by Dean, Ali
Movement had me swinging my gaze back to the guy with his pants now at his ankles, arms in the air. “Uh, can I pull my pants up?” the guy asked.
“Nope,” Spike said, taking another step closer to him.
Spike had this idiot covered so I took off after Emmett. The guy was climbing over a fence and Emmett was right on his heels, leaping over a bush. We could take a true shot, but one look at the man’s hefty frame and I knew we were faster. No reason to make this messy if we could bring them in clean. The guy jumped down the fence and I saw where he was headed. There was a bike path on the other side that followed a creek.
I turned down the sidewalk, deciding to take the alley between this residence and the line of townhomes so I could intercept him in the other direction.
My legs moved like I hadn’t spent the last five days in a hospital bed. Muscle memory from soccer sprints and sheer adrenaline got me to the end of the alley and through to the creek just as the guy hit the bike path. He spotted me and right as his eyes widened in confusion, I lunged for him, tackling him to the ground.
Within a second, Emmett was there, and we had him secured on the pavement, face to the ground. I felt like a damn action hero, but then we heard another gunshot. And this one was coming from Hazel’s back porch.
Chapter 11
Hazel
When I heard another gunshot farther off, I was done hiding in the back seat of Spike’s Hummer. I looked at Bodhi as I rose and moved toward the door, but I wasn’t asking permission. His mouth was in a tight line, and I knew he hated sitting back here, waiting, just as much as I did.
Moody ended the call. “They said five minutes. Let’s go. What are we waiting for?” Moody was on board too, and we slipped out of the car.
When we took in Spike holding court over a dude in boxers, pants around his ankles, we went straight toward the sound of the gunshot. Spike had that one covered and he seemed to be enjoying toying with the guy as he interrogated him about his plans for the night. I would have stayed for the entertainment factor but the gunshot had come from the same direction Emmett and Cruz had gone.
We took the alley, Moody and Bodhi flanking me on either side. A puddle came out of nowhere and I leapt over it, narrowly missing taking a faceplant. Running in a dark alley was seriously disorienting, but I wasn’t worried about rolling an ankle right now. Injuring myself for the soccer season was the least of my worries. I heard a loud thumping noise as we rounded the corner. It had come from three townhouses down, my back porch.
“Hazel!” Cruz’s voice snagged my attention, and I saw him sitting on the guy they’d chased. Emmett was there too.
A loud grunt came from our tiny back yard. I turned away from them and started running toward the back of our townhome but stopped short when I heard wood splintering. I jumped back just as a couple of bodies came crashing through the fence.
It was two men, the one on the ground twice as big as the shirtless guy pummeling him. Wait, I knew those tattoos.
“Dad?”
“Uncle Jeremy?” Bodhi sounded just as dumbstruck as I felt.
“Dad!” I shouted this time, but he kept pounding into the guy.
I just stood there, mesmerized at what I was seeing as my Dad took down a burly dude, barely breaking a sweat. He wasn’t crazed though, not like Cruz had been when he took out Kai. Dad moved with precision, each blow strategic and smooth. He twisted the man’s arm at an angle that had me cringing and the man screaming.
“Who hired you?” Dad’s voice was so calm, a chill went down my spine.
“The call came from a buddy at the Defiance Falls Jail.”
Dad moved his arm ever so slightly, but didn’t say a word. The guy shouted. “His name’s Stevens. Perry Stevens.”
“And who hired Perry?”
The man didn’t hesitate this time and there was pain in his voice when he bit out, “Ray Malone.”
Dad pushed off the guy and pulled a gun from the back of his sweatpants. He pointed it at the man on the ground. “Don’t move.”
Then Dad looked up at me. “Hi, sweetie.”
“Uh, hey Dad.”
“I thought I told you to stay in the car.”
I swallowed, never in my life experiencing a sting like this from my dad’s scolding, if you could even call it that. But I knew now I should have listened. There was a third guy, and that hadn’t even occurred to me. Not only that, but Dad totally had it handled.
“Sorry, Dad.”
Dad’s eyes softened when they met mine, and I knew he understood the apology was a sincere one.
There weren’t any audible sirens, but red and blue lights illuminated the darkness. The cops had arrived. And we’d even managed not to shoot anyone. I took a closer look at the man on the ground by my father, then over my shoulder to where Cruz was still sitting on the other one. Yeah, we’d kept this pretty clean, all things considered.
Relief finally started to seep into my bones, but at the same moment as Cruz’s eyes locked with mine, I saw him blink rapidly. His head rolled back, and he collapsed.
* * *
If the entire neighborhood hadn’t woken from the gunshots, they were up now. The ambulance that came for Cruz had its sirens on full blast. And with the cops there, people came out of their homes and gathered around. I followed Cruz as they placed him on a stretcher, explaining his TBI to the medics.
When we got to the hospital, he woke up for a few minutes, said he had a headache, and fell back asleep. The doctors let me stay by his side, and Mitch joined us. They said it was probably a combination of head pain and fatigue, and then the blue and red lights could have triggered him to pass out. I also learned that even people who aren’t recovering from a TBI can pass out when they come down from an adrenaline rush like we went through. It made sense, because even on the couch in Cruz’s hospital room, I slept hard that night.
The biggest shocker came when Dad showed up to pick us up the next morning after Cruz was discharged. “I’m taking you to school,” he declared as soon as we were buckled in.
“What? Dad, you’re kidding right?”
“No, sweetie. I let you skip all week to be at the hospital with Cruz, but you need to go today. Especially if you want to play in your game tomorrow. The team needs you, and they won’t let you play if you missed a week of school.”
I wanted to protest, I really did, but Dad didn’t pull shit like this often. If he needed to go all serious-dad-mode on me to feel better, I could indulge him. Maybe having a hit on me had been harder on him than it was on any of us.
Cruz didn’t argue either, and we spent the rest of the drive getting the lowdown on how the rest of the night played out. With Dad’s security footage, the carbon monoxide generator, and the name of the guy in jail who’d been hired by Raymond Malone, the cops had confessions from all three hitmen by seven this morning.
“Why didn’t you go after those two guys when they first came in the house?” I asked Dad, the question still lingering from last night.
“I didn’t know enough. Wasn’t sure what they were up to, and didn’t want to move too soon. Maybe I should have, but I was waiting on reinforcements.”
I fought against shooting Cruz a pointed look, reminding him that he wouldn’t be suffering a TBI right now if he’d had the same mindset last weekend. But I held it in.
Cruz turned to Dad. “And the generator? How’d you know to look under Hazel’s bed?”
“I saw that one of them was carrying a box of some sort when they came in, and didn’t leave with it, so I was looking for something that size. I’ve got alerts set for the fire detector, carbon monoxide, even the thermostat,” Dad said with a shrug. “Checked those, and saw that the carbon monoxide detector was deactivated. Knew the other guy must have dropped the box in Hazel’s room.”
We turned into the Defiance Falls High parking lot, and I wasn’t expecting anyone to be there. We were running late, and most students would be in class. But there were a few dozen lingering about,
and as Dad pulled into a parking spot, they all turned to watch.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. And that was before what went down last night, or more like early this morning,” Dad said, not sounding all that apologetic. “We’ll meet at the Spot at six tonight. Good luck in there today.”
If I thought Monday was weird, there was no doubt this latest episode would have the students in a frenzy. I might have been in the clear with the Malones, but I’d forgotten all about what would be waiting at Defiance Falls High.
* * *
When I stepped out of the shower stall after practice that afternoon, I nearly ran into Kylie Cornwall. “Whoa.” Stepping back, I saw she must have come straight from her own practice on the JV field. Still in my towel, I glanced around the nearly empty locker room. Most went straight home to shower, especially on Fridays.
“Have you been standing here waiting to talk to me?” I already knew the answer, but I felt the need to call her out on just how weird and creepy this was.
“How else was I supposed to get you alone?”
“It’s way too late to switch teams, if that’s why you’re here.” I brushed past her to the locker where I had some clean clothes.
“You know that’s not true.” I felt her following me. “Your first game isn’t until tomorrow and they’ve moved people from JV to varsity mid-season. As long as it happens by the playoffs, I can officially say I played varsity. With Hazel Ross. On the state champion team.”
Oh for the love of God, she was still pushing this? I took a deep breath and tried to find an ounce of sympathy. Nope, nothing. The girl was blackmailing me, and she wanted to get the guys charged with murder.
“You never reported anything like you said you would before, why would I think you would do it now?” I tried for a soothing, gentle tone, but it might have come out condescending. Maybe if I took a different tactic we’d get her off our backs.
She stood there with her arms crossed as I dropped my towel and got dressed.
“My friends, Afua and Mel, backed out on me. Now though, we know what the motive would be. I don’t need the other two to back me up. I can still ruin your cousins and friends with this.”
I slipped on my underwear and bra, giving myself a minute to get my cool back. I wanted to lash out, scare her somehow, wipe away this threat. But she didn’t seem ready to back down, and I didn’t know how to make her. The minutes ticked by as I pulled on jeans, a tee shirt, flip flops, and piled my hair into a wet messy bun on my head. Ignoring her apparently wouldn’t get me anywhere with this one either. Finally, I turned to face her. “It’s not going to happen, Kylie.” I needed to bring this to the meeting tonight, that was for sure. For now, I couldn’t let her know she was getting to me.
“You used to sit with Louise Janik at lunch sometimes. She seemed like one of your best friends. And then this year started, and you don’t even talk to her or look at her. I don’t know what happened, but what if you got her off the team and I replaced her? We play the same position.”
To avoid showing her my reaction I swung my backpack around and rummaged through it, pulling out my cell. I glanced at it, and since I didn’t know what to say in response to that suggestion, I told her, “I need to go. And you need to let this go, Kylie. Seriously, I know you think being on varsity is everything, but it’s not. It’s definitely not worth this game you’re playing at. You should know by now how dangerous it is.” Her eyes widened slightly before I turned to walk away. Okay, so maybe my sympathetic tactic also came with a subtle threat, but whatever. Didn’t she see the news? Didn’t she know this was mafia business she was getting involved with?
Her idea about kicking Louise off the team wasn’t a bad one, not at all, but I wasn’t about to bring Kylie on as a replacement. Still, Kylie’s perseverance on this was strangely impressive to me, even if it was borderline insane. If only she brought the same attitude to the field, she wouldn’t feel like she had to play this dangerous game.
Chapter 12
Cruz
Dad was different. Instead of watching soccer practice after school, I borrowed Moody’s ride to head to Gramps’s and hang with Dad.
He was sitting in the same spot I’d found him yesterday and when I took the seat beside him again, he asked, “Do you think I should visit Seamus in jail?”
I opened my mouth to ask him how he’d found out about it, but closed it again. It was all over the news, and that question would reveal we hadn’t been the ones to tell him. Dad probably assumed we’d told him and he’d forgotten.
“Why would you do that?” I asked instead.
“We used to be friends, you know – me, Seamus, your mom.” He listed off a few other names, people my parents used to spend time with when I was younger, before Mom died.
“I knew about your other friends from Harvard, but I didn’t know Seamus was part of that group.” It was hard to tell if he was fully with it right now – he’d gotten all the names correct so that was something.
“He was. He was different from the other Malones, from his father Flynn or even his kids and nephews.”
“He was?” My heart began racing, uncertain how much stake to put in my dad’s memories.
Dad made eye contact with me then and he smiled. “He never said it outright, he couldn’t, but back then he hated being a Malone, hated what his family did.”
“So, you think he changed?”
Dad let out a long sigh that seemed to go on for days. “I don’t know what to think. That’s why I want to visit him.”
“Dad, I don’t even think you’d be allowed to visit with everything going on.” I didn’t want to get into it with him; the nuances of the investigation would be too much and leave him frustrated. That was the reason we hadn’t told him in the first place. After the fire, I thought we’d lost an even bigger piece of him. Strangely, he seemed to have found some new pieces, memories he’d buried and brought back to life.
“I don’t think he wanted Laura killed. And I don’t think he wanted to set our house on fire either.”
My heart pounded so loud I could hear it thumping in my head. “Okay,” I managed to get out, so damn uncertain how to respond to this.
“I don’t think he wanted any of it. But he didn’t get Laura. He didn’t get her, and he didn’t have a reason to fight. So he gave in, and now he’s in jail.”
My hand reached for my dad’s. “He wanted Mom?”
“Lots of men wanted your mom, Cruz,” Dad said with a little twinkle in his eye, one I hadn’t seen in so long. I wanted to keep it there, but didn’t know how. “And I wonder if she would have been the one to make all of it end with the Malones. If she could have given Seamus the will to change it all. To work with her and Braven Pharma to get straight, you know?”
I almost laughed at his use of “get straight” but I held it in. “I don’t know, Dad, it was never simple with the Malones. It’s a gigantic web of deceit and lies.” I wasn’t entirely sure what we were talking about here, or where this was going, but I couldn’t let Dad think his wife should have gone off with a Malone for the greater good or some shit.
“Maybe. But I’d do anything if it meant saving her life. If I’d known, if I’d known…” He shook his head and for the second time in as many days, I watched his eyes fill with tears.
“You wouldn’t have done anything differently, Dad. I wouldn’t be here if you had. She tried to do what was right, and now we’re finally seeing it through. You were right to tell me everything, okay? Stop doubting your choices and hers.”
My voice rose in strength and conviction as I spoke. Maybe it only just started, but I hated thinking about him sitting here day in and day out pondering the what-ifs.
“Cruz, there’s another reason I want to talk to Seamus.”
“What’s that?”
“Flynn’s murder. I think he let you go on that for Laura.”
“Dad, he didn’t let us go. They shot at Moody’s house, tore apart Jeremy’s house, and messed with H
azel.” Shit. He probably didn’t know any of this, and now I’d let it all out. What was I thinking? My head was starting to pound.
“I already knew, Cruz. I saw the news yesterday, and then talked to your grandpa. He told me everything. Can’t promise I’ll remember it all tomorrow though.” He offered a smile, and I refused to show him sadness at this. So I smiled back. Dad hadn’t addressed what he was going through, not since the day he told me his diagnosis. This was the first time I’d heard him acknowledge it head-on. I didn’t know if I liked it or not.
“Okay, so then you know the Malones would never have let us get away with what happened to Flynn. That’s why we waited until we had all this ammunition against them. They probably had a lot more in store than just the fire, Dad.”
“I know. But Seamus was in charge. And I bet he didn’t want any of it. I bet he wanted what happened to his father. He just wasn’t strong enough to get the rest of his family members on board. You did the right thing.”
I swallowed back a rush of emotion. “What is all this about then, Dad?”
Dad let out a shaky breath. His gaze became slightly unfocused. “He was too weak to do the right thing. Not that it was easy to do. But I don’t know if any of us can be that strong alone. It’s not that I wish Laura had chosen him, Cruz, it’s not that. It’s only, I know he would have found that strength from her, because even with her gone, I find strength from her. In you.”
“Shit, Dad,” I choked out, unable to hold back the emotion now.
Dad patted my hand. “Come on, Cruz, you know what I’m talking about. You have all the guys, and you have Hazel. I know you’re a leader, but you didn’t own that role until you had them. They make you strong.”
Fuck, and now I was crying. I hadn’t cried since Mom died.
It must be the head injury, I decided.
