“So, you wouldn’t take it in return for her now, then?”
Dillon glared at him. “No, I fucking wouldn’t.”
“What about if we doubled it to twenty?”
Dillon ground his teeth, not backing down, and I loved him for that. “She’s not a thing you can just sell when you feel like it. She’s a human being.”
Frankie gave a one-shouldered shrug. “You’re wrong. She belongs to me.”
“You gave her to us, remember?” Dillon said, shaking his head.
“That was only ever supposed to be temporary. Now that arrangement has come to an end, so I suggest you either take the money and walk away, or you join me and my brother, and we work on the same side. I could do with a couple of guys with your skillsets onboard, ’cause it seems to me that we all want the same thing.”
Kodee interjected, “Which is?”
Frankie Capello smirked. “Your girlfriend here to stay alive. After you shot Nettie’s men out the front of his house and then ran, it occurred to me that we should be on the same side.”
Kodee scowled. “You only want her alive for as long as she’s useful to you.”
“That’s right. I like useful things. And like I said, I think I could make use of you, too. I’m offering you something here, and I seriously think you should consider it.” He waved his gun around at the clearing. “’Cause right now, things aren’t looking so great for any of you.”
I sucked in a breath. One thing both Kodee and Ryan had berated Dillon for was getting involved with the Capellos, and now, here they were, inviting them into their circle. The Capellos might have saved our lives, but they weren’t our friends. They were the type of men who only kept you alive so long as you were of use to them. Once you’d served your purpose, they no longer wanted you around.
“You don’t have to do this.” My voice was a breathy whisper. I wasn’t sure who I was talking to—Kodee and the others, or the Capello brothers.
Kodee looked to me. “We do, though, Rue. What other choice do we have?”
He was right. The Capellos still wanted me because they didn’t want to see Joe Nettie walk free, but unless the guys agreed to working for them, they’d just continue the job Nettie’s men had been about to do and shoot them here and now. It would be unlikely their bodies would be found any time soon, and even if they were, the Capellos would never take the rap for it. They’d be long gone, and they were smart enough to cover their tracks. Our deaths would be blamed on Joe Nettie’s trial, without a doubt.
So, no, they didn’t have a choice. We had to go with the Capello brothers now and do whatever the hell they wanted.
We’d taken a gamble, and we’d lost.
“It’s okay, Rue,” Kodee said softly from beside me. “It could be worse. We could be dead.”
I pressed my lips together, tears filling my eyes. Yes, that would be worse, but I was terrified about what would happen when we got back to the city. At some point, word would get back that Nettie’s men hadn’t been able to complete what they’d been sent out to do. Too many had died for them to just let this go.
There had already been a war raging between the two rival gangs, but now we’d found ourselves right in the middle of it.
Chapter Twenty-two
Dillon
THE HIKE BACK TO WHERE we’d left the car was painful in more ways than one.
The Capellos’ men had picked up the guns we’d been forced to throw down, so we were completely unarmed. We were pushed and shoved from behind, reminded with the press of a muzzle into our spines that they could shoot us at any moment, if they chose.
“Can we at least get our flashlights out of our bags?” Kodee said with a growl as he tripped over yet another root.
“No,” Frankie snapped. “Make do with ours.”
Maybe he thought we’d try to use them as weapons—not that a couple of flashlights would stand up much against guns—or had something else in our bags we might be able to use. I wracked my mind, trying to figure out a way out of this. In one sense, we should be grateful that we had been saved, but in another, we were now going to be turned into the Capello brothers’ little bitches.
If we did manage to escape, would we even make it? The Capellos were offering their protection, and a part of me thought we were better off just taking it. We were going back to the city, and of course it was dangerous, but after the last few days had played out, I was starting to think it wasn’t any more dangerous than being on the run.
Instinctively, we all closed in around Rue, wanting to keep her safe. We’d come far too close to not only losing her, but losing each other.
“Jesus, couldn’t you have caught up with us a little sooner,” I said, “so at least we wouldn’t need to walk all the way back again?”
“Be happy we got to you when we did,” Frankie growled. “You’d be dead if we hadn’t.”
“We’d also still be alive if you got to us sooner,” I pointed out.
None of them answered me, but I could practically sense the Capello brothers rolling their eyes at me. I guessed I should be relieved that was all they were doing. I needed to keep my mouth shut, but at some point, between thinking I was about to receive a bullet in the back of my head and now, I had started to feel kinda reckless.
“Has a date been set for Joe Nettie’s trial?” I called out to the backs of the Capello brothers, who were leading the way back through the trees. I figured we needed to know.
“Yes,” Manuel Capello replied over his shoulder, without actually bothering to look back. “It’s one week from now, so you can understand why we’re so keen to get Rue back.”
One week. That didn’t buy us much time.
“If Rue takes the stand,” I continued, my mind whirring, “and Nettie goes free anyway, what happens then?”
Frankie shrugged. “That depends on what happens between now and then.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you look like you’re going to be an asset to our business, we’ll keep you around and make sure you remain under our protection. If you make things difficult for us, however...”
He didn’t need to finish his sentence. We all understood the implied threat.
“What about Rue?”
There was no getting away from the fact she’d still be in danger. If she took the stand, she’d have a flashing beacon on her head. Whether Joe Nettie went to jail for the rest of his life, or if he walked free, his friends would still want her dead.
“What about her?” he replied, throwing the question back to me.
But his question was different than mine. I was asking how we’d keep her safe once the trial was over, but he was saying that once she’d done what they needed, she would no longer be important enough for them to worry about.
What if the only way for her to stay alive was if she was no longer with us?
I didn’t want to entertain the idea of never seeing her again, but wouldn’t that be better than her ending up dead?
“What if we work for you, but in return, the moment the trial is over, you promise Rue will be able to leave the country?” I suggested. “If we’re going back to the city, we’ll be able to recover our equipment. We can make her a passport that’ll be good enough to get her out of the country.”
If only we’d thought to do that when she’d been staying with us. We could have been a long way from here by now, lying on a white sandy beach somewhere, listening to the splashing of waves, and having sexy members of staff serving us cocktails. But that dream was long gone, and we couldn’t turn back time. Instead, we were traipsing through the forest in the dark with guns pressed to our backs.
She grabbed at my arm. “Dillon, stop it. I’m not going anywhere without all of you.”
I shook her off. I hated myself for doing it, but what other choice did we have? We could keep her with us and watch her die, or we could push her away and she could live, and go on to have a long, happy life. Without us.
I forced myself to harden my
heart, though I wanted to tear it out of my own chest. “Come on, Rue. The fucking has been fun, but surely it’s not worth risking your life for.”
In the dim illumination from the flashlights, she blinked up at me, her eyes wide and teary. “Fucking? Is that all we’ve been doing.”
One of the Capello brothers’ men snorted laughter, and I bunched my fists at my sides in an effort not to punch him in the face. “You know it is.”
“You said we were joined now.” She touched the necklace at her throat. “That was what this meant, remember? That we were each a part of each other, and nothing could tear that apart.”
“Things have to come to an end, Rue. Nothing lasts forever.”
“Bullshit! I know why you’re saying all of this. You think if I believe you don’t care about me, then I’ll be happy to leave after the trial.”
“Ha. Don’t flatter yourself. We had our fun, and now this isn’t working out any longer.”
Her mouth pinched. “I don’t believe you,” she insisted.
But I could see her blinking back tears, the pain in her features, the rigidness of her body. She was telling herself that she didn’t believe me, but the worm of doubt had already wriggled into her heart. It broke me that I was hurting her, but I didn’t know what else to do. She would never leave us here if she believed we loved her.
Did Ryan and Kodee understand what I was doing? I hoped they would, and they didn’t just think I was acting like an asshole. It was bad enough thinking that Rue was going to end up hating me, without them thinking the same.
“Dillon...” Kodee said, that familiar warning tone to his voice. He was telling me to shut up.
I could feel myself on a downward spiral, wanting to lash out and hurt someone, and it took every ounce of self-control not to do exactly that. Instead, I reached down to the bullet wound in my thigh and dug my fingers against the bandage covering it. I clawed harder and deeper, relishing in the pain that shot up through my body. I clenched my teeth, tears pricking my eyes, but I didn’t stop. The blinding white agony drove all other thoughts and impulses out of my head and forced me to focus only on that.
I kept my head down and didn’t stop walking, despite the pain I’d put myself through. It was nothing compared to Ryan, who would be suffering far worse than I was.
With the possibility of losing Rue, the person I was before she’d come into our lives threatened to return with a vengeance. Would it be the end of me, too? The end of the relationship I had with Kodee and Ryan? Maybe things would be easier if it was just me again—no one else to have to consider or care about.
It was pitch black by the time we reached the place where we’d dumped the car. Several other vehicles were parked nearby, all at odd angles. I assumed at least one of them belonged to the four dead men we’d left back in the forest, and the other two must be the Capellos’ cars.
I eyed up the vehicle that had caused us so much trouble. We should have gotten rid of it sooner. It had been an almost fatal mistake. Though we had no way of knowing what would have happened if we’d tried to steal one or even gone to hire a rental. One of our names might have been flagged by the local police, and we’d have found ourselves behind bars instead of back in the hands of the Capello brothers. Right now, I wasn’t sure what would be worse.
“Divide them up,” Frankie instructed. “Put the Irish one with the girl, and the other two can go in the second car.”
“No, please,” Rue begged. “Let us stay together.”
He snorted. “If you think we’re going to put all four of you in a car together, while one of us drives, you’re even more naïve than I gave you credit for.”
One of his men grabbed Rue by the arm and dragged her toward one of the cars. She yelped in fear and reached toward Kodee and Ryan.
“It’ll be okay, Rue,” Kodee called to her. “Just stay calm.”
Someone shoved me from behind, in the same direction Rue was being taken. At least I’d be able to be with her, though, like her, I hated being separated from Kodee and Ryan. I prayed they’d be all right and that we were all going to the same place—wherever that might be.
The fact both the Capello brothers had come all this way just to get Rue back showed how important she was to them. Or maybe it wasn’t her who was important, but what she was able to do for them. Even so, they’d lost track of her once, and they clearly had no intention of making the same mistake twice. I struggled to imagine many other times when the brothers would leave the city.
At least we weren’t dead. That was a pretty big thing to be thankful for. We’d come terrifyingly close, and the memory of how utterly helpless I’d felt wouldn’t fade fast. When I’d been on my knees, with the people I loved most in the world in the same position on either side of me, I’d never felt such utter despair. I could have died myself without experiencing such emotional agony, but it was knowing the others were also going to lose their lives that tore my heart out of my chest. Fuck, they were each so perfect in their imperfect ways. There wasn’t a single thing I’d change about any one of them. The idea that their shining, desperate, imperfect lights could be extinguished with barely a thought was what cut me in two.
I’d sacrifice everything to never have to go through that again.
Chapter Twenty-three
Rue
WE DROVE ACROSS THE country, right through the night, and through the next day.
My entire body was stiff and aching, both from the hike and from being cramped up in the same space hour after hour. I hated to think how Ryan must be struggling. He must have found the trek back to the car insanely hard, but he hadn’t complained once. I’d wanted to beg the Capellos to let him take a break, but I also wasn’t sure how much they knew about him, and how much he wanted them to know. I wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to use the missing limb to his advantage, but if there was a way, I didn’t want to be the one to ruin things for him by opening my big mouth. It did worry me, though. He could do lasting damage to his stump—damage that might even lead to a second amputation—and the idea of Ryan having to go through all of that again broke my heart.
He would have been suffering from the hike in the forest, so being forced to spend almost twenty-four hours in a car with a gun pointed at him would have meant the swelling in his leg was probably unbearable. I knew what he was like as well—he wouldn’t have taken off the prosthesis, even if it meant he was more comfortable. He wouldn’t have wanted to show that weakness to the Capello brothers or their men.
Despite what he’d said to me, I couldn’t help worrying about Dillon’s gunshot wound bleeding again. What had opened up the wound? I hadn’t seen any sign of blood when we’d been walking toward the border, before we’d been accosted. Had kneeling on the ground opened it up? It was possible, but deep down, I could tell it was something more. A change had come over Dillon, as though he’d put on a mask, and I was sure it had something to do with all of us almost being killed. He’d put up his defenses.
I didn’t believe what he’d said about what we had together only being about fucking. There was so much more between us all than just sex. He was trying to push me away in the hope I wouldn’t get hurt. But even though I knew this, that didn’t stop his words hurting. I didn’t want him to push me away. This was a time when we should all pull closer together, not try to create a divide between us.
The bleeding seemed to have stopped for the moment, anyway. It wasn’t much of a positive, but it was something. At least I didn’t need to worry about Dillon bleeding out on the seat beside me.
Each time we stopped, we were forced to wait inside the vehicles, while one of the other men went to pick up supplies and bring them back to the car. They were armed and we weren’t, which instantly put us at a massive disadvantage. Even if we stopped for a break and tried to make a run for it, because they’d divided us between the two cars, it would mean leaving the other two behind. We would never do that. And if we left them behind, all it would take was the Capellos threatening to
kill them to bring us right back again.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I said truthfully.
“Tough,” Frankie replied. “You can piss on the side of the road like a guy.”
My bladder was full to bursting, so that was exactly what I did, squatting just off the road with my jeans around my ankles and one of the Capellos’ men standing over me with a gun. If I hadn’t been so desperate, I probably wouldn’t have been able to go in those circumstances, but considering I’d been about to have an accident, I let go of my urine in a hot rush and did my best not to splash my pants.
As we reached the outskirts of New York City, the sun was already setting again. The drive had felt like it was never going to end.
I recognized the route we took, and my stomach sank. We were being taken to the restaurant the Capello brothers owned. There was an apartment above, and a cellar below—both places I’d become well acquainted with at the time.
Despite the hour, the restaurant was shut. I imagined it had been the whole time the Capellos had been away, trying to track us down to bring us back again. Not that they’d care about the loss of business. The restaurant was just a front to make their work and family name look legitimate.
They drove us around the back, and I was relieved to see the car containing Kodee and Ryan already there. We’d tailed each other most of the way, so I’d at least taken some reassurance in knowing they were safe, but when we’d hit the city and the worst of the traffic, we’d lost them again. I’d worried that we weren’t going to be taken back to the same place, and that there was a chance I wouldn’t see either of them again.
“Come on. Out. Both of you.”
I was more than happy to get out of the back of the car, though I felt sick with nerves about what was going to happen next. Every muscle in my body screamed with a combination of pleasure and pain as I stretched out my stiff, cramped muscles.
Kodee and Ryan were both out of the car they’d been in as well, and Kodee caught my eye.
Guarded by Them (Dirty Twisted Love, #2) Page 15
