“We need backup,” one of the patrolmen shouts to his partner.
“I repeat multiple active shooters on scene. We are under heavy, automatic weapons fire and in need of immediate assistance.” His partner is already in the process of calling it in.
I watch helplessly from too far away as the two remaining shooters up ahead focus in on Belfast’s location. They watched him take cover behind the garbage truck and are separating, slowly circling around either side with their weapons at the ready.
I can’t see Belfast from where I am, but they’re right on top of him.
“What are you doing? Get back,” the patrolmen shout at me as I step out from behind the cruiser.
Without even thinking, I run, then full on sprint up the street. “FBI,” I shout as I head up the middle of the road in a full blown panic, but all I see are their backs.
I don’t see Belfast. My mind races. Where is he?
Both of the men back up quickly and begin firing. I see Belfast come into view as he dives back around the side of the truck, trying to avoid getting shot.
It doesn’t work.
He’s hit somewhere up around the neck and falls to the ground, scrambling under the truck and out of sight.
“No.” I’m now close enough to begin firing, and drop one of the two before he can turn around. His partner ducks behind a parked car as I drop the empty magazine out of my gun. I reach for another clip but don’t have one. Fuck. I’m out of ammo.
The last shooter steps out and smiles.
There’s nowhere to go.
I’m out of options.
I close my eyes as he begins to raise his weapon.
I’m dead.
I hear the single gunshot and then smell the smoke.
I’m alive.
“Did you just give up?” I hear Belfast. “Again?”
I open my eyes and he’s standing ten feet away with a disappointed look on his face. The fourth shooter is dead at his feet from a single gunshot to the back of the head. Belfast’s shirt is covered in blood from a wound on his neck.
“Are you ok?” I reach an arm out to him. There’s a small graze wound under the side of his jaw.
“I’m fine.”
“How?” I have no idea how he survived what I just witnessed.
“Luck of the Irish, darling.” He crouches over the dead shooter and rifles through his pockets.
I hear gunshots behind us and look back to see the patrolmen now have backup.
“Time to go, luv.” Belfast angles his head toward the police. “They’ve got it covered and we need the distraction.”
I look at him standing in front of me and hesitate as I’m filled with relief that he’s okay.
He waits, smirking, with his hand over a fresh bullet wound on his neck. Bloodstains cover the front of his shirt and a scattered trail of dead bodies litters the street behind us.
The sound of automatic gunfire echoes in the distance. “Sounds like they're playing our song.” Belfast smiles, holding out his hand.
I think I’m in love.
* * *
“Did you really have to hit him, twice?” I ask.
“Sometimes you have to repeat yourself so people get the message.”
“I’m pretty sure he got the message when a deranged looking man, covered in blood tapped a loaded gun against his window.”
“He had a dangerous look about him.”
“Oh, please, he had a man bun and an earring.”
“Did he now? I didn’t notice.”
“Oh, really? You pulled him out of the car by his man bun and ripped his earring out the second time you hit him.”
“Well, hopefully he learned a valuable lesson.”
“And that lesson would be?”
“I can’t exactly say, Georgie. It wasn’t my lesson to learn. But I’m betting he thinks twice about the earring moving forward.”
I laugh, and then we sit in silence for the next few minutes. I’m trying to figure out our next move when I hear Belfast talking to someone else. I turn to find him on a cell phone.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Where are we going?”
“Where did you get that phone?”
Belfast keeps driving and ignores my questions.
“We’re four minutes out.” He hangs up the cell phone and tosses it out the window.
“Who was that?” I ask him before he can even close the window.
“I need you to listen to me.” He sounds a bit weak and suddenly looks pale. “If I don’t make it through this next part, I need you to do something for me.” He waits for my response.
“I’m listening.”
“Call in your friend Garrison and tell him you killed me while trying to escape. Don’t tell him, or anyone else, anything else.”
“What? Why?”
“The people chasing us seem to have no problem killing anyone who gets in their way. You’ve seen it. If they think you’re with me, they’ll end your life without even thinking twice about it. And if something were to ever happen to you, luv…” Belfast pauses for a moment, as if he’s actually thinking about what he’s just said to me. “Well, then all this would’ve been for nothing, wouldn’t it.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“I couldn’t tell you a name, darling, but I know the type. They’re coming and they won’t be stopped.”
“Seems to me like we stopped a few just fine back there.”
“They’ll send more.”
“How do you know? And why?”
“All that matters now is that they’re coming and they won’t be stopped.”
“So let’s think about this. What are our options? Let’s figure this out and make a plan. I’m sure there’s a way out of this, for both of us.”
“Our best chance is to keep moving.”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
“Sooner or later, this is all going to end badly, Georgie. And if we don’t keep moving, it’ll be sooner. That much I do know for sure.”
I’m done listening and talking. I turn my head toward the window, and the world around me feels like it’s turned completely upside down.
I can’t believe I’m sitting next to the most wanted man in the city. I started this day wanting nothing more than to find him and kill him, for the second time this week. Fast forward to hours later, and here I am riding alongside him in a freshly carjacked vehicle, still reeling from our second gunfight of the day. Now he’s giving me nothing but half answers and dire predictions, and I’m not really sure he knows what he’s doing at all. But I do know he keeps walking away every time someone tries to kill him. And until I know what the hell is going on, I’m not leaving his side.
“Georgie.” He sounds weaker. I turn back just in time to see him pass out behind the wheel.
Shit.
We rear-end a parked car and come to a stop before I can even reach the wheel.
Belfast is slumped over, leaning up against the driver’s side door.
“Georgie,” he mumbles, barely regaining consciousness.
“I’m right here.” I slide across to check his pulse and get a good look at the wound on his neck. On a normal day, I’d say it wasn’t a big deal, but today is not a normal day. We’ve just been through a nightmare and he’s lost a lot of blood.
“We’re going to need help.” I press three fingers hard against the side of his neck to stem the flow of blood.
“Georgie,” he calls my name, sounding weaker.
Before I can answer him, the passenger door pops open and I find myself staring into the barrel of a gun.
Looking down the barrel, I see what can only be described as the very definition of an Irish gangster, complete right down to the hoodie and gray scally cap.
“Go ahead and slip away from him, sweetie.”
Did he just call me sweetie? What is it with these Irish men and their pleasantries?
&nb
sp; “And take it slow.” He keeps the shotgun pointed directly at my face. “I don’t have time to be cleaning your brains off the dashboard.”
So much for chivalry
“Put it down, Mikey.” Belfast sits back up and sounds deadly serious. “Now.”
He immediately slings the shotgun back over his shoulder, shuts the passenger door, and walks around the front of the car.
“Friend of yours?” I try to help Belfast stay upright but he’s still losing blood.
“Friend of ours today, luv.” He begins coughing. “Listen, I’m gonna go ahead and pass out. If I don’t wake up, remember what I told you.”
“What am I supposed to do here?”
“Don’t worry, luv. Mikey will take care of things.”
“But what do I say to him?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? But what if he—”
“He won’t be asking,” Belfast interrupts and then passes out again.
The man he called Mikey opens the driver's side door and begins maneuvering Belfast out before he says the only words I’ll hear him speak.
“For fuck’s sake, grab his legs.”
Chapter Twelve
Belfast
“Wake up.”
I hear Georgia’s voice.
“Goddammit, wake up.”
There it is again. She sounds far away, or maybe she’s talking quietly.
I try to open my eyes but agonizing pain slams through my head. I try to sit up and move but everything else hurts too.
“C’mon, wake up.” She sounds distressed.
“Georgie.” My voice cracks, but it works.
“Ohhhh, thank God, you’re awake.”
“I am.” My throat is so dry.
“Good. I need you to focus.”
“Okay.”
“You’ve been shot. Do you remember?”
“I do.”
“Can you sit up for me?”
“I can try.”
“Good. Try for me.” She sounds concerned, and I wonder if I’m much worse off than I originally thought.
Steeling my resolve, I force myself to sit straight up. It’s painful and slow and punctuated with groans but I get it done. I open my eyes and spend the next few moments blinking as I adjust to the light. Things slowly begin to come into focus. We made it.
“That’s it. Excellent,” Georgia encourages me.
I lift my head and look for her.
“Over here.”
I follow the sound of her voice and can’t believe what I see when I find her.
“Georgie.”
“Yes?”
“Why are you fastened to that chair?”
Her hands and feet are strapped to the arms and legs with duct tape and her waist is secured with rope around the back.
“Because your friend,” she struggles violently against her bindings, “is a fucking lunatic.”
“Well, what did you do?”
“What did I do? What did I do?” Her voice gets louder the second time.
“Can you not hear me, luv? I said what did—“
“I heard what you said.” She’s furious. “I just can’t believe you’re asking me what I did.”
“Mikey isn’t really the type to just tie you up for no reason. So what did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“It couldn’t have been all that bad or he wouldn’t have left you so comfy.”
“Comfy? Do I look comfy to you?”
“Well, you’re still breathing and he didn’t even bother gagging you, so I gotta figure you just pissed him off a bit.”
“Pissed him off?” Georgia looks furious.
Georgia looks adorable when she’s furious.
“C’mon, luv, spill it.”
She sits tied to a chair, blowing air out of her mouth at me in disgust for the next minute and a half, like a bull ready to charge.
“It may have something to do with me wanting to get you professional medical care.” She looks down at my arm.
I follow suit and find a makeshift IV set up in my right arm. It appears to be made out of plastic tubing and an empty water jug.
“Mikey can be resourceful.”
“Oh, you think that’s resourceful? He gave you a small blood transfusion earlier today.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s all you have to say? Well, let me ask you this, where in the God forsaken hell did he get the blood? I mean, who has bags of fresh blood just laying around?”
“I’ll have to ask him.”
“Will you? Because I would love to hear that. Do you know why I’d love to hear that?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Because he hasn’t spoken to me. Not once. Not since he stood outside the car, pointing a shotgun at my face. Not a single fucking word.”
“Mikey’s not really the type for sentiment.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’d imagine he didn’t speak to you for the same reason he tied you up.”
“Annnnnd that reason is?”
“It seems quite clear to me, even in my current condition, he just doesn’t trust you.”’
“So he doesn’t talk to me, for hours?”
“I suppose he wouldn’t want to do that either, in case… you know.”
“In case what?”
“In case things didn’t work out.”
“If you didn’t make it?” she says it quietly, as if the words hold some mystical power.
“Exactly.”
She stares at me, waiting for further explanation.
“Based on the current state of affairs, I’d say it appears that if I hadn’t made it, you wouldn’t have made it.”
My words are still hanging in the air between us as Mikey breezes into the room.
“Good to see you up, chief.” He checks the makeshift IV and smiles. “Looks good.”
Mikey walks straight over to Georgia and spends the next few minutes loosening her bindings. When he’s done, he stands up and smiles. “There you go.” And then he walks back out of the room.
“So that’s it? Nothing for hours on end while I’m tied to this chair. And now because you’re going to make it, I get to live?”
“You’re welcome.”
“I am surrounded by sociopaths.” Georgia gets up slowly and shakes her limbs out to get the blood flowing again. “What are we going to do?”
“How about you help me with this rig first and then we’ll figure it out.”
“Of course.” She comes over and carefully removes the IV from my arm. “Step down slowly.”
Georgia helps me ease off the folding table and stays close as I steady myself.
I exhale a shaky breath. “How long have we been here?”
“Six hours.”
Feck. “We’ve been here too long.”
“We need to talk.”
“We need to keep moving.” The longer we remain in the city, the less chance we have of escaping those who are after us.
“We need to talk,” Georgia insists. “Now.”
I stretch out a bit before sitting down on the closest chair. “Okay, let’s talk.”
“Who is Mateo Navarro?”
I rub the back of my hand under my hair-covered chin a few times. “Are you sure you want to know? Because you can’t unring this bell once it’s been heard.”
“Yeah, I get it. I can’t ever go back once I’ve seen the wizard behind the curtain. I can’t put the genie back in the bottle.” She mocks me.
“Except this isn’t a fairy tale, and there ain’t no wizard or genie waiting on the other side, only trouble, Georgie. This one is more like Pandora’s Box, and I think you should reconsider.”
“Wait, did I just hear you right?” Georgia stands again. “You expect me to what—head back to the office like I wasn’t just right in the middle of two gunfights out on the streets of Boston?” She's furious at me for suggesting we part ways. “Two gunfights.” She sticks two fi
ngers in my face before turning around, stalking back over to her chair, and sitting down. “Spill it.”
I relax all the way back in the seat and take a fortifying breath, wincing from the pain in my ribs as I exhale.
“I wasn’t always the hero of the story. There was a time some years ago when I made my living in a less than moral fashion.”
“Oh, because now you’re the last bastion of altruistic behavior in the kingdom. Is that really what you’re trying to tell me?”
“You asked. Do you wanna hear it or not?”
Georgia’s eyebrows pop upward. She’s surprised by my harsh response.
“I do.” She nods her head and sounds less confrontational.
“Back then it seemed like the world was on fire. It also felt like I was walking around with a bucket of gasoline. I suppose, looking back, I was just another one of the monsters, running around lighting matches.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“People with skills like mine have always lived on the outer fringes of society. That’s where I met Mateo Navarro. He was a lot like me, and people like us always seem to find one another.”
“People like you?” Georgia interrupts.
“Killers.”
She grimaces.“Sorry.”
“Mateo was a good man, tough as nails. Keep in mind my definition of a good man and yours are two different things. We met up in Spain when I was helping some lads from back home with an electrical problem. Back then, Mateo was a small-time middleman, an introduction kind of guy, who was amenable to doing business with my friends.”
“I’m guessing guns and some kind of explosives, maybe detonators for the IRA. Just to keep things real,” Georgia interrupts again.
I ignore her and continue. “Anyway, the deal went bad, and I found myself up against it in the ghettos of El Principe.”
“In Cueta?” Georgia’s heard of it.
“That’s the place. And I wouldn’t have made it out if Mateo hadn’t stood by me. We traded gunfire with some real heavies that day. And he did it knowing they would see him again. He did it knowing he’d have to face them after I left.”
EDGE OF HONOR: On The Edge Duet: Book One Page 7
