by Nicole Snow
If I hadn’t put so much faith in this wizard camera tech, where the only way the app alerts fail is human error. Because I was so glued to talking to my people about Pickett that I missed two crucial motion alerts from the camera on the barn, never thinking for one second Tory would leave the house.
Don’t worry. There’ll be time to kick my own butt to India and back later.
For now, if Bat Pickett has stolen a single hair on her head...I growl at the savage thoughts scalding my brain and stomp the gas again.
Time is of the fucking essence.
I can’t wait for Powers and whatever backup he’s brought from the Bureau. That’s a given.
Drake said he’d get help—the unofficial kind since the entire Dallas PD is about to form ranks with the Feds flying in—and he’d meet me at the Maddock place. Grady and Ridge, no doubt.
Help I don’t want, honestly, even if I’ve got no choice but to take it and be glad.
My friends are husbands and fathers. All the more reason I need to end this myself, without giving another Pickett brother a chance to draw anybody else’s blood.
Without creating more widows and kids who’ll never know their daddy.
Justin’s parting, innocent smile as he climbed into his car sticks in my head. My blood boils over.
This is my mess to clean up and my woman to save. No one else’s.
My phone rings just then.
Another unknown number.
I hit the answer button on the steering wheel so it comes over the speaker, but I don’t say anything.
“Ah, Faulkner. Just the man I want to invite to my little barbecue.”
Bat Pickett’s slimy, rough voice sounds just like his dead brother’s. I squeeze the steering wheel harder.
“Talk, asshole,” I snarl. “Why you calling?”
“No need to play dumb. We both know I have something you want real bad,” Bat says, this hot triumph in his voice. “A pretty little thing.”
My jaw aches, pinched like a vise. I don’t answer.
“Well? Would you like to know where she is?” he asks.
It’s hard not to roll my eyes right out of their sockets.
He’s such a cartoon villain.
“I know where she is,” I bite off. “Already on my way. You’ll see my headlights in two minutes flat.”
The stunned silence on the other end is a tiny victory.
“Let me talk to her,” I say. “If I don’t get proof she’s still alive, I swear to fuck, I’ll turn around and come back with an entire SWAT crew for her body—and yours.”
I’m working off my playbook.
First rule of FBI negotiations with monsters like Bat Pickett: no matter how hopeless, how dire, how improbable it seems to negotiate, show no fear.
Can’t help but flinch, though, when I hear a muffled thud and then Bat whispering, telling Tory to say hello.
“Quinn! We’re...we’re at the Maddock farm” she says breathlessly. “I’m okay.”
“I know. I’m almost there. Did he hurt you?”
The way she pauses makes my fury so hot I’m about to be a flaming wreck.
“Yes.” Her voice is far off, as if the phone gets jerked away.
“I see your headlights now,” Bat says coldly. “Only one set? No backup?”
I snort. “What, and get more folks mixed up in this idiocy? This is between you and me, Bat. My crew stays out of it—unless you do something stupid like shoot me in the head the minute I step out of my truck.”
“I want you alive,” he growls. “You have my word. Putting you down instantly like the bastard you are ain’t in the cards.”
How comforting.
I hang up then, because right now, less is more.
Leave him full of questions, scrambling to send a few of his goons away to cover his ass.
Let him think I’m coming with surprises, and he’ll have to work to torture me.
I pull into the yard a minute later, steering past the broken-down fence out front.
Four burly, nasty-looking men, all armed, surround my truck instantly.
Good times. Everybody’s gonna get a workout tonight.
Hurling open the door, I pop off my seatbelt and leap out, marching forward like they’re nothing more than the annoying help.
Bat looks just like I remember. He’s the spitting image of Jake, slightly younger, a jagged scar forming a half crescent up one side of his head.
I wonder what otherworldly demon Mama Pickett slept with on at least two occasions to produce these soulless, dead-eyed, menacingly tall killers.
And he has a vicious hold on Tory’s arm, hard enough to bruise, her hands still tucked behind her back. Tied, I’m sure.
It rattles my brain like a bone-crunching blow to the face. A strange flood of relief that she’s okay and livid fury that she’s a prisoner.
Panic, hurt, shame, and fear for what I’m about to do to them whips through me like a current.
One of the armed minions steps in front of me.
Too pissed to be intimidated, I grab the barrel of his gun, yank it from his hand, and bash him across the head with the stock.
The satisfying crack! only lasts a second.
Then I’m surrounded by two, three, four more guns.
Bat looks at me, baring his teeth, a cowardly glint in his eye. “Enough! You make one more move, I’ll shoot your balls off.”
“Glad you know I’ve got ’em.” I toss down the gun as the fallen goon on the ground twitches. “Let her go and call off your boys. This bullshit’s between you and me and nobody else.”
He sighs, waving a hand at the men, but jerks Tory back with him, creeping along the side of the house. They’re heading for the lake I can smell in the distance.
“It is between us, Faulkner,” he says slowly. “But first, you’re gonna get an overdue taste of your own medicine.”
I don’t understand till the magnum he’s kept trained on me swings up.
The barrel bites the side of Tory’s neck as he swings it against her, and my fucking heart stops.
I can’t scream, can’t charge him, can’t make him shoot me instead.
Not when one simple pull of the trigger will annihilate the love of my life.
So, I just ball my hands into fists.
“The hell do you want from me? I’m here, I’m talking, I’ll give myself up the second you let her go!” I surge forward, I can’t control it, but he shoves the gun harder into her neck, forcing a whimper from her throat.
“Not so fast, Romeo, or she gets a bullet just like her mutt.”
Fuck, Owl? I wondered where he’d gone.
And now I have one more reason to murder this sun-blocking bastard.
I dig my heels into the ground, all I can do to keep from lunging forward, damn the consequences.
It’s too risky. There’re too many chances that gun will go off before I ever reach him.
Then a new gun pokes me in the back, urging me forward as Bat pulls Tory along, closer and closer to what looks like a worn down dock on the lake.
Tory’s eyes flutter and her gaze meets mine.
Shit, think. Think!
I have a gun tucked in my waistband and a knife in my boot, but going for either one is also too risky right now.
So I walk forward, staring at Tory, trying to assure her I won’t let anything happen.
Without being able to pull a weapon, I use the only Ace I’ve got.
Words.
“Guess you had to swap wits for an extra foot of height, huh?” I mutter.
“What?” Pickett snaps, those pale-grey eyes opening a little wider.
“Ted Goode’s playing you like a fiddle, Bat,” I say as calmly as I can muster. “Are you that goddamn stupid? He’s the guy who got your brother killed. He’s the one who helped Jake snuff out his girlfriend, too. And now he’s using you to do his dirty work, setting you up the same way he’s planning to do to me. You’ll die in a shootout as soon as you’re done with me
.”
Bat stumbles slightly. A rock, maybe, but I’m sure it was my statement.
“Shut the fuck up, you—”
“I ain’t finished. He wants you believing the prison hit was all my fault for putting Jake away, sharing the burden with the boys who held him down in a grimy sink,” I say. “All so you’ll try to take me out, when what he really wants is for it to look like we took each other out. We’re the only two men alive who know what Ted Goode really is, and how he loves making money.”
“You don’t know that!” he snarls, hateful eyes flickering in the moonlight.
“Don’t I?” I force a sly, harsh smile.
“Fuck off. You’re bamboozling me when I’ve got you cornered like a stuck rat.” He pauses midstep. “If Goode’s flipped, then why were you asking him about my release?”
“So I’d be ready for you and him,” I whisper.
“You don’t even know where he’s at! Last time I say it, shut your—”
“Believe me, I know.” I let out a false chuckle. “The real question is, do you?”
He gives Tory a hard tug backward, dragging her onto the run-down dock.
“Of course, I do! Quit playing games. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Faulkner.”
The edge in his voice is music to my ears.
Angry men are careless men, and careless men get stupid.
Knowing he’s starting to crack, I take several steps closer, ahead of the grunt pushing his gun in my back.
“It’s not obvious? Goode helped orchestrate the prison hit on Jake, just like he let you get away with yours on Jake’s killer. Then he set you up to be arrested so he could get the full cut of your dirty money, managing your operation, letting you think you were still calling the shots. Every message you ever sent to your boys from jail had to go through him, didn’t it?”
Pickett says nothing, standing paralyzed, an angry colossus hate-glaring into the night.
“Don’t shoot the messenger, now,” I say slowly. “And why’d he help you get out on early parole and scare some poor judge into sealing your records? Sure as hell wasn’t for your gain.”
“We’re...we’re partners!” he stammers. “Goode knows I swore revenge on you for killing Jake! He fucking helped us get this—all of this—lined up, you liar.”
“I didn’t kill Jake. I wasn’t in that prison. But I wonder who the boys that drowned your brother were really working for?” The wheels are turning in his head now, so I walk a little faster, right toward him. “And how about our friends here tonight? Who hired them? You or Goode?”
“Shut up!” he shouts. “Shut up. You don’t know shit, you bastard Fed. You don’t know—”
“Yes, I do,” I say sternly. “I’m right about Goode. I’m right about you being dumber than dirt. I’m right about your helpers planning to throw you to the wolves and run, just when you need ’em the most, and you know it.”
An odd, faint, somewhat eerie slapping sound echoes across the lake, which causes everyone to pause and whip around.
Wondering if it’s my three musketeers, I scan the waters.
If I know my friends, Ridge and Drake will take the lead, and Grady will hang back with his sniper rifle. If I’m lucky, he’s got a nightscope and a direct bead on the back of Bat’s head right now.
Pickett turns away a second later, facing me again with those crazy eyes.
It’s hard to tell for sure, but I catch a glint of something in the moonlight.
A canoe or small boat gliding this way. If they’re smart, they’re rowing real slow, keeping it deathly quiet.
Tick-tock.
I have to get this over with before they arrive and get in harm’s way.
“Goode’s going down one way or another, I promise you,” I tell Bat. “The FBI already knows everything. The best and brightest are about to ram his dick in the door.”
“Like hell!”
“You should’ve picked your friends wisely, Bat. Dirty cops are the worst. They always believe they’re above the law till it all comes crashing down.” I hope he can see my grin in the darkness.
Snarling, Bat jerks his gun at me, away from Tory.
Thank God.
“Why isn’t he here right now, Bat?” I ask, certain that Goode’s heading to my place, planting evidence to implicate me in his dirty dealings just like James suggested.
It’s too clear now and infuriates me that I hadn’t seen it sooner. Tory wouldn’t be in danger right now if I had. And I wouldn’t have to stand here in the middle of the night, repeating myself to this shitheel, willing him to do something stupid and give me the opening I need.
“Why isn’t he here right now?” I ask again.
“Because I’m in charge here!” Bat roars, looking too much like a monster from a bad B-movie in the pale moonlight. “I’m calling the shots, you asshole—not Ted Goode—and I’ve had it up to here with your bullshit.” He motions to his goons, who close in.
The man behind me shoves his gun in my back, harder, while two more grab at my arms.
“Back on track. I’ll make you watch, Faulkner.” Bat takes a heavy step forward until he leers over me. “Come see your girlfriend get the same treatment my brother did. An eye for an eye.”
For a tall pissed off maniac, he’s quicker than I give him credit for.
In less than the blink of an eye, he shoves Tory down and grabs her by the hair, aiming to push her head over the edge of the half-collapsed dock where the water ebbs high, straight into the water.
No!
I lunge forward, handing out presents to his goons in my spinning mad rage.
A well-placed crunch to the nose with my elbow.
A head butt to the throat.
A backwards kick square in the balls. Shitty people don’t get to enjoy the usual rules about not hitting below the belt.
I’m feeling pretty good when hot lead blows an inch past my head at a couple thousand miles per hour. Nice shot, Bat, but you missed.
And I only need a few more seconds to mess him up royally.
That’s exactly what I’m aiming to do as I charge forward—kick ass and save my woman—when this weird, out-of-place clatter suddenly fills the air.
23
I’ve Goat You (Tory)
Holy crap.
Seeing Quinn fighting off three armed men totally freaks me out and sends adrenaline shrieking through my system. If only I had time to stand around being short-circuited by his noble, insane, and utterly beautiful sacrifice.
It’s now or never!
I twist my hands out of the rope and take a deep breath, hoping against hope my knee can take this.
Well, only one way to find out.
I crouch down, kick, and leap as high as I can, springing up with just the right ninja momentum, breaking the monster’s grip on my hair.
It seems like forever before my feet hit the dock again, missing their shoes.
I’ll celebrate getting free of Bat later. For now, ignoring the pain sparking through my knee, I do a double twirl, nailing the giant in the knee with my foot and whacking him across the face with the rope simultaneously.
“Fu—uck!” He stumbles back, briefly shocked, and while I’m trying to figure out my next move, the night explodes with a sound I must be imagining.
Is that...?
No. It can’t be?
But it keeps coming, closer and louder, like a pack of kids honking toy car horns. Soon, it’s undeniable.
Goats.
A whole chorus bleating their angry little hearts out.
The entire tribe comes flying around the house a second later, heads down, with Owl racing behind them on their heels, barking up a storm.
Front and center, head down, running at a full charge, Hellboy beelines for the dock, while the others break rank and come crashing into the bewildered goons on the ground. It’s a miracle they don’t knock down Quinn, too, who surges through the sudden chaos onto the dock, blazing toward me.
&nbs
p; “Get down!” he roars, waving his arms.
It’s the last thing I hear before everything goes eerily silent. Like there’s so much insanity happening, my hearing just fades in this dull hum, and all I can do is stare.
Quinn dodging two more furious shots from Bat Pickett’s gun.
Quinn smashing into him, elbowing the gun out of his arm, and then locking his arms around a literal human titan.
Quinn power wrestling the overpowered freak in his arms, putting Odysseus and David to shame, snarling as he tries to throw the giant on the ground. They fight their way toward the end of the dock, where it tilts into the water at this crooked angle.
For a horrible second, everything stops, and I send up a prayer.
Please. Please let Quinn come out on top.
But when I hear the pounding hooves behind me, I realize he doesn’t need to do the impossible. He just needs to keep Bat Pickett distracted for a few more seconds, turned, fighting for balance, barely a foot or two away from the steep drop into the lake.
Hellboy whirls past in a shadowy blur, heading for them, as I flatten myself against the decayed wood.
I wince before it even happens.
Bat Pickett might be a vicious freak, a criminal, and evil incarnate, but I flinch to imagine how a human body feels when it collides with those horns at that speed.
The instant Quinn sidesteps the giant with a parting shove, Hellboy plows straight into Bat from the side, sending all seven-foot-something of him flying through the air.
I’m sure half of Dallas hears the massive splash echoing through the night.
Then it’s just anticlimactic. Hellboy stops at the edge of the dock, his head up tall.
He unleashes a loud bleat anybody could understand, even if they don’t speak goat.
‘Take that!’
“You okay?” Quinn stands over me, reaching down, lifting me up against him. “Tory, darlin’?”
“I’m...I’m fine now!” I push at his chest so I can lean back far enough to see his face and pat his arms, shoulders, and face, convincing myself he’s real.
He’s okay.
Holy hell. I think we survived.
