Defiance Falls Boxed Set: The Complete Defiance Falls Trilogy

by Dean, Ali

  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 enforcement 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 10

  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.”

  Man, Jeremy was good. I’d have to ask him how he figured out the carbon monoxide detector had been shut off, and what made him look under the bed.

  But Hazel, it seemed, had a different idea. “I should go in. They’ll come in a little after that, right? Thinking I fell asleep and then, how long does it take to die from carbon monoxide poisoning anyway?”

  Instead of shutting down this idea immediately, Moody replied, “Depends on the generator and the space but a couple hours probably.”

  We gave him funny looks but he shrugged. “I just Googled it. Relax. It’s not something I kept stored away for some dream career as a hitman.”

  “So, I go in, Dad and I wait inside, the guys stake out around the house, when the hitmen move to come inside, we call the cops.” Hazel laid out her plan and she was bouncing in my lap with eagerness to execute it.

  “I don’t think so, Haze.” I tried to keep my voice from shaking but my pulse was skyrocketing as I tried to reason with my feisty girl. She wouldn’t back down easy. “It’ll be pretty suspicious, you walking in minutes after they set this up. They could get nervous and decide to shoot you on the spot.”

  Her bouncing stopped and she froze. “Good point.”

  “Yeah, not happening sweetie,” Jeremy said with finality.

  “You can stop holding me so tight now.” Hazel glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows raised, and I realized I’d been grasping her hips like she’d bolt any second.

  I relaxed my hold, but not by much. Hazel was wound up, ready to put herself out there to get the hitmen setting up her murder. I didn’t blame her, but I wasn’t going to let her take unnecessary risks.

  “Wait, hold up. I just saw something,” Spike leaned forward in the driver’s seat and we followed his gaze.

  Sure enough, a few cars up a light had switched on and the driver’s door opened. A man stepped out. He had a beanie on his head, but no mask. Actually, it looked like the mask portion of the beanie was pulled up, but it was hard to say.

  “Get down,” someone hissed, and Hazel, who was sitting up tallest in my lap, immediately dropped to flatten herself.

  The entire car held a collective breath as we slumped in our seats and watched the man look from side to side down the street.

  No one uttered a word.

  The guy then turned to face the back tire of the car and started unbuttoning his pants.

  “What’s happening?” Jeremy’s voice came through the line, reminding us he was still on speaker.

  Bodhi let out a cackle that was muffled by Hazel, who was half on top of him now. “The hitman is taking a piss.”

  “Yeah, that’s gotta be the guy,” Moody muttered from the other side of Bodhi.

  “What?” Jeremy asked. “You think it’s one of the guys from the picture I sent you?”

  “Yeah,” I confirmed. “Same build.”
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  Hazel added. “Who else would be getting out of their car to pee on our street in the middle of the night?”

  Jeremy snapped us out of our stupor, and I understood now why he’d missed his first chance to go after the guys in the house. It was easy to get wrapped up in the spectacle of it, waiting for confirmation this was real. This was really happening. “Two of you go after him. One behind to see if there’s anyone in the passenger seat. Three of you stay on Hazel.”

  “What?” Hazel asked. “I can shoot too. I have my gun.”

  “I know, but the other guy could be somewhere else, watching the back door or something. You’re still their target, Hazel, don’t forget it.”

  Spike looked at Emmett in the passenger seat. “Let’s go.”

  They checked their guns. We all ducked down further when they opened their doors at the same time.

  I couldn’t see what was happening, but noticed Emmett duck down to a crouch as soon as he slipped out his side. The guy pissing must have heard them because a moment later we heard Spike call, “Hands up.”

  “The other one’s getting out of the passenger side,” Moody said. “I’m calling the cops.”

  Jeremy might have already hung up to do that because the call had ended on Hazel’s phone.

  “If that’s both of them, let’s cover them.”

  Hazel was sprawled across me and Bodhi and she rolled off us and hit the car floor so we could ready ourselves.

  Moody was on the line with 911. Bodhi was in the middle seat. And I was in the best position for backup. I didn’t want to leave Hazel, but with two on two out there, it made no sense for me to hold back now.

  Just as I opened the door, a gunshot went off. The passenger had let one fly in Spike’s general direction but Spike was protected by another vehicle. The guy was running straight across a lawn. Emmett let out a warning shot and shouted at him to stop, but the guy kept going. Before I could make my move, Emmett was chasing him.