Chapter Nineteen
Alara
A scream caught in my throat, but the hand was over my mouth before more than a shocked gasp could escape me.
The electric rush of adrenaline surged through me as I clawed at his arm, fingers digging into exposed skin hard enough for blood to bead to the surface.
“Fuck,” he hissed, yanking away instinctively.
I sucked in a breath to scream before I remembered.
Liam.
Liam was still in the apartment.
Sleeping.
Helpless.
I couldn’t scream.
The last thing I wanted was to draw him out, bring attention to him, let them use him against me. I’d never forgive myself if they hurt him to get what they wanted out of me.
What other choices did I have?
The kitchen had knives. Ones I watched Christopher meticulously sharpen nearly every time he used them. There was also a hefty cast-iron skillet that lived inside the oven when it wasn’t in use.
And, yes, there was a gun.
It was stashed in a box on the top shelf in the hallway, too high for Charlotte to reach even if she was snooping around.
He wanted it out of reach, but not locked up.
“What good is a gun if you can’t get to it a pinch when you need it?”
I’d agreed with the logic at the time.
And I was even more on board now.
Did going for that gun mean getting closer to Liam’s room and risking him hearing something, though? Yes.
I could make a run for the door. Get down the hallway.
Then let out a scream and pray someone heard.
And if they heard, they decided to do something.
And knowing what I knew about a lot of people in the city, that was maybe hoping for too much.
Maybe they’d call the cops to report it.
And maybe the cops would come out. Likely not in a hurry.
There were too many maybes with the plan to run.
But it was the safest option for Liam.
“Where is it?” the man with the bloody scrapes down his arm demanded from behind the navy blue bandana tied across his face.
The other guy was already walking around, yanking open drawers, digging through the contents. Making a racket.
“It’s not here,” I snarled.
“Bullshit. Where is it?”
His hand shot out so fast it blurred around the edges, his meaty palm closing around my throat, immediately cutting off my airway.
It was surprising how quickly I went from shock to panic to breathlessness.
My face felt fuzzy. My heart started to pound slower, but much harder, each beat like a punch against my ribcage.
And all I could do was think of Robin.
Was it like this with her?
Woken out of a dead sleep?
A hand around her throat?
A man demanding the location of something she knew she had to protect?
I wasn’t sure I would be as brave as she was. Holding out to the last moment.
If it was in the apartment, to save Liam, I might have told them. Let them take it. Then call in the cavalry; let the mob do what it did best.
Then again, I had no idea what was on that drive.
The last I heard, Zeno was still working on it. He was only able to use a few passwords every couple of hours, or he ran the risk of permanently locking it.
“She can’t answer if she can’t talk,” the other guy said.
But my attacker just squeezed harder.
One second.
Two.
I watched the way his eyes narrowed, like he was putting a lot of his strength into it. Like he was enjoying this.
On the third second, his hand opened, leaving me to gasp for air—big, violent gulps that took all my focus for a terrifying few moments as my body didn’t quite register that it was okay, that I could breathe, that there was enough oxygen.
If the strangulation had made my heartbeat slow and hard, breathing again made it go frantic—fluttering, pounding, skipping around. I felt like it was both in my chest and lodged at the back of my throat at once.
“Where is it?”
“It’s,” I gasped, “not here.” I took a step back as he took one forward. “I wouldn’t keep it here. I’m not stupid.”
The venom in my voice gave him pause.
“Stupid enough to be here all alone when you know what we do to people who get in the way of what we want.”
Good.
He thought I was alone.
So long as the other guy didn’t go into Liam’s room, everything was under control.
“You kept it in your shop.”
“I didn’t know it was there at the time, idiot,” I snapped, my fear making me angry. “Once I knew what I had, I made sure I got it safe.”
I could take them to Zeno.
At least there, it would be two of us against two of them. And as skinny and calm as Zeno came off, I knew that at their core, every one of these Costa men was incredibly lethal.
These guys would underestimate Zeno.
That would be a fatal decision.
So as much as I hated the idea of bringing trouble to his door, it was a better option than letting it stay here, putting an innocent kid in danger.
“Where is it then, if it’s not here?” he asked, making a grab for my neck again. But I was a little faster this time, taking a step back and to the side, putting the couch between us.
The other guy was behind me somewhere. But I was focusing on the one I was relatively sure had killed Robin. He was the real threat.
“Not here. With a hacker friend,” I told him. “He’s working on breaking the password.”
The killer’s gaze cut across the apartment to the other guy, something silently passing between them.
“Where?”
“Not far. Ten-minute walk, maybe.”
It was longer.
But I could deal with their anger later. Outside of the apartment. Away from Liam.
The men shared another look, the other one coming closer.
“And we’re just supposed to trust you?”
“I don’t even know what’s on the stupid flash drive.” That had to land as honest. It was. What the hell was worth dying over? “It’s been more trouble than it’s worth.”
Another shared look.
I was so distracted by it that I didn’t see it coming when the killer grabbed the arm of the couch and shoved it forward with all his strength, using it to knock me into and pin me to the wall.
The leg of the couch caught my foot, sending white-hot pain shooting up the ankle that had just started to feel better.
My breath caught, sucking back the cry before it escaped me.
“She’s agreeing to help,” the other guy said, sounding frustrated at the whole situation. But not frustrated enough to step in. Had he just stood aside and watched this guy strangle the life out of Robin too?
It took a lot longer than the movies let you think to kill someone that way.
Sure, the fighting and wide-eyed panic of a person realizing they are about to die could be over in just a few seconds; it could take up to five minutes to cause death.
To be able to do that to someone is horrific.
To stand by and watch was just as cold-blooded.
There was no safety to be found in the other guy.
But I could appreciate him trying to be rational.
“Or she’s walking us into a trap. She’s not working alone. You saw those guys at the pawnshop.”
Shit.
“My brothers?” I improvised.
Nothing about these guys suggested they were some criminal geniuses. If they didn’t know I left quickly from the shop and went right to Zenos, if they didn’t know who Zeno was—or any of the other guys for that matter—then they weren’t really doing any kind of research. That worked in my favor.
I saw the way the guys’ eyes flickered, unsure.
“Yeah, sorry, but if my brothers found out I was attacked in my own store, they’re going to show up and puff out their chests. That’s what brothers do.”
In theory.
“And why aren’t they here now?”
“Because they have their own lives?”
“Why are you here?” the killer, clearly the smarter of the two, asked.
“On my other brother’s couch? Because someone broke into my apartment.” I rolled my eyes for good measure.
“Where is he then?”
Oh, so they really weren’t watching.
True, I almost never left the apartment, let alone with the kids. And I guess maybe Christopher didn’t that often either. It was usually Liam taking Char to and from school. Maybe they’d only caught me with Christopher.
“The hospital,” I said, shrugging. “He’s got the flu.”
The killer hopped up on the couch, walking over the cushions to loom over me, his cold blue gaze holding mine as his hand reached out.
It didn’t close around my throat this time, though. He grabbed my chin and jaw, squeezing so hard I was sure my bones were crumbling to dust.
“If you’re fucking lying to me, I swear to God, I will choke you little by little,” he told me. “I will watch you fade just enough, then let you come back, over and over and over. Until you’re begging to die.”
I was so distracted by the threat, by the promise in his eyes, by the horror of thinking that was the fate Robin had suffered, that I couldn’t see past it.
Until there was a flash of motion in my periphery.
It was too late.
To silently tell him to go back to bed.
To call his uncle.
To do anything but go on the attack himself.
I saw the flash of metal.
I heard the howl of pain.
Then I saw the blood spraying out of the guy who was holding me’s arm.
It dropped immediately as he automatically went to grab his stab wound.
My gaze was everywhere then.
On my attacker.
On the other guy who was momentarily too stunned to move.
But mostly on Liam.
Who no longer looked like a kid.
There was something feral, but controlled, about him then.
Like a cat who seemed overpowered but was about to win a fight.
Both arms were raised, one with the forearm out in a defensive gesture.
The other held the bloody pocketknife. The one his uncle had given him after dinner one night, when Char was out of sight.
His gaze flicked between the two men as he backed toward me, putting himself between me and danger.
“Fucking grab him,” the one guy demanded as he tried to put pressure on his arm.
“Run,” I demanded, voice choked.
He didn’t.
I didn’t expect him to.
He might have been new to the mob world. But he was a Costa through and through.
I’d seen it plenty of times already. Especially in his protectiveness of his little sister, how when he walked her to school, he was always on the street side, always half a step behind her so he could be aware of everything surrounding her.
I had no doubt that if someone ever put a hand on her, they would be on their backs writhing in pain.
It was both sweet and incredibly upsetting that he was willing to use that protectiveness for me.
The other guy lunged at Liam, making my heart skip.
But Liam was quick, striking out with the knife.
It whooshed through the air, but the attacker was quick enough to pull away.
Once.
Twice.
I shoved at the couch, not wanting to be trapped and useless.
There were no weapons nearby. Unless Charlotte’s five-hundred-page hardcover book counted.
Which, maybe it could. If that hit someone in the face.
I lunged for it just as the killer lunged for me, his hand grabbing my arm as I moved forward, making pain shoot through my shoulder, a bright, crackling sensation that had me yelping in pain.
“No!” Liam roared, throwing himself at the guy even as I wrenched backward, yanking my arm out of his grip.
There was a roar of pain, and I couldn’t tell who it came from even as the other guy rushed toward them.
I flung myself over the couch, taking him down to the floor with me.
He landed with a grunt.
I landed with a cough as the air rushed out of my lungs at the impact of crashing down on him.
There was more crashing, cursing, and hissing coming from behind us. I needed to get to Liam before something horrible happened.
But even as I thought it, the guy under me hooked me around the waist and rolled me under him.
My head smacked against the floor, making pain shoot through my skull.
There was no time to wallow in that, though, not as this guy reached for my arms, grabbing them, and pinning them to the ground above my head.
I tried to drag my knee up to hit him in the groin.
He was faster, shoving his whole body between my legs, pinning my pelvis down.
And it was right then I realized maybe I’d prefer the other guy with his hands around my throat.
Because I could feel this one’s erection against me. This was making him hot.
Disgust roiled in my stomach, inching up my throat.
Above me, the guy’s eyes crinkled behind his mask. Like he was smiling. Like he knew what I realized and was getting off on that too.
There was a loud crash, the sound of wood splintering. The coffee table, I assumed.
Liam.
Even as I thought it, though, a fist came out of nowhere, ramming hard into the guy’s jaw.
His body flew off of me, and I scrambled up, making my way toward where Liam and the other man were scuffling on the floor.
I heard a crunch.
Saw blood.
My heart lurched.
I flipped over onto all fours, ready to crawl over there and grab the guy.
But my ankles were seized.
Pain jolted up my foot and leg as I was dragged viciously backward, needing to whip my head back to avoid whacking my face on the ground.
He dropped my ankles as suddenly as he grabbed them, reaching down to grab a fistful of my hair and pulling back until I saw stars, until the sting made my eyes automatically flood with tears, until I had no choice but to sit back on my screaming ankle to ease the pain.
I smelled something potent then.
Sweet.
In a sickly way.
It got closer to my face, and I remembered what had that smell.
Chloroform.
Panic swelled.
I had to fight.
I had to—
As the rag closed over my face, the last thing I saw was the other guy slamming Liam’s head into the floor.
And everything went blank.