Chapter Thirty-Seven
Highway To Hell
Maximo
W HAT A PISSHOLE.
Parked around the corner from All or Nothing, I felt like I needed a shower, and I hadn’t even stepped foot inside. The entire area was rundown—blocks of abandoned buildings and discarded trash.
“We sure he’s in there?” Ash asked.
“Don’t let Cole hear you doubt him or he’ll thoroughly explain the cell tracking process until your eyes glaze over.”
He grimaced. “Forget I asked.”
We had eyes on the front door and Cole was parked around back, watching that exit and the tracker for movement. Unless there was a hidden tunnel we didn’t know about, Dobrow was inside.
Ash drummed on the steering wheel, already wired. “What’s the plan?”
What I wanted to do was walk in, empty my magazine into Dobrow, then go home to Juliet. Unfortunately, the packed club ensured that wasn’t an option.
“Wait until everyone leaves, snatch Dobrow, get out before I catch something from the air.” Taking out my cell, I texted Marco.
Me: Everything good?
Marco: Quiet. Vera roped Juliet into watching another chick flick.
Me: Call if anything changes.
It took a handful of hours for the cars to clear out. It was another hour before the staff left. The place was dark and quiet.
It was time.
I messaged Cole.
Me: Heading in the front.
Cole: I’ll go in the back.
“Ready?” I asked Ash as I pulled on gloves. But he was already gloved up and heading out.
Ash and I stuck to the shadows as we made our way to the door. He aimed his gun at the lock. “Pick it or shoot it?”
I pulled the handle, and the door swung open.
He shrugged. “Or do it the boring way, that’s fine.”
We walked into the main room of the darkened club, the stench of sex, body odor, cheap perfume, and alcohol saturating everything.
Heading past the large mirrored stage, I pushed through the swinging door to the long hall.
Cole was already positioned in the open doorway at the other end, a grimace locked on his face.
I only had to wait a moment to figure out why.
The sounds of skin slapping and fake moans came from behind a door on the left. It wasn’t the one Janson had told us about, but it also didn’t sound like Dobrow was conducting business.
Ash mimed gagging.
Reaching out, I turned the handle and opened the door, bracing for whatever horror awaited.
I didn’t brace enough.
Rather than Dobrow, it was a naked and sweaty Carmichael banging a bored stripper from behind. His body jiggled with each thrust.
That time when Ash gagged, it wasn’t mimed.
“Maximo!” Carmichael stopped and scurried back, flashing everything in the process.
“Never say my name while you’re naked.” I wanted to turn away, but I wasn’t stupid—just scarred for life. “Jesus Christ, I’ll never get this image out of my head.”
The stripper flopped down and yawned, her dazed gaze aimed toward the desk. It took two-point-five seconds to realize she was high as a kite.
Anyone fucking Carmichael would have to be.
Ash went back into the hall as I stalked across the small, makeshift bedroom. I checked Carmichael’s pants for a weapon before throwing them and his shirt at him. “Get dressed.”
Unstable and shaking, he struggled to put them on, already starting his excuses. “I can explain. It’s Viktor. I owe—”
“Where is he?” I asked. “His Escalade’s here.”
“It needs new brakes and repairs. He’s driving a Benz.”
“Rooms are empty,” Ash said. “His cell is charging in his office.”
Shit.
There was a possibility Janson not returning had tipped Dobrow off. There was also the possibility while I was staking out his place, Dobrow was doing the same to mine.
Panic shot through me. My place may have been Fort Knox with two people armed and on guard, but shit happened. Even with every precaution, something could go wrong.
I pulled my cell out, but Cole’s blockers meant no signal.
“Cole, check in with Marco,” I called, knowing his setup could bypass them.
“On it.”
Returning my focus to Carmichael, I asked, “Where would he go?”
He rapidly shook his head, looking two seconds from a heart attack. “He collects bank from his other clubs at the end of the night, but I don’t know where he’d go after. We’re not actually friends. I was only getting close to keep Juliet safe. He wants to sell her.”
“The same Juliet you tried to kidnap?” Ash bit out.
“That was to protect her, too.” His eyes shot back to me. “I didn’t know you were serious about her, I thought she was—”
“I heard exactly what you thought. Now shut the fuck up.”
If he was smart, he’d have listened.
But no one could ever accuse Mugsy Carmichael of being smart.
“I was wrong, I see that now.” He held his hands up in surrender. “But my intentions were good.”
Ash strolled closer, but Carmichael’s eyes were on me and the gun in my hand.
Another mistake in a worthless lifetime of them.
“Don’t you know what they say about good intentions?” Ash pulled a syringe from his pocket. “They pave the highway to hell.”
Carmichael finally looked to the side, but it was too late. Ash jabbed a needle into his neck and within seconds, he was down. His unconscious body dropped like a sweaty bag of bricks onto the still naked stripper.
“I don’t think that’s how the saying goes,” I told Ash.
“I was ad-libbing.”
I glanced around to figure out how we were going to get him out of there. “You couldn’t have waited until he carried himself to the car?”
“He was annoying me.”
Even wearing gloves, I touched as little of the DNA splattered blanket as possible, spreading it on the floor. I’d barely gotten it positioned when the stripper got some life back into her and gleefully shoved Carmichael onto it.
As soon as his weight was off her, she jumped out of bed, and I trained my gun at her.
She didn’t notice as she skipped to the table, popped a handful of pills, and downed them with a few chugs from a vodka bottle.
Stumbling back to the bed, she flopped down with one leg hanging over and passed out.
She didn’t care—and likely wouldn’t remember—we’d been there.
I looked at Ash and lifted the blanket. “Grab a corner.”
We got Carmichael out to the hallway just as a door slammed from the main area.
“It’s the two in our two-for-one sale,” Ash whispered.
A moment later, Dobrow yelled, “Janson is gone! Pull your tiny dick out of that whore and get out here!” The swinging door shoved open and his eyes went wide when he saw two guns aimed at his head.
That was all we got before he turned and ran.
Ash and I followed as he slammed out the door and raced toward a car. I shot once, the bullet whizzing by him to shatter the driver’s window.
“Fuck!” Dobrow screamed, dodging to the left and racing past the club. He turned the corner before darting to the side into the alley between two dilapidated and abandoned buildings.
I had to hand it to him, for such a bulky fucker, he was fast. Every time I thought I had a clear shot, he changed paths or used the dumpsters and stacks of garbage as a shield.
Unlike the guns in action movies, my bullets weren’t infinite and I wasn’t wasting them.
Dobrow didn’t have the same theory, squeezing off wild rounds over his shoulder that didn’t hit anywhere close to us.
He took a sharp right and we followed just in time to see him scaling and hopping a tall wooden gate down the alley.
“Has he been training for the Olympics? Varsity track? Shit,” Ash panted.
Hoisting myself onto the gate, there was no sign of Dobrow. I was almost over when he stuck his upper body around the corner and quickly fired three shots.
Burning pain exploded in my shoulder, making me lose my hold on the gate and fall forward to hit the ground.
“Fuck!” Ash landed on his feet next to me, his gun trained down the path.
“Go,” I ordered.
He didn’t argue.
Standing, I took a few seconds to fill my lungs with the breath that’d been knocked out of me. I ran a different route, reaching the end just as Dobrow turned in my direction.
His focus was aimed behind him as he tried to shoot over his shoulder, but the only thing the empty gun did was click.
When he faced forward and saw me, his eyes went wide and his steps stumbled.
Recovering quickly, he spun, only to find Ash blocking his way.
He took a shuffling step backward toward a narrow alley, but before he could turn, Cole’s gun dug into his back.
Trapped, Dobrow glared at me with hatred burning in his eyes. He opened his mouth—likely hurl insults and spew bullshit—but he didn’t have the chance. A syringe stabbed into his neck, and he was flat on his back within seconds.
“Between him and Carmichael, one of us is throwing our back out,” Ash said, already hefting Dobrow’s dead weight.
Or soon-to-be dead weight.
We hauled him down the thin path and dumped him on Cole’s backseat. Cole and Ash dealt with Carmichael’s body while I grabbed a bottle of cleaner and rag from the trunk. I wiped everything down, including my blood from the fence and ground.
It was overkill—no one would look into Viktor Dobrow’s disappearance. Even if they did, the area was likely covered with so much DNA, there would be no separating it.
Returning to the car, I tossed the supplies in the trunk and slammed it shut.
Ash took a look at my shoulder—it was just a graze but it burned like a bitch. “We need to clean that.”
“Once we get there.”
Cole rounded the car. “The plant?”
I shook my head. “I have a better idea.”