Chapter 24 #2
The elevator jerks from the heavy motions of our fighting. For a brief moment I’m sure we’re about to get stuck fifty stories high, locked in an elevator together.
But as my knee connects with his gut and he groans, I slide to the side to get past him.
“No so fast you fat fucking bitch!”
“You mean more curves than you can ever handle, shrimp dick!” I scream back.
He roars in anger and rushes at me.
“Argh!” I howl as he slams me back and my head collides hard with the elevator wall. Tiny stars dance in front of my eyes and it feels like I’m floating.
The masked asshole takes advantage of the opening. He advances on me, spinning me around and twisting both arms behind my back.
The elevator dings, finally reaching the fiftieth floor. The doors roll open, and now I’m the one using the moment to my advantage. As soon as he tries to thrust me forward, I use what strength I have to drive us back.
It’s enough to topple us over. We crash down onto the elevator floor, me on top of him. I’ve never gotten up off the ground so fast.
Jumping back up to my feet, I take off as best I can in my sandal heels. I still have the key card Dad gave me. If I could just make it to his suite—
“OW!” I scream.
The masked jerk has speared straight into me, quickly catching up and then launching himself at me.
For a second time within the last minute, we’re tumbling to the ground. This time I’m not so fortunate in getting right back up.
He crawls on top of me, the back of his hand cracking against the side of my face. The slap adds insult to injury—those tiny little stars return as I shove and punch and kick at him.
“SOMEBODY!” I scream hysterically in the hotel hallway. “I’M BEING ATTACKED! HELP!”
“I SAID SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU TWAT!”
It’s so easy when you’re watching a fight to say what you’d do; to guess you’d be able to smack or whoop the shit out of your attacker.
But it’s a lot different in the moment, caught completely off guard, as second to second the fight grows more and more brutal.
I’m literally fighting for my life.
…which is scary considering I’ve never been a fighter. I prefer using my words and letting men do the scrapping.
I do what I can, clawing at his face and neck and any other part of him I can. My acrylics slash down his throat as he howls from how badly I’ve gouged him.
I’m finally able to slide out from under him. I take off running in the first direction available, no longer in possession of my wristlet or my key card.
My only option is the door at the end of the hall that leads to the roof. So, desperate and frantic and in total survival mode, I take the escape route. I shove the door open and stumble up the short staircase, coming out on the rooftop terrace.
The masked man is only a couple paces behind.
I turn to face him and back up several more steps.
“Stay the hell away from me!” I yell breathlessly. “You know there’s security cameras everywhere in this hotel! You’ll never make it out of here a free man!”
“Shut up,” he snarls, his chest heaving. He’s equally as exhausted from our sparring. He reaches into the waistband of his pants. “I wanted to do this the easy way. But nah… you just had to be a nuisance like always.”
…a nuisance like always?
Huffing air into my lungs, I realize I’ve heard his voice before. Many times from when I was in Lochlan’s custody.
If I suspected it was one of his men before, I know it is now.
I back up toward the railing, searching my mind for possible distractions. Ways I can reason with him and at least buy myself a few minutes.
“What do you want from me?” I ask. “I can pay you—”
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m about to get paid, alright. But not from you. For you.” He closes in on me and raises the gun he’s drawn. “Put up your hands and play nice or expect a couple bullets in you.”
A squeal leaves me as he points the gun at me and uses his other hand to roughly grab hold of me. I’m swatting at him despite how I’m on the wrong end of a gun, refusing to back down.
“Stop fucking struggling!” he growls. “You’ll only make this worse. You want me to shove you over the railing, huh? You want to fall fifty stories to your death, Miss Priss?”
I jerk against him in protest even as he wages another threat. I’m so distracted trying to fight him off that I don’t hear the rooftop door opening again.
“Get the fuck away from her, Marco!” another voice barks.
Lochlan.
My heart flutters in instant hope as I recognize his voice even before I’ve set eyes on him.
Then I register what he’s said—it’s Marco behind the mask, the same Marco who had been pissed the night the deal with the Bratva fell through.
The only other person as angry as he was was Robby.
It tracks he would do something like this.
“You?” Lochlan says, stepping closer, his own pistol raised. “You’re the fucking rat?”
Marco lets out an exasperated sigh before pulling off the ski mask and throwing it aside.
“Rat’s such an ugly word. I prefer opportunist. Look, nothing personal, Loch.
This is straight business. I received a generous offer from somebody if I could broker a deal with the Russians and get rid of the girl.
They were still willing to pay top dollar.
I get a bigger pay cut, and the person I’m working with gets rid of this one. Everybody wins.”
“Except Chantal.”
“Uh, yeah… well, somebody’s gotta lose, right?” he asks. “You’ve let yourself be blinded by her—we’ve all seen it. I’m just the one who had the guts to do something about it.”
“Framing Robby in the process, is that right?”
“Like I said, somebody’s gotta lose. Robby was the easy target to preoccupy you. All I needed to do was plant a few seeds, and boom! He was on your radar and I wasn’t. Bought me the room needed to make the arrangements I have.”
“You mean like the phone you put in Robby’s backpack?”
“That was one of the ways.”
“I’m guessing it was no mistake the Callahans found us that night on the road.”
“I tipped them off,” Marco admits with a nod. “How could I not when you were going out on fucking dates like this is some rom-com we’re in?”
“The Russians have been on our asses too,” he says. “You’ve been tipping them off to our whereabouts as well.”
“Funny thing about that is, Robby was always the one suggesting our next hideout. Knew it’d make it look like he was setting us up.”
Lochlan juts his chin at him. “Who asked you to broker a new deal with the Russians?”
“Trust me,” Marco sighs, glancing at me. “You really don’t want to know.”
My stomach twists into small knots meeting his cold eyes. It’s as if he’s really speaking to me when he looks over.
“More like you should know you’re a dead fucking man,” Lochlan says. “Back the fuck up and drop the Glock.”
Marco arches a brow, then clicks the hammer on the gun. “You mean this Glock?”
He’s pointing it at my head as he brazenly challenges Lochlan. My eyes squeeze shut as an involuntary whimper ekes out of me.
I’m still not used to having whole-ass guns pointed at me. No matter how much time I’ve spent in Lochlan and his crew’s underworld.
At the end of the day, I’m still just a soft life kind of girl. I’ve never been about that other life.
Lochlan edges closer, teeth bared and his glare hard and chilling. “Drop the fucking Glock. Do it now, Marco.”
“You know what, Loch? I don’t think I will. I think I’m actually done taking orders from you.”
We’re interrupted a second time by more pounding feet, shortly followed by more male voices.
“Don’t fucking move!” Ronan commands.
He’s emerged onto the rooftop terrace flanked by Killian and a redhead enforcer of his that’s acted as Simone’s security before. I’m pretty sure she said his name was Sean.
Ugh. Great!
Now we’ve got a full-blown Mexican standoff happening.
Three factions, everybody pointing guns at everybody else, and me stuck in the middle like the rope in a tug-of-war.
Not how I thought I’d be spending my Saturday night at all!
“Step away from the girl, Lochlan,” Ronan orders, his voice hard as steel. “You think I didn’t know what you were up to tonight? That we haven’t been tracking you track us? We knew you’d show up if I was here. Even better if she was. Gave you another opportunity to use her as a game piece again.”
“You’ve got it wrong!” Lochlan growls, his eyes still glued to Marco. “I wasn’t here to take Chantal. Marco was.”
“You think I’m buying that? Santamaria is part of your fucking crew! I know all about it. All the second-string guys you’ve got to join you.”
“Believe whatever the fuck you want! But I’m busy,” Lochlan snarls. He jerks his pistol at Marco to signal he’s addressing him. “This is the last fucking time I’m gonna tell you. Lower the gun and back away from her.”
Marco grunts out a laugh. A shit-eating grin spreads across his face.
“Why should I, Loch? This is a nice, cozy affair we’ve got going on.
You know when we made the plans to snatch her up tonight, we figured everybody would assume it was you.
Hence your crew’s trademark, the skeleton mask.
Looks like Ronan proves our theory was correct. ”
“Who the fuck is we?” Ronan jumps in. “You protecting a boss like his boy, Eddie, was?”
The mention of Eddie earns Lochlan’s ire. He whips his head around to his younger brother, his dark green gaze burning with hatred.
“Keep my son’s name out of your mouth!”
“You mean the little weasel of a traitor?” Ronan answers. “The same ass who sabotaged us for months? But that was all your doing, right? You and Dren put him up to it. Guess what, Loch? Your boy is dead because of you!”
“My son is dead because you killed him. You chose some bitch you couldn’t even stand over your own blood. But that’s no surprise. You and our father had already decided to steal everything that belonged to me!”
“Eddie tried to kill Simone. Call my wife a bitch again, and I’ll end you like I did him.”
“Can’t you just stop?” I interject desperately. “Why can’t you both just listen to what the other—”
“GO AHEAD, BABY brOTHER! DO IT!” Lochlan roars, drowning me out. “Try to take me out and see what happens! I’ve got nothing left to lose. But you? You’ve got everything!”
“You’re so fucked in the head you can’t see straight,” he counters.
“I was avenging your ass! When I found out what happened to you in prison, I went harder against the Albanians! You think I wanted what was yours? When did I ever fucking want to follow in Dad’s footsteps?
You let pieces of shit like Dren get in your ear when I never wanted the damn crown! ”
“You didn’t want it yet you took it anyway. You were all too happy to kiss our father’s ass while I rotted away in prison!”
I heave a deep sigh and shake my head, any hope I had depleted. It’s as if they’re shouting at each other and refusing to grasp anything the other side says. They might as well be speaking different languages.
Lochlan feels wronged and is acting out over what he’s lost while Ronan feels justified for protecting his wife and the family.
Such a damn mess.
Marco seems to agree there’s no progress being made, almost seeming irritated he’s been forgotten about. He gives a loud clear of his throat and interrupts the brotherly spat.
“Look, this family reunion is super touching and all, but I’ve got a schedule to keep. So here’s how this is gonna go: Either you let me walk out of here with the girl, or I put a bullet in her pretty little head and we call it a night.”
I flinch at the casual way he talks about murdering me. As if I’m just an item on his to-do list.
Lochlan’s eyes flick to Ronan. Heated energy still cinches the air between the two brothers, yet the look they’re exchanging is so pointed it makes me do a double take.
It reminds me of how me and Simone sometimes share a glance and know exactly what the other is thinking.
“Alright,” Lochlan says slowly. He lowers his pistol slightly. “You know what, Marco? You’re right. We still haven’t made enough profit after the botched Bratva deal. You want her? Fine. There’s money to be made.”
My stomach drops, brows knitting.
What the hell is he doing?
“You meeting up with the Raguzins at the Vodka Room?” he asks, stepping toward us.
I’m staring wide-eyed at him as he comes closer, and Marco glances from us over to Ronan.
“Wait, don’t come any closer,” the former Italian capo says. He backs up, switching the gun from me to the older Callahan brother. “Lochlan, what the fuck are you—argh!”
As he’s backing up and Lochlan’s advancing, Ronan takes a gamble that could go seriously wrong. He squeezes the trigger and shoots Marco in the kneecap.
The instant the bang goes off, Lochlan’s tackling Marco to the ground and wrestling his gun from his grip. It’s hardly difficult when Marco’s caught up in the pain of an exploding kneecap, lost as to how the tables could be turned on him so quickly.
Lochlan forces his gun from him and then shoots him point-blank in the face. Marco jerks violently then drops to the floor.
My jaw has dropped open. I’m staring in total shock, my brain blank.
How the hell did that just happen?!
The gunshot rings out for seconds to come.
Lochlan rises to his feet, both brothers standing opposite each other. The animosity between them returns, still thick and inescapable.
Now they’re forced to deal with each again. Marco was a distraction. A third side to this situation they both seemed to recognize needed to be handled so they could get to the main event.
Their beef.
“Now what?” Ronan asks.
“What else?” Lochlan asks in return. “We settle this once and for all.”
Before anyone else can make another move, the rooftop door swings open a third time.
“Marco, what was that racket? How long does it take to stage a kidnapping?” Dad snaps irritably as he strides through the door. “Let’s hurry this up. The Russians are waiting at the Vodka Room and—”
He stops dead in his tracks as he emerges from the short staircase that leads to the roof and realizes what he’s walked into.
Marco’s body is crumpled on the ground in a pool of blood. Lochlan and Ronan stand opposite each other with their guns still raised. Killian and Sean flank the perimeter as backup.
And then there’s me—his daughter—staring at my father like he’s a stranger I’ve never seen before.
Who is experiencing the same disturbing chill rack down her spine as I did the afternoon I found the medical bills and read those divorce emails.
“Dad?” I croak. “You did this?”