When we were teenagers, Jake and I had watched videos and practiced something called the Ranger roll. Surprised the hell out of Ripper when I demonstrated it to him this summer. I stood by Finn’s feet, grabbed his right leg, and did a sort of somersault, swinging him across my shoulders. I pinned his leg and arm against my chest, then lifted up on one knee. Pushing off against my bent thigh, I stood, two hundred pounds of deadweight across my shoulders.
“Nicely done,” Hildy said.
I broke into a shambling run, heading down the Old Penitentiary Road toward our car. We jogged passed two black SUVs. The front tire on one of them had lost its air. Nice. Maybe luck was on our side. I smiled with grim satisfaction.
Footsteps pounded on the pavement behind us. I pivoted, balancing Finn on my shoulders while I reached for my Glock. Marcus, Justin, and Georgia caught up with us.
“What happened?” I asked, as we jogged toward the community center.
“Most of the Allsop men had taken cover in a small room just inside the admin building,” Marcus said. “Probably planned to hit us as we ran in. Justin lobbed a frag into the room. While we engaged with the rest of the guards, two Allsop men ran and locked themselves in the armory.”
“Probably Elliot and Jonesy, his number one,” I guessed. “They’ll radio for reinforcements and be after us.”
“Yep.” Marcus nodded at Finn. “You good?”
I was staggering under Finn’s weight, but we couldn’t afford the time to switch him from my shoulders to Havoc’s. “I’m good.”
We turned off the main road, running toward the back of the community center. Dying sunlight glinted off the windows of our getaway car. I’d never been so glad to see a vehicle in my life. Within a minute, we’d be racing out of the city, heading to safety in Pendleton.
In my mind’s eye, I could see what came next. Rolling up to Valhalla with Sunny, Finn, Mrs. B., and Ever in tow. Bear’s gobsmacked joy at being reunited with his brother. Introducing the woman I love to my friends. Watching Mrs. B. and Ever settle into life on the ranch. After everything that had gone wrong during the past ten days, finally everything was going right. I could almost taste our happy ending. Impending victory gave me a last burst of energy, and my feet flew across the parking lot.
I came to a stop, panting, next to the car. Marcus and Justin slid Finn from my shoulders and held him up against the car. I peered into the empty back seat.
My world came to a screeching halt. Where the hell was Sunny?
“Sunny?” I yelled. Maybe she’d needed to piss and was hunkered down behind a bush next to the car. No. If she’d heard us run to the car, she’d call out or pop up from behind a bush. I turned my gaze to Marcus. “She wouldn’t just wander off.”
Headlight beams sliced through the twilight, and tires squealed. From the main road, someone shouted.
“Go,” I said. “I’ll stay behind and find Sunny. We’ll steal a car and meet up with you in Pendleton.” No way would I leave Boise without Sunny, but neither would I deny reality. Marcus Havoc and his people were the only things standing between the Allsops and victory. This time, he had to see sense and flee.
“Havoc,” Justin said, his expression grim.
“Get Finn and Hildy to safety,” I continued. “Raise an army. Stop the Allsops. That’s your job. My job is to find Sunny.”
Justin opened the rear car door and dumped Finn onto the seat. Hildy scrambled in the other side and squeezed in next to Finn. Georgia sat next to Hildy.
“With Hildy, there’s no room for Sunny and me anyway,” I pointed out.
“Fuck.” Marcus shoved his hands through his hair.
“Go,” I urged. “I want you to.” I hesitated. Haste was essential, but I’d face whatever the next few hours brought with peace of mind if I could tell him one more thing. “Listen, if we don’t make it back, ask Finn to tell my friends at the ranch that I’m good. Tell them I found love, and that I’d risk anything to bring her back home to Valhalla.”
Marcus clapped me on the shoulder. “Will do. You have extra magazines for the Glock?”
“Yep.” I stepped back, signaling the end to our conversation. Justin lifted a hand in farewell, then hopped into the front of the car. With a shake of his head—a man clearly going against his instincts—Marcus climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Headlights off, the car crept across the parking lot, then turned right onto the street.
Alone. I was alone. The night pressed in from every side. Somewhere in that dark expanse, Sunny waited for me.
“Where are you, Sunshine?” I whispered into the quiet.
THIRTY-FIVE
Sunny
Brody punched the gas. I twisted around in the SUV’s seat, desperate for one last look at the prison.
Please God, let Kyle be okay. Let all my friends be okay.
If Kyle were hurt or dead, I’d sense it somehow, wouldn’t I? I buried my fear in the darkest corner of my mind.
Maybe they survived the gun battle unscathed. Maybe they’d come running out the prison’s entrance, see Brody carting me off, and give chase.
No matter what, Kyle wouldn’t leave me behind. My higher self—the better angels of my nature—would tell Kyle not to risk himself, to flee to Pendleton with the others. But I knew down to my bones that the man I loved would try to save me. In fact, I was counting on it. He’d see my scrawled message on the SUV door, and he’d follow.
That didn’t mean that I wouldn’t try to save myself first, or that I wouldn’t do everything in my power to make things easier for Kyle when he showed up. Hands tied behind my back, there was little I could do physically to bring Brody down. But maybe I could get inside his head.
I glanced sideways at the Allsop scion. Spoiled and petulant, he shouldered an outsized sense of entitlement and grievance. Daddy had humiliated Brody tonight, and he was incandescent with both rage and embarrassment. Could I parlay that to my advantage? Psychological machinations had never been my strong suit. I’d rather just tell people what I think without running everything through a filter, but my options were limited. At the very least, maybe I could buy some time before Brody got down to partying. Shudder.
The five minute drive from the prison to the Allsops’ ridgetop estate flew by. Before I had time to catch my breath, we pulled up in front of a house I’d never expected to see again. Daisy—my faithful old van—was parked on a gravel strip alongside the garage. Brody parked the SUV, threw open my door, and unfastened my seat belt. His fingers bit hard into my elbow as he hauled me from the vehicle.
I wobbled, my balance unsteady. He jerked my arm and strode quickly up the cobblestone walk to the front door. Two armed guards, their faces impassive, watched us approach. Were they used to seeing Brody drag bound women into the house? So much for Mataraci’s lie that women had nothing to fear from the Allsops.
I stumbled along beside Brody as he strong-armed me through the door and across the foyer. If I threw myself down onto the floor, made myself a deadweight, it would slow him down. Or he might simply order the guards to carry me to his stupid man cave. If it came to it, I’d rather deal with one man than three. I kept to my feet, moving slowly and clumsily down the stairway and long hallway leading to the basement room.
Brody shoved open the double doors and flicked on the overhead lights. Light reflected from the glass eyes of murdered animals. They stared at me from every direction, beautiful creatures who’d been captured, killed, and mounted as trophies. Like them, I’d been captured. Would I, too, be mounted and killed? Crap. If I thought Brody’s man cave was a chamber of horrors the first time I saw it, it was waaay worse this time.
In preparation for the post-execution soiree, a long table covered with bottles of booze and crystal glassware had been set up along one wall. Brody shoved me into a deep, leather club chair, then pointed a finger at me, a clear warning to stay put. He ambled over to a small refrigerator next to the bar table and pulled out a cold bottle of beer.
“You w
ant a beer?” he asked.
I needed to keep my wits about me. I definitely did not want a beer, but he’d have to free my hands in order for me to hold the bottle, wouldn’t he? “Yes, please,” I said. “A beer would hit the spot.”
He twisted the cap off a bottle of lager, then crouched next to my chair, holding the bottle to my lips. No help for it. I said I wanted the beer, and I couldn’t be caught lying. Not yet. I parted my lips and he upended the bottle into my mouth. Choking against the flood of foamy lager, I pressed my lips together and shook my head.
He’d dumped half the bottle down the front of my shirt. “Why did you do that?” I sputtered, my eyes watering.
“See, that’s the problem,” Brody said. “You all think I’m stupid, but I’m not stupid. I know what I’m doing, and I know exactly what you’re up to. ‘Yes, please, Brody, a beer would hit the spot.’” His voice rose to a falsetto as he mocked me. “You actually thought I’d cut the zip tie so you could hold the bottle. I’m not a moron.” He glanced at the ceiling. “You hear that, Dad?”
“Has your father always been so hard on you?” I asked. “I felt bad when he was rude to you at dinner the other night. You were just kidding around—Kyle and I knew that—and he sent you to your room like a naughty ten-year-old.”
Brody’s jaw clenched and his eyes spit fire. I’d hit a nerve. “He’s always been like that, always had a fucking stick up his ass. Never could lighten up.”
I offered a small, sympathetic smile, afraid to overplay my hand.
“Nothing I did was ever good enough. You’d think a C in geometry was the end of the world. ‘No son of mine is going to be average.’” He imitated his father again. I felt a reluctant flash of pity for Brody. Carrying the weight of Elliot Allsop’s unforgiving expectations would be a crippling burden for any child.
“I got a C in geometry, too,” I lied. “Life’s too short to knock yourself out getting an A in a subject you’ll never use.”
“I know, right?” Brody threw his hands in the air. “But did Dad see it that way? Fuck, no.”
I wrinkled my brow in sympathy. Brody frowned, his overwrought expression giving way to suspicion. “You playing me, Sunny? You’ve always had that sweet, innocent act down pat. Everybody likes you. You’re everybody’s friend. But when I asked you for a simple favor—when I asked you to get me another beer at that party—you showed what a stuck-up bitch you really are.”
Brody had been holding onto that grudge.
“Made me look like a fool in front of my boys,” he continued.
There it was again. Humiliation and disrespect propelled Brody’s rage. What could I do to derail that anger now?
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I’d had a fight with my date that night, and I was in a crappy mood. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. That was my bad.”
Would a lightning bolt strike me dead after that string of bald-faced lies? Even if lightning didn’t kill me, my self-esteem would take a hit after that phony, groveling apology. Brody was right, though. I was playing him, and that knowledge allowed me to hang onto the tattered shreds of my dignity.
He lowered his chin and studied me, his eyes filled with skepticism. “You look different.” He waved at my hair. “I like it. You look hot with blond hair.”
“It’s a wig,” I blurted out, thrown by the word hot. Definitely not where I wanted Brody’s mind to go.
“A wig, huh?” He tilted his head, then snorted. “You and Kyle thought you could outsmart the Allsops by wearing a stupid wig?”
Didn’t just think it, I knew it, although there was nothing to be gained by rubbing that in Brody’s face. Despite my best efforts, Brody must have read the thought on my face.
“You really are a stuck-up bitch, aren’t you?” he accused me for the second time. “You want to know what’s going on right now? Odds are, your boyfriend and the traitor are both dead, shot during their lame-ass escape attempt. If by some miracle they got away, Dad and Jonesy and a bunch of our men are hot on their tails.” With a smile of pure malice, he tapped the tip of my nose. “Either way, you’re screwed, Sunny McAllister. Kyle ditched you and now it’s just you and me.”
In his triumph, Brody stood too close to my chair. I couldn’t use my hands, but my feet were free. I bent my right leg, then kicked out, nailing him on the thigh with the flat of my boot. Crap. I’d been aiming at his knee, but he shifted position just before my foot made contact.
He laughed, rubbing his thigh. “Oh, sweetheart, you’ll be sorry you tried that.” His lips curved in a mirthless sneer. “Before we’re done, I’m going to make you scream.”
THIRTY-SIX
Kyle
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
Mom had a gift for spouting trite sayings. Her voice reverberated in my head now. Less than five minutes ago, I had begun to breathe easy, sure we were posed on the brink of success.
Don’t get cocky. Another Mom-ism.
Luck, kismet, whatever you want to call it, once again fate kicked me in the balls.
Where the hell was Sunny?
Think.
What did I know? At some point during our rescue mission—probably alerted by guards who heard the first gunshot—Allsop reinforcements had arrived on the scene. I’d carried Finn past the two black SUVs that had brought the men here. I cautiously approached the main road. Only one SUV remained, and because of the flat tire, it wasn’t going anywhere.
Huh. Damned odd that the SUV got a flat tire right after the Allsop men parked it. I jogged over to the vehicle, pulled a penlight from my pocket, and examined the tire. Shallow slashes marred its surface, and at their center, a puncture the size of a knife tip.
“What did you do, Sunny?” I breathed, pride battling with fear when I touched the gash. So Sunny had disabled the SUV, then what happened? I stood and marched around the front of the vehicle. Two SUVs had been stopped here when we ran past, the second one parked a good twelve feet away from the first. Why park so far away? Unless… had a third SUV been parked between the other two? Had somebody taken Sunny away in it? Who?
Frustrated, I kicked at the pavement. I paced back around to the flat tire. My flashlight beam swept over the side of the vehicle, throwing light on the driver’s door. I bent over, my fingers tracing over the lines Sunny’s knife had scratched onto the panel. BRODY, and beneath that, CAVE.
The words had barely registered before I took off at a dead run. The Allsop estate was a little more than a mile from the penitentiary. By the time I got to the bottom of the long, curving driveway, I stopped to catch my breath and go over my plan. The house sat on a rocky, arid ridge, surrounded by hardy trees and shrubs. Elliot Allsop stationed two guards at the entrance to the house and another patrolled the grounds. Even if he took most of his security team with him in pursuit of my friends, Mr. Allsop would leave behind at least three guards.
I touched my Glock. Anybody who got in my way was shit out of luck. I loped up the driveway, darting into the trees before the roadway straightened out in front of the house. Holding my breath, I listened for any sign of a guard. An owl hooted from a nearby tree, and something skittered through the underbrush. The moon slid behind a cloud as I crept closer to the front of the house.
There. A man jogged around the garage, heading into the trees. If he kept to his course, all I had to do was sit pretty, and he’d come to me. Sticks snapped as he advanced. I stood, my back to a tree trunk, hidden from his view. He passed by and I sprang. Locking my elbow around his neck, I compressed his carotid artery and cut off blood flow to his brain. He bucked, but I held tight. Within ten seconds, he slumped in my arms. Moving quickly—before he regained consciousness—I tore his T-shirt over his head and fashioned a gag. I took the handcuffs from his belt and secured his wrists behind his back. He groaned, the sound muffled by the cloth in his mouth. I yanked off his belt, slipped it around the chain linking the handcuffs, and fastened it to the tree trunk.
One down.
&nb
sp; Slinking between the bushes, I drew closer to the front door. Instead of flanking the front door and staring straight ahead into the night—like guards in movies—the two men huddled together, laughing softly while one lit the other’s cigarette. Maybe fortune decided it owed me one. Arm extended, Glock in hand, I advanced on the men. I fired four times, dropping the men before they caught sight of me.
When the hell did I become a man who shoots down men in cold blood?
Six months ago, my conscience would have bothered me; now, not so much. Men who signed up for Elliot Allsop’s private army deserved none of my sympathy. Besides, these goons had probably stood to one side while Brody dragged Sunny into the house. Fury roiled in my gut as I imagined the scene. I checked to make sure they were down before stepping into the foyer.
The mansion was built on the side of a hill. Tons of rock and dirt surrounded Brody’s private retreat in the windowless basement. Odds were he hadn’t heard the gunshots. Pausing inside the front door, I listened for voices, footsteps, anything that indicated other people were in the house. Nothing.
Gun in hand, I raced to the stairs.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Sunny
I’m going to make you scream.
Brody’s cheerful tone while delivering the threat raised goose bumps across my shoulders. He pointed at the ceiling and walls. “And don’t imagine anybody will hear you and come to your rescue. The guy who built the house used the man cave as his music room. It’s totally soundproofed.” He shrugged. “Not that anybody would come even if they heard you. The men know better than to disturb me when I’m having my fun.”
I held still for a good ten seconds, my breath frozen in my lungs, then I exploded into action. Twisting my hands, I tugged frantically on the zip tie binding my wrists behind my back. I was nestled deep in a soft, oversized leather chair, so deep that my feet didn’t touch the plush carpet. I absolutely couldn’t get the leverage necessary to hoist myself out of the chair. Swinging both feet up into the air and down, I hurtled my body back and forth, trying to rock into a position where I could stand.
Bedlam Page 28
