Lone Star (Dartmoor Book 7)

by Lauren Gilley

  “No,” Fox said. “That’s too easy. He went somewhere quiet and private. Someone that no one would ever think to look.”

  Candy said, “Merc, break his ankle.”

  “No, no, no, please–”

  Mercy grunted as he hefted the sledgehammer.

  “There’s a house!” Cantrell shouted, eyes squeezed shut.

  Mercy hesitated with a soft damn. He’d never liked being denied opportunities.

  “My house, the house I’m staying in. A rental.” He cracked his eyes open, panting, at a point of terror that was acute and animal and past all physical pain.

  Candy straightened, and lifted his hand, feeling strangely bereft. He was aware, in a way, that he’d lost sight of things. All that mattered now was finding the girls, and there was no time for vendettas, or torture for sport, or any of things he was considering at the moment. He’d suppressed all his fear and panic, but those emotions were too big, too unwieldly. They’d morphed to violence instead. Bloodlust.

  Get it together, he told himself. Leaving Cantrell alive – not crushing his windpipe here and now – speared through his ribs, a sharp pain.

  “Get me an address,” he muttered, and put his back to the table.

  Fox’s voice behind him, low, asking.

  And Reese coming toward him down the dark hall of the building. “Someone’s coming,” he said. “Headlights from the house, headed this way.”

  His pulse skipped. “Show me.”

  He followed the boy back out into the moonlight, casting quick glances toward the women. Most were on their feet now, some being supported by the others. Victor knelt in front of one still on the ground, and Candy couldn’t tell if she was awake or not.

  Eden turned toward him, and she said something, but he didn’t pause to listen. Stepped outside into the cold and the starshine and the sighing of wind through the branches.

  He spotted the headlights straight off: cool blue, at least two cars. “If that’s a cavalry, it’s not ours,” he said, tightly.

  Reese leapt forward – lithe as a woodland predator coiled to pounce – and melted away into a shadow.

  “What–” Candy started, hand finding the butt of his gun.

  The pain came first, before the sound. A sharp sting through the meat of his right biceps. Then the crack, and the echo.

  Candy dropped on instinct; pressed his belly to the ground and drew his gun on a sharp gasp. He felt the hot tickle of blood running down his arm, inside his sleeve. The pain was expanding outward, shooting up and down his arm, sinking claws into his shoulder. But he knew right off it wasn’t a fatal shot; not even a debilitating one. He could work past pain. And if he could get to cover, he could fashion a tourniquet.

  But another shot cracked off, and he heard the whine of the round zipping overhead. He scanned the darkness for Reese, saw no sign of him, but saw the headlights drawing closer, bouncing down into the dip that would then lead them up the hill, and to the workshop.

  “Candy?” he heard Blue call behind him, at the door of the shop.

  “It’s an ambush,” he called, crawling around, teeth gritted against the pain in his arm. “Get inside! Get down!”

  Another gunshot; he heard the twang of it glancing off the metal of the shop.

  “Shit,” Blue muttered, stumbling back.

  Candy got his feet under him and lurched the last few steps, flinging himself through the door and then whirling to pull it shut with his left hand. His right gripped his gun, palm already slick with blood. He glanced down as more shots pinged off the side of the building, and saw the gleaming black ribbons of blood down the back of his hand, between his fingers.

  “Goddamn,” Blue swore, taking his wrist between two careful fingers. “Where are you hit?”

  “Arm. It’s fine.”

  He turned and there was Eden, her own gun in her hand, her expression all taut lines and sharp angles. “Which direction did the shots come from?” she asked, and a volley hit the wall outside, answering her question.

  “Get the girls in the main room, away from the windows.”

  There was a scuffle of feet and murmur of anxious voices.

  “It’s okay,” he heard Eden telling the captives in her crisp, businesslike voice. “Come along now, we’ll help you. Don’t worry.”

  All his guys in the main room had their guns out, now. Mercy had his gun and his hammer, and who wouldn’t have wanted to watch that trick under different circumstances.

  “Figure out where they are in the trees,” he told Fox, and earned a nod. “Your apprentice is already out there somewhere.” To the others: “I need guys on every window and exit. And we’ve got cars coming up the driveway. These bastards like to run through fucking walls, so some of us are going out the back and going around to keep that from happening.”

  Mercy propped the hammer over his shoulder and nodded.

  Albie checked his mag. “I’m coming with you.”

  More gunshots. And the purr of approaching engines.

  Candy turned to Cantrell, who still lay helpless on the table, his bare toes bent at wrong angles, his face shiny with sweat, spent tears, and snot. His eyes flew wide when Candy gripped the front of his shirt. “Let’s go say hello to your friends, huh?”

  ~*~

  Jenny dropped to the floor on instinct while glass was still raining down. She was aware of Maddox doing the same, and when she glanced up was shocked to find him unharmed.

  “They missed,” he said, his mouth slack, his eyes wide. Then: “Shit.”

  Another window went; Jenny heard the gunshot this time. Not a hunting rifle. Only a small-caliber round. Nine mil – maybe an AR-15. Maybe just a Glock.

  Panic welled a moment, sharp and salty on the back of her tongue. Her baby was here; her nephew was here. She thought of Darla back in the sanctuary, prayed that she’d stay back there – and then she shoved every thought that was a liability away.

  “Prospect!” she called, already turning and scuttling toward the bar on hands and knees, careful of the sugar-shiny glint of glass on the floorboards.

  “Yes, ma’am.” A glance proved he was bent low, and already had the shotgun from under the bar unstrapped, laying it out on the counter. He was stuffing his pockets with extra shells from the box they kept beside the tub of limes.

  Talis drew his gun, uncharacteristically spooked. “If they try what they did before…”

  “Then we’re fucked,” Jenny said. “Who has an extra piece?”

  He produced one from the back of his jeans and slid it across the floor to her. Its cool weight in her palm was an immediate reassurance. “Someone get word to Candy,” she said, “and somebody get to the back door.” Because, fuck it, she was giving orders now.

  She reached the far wall, turned and put her back to it, crouched, gun ready across her thigh. She saw that Maddox was still frozen over underneath the window. Deer-in-the-headlights, rabbit-in-a-snare, that was him now, swamped beneath the weight of another moral quandary they didn’t have time for.

  “You with us?” she called.

  And someone kicked the door in.

  ~*~

  Reese wished he had his night vision goggles, but there was plenty of moonlight, and his eyesight was nearly perfect anyway. He heard Candy get hit, and drop, but turning back would only put him in the line of fire. So he moved; kept to the shadows and slipped soundlessly down the ridge, pausing, pressing his back flat to tree trunks and holding his breath, listening.

  Two men, a dozen steps away, behind him. Breathing loudly through their mouths, not trying to step quietly. Sharp, up-close cracks of gunfire. .45s. No – one .45, one .09.

  Reese ran the scenario in his head. Took three slow, silent breaths, and moved. Around the tree, two long strides, knife in his hand – stray flash of moonlight down its blade. Dark shape of a man, an enemy; his head turned when Reese’s hand landed on his shoulder, but it was already too late, the knife already sliding into his throat.

  A choked gasp
, a gurgle, the bright, metallic scent of fresh blood as he pulled the knife loose and kept moving.

  “Hey,” the second man said. “Jimmy?”

  Reese cut his throat with a flick of his wrist, a sharp slice. Felt the patter of warm, wet droplets against his own face and throat, and was already moving as the body fell, stepping over it.

  He kept moving, and killed four more men. He had to pause and wipe the blood off the knife blade onto the leg of his pants. By that point, the cars had arrived: two low-slung Mercedes sedans.

  They glided to a halt in the gravel, headlights trained on the front of the workshop. Reese glimpsed movement in the shadows: someone walking around the side of the building. He thought – but, no, he registered a patch: the distinctive flag of a Dog officer.

  The passenger doors of the near car opened in near-perfect unison, and Reese moved in time to receive two matching startled glimpses from the front and back seat as he leveled a gun on the two men there, one in each of his hands.

  “Drop your weapons through the windows,” he said. “Slowly.”

  The doors of the second car opened – a stolen glance revealed the glint of weapons…and the bright yellow flash of the sledgehammer handle, as Mercy stepped out of the shadows and brought the head down on the car’s windshield on the driver’s side.

  The glass broke into a spiderweb of cracks; still in place, but too hopelessly fractured to see through.

  Mercy pulled back, and in the same fluid movement put the hammer through the driver’s side window. It did shatter, bits of glass flying, catching the light like confetti. When he reached through the window, the man behind the wheel yelped.

  Fox and Albie and Jackal stepped forward into the light, guns trained on the cars.

  “Anyone else in the trees, kid?” Fox asked.

  Reese said, “No.”

  Candy walked into the light, pushing a bound and hobbling Agent Cantrell in front of him. It looked like Candy’s grip on the back of his shirt was all that held him up. Candy held a gun poised at his temple, his hand red and shiny with fresh blood.

  “I’ve got your boy,” he said. “You can either answer my questions, or I can blow his brains out, and then yours. What’ll it be, gentlemen?”

  ~*~

  Jenny fired before the front door rebounded off the interior wall of the clubhouse. The man – and she hadn’t cared if he was cartel, or FBI, or some poor bastard whose car had broken down; you kicked in her door, and she was going to shoot – managed a startled expression before he fell, on his face, slow and heavy like a cut-down tree.

  There were more behind him. Jenny fired again, and she heard Talis, Nickel, and Pup firing, too. A bottleneck in the door, the enemy overwhelmed.

  “Get behind something,” Talis said, off to her left. “Go, I’ll cover you.”

  “I need a new mag,” she called, and ducked and rolled. Got behind the shelter of the bar. Nickel had pulled out a box of them from their place beside the cocktail napkins, and she ejected her own and reached for a fresh one.

  By the time she’d gotten on her feet, ducked low over the bar, the firing had stopped. A heap of bodies blocked the door of the clubhouse, and the silence rang, heavy and faintly pulsed, in sync with her heartbeat.

  No…it wasn’t silent. Not totally. There was…

  Jenny swore when she realized what she’d heard were running footsteps. She swung toward the mouth of the hallway in time to catch a flash of movement, to register the rush of breath and the shift of clothes and glimpse an unfamiliar face.

  In time for the gunshot to echo like the sharp crack of thunder.

  The stranger let out a low oof and toppled. He didn’t break his fall. Landed in a tangle and started twitching, blood surging out across the floor in a tide.

  Tenny limped into view, clutching his IV pole in one hand, a gun in the other. “He came in through a window,” he said, eyes on the man he’d just killed. Then he slumped back against the wall and let out a tired-sounding breath.

  Fifty-Six

  It seemed to take Axelle forever to loosen the nut holding her cuff closed. Thank God their asshole captor liked to hear himself talk. He’d been rambling – lots of nonsense about power that she’d tuned out; it sounded like Michelle was volleying with him nicely, though how she’d managed to keep her voice level Axelle had no idea.

  She herself no longer had any delusions about being a badass. She could wear all the boots she wanted to, and drive a car like a pro, but this here, now, had shaken her to her bones. She wasn’t equipped for it, no way, no how.

  But she could loosen this wingnut. Half-turn by half-turn. Finally, the cuff sagged. One more twist would do it – but if the cuff fell, the chain would rattle, and Luis would hear, and that stupid, massive golden gun would get shoved in her face instead.

  A phone rang.

  She managed to peek from the corner of her eye and watched Luis balance the gun on his thigh with one hand and fish out his iPhone with the other. His face was smoothly pleased as he thumbed the screen and pressed it to his ear. “Is it done?”

  A moment later, his brows flew up. “What?” He stood, hand tightening on the gun. “You what?” He whirled, robe flaring, and stormed from the room.

  Axelle rolled her head toward Michelle. “I’ve almost got one hand loose.”

  Beyond the room, Luis’s footfalls and his low, furious voice receded down the hallway.

  “The chain’s gonna make noise.”

  Michelle bit her lip, debating. “Something must have happened with the guys – something that’s pissed him off,” she said, gaze darting toward the door, briefly. “We could wait for them.”

  Axelle’s heart throbbed in her chest. “Should we?” Every instinct screamed go now! This might be their best shot. To waste it, to lie here…

  “That gun’s bloody stupid,” Michelle continued, voice hushed. “But it’s a fifty-caliber.”

  Axelle shuddered, and didn’t need further explanation on that front.

  “But I guess if he’s going to shoot us from point blank range, it’ll kill us no matter the caliber.” She took a breath that betrayed her first outward signs of unsteadiness. “Get loose. Do it.”

  Axelle listened a moment longer, struggling to hear over the staccato beating of her heart. But she heard the unmistakable shift and creak of a flight of stairs – of Luis going down them, voice still low and furious.

  She gave the last twist, the cuff loosened, and she slipped out of it with a fleeting, feverish burst of joy. One that evaporated when she listened to the slither and clink of the chain falling down against the bed post – but there was nothing for it. She sat up, dizzy, the room spinning, and started on her other wrist.

  ~*~

  Behind the wheel of the stolen Mercedes – the one with the intact windshield – Candy drove with one hand, his right settled in his lap. He could still feel the sluggish trickle of fresh blood running down inside his sleeve, though the fabric had long since soaked through and gummed to his skin. His hand was cold and tacky with it, sticking to the denim over his thigh where it rested.

  In the passenger seat, Albie rode with his gun in his lap, gaze darting from windshield to window, toe tapping in the footwell. He was as unraveled as Candy had ever seen him: chewing his lips, breathing in loud, repetitive sighs through his nose.

  He could relate. The drive was taking forever, even though it was only a handful of miles. He was running stop signs and passing cars when he could, the steady throb of pain in his wounded arm a stimulant that kept all his senses on high alert.

  “I should’ve driven,” Fox said from the backseat. He was perched in the center, leaning forward between them; he’d been loading guns up until a moment ago.

  Candy’s hand tightened on the wheel, a spasm of protest at the idea. This was his old lady in danger; it was his job to get to her. He passed another car on a double-yellow and earned a honk for it, barely getting merged again before the oncoming car’s headlights flashed them angri
ly. “No.”

  “You’re bleeding to death and he’s jumpy as a cat,” Fox said. “Both useless.”

  Candy didn’t grace that with a response. He drove.

  The blue-white headlights cut a wide swath through the dark. Past open stretches, and houses, and storefronts.

  “In five-hundred feet…” Albie’s GPS intoned politely, “turn right.”

  Candy’s pulse found another gear, and his eyes found the street sign, a flicker of shiny green just beyond the headlights’ range. He braked early, and hard and threw the Benz into the turn with a screech of expensive tires.

  “You need to slow down,” Fox said. “We want to glide up nice and easy, like we’re supposed to be there, yeah? Don’t want him to know it’s us.”

  Reluctantly, Candy eased off the gas, and let the long boulevard of the subdivision use up their excess speed. It was a new-construction neighborhood, one of those planned communities with baby trees planted in each yard – tied up with lines and stakes, oh the irony – and a bunch of two-story stone-and-stucco houses that were all clones of one another save the stray unique garage door or trim paint.

  Cantrell had given the house number, all of which gleamed in gold numbers on the mailboxes. And he’d said it had a pale blue door.

  Candy slowed to a crawl, knuckles white on the wheel, and searched.

  ~*~

  Michelle couldn’t believe their luck: Luis had been gone for a full minute now. She could hear the murmur of several voices downstairs. He was talking to someone, coordinating with his people – which meant that, even if they got past Luis, there were other men to get past. But she’d worry about that later; worry about the fact that their luck surely wouldn’t hold.

  For now, she wanted to grab on with both hands and take every advantage.

  Axelle got her second ankle cuff unhooked and staggered to her feet, wobbly and uncertain as a new foal. “Oh, God.” She ghosted a hand toward the back of her head.