by Dean, Ali
Jeremy ignored us as he pushed open the door and flipped on the light switch.
“It was…” she choked out the rest, “a very explicit love note? About the things she’d like to do to Dad.”
I didn’t get a chance to process this. An unfamiliar woman’s voice greeted us. “Welcome home.”
My eyes snapped to where a woman stood, leaning against the wall by the kitchen. She wore all black athletic clothes, and had her arms casually crossed over her chest. Jeremy took a step forward, blocking Hazel at the same time I moved closer to her.
“Sonia,” Jeremy said. “Why are you here?”
My eyes moved to Hazel, who glanced over at me and shook her head. She didn’t know this woman either.
“I got a call a few hours ago you’ll want to know about.”
I took in the woman – Sonia – and couldn’t get a read on her. Her muscles were visible through the tight material of her clothing and that made it hard to tell her age. She could have been Jeremy’s age or ten years older than him. Maybe he knew her from his MMA gym.
“And? Who was the call from?”
“I’ll tell you, but in exchange I want something from you.” She sounded tough and controlled but I detected a note of false bravado. Sonia was acting like she had the upper hand, but she wasn’t so certain if she did.
“What’s that?” Jeremy asked.
I couldn’t understand this exchange, and I was trying to get a read on Jeremy to figure out if I should be readying to reach for my weapon and cover Hazel. I’d armed myself before Jeremy picked us up. But Jeremy was always hard for me to read, and right now he was acting cool, his default mode.
“I want immunity. I want your word I’m not going to go down with the Malones.”
His word? Of all the things happening here, it was this request that stunned me the most. Jeremy’s word on something involving the Malones was enough for this Sonia woman.
I expected Jeremy to push back, to ask more about the call and what she had to tell him before he gave her a promise. But he didn’t.
“You have it,” he said. “I haven’t given you up and I don’t plan to.”
Hazel’s hand wrapped around mine then, and I glanced over at her again. She was biting her lip and peeking around her dad to watch the exchange.
“And if pushed? I need to know, Jeremy. I can run now, if I have a heads up.”
“I said you have my word.” Jeremy took a few steps forward and the woman’s arms dropped to her sides. “I’m the one giving them a roadmap for the Malones. There aren’t any gaps in the evidence that I didn’t put there intentionally, that I’m not already aware of.”
His voice had softened, and so had Sonia’s posture.
She gave him a single nod. “Then I’ll tell you about the call.” Her eyes moved beyond Jeremy and settled on Hazel. “It was for a hit on Hazel.” Sonia’s eyes moved back to Jeremy. “The Malones wanted to hire me to take out your daughter.”
Hazel’s hands gripped mine. “A hit on me?” A normal girl would hide behind me or her father at the harsh delivery of that message, but Hazel didn’t cower. “Just to be clear, we’re talking about murder, right?” she deadpanned. I didn’t blame her for seeking that clarification.
Sonia nodded. “Bonus if it was in a bathtub.”
Hazel did sway a bit at that and I moved to stand behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist. I needed the comfort too. My head was already pounding; it was the longest I’d gone since the TBI without sleep or painkillers. But that wasn’t the only reason I was feeling weak in the knees. This Sonia woman could have been here waiting in the house for an entirely different reason.
Chapter Nine
Hazel
“So, you’re a hitman?” Cruz questioned.
“Hitwoman,” she said and her wink was so unexpected I almost laughed.
Dad took a step backward and grasped the edge of the couch. It was really inappropriate timing, but my mind flashed to the makeout session I’d had with Cruz on that couch weeks ago. I’d been in the dark about everything then, but I didn’t want to go back to that. No, I was here fighting everything head-on with Dad, Cruz, and the guys, and it was where I should be. Knowing there was a hit on me didn’t change that.
“Who made the call?” I could almost hear the wheels turning in Dad’s head.
“It was a jail employee who contacted me, but I think it came from Raymond.”
Raymond Malone, I’d recently learned, was Seamus’s brother.
Dad nodded. “I’ve been monitoring the jail visitors and it’s only been lawyers or family so far.”
“Right, the Malones probably figured you’d be watching,” Sonia said. “It was a burner phone, and he wouldn’t give a name. I asked a few questions but then he got cagey and when I wouldn’t commit to anything, he dropped the call. That’s all I’ve got for you.”
Dad rubbed a thumb over his lip and stared at the ground. I had a million questions, but I stayed silent. Dad and this woman trusted each other, but I didn’t know how deep that ran.
After a beat, Dad raised his head. “Thank you, Sonia.”
They held one another’s gazes as Cruz and I watched. Neither one of them was giving much away, but there had been something between this woman and my dad. That much was clear.
Without another word, Sonia turned to leave, but she went in the direction of the back door through the kitchen. She glanced over her shoulder and looked at me. There was a smile on her lips but it was so small I almost missed it. And then she left.
Dad watched the door she left through for a minute before turning to face us.
“Who was that, Dad?” I asked, settling deeper into Cruz’s hold.
“The Malones sometimes hired outside the family for complicated jobs. They usually went to a guy, who I’ve been keeping tabs on. Sonia was their backup. They only used her once.”
“Do they have another backup?” I asked, trying not to shudder.
Dad looked like he’d aged a few years since we walked in the door. “Not that I know of. They didn’t go outside the family much.”
“I need to sit,” I admitted on a shaky breath, unable to maintain any semblance of calm a moment longer. Cruz followed me to the couch and Dad took the armchair beside us. “You think they’ll be able to find someone else?” I wondered.
Dad didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Probably not a professional.” He rubbed his hands on his knees. “By that I mean, Sonia and this other guy they’ve used in the past are meticulous; they don’t mess up jobs. There aren’t many out there like them, at least not that the Malones will easily get ahold of from a jail cell.”
“Maybe they’ll just give up,” Cruz offered, but it was a half-assed suggestion, more doubt than hope filling his voice.
“I don’t know, this was pretty reckless.” Jeremy shook his head. “I always thought the rash moves like the shooting at Moody’s house or breaking into our place were pushed by Neil, Branden, Sean. Seamus seemed measured and more rational to me. But if the order came from jail, then it wasn’t the younger guys.”
“Okay, but what does this mean for me?” I asked, my skin suddenly itchy and hot. “How are we going to figure out who they went to next to order this hit on me? And why me anyway?”
“They think it will stop me.”
“Why not just order a hit on you?” Cruz asked the obvious question.
“It’s too obvious a move. This is a power play, and not a smart one. If they go after Hazel, they’re making a statement to me, to the world, even at the risk of digging a deeper hole for themselves with the law.”
I filled in the rest as it started to click. “And if they went after you, it’d just look desperate. The law already has most of the evidence from you at this point, it’s just a matter of you helping them piece it together. Taking you out would only be one more crime added to the list. Taking me out might be the same, but it would also invoke that terror that got them power in the first place. Scare you, scare law enforcem
ent and potential witnesses, give them some of that notoriety back that helped them maintain their position for so long.”
Cruz added, “And the bathtub thing, that would have been a threat to me and the guys, a clue to law enforcement to take another look at Flynn’s death.”
I guess we were all getting the hang of thinking like Malone Mafia members.
“It’s still reckless,” Dad said. “But even if they’re showing just how desperate they are, the threat is real. The only silver lining is that whomever they hire might be clumsy and sloppy. And they’ll be moving quickly so there’s less time to make a tight plan. There’s no point to the Malones if it doesn’t happen soon.”
“They don’t know Sonia warned us, do they? They wouldn’t suspect it?” Cruz pushed.
“Probably not. Like I said, they only used Sonia once, and that was years ago. They didn’t know that, well, that Sonia and I stayed in touch.”
I bit my lip as I studied Dad. Right. So they’d been fuck buddies. Not a girlfriend, because we all knew he’d never brought a woman home to meet me or the rest of our family. But there had been something.
Cruz cleared his throat. “So, Sonia said she got the call a few hours ago. How long would it take them to find someone else?”
“Hard to say, but it would be at least a day or two before anyone could follow through. Still, we’ll be on alert starting now. Hazel, you and the guys will sleep at the Spot tonight. That’s still not on the Malones’ or anyone’s radar.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. What about you?”
“I’ll be here. I can handle myself.” I didn’t like it.
“You know you could stay at the Spot too,” Cruz offered.
“No, I want to be here. Anyone with some skill can get in the house without setting off the security alarm, obviously,” he said, waving in the direction Sonia had left. “But I’ve got backup alarms and surveillance all over this place as of last week. If anyone gets in here and goes for Hazel, I’ll be ready for them.”
I knew it was pointless to argue with him. Dad had a plan, and he wasn’t going to back down. Hell, he’d probably anticipated this potential move well before Sonia greeted us.
A pounding on the door had all of us jumping in our seats. “Fried chicken delivery!” Bodhi’s voice hollered.
“Why’s it locked?” Spike shouted through the door.
“I locked it,” Cruz explained to us as he got up to let the guys in.
They were still sweaty and dirty from soccer but I wasn’t about to demand they shower and change. The fried chicken smelled too good to wait. That and, well, we needed to tell them there was a hit out on me.
The guys instantly dropped their jovial attitudes when they took in our grim expressions.
“What happened?” Moody asked.
We filled them in, and by the time we were done, the four guys were back to bouncing around with uncontainable energy. They wanted to do something, but we didn’t know who, if anyone, had taken on the hit. And we couldn’t try to track down the jail employee without alerting the Malones that Sonia had warned us. So we were back to waiting. This time though, we were on high alert.
* * *
Cruz was the only one who slept that night. He barely ate dinner before we noticed he was cringing from headaches. He was determined not to take any pain meds besides ibuprofen, and he couldn’t hide that it was getting to him. Still, he insisted he just needed sleep so we headed to the Spot, turned out the lights, and crashed. Well, Cruz slept, but around midnight I heard Spike and Bodhi talking on the other side of the room.
I climbed out of bed and wandered over, sitting on the edge of my cousin’s bed.
“Go back to sleep, Haze,” Bodhi said. “We need to be rested. Nothing’s gonna happen tonight. Uncle Jeremy said even the best hitmen can’t move that fast.’
“But then why are you still up?”
“He was snoring and woke me up,” Spike lied.
“Bodhi doesn’t snore.” I would have heard about it before now if he did.
I heard Emmett’s voice from the bunk above us. “We’re not sleeping, Haze, because we’re not going to let anything happen to you. Cruz has to sleep and the only reason he’s able to is because he knows we’re on it.”
I waited for that part of me to rise up and protest that I could defend myself, but it didn’t come. There wasn’t anything in me fighting to prove herself. My knees went up to my chest and leaned back against the headboard on the opposite side of Bodhi.
“I should be freaking out. Why am I not shitting my pants right now?” I asked the question, but I already knew the answer.
No one replied right away, and it was like a silent agreement. I didn’t need to prove myself, because I already had. I was nervous and uneasy, but there were five guys – well, okay, four – and my dad on high alert right alongside me. We had this locked tight.
“You guys want to play cards or something?” I whispered instead, letting them know I accepted their silent answer. I was on board.
“Cards, huh? Is that what we do when we’re waiting for a bomb to drop?” Bodhi asked, nudging my foot with his.
“That’s right, I was kicking your ass at gin rummy in the cabin when we were waiting on Cruz to get out on bail,” I reminded him.
Emmett stuck his head out over the top bunk. “Where’s Moody?”
We heard a toilet flush and then Moody walked out of the restroom.
“Our boy takes a piss every few minutes when he’s nervous,” Spike pretended to whisper, knowing Moody would hear him.
Moody ignored him as he climbed up to the bunk above Spike but then leaned down and whacked him with a pillow in the head.
Just then, four text alerts went off on full volume from each of our cell phones. Cruz still hadn’t replaced his but mine had been glued to my hand all night and when I looked at my screen, I saw it was a group text from Dad.
Cruz must have woken from the noise because he called from our bed, “Is it game time?”
“It’s game time,” I confirmed.
Chapter Ten
Cruz
We parked a block away from the house and waited. Jeremy had texted that two guys had broken into the house. We’d all piled into one car so Moody could explain to us how Jeremy knew this even though he was still lying in bed. Apparently, Jeremy had purposefully made the security easy to get through, but instead of setting off an alarm to scare off the intruders like a normal system, it sent an alarm directly to Jeremy’s cell phone. He then had video surveillance at the two doors to the house that he could view from his phone.
He’d even sent us a fuzzy still shot of the hitmen. They had masks covering their faces, but they were too big to be Branden or Sean.
Another text came through on the way over, ten minutes later. The intruders had left. One was moving around downstairs, the other went upstairs and came back down. Then, they were gone.
Hazel was in my lap and we were looking around the deserted street for any sign of movement. “I don’t get it. They saw I wasn’t there and just left. Why did Dad just stay in bed? Why didn’t he get up to handle them?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured, trying to soothe her. “Maybe he wasn’t sure he could take them.”
Emmett scoffed. “Uncle Jeremy could take them.”
No one contradicted him. Seconds ticked by.
“Maybe he was waiting for them to come to his bedroom next and they never did,” Moody suggested.
“We should just go in and check on him. Why are we waiting here?” Hazel blurted, reaching for the door handle.
“He told us to wait, Haze,” I reminded her.
“Give him one more minute,” Spike reasoned from the driver’s seat.
Hazel was already texting. She must have replied to the group text we had going because four phones buzzed with the message she sent. “One minute then we’re coming in.”
A beat later, Jeremy texted back. “I think they’re waiting out there. I don’t want them to
run if they see you.”
Hazel looked ready to throw her phone through the windshield. She didn’t say a word though as she tapped out a response to her dad. “Why didn’t you stop them while they were inside?”
Seconds ticked by. The clock on the dash turned to the next minute and Hazel was reaching for the gun she’d holstered to her ankle. “I can’t just sit here. What if they got him and they’re making him text this?”
I was torn. My girl was panicking, she was shaking with it. That was her dad in there. But I also trusted Jeremy. I’d seen him at the MMA gym. He could handle two big guys who weren’t expecting him. But shit happened too.
Hazel’s phone rang then, and she answered on speaker. “Dad?”
“I figured it out,” he said. “One guy was turning off the carbon monoxide detector and the other put a silent generator underneath your bed. Not real sure what this thing is but Google’s telling me it emits carbon monoxide.”
Moody leaned over to speak in the phone. “They were trying to poison Hazel with carbon monoxide? Didn’t they notice she wasn’t in her room?”
Hazel rushed out, “How long does that take? Dad, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, sweetie. I turned off the generator. And Moody, sure they noticed but that only made it easier for them to put it there. Now they just have to watch the house, waiting for when she comes home and sleeps in her room.”
I barely recognized my own voice; it was close to a growl. “You think they’re watching right now?”
If those guys were anywhere nearby, we’d find them.
“Yeah. They’ve got to be waiting. I’m sure there’s a bonus for doing it tonight, that’s why they moved so fast.”
“Let’s draw them out.” I was ready to move. Hell, they could be just down the street, parked a few cars away for all we knew.
Jeremy’s voice came through on speakerphone. “I was thinking I’d drive away, see if they follow. Then we can get a license plate, call the cops, lead them to a trap.”
