Author: Christine Bell

He pulled the car out of the lot and drove the fifteen minutes across town, apprehension building in his gut. When he pulled into the abandoned warehouse lot, his thoughts drifted again to Sarabeth. She’d been so strong. His biggest fear was that something would go wrong here today and she would blame herself. He steeled himself, put the car in park, and grabbed the bag next to him. He’d have to be extra careful to make sure that didn’t happen.

He was halfway to the wide loading dock doors when he spotted the sniper out of the corner of his eye. It went against the grain, but he pretended he didn’t see him and kept moving. There was no question that Vito would come with some major heat. For all that bastard knew, this was a trap.

When he reached the doors, they slid open, revealing three giant goons in suits, not a neck between them.

“Hey fellas, you guys the Welcome Wagon?”

The biggest of the three, who looked like he’d been hit in the face with the business end of a shovel, nodded slowly. “Yeah. Sure.”

He jerked his head to one side, indicating that Gavin should follow. As they walked through the dimly lit space, he quickly counted two more goons watching from afar, one on the catwalk one level up and one hiding behind a crate across the floor. His fists clenched, but he didn’t slow his pace.

They rounded a corner, and his escorts stopped short as they approached a man sitting in chair, another two goons flanking him. Jesus, what had they expected? A f**king full-on SWAT raid or something?

Vito stood, a cigarette sitting precariously between his sagging, fleshy lips.

“You’re a man of punctuality, Mr. McClintock. I appreciate that.” He reached up to take a long pull on his cigarette.

“You guys really don’t mind fitting the stereotype, do you?” He surveyed the man, shaking his head slowly. On top of the pinky ring, he’d even worn a pin-striped suit. It was as if he had stepped off the set of a DeNiro movie.

“Hey, if you’re going to deal with the mob, are you going to go with a guy who looks like he’s going to sell you insurance, or with the guy who looks like he could take out insurance on your life?” He shrugged. “It’s marketing. You know how it goes. But that’s not why we’re here.”

“Speaking of we, you got, what, eight or nine guys here? They taking pictures or are you reconsidering our deal?”

“I’ve got no quarrel with you. It’s just you and me. The rest, we’ll call ‘security.’”

“Right.” Gavin frowned.

“I’m not known for my patience, Mr. McClintock.” He held out his wrinkled, leathery hand. “You have something for me?”

Gavin carefully handed over the satchel of disks, but one of the members of Vito’s crew reached for it instead.

Vito waited while the goon dug through and held up discs for his inspection.

“These are not tapes,” he said, his tone flat.

Gavin kept his eyes locked on Vito, and a hand on his hip where his gun sat now. If the gangster tried to get squirrely, he sure as hell couldn’t take them all, but he could kill the head of the snake, and that was something.

“No, they’re not.”

“So where are my tapes?” His face wrinkled, annoyance playing across his brow.

“They’re in safekeeping.”

His softly spoken “fuck” resonated in the silence. “With the police?”

“With me.”

Vito’s dark eyes went shrewd. “Ah, you want to be part of the family, is that it? I’m afraid it’s a little harder than all that.”

“No, I want some insurance.”

“Insurance?” He sniffed, dangling the bag of discs by his side before swinging them viciously against the concrete floor over and over. By the time he was done pulverizing them, he was breathing hard and spittle had collected on the corners of his mouth. He smiled and set the bag on the floor before smoothing a hand through his hair. The smile he offered was chilling. “You know, people don’t usually play games with me. I’m a very sore loser. And what’s to stop me from finding out where those copies are and then killing you? My guys can be very persuasive.”

Goon number three cracked his knuckles obligingly.

“I’m sure they can, but you won’t lose. As long as I don’t either.” Gavin tightened his jaw, planting his feet firmly on the ground, his fists at his sides. “I have no reason to leak those tapes, Vito. But surely, as a businessman, you can understand my position.”

Gavin slipped a hand slowly down to his coat pocket where his cell phone lay. He’d kept a text queued up there in case Vito tried to pull some shit like this, and all he needed to do was hit send—which he did—and then buy some time. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. That was his motto, and he’d done exactly that. Now to stall for ten minutes to avoid physical torture while he waited for plan B to come to fruition.

“And I’m sure you can understand mine. I’ve come too far to stop now.” Vito jerked his head toward the ground, and the big fella came up behind Gavin, shoving him roughly to his knees. Okay, so maybe he’d pushed too fast. When one of the muscle brigade came toward him, the butt end of the pistol resting comfortably in his hand as though he was prepped to whip him with it, Gavin realized that maybe ten minutes was longer than he had. But before he could renegotiate his position or determine exactly how bad the situation was and whether or not it was time to draw his own weapon, a low female voice rang through the room.

“If you don’t let him up right now, I’ll shoot you dead.”

What the fuck? His pulse jacked higher as he realized with growing terror who that voice belonged to. Jesus, Doc, why? He jerked against his captor, trying to get a glimpse of her, but when he pressed the chilly steel of his pistol against his face, he stilled. The last thing he needed was for this guy to blow his brains out and the second-to-last thing he needed was for Sarabeth to witness it. She’d never get out of here alive alone, gun or not, if she panicked, and he couldn’t lose her. Not yet.

“Well if it isn’t the lady of the hour.” Vito’s lips pulled back into a shark’s smile. “I gotta say, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Well, here I am,” Sarabeth stepped into the his view, decked out in her security gear, and Gavin barely resisted the urge to tackle her to the ground and cover her body with his own as their friendly neighborhood gangsters all slowly swiveled their weapons toward her.

“And she’s not alone.” Maddy moved into view, dressed similarly, gun pointed directly at Vito’s head.

Jesus Christ, he was going to ream her out when they got out of this. She could’ve gotten Sarabeth killed with this scheme, not to mention herself.

“Girls, girls. I think women with guns are sexy as hell, but I’m a little hurt that you’re pointing them my way,” Vito said with a tsk. “No reason my boys shouldn’t take you out right now and have two less—“

“You don’t want to do that, Vito,” Sarabeth said softly, her eyes narrowed menacingly. Gavin felt a rush of pride through his fear for her. She really was becoming quite the badass.

“And why’s that?”

“Because those tapes are now copied onto multiple discs and my redheaded friend here has them hidden in several locations, along with instructions for various individuals to release them should any of us go missing or…worse.”

She said her little speech with such aplomb, Gavin almost expected her to add “pyew pyew” on the end to keep in character. It was actually a pretty good strategy, setting the tapes up to release in the event of their deaths, and one he wished he’d thought of himself. Now it was Vito’s move. Gavin waited, every muscle at the ready to move if he needed to. Sometimes pushing a man too far backfired and, if emotions got high enough, who knew what he could do? As long as he had a breath in him, though, he would make sure Sarabeth and Maddy got out of here safe.

Vito stood back and stared at the two women, his face twisting into an ugly snarl.

“If you people keep f**king with me, you’re going to wind up sleeping with the fishes, that much I can tell you.”

He made a move toward Sarabeth, but before he got close, the sound of the doors sliding open echoed through the room, and a bullhorn sounded.

“Vito DeSalvo. We have you surrounded. Lay down your weapons and no one will get hurt.”

Vito’s face crumpled, and suddenly he looked every one of his years, plus some. “Fuck that. If I’m going out, I’m going out swinging.”

He motioned to his boys to get ready for a firefight, and the guy holding him let go, stepping back as Vito reached for the gun in his holster and raised it at Gavin. “But I’m taking this motherfucker down before I do anything else.”

Footsteps sounded, and he wondered how long those cops had before the gangsters opened fire. As Vito got within point-blank range, Gavin’s hand twitched toward his weapon. Before he closed his hand over the pistol, two shots sounded back-to-back—pop pop—and Vito let out an enraged scream of pain and dropped to the ground.

Gavin leaped to his feet, tugging his gun from the holster, panic making his vision blur. Two shots, but Vito was only bleeding from one hole. His gun lay on the ground a few feet from him as he writhed in pain, cupping the wound in his wrist that was bleeding profusely. Gavin covered the three closest goons, silently praying that the other bullet hadn’t found one of his girls. He couldn’t take his attention off his targets without risking a load of lead to the face, so he barked their names.

“Doc, Maddy. Talk to me.” His ears were still ringing from the shots and the adrenaline, and he strained to hear a response.

“We’re both okay,” Maddy called. “We’ve got weapons trained on Vito and there’s only one bodyguard unaccounted for.”

Relief coursed through him, although he wished Sarabeth had spoken. God help Maddy if she was lying to him and the doc had been hit. But they weren’t out of the woods yet.

He inched over and bent low to pick up Vito’s weapon and at that moment, their missing gunny who’d been perched on the catwalk stood suddenly. Gavin leveled his pistol at him but once the guy realized their fearless leader was down by fire, he immediately set his weapon down. It didn’t take long for the others to follow his lead. They’d get a couple years if that if they were taken into custody now, but if they started shooting, they were looking at long, hard time. Hell, if they gave up info on Vito, they might not do time at all.

The SWAT team streamed in, and Gavin set his pistol on the floor and motioned for the ladies to do the same. Be a shame to get this far only to be hit by friendly fire.

Once they’d gotten Vito into an ambulance and determined all the details about the incident—or the ones Gavin felt compelled to give—the cops stepped away to process all the mobsters they’d caught.

“You didn’t think I was going to let you go do that for me alone, did you?” she asked.

“I thought you were both going to do what I told you.”

Maddy shook her head with a snort. “God, you’re dumb sometimes. You know that there are people in this world who care very much whether you live or die.”

He let the words settle over him for a second and cleared his throat. He’d known Maddy had his back, but to that extent? She was like the family he never had. And Sarabeth?

He watched as she shifted restlessly from foot to foot. “You did so great in there. I should want to throttle you both for taking a chance like that, but I have to admit that I’m impressed with what you two pulled off. How did you find me?”

Maddy tapped the phone at her waist. “GPS.”

He stared at her, scowling.

“What?” she asked, holding up her hands as if she was pleading the Fifth. “You have a tracker on mine. Only fair that someone knows where you are at all times too.”