by S. Massery
I raise my eyebrows. “Listen, I don’t think I’m a cat guy…”
“We have dogs.” She rolls her eyes. “Give your girlfriend time and come with me.”
And that’s how I find myself sitting in a kennel, trying to convince a black-and-white dog to come closer to me. It takes a few minutes of being completely still, but he finally inches over and sniffs my fingers. I scratch under his collar, turning him to putty in my hands.
Grace finds me an hour later with the dog’s head on my lap.
I raise my finger to my lips. “This is Shooter,” I say. “He finally fell asleep.”
She smiles. “He’s cute. Ironic name, huh?”
The receptionist handed me his card, which told me he’s a border collie. Fiercely independent, bred to herd sheep, and loyal to their owners. He’s mostly black with white patches on his chest and chin.
“I kind of want to take him with me,” I admit.
She raises her eyebrows. “You want to adopt a dog when we’re about to go to war?”
“Look at him, Grace. How could I not?”
“What if he gets hurt?”
I freeze. Shit. I can’t do that to a dog.
I run my palm over his head, giving him a quick scratch behind his ears. He leans into the feeling, groaning, before his eyes open. He sits up, staring me in the eyes for a second.
Decision made.
“I’ll come back for you,” I murmur. It takes more willpower than I would’ve thought to stand and slip out of his cage.
“You’re a sap,” Grace says.
“You would be, too, if you sat with him for an hour.”
“An hour?”
“It felt like it,” I mumble, glancing back at the dog. His amber eyes—they match Grace’s—watch me as we round the corner. Okay, it’s totally weird to compare a dog’s eyes to the girl I may or may not have a little crush on. Whatever.
I hold the side door open for her.
She walks out ahead of me, and I almost walk into her when she stops abruptly.
Leaning against Colin’s Jeep is Marco. His gun is in his hand, pointed at the asphalt, but he raises it and gestures toward me. “She’s coming with me,” he says. “You move for your gun, I’ll kill you right now.”
I grab her hand and start to pull her behind me, but Marco growls and fires a shot up into the air. It’s then, with the absence of noticeable noise, that I realize his firearm has a suppressor on it. While it doesn’t mute all noise, it does lessen the damage. And the attention.
I twitch.
He could shoot us, and we could lie bleeding on the asphalt for God knows how long before someone stumbled upon us.
“Grace. With me.”
She looks over her shoulder at me. “If I move, he’s going to shoot you.”
“I’ll deal with that,” I mutter. “He might kill both of us if you don’t.”
The parking lot is completely empty except for our Jeep and his black Charger. It was the car I thought I spotted him in earlier. It’s nice to know that I’m right sometimes.
Still, my lungs stop working as Grace takes a step away from me. She goes straight for him, keeping herself between us, and he pulls her to him when she gets close enough.
He raises his firearm at me.
Things happen in slow motion.
I dive to the side, back toward the door we just came out of, and Grace slams her shoulder into Marco’s side. His shot goes wide, embedding into the brick. I yank my gun out and shield myself behind the metal door.
I yell as he backhands Grace, then grabs her again and uses her as a fucking human shield. There’s no way I can return fire. Not with her between us. He walks them backward, his gun trained at me.
“Lower your fucking weapon,” he orders.
I don’t move, half expecting him to shoot me anyway.
They get across the lot to his car, and he fires two shots into the tires of the Jeep. The tires pop, releasing a hiss of air, and Grace flinches.
My hope of giving chase sputters out.
“I’ll find you,” I promise her anyway.
Her face is red where he hit her, but the rest of her is pale.
Marco grins at me. “An army is going to stand between you and her,” he says. “I have one bullet left, and it’s going to go into her spine if you don’t go back into that fucking building.”
He shoves the barrel into her back. She jumps.
“If I see you or that Jeep in my rearview mirror, she’s going to live a long, painful life.” He shrugs. “Not that I particularly care. It’ll just break her faster.”
I growl.
She makes a face like I’m the one killing her—and hell, maybe I am by not listening to him.
“Dalton. Go.” She stares at me, pleading.
I take a step back, hating myself as I do it. I yank the door closed and slam my fist against the wall. “Fuck,” I yell. I beat at it, shredding the skin on my knuckles, before I stop. I lean my forehead against the wall, breathing heavily.
Marco’s car roars to life, the tires screeching as he flies out of the parking lot.
I count to ten, then rush outside.
Nothing.
Two flat tires on my Jeep make leaving impossible.
I crouch on the ground, resisting the urge to kick the tires. I’d probably break my toes.
Instead, I count again. This time to one hundred. I feel myself wanting to fall apart. I could go on a rampage, like Jackson might. Rage and fear are winding through my body in equal measure.
None of those things would get Grace back. I pick myself up, dust off my pants, and stalk back into the animal hospital. There are people I can call. Colin. The Scorpion crew. Maybe even Luca, if he feels like being helpful instead of a snake.
Yet… one person I didn’t think to include is leaning on the counter in the lobby, chatting with the receptionist that I scared. Smoothing things over like he always does.
“You got sloppy,” I tell him, announcing myself at the doorway. “Spotted you a few cars behind me.”
Wyatt lifts his head. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“I knew you were alive. I just don’t know why you fucking lied to everyone about it.”
He circles around the desk, coming to stand in front of me.
We’re the same height on a good day. Today, it feels like I tower over him—or maybe that’s the anger sizzling like hot oil inside me.
Anger at him, for faking his fucking death.
Anger at Marco, for taking Grace.
Anger at Grace, for not letting me at least try to save her.
“We can talk about that later,” he says.
“You’ve been following us for a while,” I say. It’s just a hunch, but he stiffens. “Yeah. You were the one who took care of the guy with the knife? On the boardwalk.”
“Nah. That was Elizabeth. You know I’m not a good long-distance shot.”
I raise my eyebrows, and he gestures for me to follow him. He is a terrible long-distance shot, it’s true.
We go out the front door, to the other side of the building. He has a beefed-up SUV that looks like he regularly goes mudding in it. It’s covered in dust and caked-on dirt.
A woman climbs out of the passenger seat and stops next to Wyatt. “Nice to meet you, Dalton,” she says.
“You’re the sharpshooter?” She grins, but it fades when I scowl at her. “You could’ve hit Grace. And speaking of Grace—she’s getting farther and farther—”
“Easy,” Wyatt says. “We can talk on the drive. I already called Jackson—”
“You motherfucker.” I take a step back before I do something dangerous, like punch him. He’d deserve it. He deserves all of my fucking anger, like a bath of fire doused on him.
Eh, maybe that’s a little too ironic considering the nature of his fake death. An apartment fire. Pffft. No one should’ve believed that the great Wyatt Pierce would succumb to an apartment fire.
“We already pulled your stuff out
of the Jeep,” Elizabeth says, motioning to their vehicle. “Get in.”
I snarl under my breath. I don’t really like anyone touching my shit, but—
“Dalton.”
I snap to attention, because that’s what we were fucking trained to do. And it isn’t Wyatt’s normal voice—it’s his Scorpion voice that made him a leader. That made people listen to him under siege and attack. It makes me want to crawl out of my own skin and light it on fire.
Too many fire references, D.
“Get in the fucking car,” he orders.
“Yes, sir,” I say, filling my voice with every type of loathing I can think of.
He flinches.
Still, I open the passenger door and take my seat. I buckle my seat belt and wait, arms crossed over my chest, as Elizabeth and Wyatt exchange a glance. They get in the car, and we’re off.
“Okay, so. Talk.”
Wyatt glances at me. He looks older than I remember. But then again… It’s been over a year since we’ve seen him. More like two, at this point.
I’ve lost track.
“I didn’t die,” he says. “Obviously.”
“No shit.”
“Dalton,” Elizabeth murmurs. “This is hard for him—”
“No offense, Liz, but it was pretty fucking brutal for all of us.”
She frowns.
“Does Mason know? He went to your funeral.”
Wyatt shakes his head.
It’s fucking surreal to be looking at him up close after all this time.
“You knew I was alive,” he says. “How?”
I roll my shoulders back. “I saw you two days after your funeral.”
Elizabeth groans. “Dumbass,” she whispers. “I told you—”
“Hush,” he says. “Dalton, continue.”
New York City is a brutal city. There’s a reason I don’t go there often. The tall buildings are a nightmare for snipers—no clear line of sight anywhere, unless you want to account for a steep angle or blowing out a window for the sake of a clean, nice shot.
And there are too many people.
I went because I felt like I had to, if I ever wanted to have a prayer of forgiving myself. I had convinced myself that I was to blame for Wyatt’s death. Not enough phone calls, not enough invitations to visit. If only I had insisted he come down to Miami, maybe he would’ve still been alive.
“I went to that cafe on Fifth Avenue. The one near the Central Park. One of the baristas told me about a great view of the reservoir. ‘Picture perfect,’ this guy had said. So I walked there, completely sulking. I found myself hiking all the way around that damn pond, searching for the best place to just sit and live in my misery.”
“And that’s when you saw me,” Wyatt finishes. “I had a meeting in the park. It was near dawn, no one was supposed to be around—”
“I was around,” I say. “I almost said something. Called out your name or whatever. But then you just kind of vanished.”
“I was meeting an informant,” Wyatt says. “It was my last meeting before I went underground, and I had everything planned down to the second. I shed my coat and hat and blended in with a pack of joggers that ran that particular path every morning.”
I shake my head. “Informant? You were out of the game. You—”
“Unfortunately, we were never out of the game,” Elizabeth says. She leans forward. “We’re here to help you get Grace back and stay alive while doing it.”
“Why?”
Wyatt shifts. “I get that you don’t quite trust us. But…”
“If we help you, you’re more likely to help us,” she says.
I snort. “Really? So your help isn’t free. Just like old times, Wy. Real fucking special.”
“I honestly didn’t think you were going to get yourself in as big of a mess as you did.” He laughs. “Falling for a mob enforcer’s daughter. Stealing her away. Literally running away with her—”
“She was just as trapped as—” I snap my mouth shut. I was going to say, as me. But I have to remind myself that I’ve warped Scorpion Industries in my mind over time. They bound me to my contract, but they let me walk away once it was over. Just like anything else I signed up for.
“I get it,” I say in a low voice. “She needed my help. They’re a fucked-up family with no remorse for shipping her off to god knows where.”
“You’re getting angry at the wrong people,” Elizabeth says. “We’re giving you a ride back to Miami. We’re going to make sure no one gets killed. And after that…”
“Enough.” Wyatt waves. “She gets overeager. And we phrased it wrong. We help you, no strings attached. The biggest fight of our lives is coming up, and honestly? I’m going to need all hands on deck. But it’s your choice.”
I squint at him. We fly past cars so fast, they seem to be standing still. That’s how I feel: like my life is starting to pick up speed. Uncontrollable.
“Who are you going up against?”
He meets Elizabeth’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and then he looks back at me.
“Scorpion Industries.”
23
GRACE
The drive back to Miami was surprisingly silent. I hunched in the backseat, trying not to move my arm too much. There’s an extra pulse in my arm and my cheek where he hit me.
We get to Javier’s house, and Marco opens my door, gesturing for me to climb out.
It’s hard to make my legs move, but somehow, I manage to stand and walk inside. Most of the windows have been replaced, but the inside is a wreck. There are still bullet holes in the walls, badly patched with plaster and in need of paint. The door to Javier’s office is closed.
Marco pushes me down on the couch, then moves to the window. He pulls out his cell phone and types something out, then crosses back to me and sits.
“Quite the adventure you’ve had,” he says. “What possessed you?”
I shrug and look away.
“I wonder how long it’ll take lover boy to come back for you,” he muses. “And I wonder how long it’ll take him to realize that these windows are bulletproof.”
I scowl down at my hands, and Marco is suddenly right in front of me, pinching my chin between two fingers. He forces me to meet his gaze.
“What happened to your ring, Grace?”
I shiver. “Um…”
He glares at me. “I noticed you had taken it off,” he says. “So I thought of a replacement.”
I don’t answer, and he leans down in my face.
If he kisses me, I might just lose my fucking mind.
“I’ll get a ring tattooed on your finger,” he says. His breath smells like mint. “Because you’re mine, Grace Jones. Till death do us part.”
Hopefully your death comes along quicker than mine.
I jerk away from him, looking out the window. “So that’s it, then? I’m just going to be your captive until—”
“There’s no until.”
That’s where he’s wrong. There’s always a way to change the game—it’s just a matter of how. And when.
“Where was Uncle Javier?” I ask. When he blinks at me, I clarify, “You said he was traveling.”
“Chicago,” he says. “He got back last night.”
“Can I see my dad?”
“Why? Do you think he would put a stop to this?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Not really sure of anything at this point, Marco,” I say in a low voice. “Just want to say hi to dear old dad. Make sure he’s not drowning in his own vomit.”
He snorts. “He’ll be here for dinner.”
And then he just… leaves.
I stand once he’s gone, watching him climb into his car and back out of the driveway. The house is silent, holding its breath. I wait for a second, wondering if I’ll hear the twins if I listen close enough.
Nothing.
I cross the hall to Javier’s office and rap my knuckles on the wood. I suppose he could be sleeping—but maybe he’s working.
The office door swings open, and I come face to face with Uncle Javier.
I suppress a shiver.
“Ah, Grace. Glad you made it back in one piece.”
Pretty sure every word that comes out of his mouth is a fucking lie.
“Come in,” he says, gesturing for me to enter. He closes the door behind me.
My heart skips when the scrape of the lock sliding home reaches my ears.
“Can I do something for you?”
“I was wondering…” I bite my lip and turn to face him.
He points to a chair, and I sit. He leans against the desk, too close to me. It’s always a power play when guys do that. They want your face level with their crotch. They want to look down on you.
I resist the urge to stand back up, and instead lean back.
“You were wondering,” he prompts.
“What were you going to do with the photos of Marco?”
He stares at me for a beat. His poker face is better than Marco’s, that’s for sure. It would appear that he taught his son very little about how to interact with the enemy.
Because that’s what I am now. An enemy. With one question, I’ve stated my intentions. Not directly, of course. That would be a sure way to get myself killed.
“The recordings that are basically useless in any court?” he clarifies.
I smile. Grin, really. I have a feeling like I’m the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.
We’re all mad here.
“So you plan on using them to keep him in line?”
He shrugs and stands, circling back to his desk chair. “It would appear that they went missing from my computer,” he says. “Marco wouldn’t dig. He wouldn’t even know to snoop in here for such… blackmail. Is that what you want me to say, Grace? Admit that it would be fantastic blackmail to keep my son in line?”
I can’t wipe the smile from my face. It’s either that or I bare my teeth at the man. “Do you have it on the rest of them?”
“Marco, your father, Frank. The high-risk players.”
“Frank is dead,” I tell him. “Since I think it must’ve been you who sent them after us, you probably already know that.”
“Ah, yes. Well, only one of the four vehicles made it back in one piece,” he says. “The rest were written off.”
