning left on red when no one was coming. Her heart was still in her throat as she came up to the next red light.
“You’re fine and we’re fine,” he murmured as he got back into the front passenger seat, strapped in.
It took a moment for his words to register as she sat there idling at the light. Her brother had been shot. Might be dead. His people were after her. And her father might have murdered her mother.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever be fine again.
“No one knows this vehicle except those two men. And this is a common model. I doubt they had time to get the license plate. Just drive like normal.”
She wasn’t sure if it was his soothing voice, but she nodded, and when the light turned green, she found she could drive normally. Even if she did feel like she was going to crawl out of her skin from pure adrenaline.
“We obviously can’t go back to your house,” he murmured.
“I know a place,” she said, glad her voice didn’t tremble.
“We can just go to the safe house and then regroup.”
“I want to grab some of the evidence now.” It was time. She was past the point of no return now. “The storage unit where I’ve been keeping everything is only four miles from here.”
He paused.
“What?”
“If they do have cops in their pocket, they might be able to run your license plate and track us. It’s not likely but…”
“It’s worth the risk. This felt very rushed. Let’s get what I have and then we can ditch this car and go to the safe house.”
He nodded and started texting someone, probably one of his brothers. “So who called you?” he asked as he continued texting.
“Edith. Works for my brother. She was whispering. Said that Logan was telling everyone I was behind shooting Julian.” Edith hadn’t said he was dead and that was giving Daniela hope.
“Logan was probably behind it himself. He might have wanted to use the chaos of your brother being attacked to come after you.”
She shivered as she thought about Logan getting his hands on her. But then shut it down. She was with Cormac right now. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. “I hope they don’t know who you are,” she said, admitting her worst fear aloud.
“I don’t think they do. At least according to Micah,” he added, still looking at something on his phone.
Feeling somewhat better, she made the turn into the storage unit entrance, then typed her code into the panel. It felt like it took forever for the gate to roll open, but eventually they were inside.
They were both quiet as she drove around to the back, then reversed right up to the rolling door.
“Technically I’m not supposed to do this,” she said.
“But the guy who watches this place doesn’t give a shit as long as no one complains.
So we should be fine to park here for a bit.
” She popped the back hatch before getting out.
“I’ve got another vehicle lined up for us.” Cormac stood next to her in the mostly bare unit.
She had two filing cabinets, a few pieces of shitty art she’d found at thrift stores, a couple old birdcages and an arcade game she’d bought from someone off Marketplace.
“What’s with the random stuff?”
“In case anyone ever broke in, I wanted to make it look like a normal storage unit.” She crouched down and turned the birdcage over, unscrewed the false bottom. Then she pulled out the hard drive, handed it to Cormac.
“Anything in the filing cabinets?”
“Bottom third drawer of the one on the left. There are a lot of photographs and a timeline of things I’ve been keeping track of. It’s all on the hard drive too but I wanted some hard copies.” More for herself to look at, to remind herself of what she was working toward. “I’m a visual person.”
He nodded almost absently as he pulled out the file she’d indicated. “You need anything else?”
“Nope.” She just wanted to grab this stuff and get out of here.
“Let’s go, then. I’ll drive this time. I know where we’re going.”
She handed him the keys and wordlessly got in the passenger seat. Whether she wanted to leave her life behind or not, now she had no choice.
She just hoped that what she had was good enough for the Feds to use against her father. Until she knew more about what was going on with Julian, she wasn’t going to hand them anything about his businesses. Instead she was going to give the Feds the proof she had that her father was a murderer.
The information she had wasn’t airtight but it was pretty damning. And she was willing to testify about the murder she’d witnessed when she was twelve. The entire scene was imprinted on her memory.
The details were still so vivid, the way the man’s… No. She didn’t want to think about it now. She could torture herself later once she was alone.
For now, she just wanted to get herself and Cormac to safety.