by Lexy Timms
Damn it. She looked around for something, anything to help. She grabbed a steak knife from a nearby table and put another slit in the ruined dress. It was less than modest to a degree, but returned a freedom of movement that might be life-saving. She hefted the knife and thought of the old joke about being the idiot who brings a knife to a gun fight.
Bottles of Champagne sat in ice buckets under unlit candles. Steak knives were all that presented themselves as weapons. She thought a moment, grabbing what she saw as the most useful things there before bolting from the room and taking the steps two at a time. At the head of the stairs, another thug lay, the one who had roughed her up two nights ago, his neck broken.
She opened the door on a gun battle.
Luke had a pistol, presumably the gun the dead man had carried, and was hunkered down behind an air conditioner unit. So far the odds looked pretty even. On the far side of the roof, Jimmy hunched half behind a heating duct.
She saw him raise his gun, pointing directly at Luke.
Then he saw her.
CHAPTER EIGHTTEEN
Luke knew he was being an idiot. Charging headlong into fire was a good way to die futilely and painfully. But after the last two weeks, and especially the past couple of days, Benny was not freakin’ getting away.
Leaping over the body of Katie was a little too Rambo, but respect for the dead was best left until the living were safe. He ran up the stairs as best he could, but the beating he’d taken and the forced idleness had taken their toll on his muscles.
Dani was still right behind him. Luke had a mix of annoyance and fear for her safety, all combined with a great deal of pride for a girl who was as stupid as he was. She was a partner in many ways, and it was good for someone to have your back. Now, if she would only stay back. Well back. Where she’d be safe.
He ducked a moment when the shot rang out, but decided that he’d had enough. No more of this, no more hiding or running. He reached the top step as the shooter was trying to clear a jam, and threw himself against the door the man had braced himself behind.
The shock of getting hit with the door gave Luke a moment to bring everything he had, his weight, years of training, and weeks of pent-up rage into a single elbow blow that came down behind the man’s skull. He collapsed in a pile. Luke looked at the pistol. The jam was bad; it would take several minutes to clear it, time he didn’t have.
He dragged the body free and sent it rolling down the stairs. Luke had a quick image of Dani leaping gazelle-like over a rolling corpse, like a macabre version of Donkey Kong. He looked into the banquet hall but the sound of the helicopter grew closer, and he saw the sign indicating that there was helipad on the roof. He grabbed a steak knife and bolted without thinking.
He could hear Dani following behind, the muffled slap of bare feet.
There is an old expression that posits, “God protects drunkards, fools, and little children.” He was stone- cold sober and adult by any standard. Luke lived another day either due to foolishness or dumb luck.
He tripped. That was the essence of it. He tripped and fell. The wall exploded behind his head. Another of Benny’s men stood in a shooter’s pose at the door. Luke flung the knife at him; it sailed harmlessly butt first.
The thug ducked, protecting his face, and Luke sprang, putting all his energy into a single leap. He twisted under the man’s legs, spilling him over the stairs, and grabbed his head as the man flew. He felt the crack of the man’s neck and released him.
He grabbed the pistol, grateful for the chance to have a working, loaded gun. He dove through the door, looking for cover, when Jimmy started shooting.
Jimmy was beside Benny. Benny was crouched down behind some kind of heating or cooling unit on the other side of the helipad, and the helicopter was heading in.
He fired, subconsciously trying to keep track of the bullets left in the clip. Jimmy had him pinned down. He needed a distraction, something to put the focus off him. At least in a few minutes the wind from the helicopter would make bullets a moot point. Nothing would fly straight in the blast from that wind.
Dani burst through the door. She carried a knife and a... a bottle of freakin’ Champagne.
Jimmy turned at the motion and began firing at her. Bullets rang off the door she was hiding behind, and Luke twisted from the side of the AC unit as a ladder fell from the helicopter.
Luke fired. Twice. Jimmy fell, lying on the roof, bleeding out, but still firing. Luke ducked behind the unit again, and Benny leapt from cover to grab the ladder. He wrapped his forearms through the rope ladder, one leg tangling in a support, and held on.
The helicopter rose. Luke spun, trusting the fate that had kept him alive so far, and fired three more shots, correcting as far as he was able for the wind, begging for just one more favor—the ability to right just one more wrong.
He missed.
Jimmy lay dead on the roof, his pistol beside him. Luke and Dani both ran to the helipad; Luke leveled his pistol and fired. It was empty. Benny was a good thirty feet off the ground by now, waving cheerily, with just one finger.
He’d lost.
Benny had gotten away. Luke started after Jimmy’s gun when a Champagne bottle flew past his head like a missile. He heard the scream from Dani, the same angry scream she’d given the day they’d met when she threw two bottles of booze into the far wall of a conference room.
The Champagne bottle flew in a perfectly straight line. It hit the back of Benny’s head and shattered. Luke was shocked at the level of strength required to manage such a throw, staring wide-eyed as Benny slumped, unconscious, in the rungs of the ladder as the helicopter continued to rise.
About one-hundred feet off the ground, Benny slipped from the rungs and fell, limp and quiet to the ruined church below. His body tore through what was left of the roof of the building, and disappeared.
Luke raised his head to stare at the woman he loved, wondering how the hell he’d gotten so lucky.
Dani stood there beside him, looking like a primitive warrior: torn dress, knife in one fist, and body taut with battle-readiness. Luke felt an instant erection just looking at her like that.
“Nice throw.”
She looked at him and smiled. “I cost my father a fortune in booze practicing,” she admitted, ducking her head.
He swore she was blushing.
It was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen in his life.
The parking lot filled with flashing lights and sirens. In the reflected light of fire and police vehicles, he reached for her, or perhaps she reached for him. He dropped the empty gun; she tossed the knife away from her.
His hand found the new slit in the dress, the one that rode up past her thigh, and all the way to her hip. He felt the soft skin over the hard muscles of her thighs, his fingers cupping her buttocks. His lips took hers, his arms wrapped her up in a bear hug, and he buried his hands in her hair.
As far as he was concerned, he was never letting her go again.
He tore his lips from hers only to look into her eyes.
“I love you,” he whispered, meaning it with every fiber of his being.
“FREEZE!” someone yelled from the door.
“This must be my lucky day,” Dani murmured, and fell into his kiss, regardless of the stampeding army of law enforcement officers swarming out of the stairwell, shouting orders.
“Maybe we’re both having a good day,” Luke said, and bent his head to kiss her again.
It wasn’t until they both were handcuffed that the police were able to finally separate them.
EPILOGUE
“It’s okay!” Randy stopped the police. He held up his FBI badge and pointed to Luke and, surprisingly, to Dani as well. “These two work for me.”
They were being walked out of the convention center, where they’d been questioned for the past hour. Separately. Luke was still fuming about it, and was still not happy, though at least he and Dani appeared to be shipping out in the same police car. That, at least, was so
mething.
He hadn’t liked the prognosis of where things would go from there. Everything was about to get really messy.
Randy stopping them and claiming them didn’t strike him as a viable alternative just now.
“Do I?” Luke looked long and hard at his boss. “Work for you?”
“For the moment,” Randy said, and waved to the officers to take the cuffs off.
“Where’s David?” Dani asked, starting forward, only to be brought up short by Luke, who kept a firm hand on her arm, coughing very delicately “Ixnay on the... er... just cut it out.”
It made for a rather prolonged cough that had both cops and Randy eyeing Luke suspiciously.
“It’s all that smoke,” Luke said, motioning to the church which was still, quite clearly, not on fire, though the sprinklers still sputtered, sending rivulets of water down the sidewalk.
Randy blinked then turned toward Dani, answering her question. “He’s okay. I had him sent to a hospital. I can only assume that someone drugged him without his knowledge or consent. Therefore, I’m arranging a rehab process for him to... detox.”
It was Dani’s turn to blink. “Er... Thank you.” She looked uncertainly at Luke.
“About you and me...” Randy turned to Luke. He licked his lips as though his mouth had suddenly gone dry.
Luke sighed. He wasn’t in a mood to fight. He was sick of fighting. Wrapping Dani in his arms had been too compelling, too erotic. All he wanted was a shower. With her. And a warm, comfortable bed. With her.
“I didn’t know you were coming in undercover, boss,” Luke said flatly. “Per regs, you should’ve informed me of another agent in the field so that covers could be maintained. That way we wouldn’t have wound up tripping all over each other.”
Randy eyed the cops, and nodded slowly. “Right. I should have warned you.”
“But, I am aware that, as my superior, you have access to information I do not and have to make decisions without my knowledge, so I assume you attending the wedding was part of that other investigation?”
Randy nodded. “It’ll be in my report, Agent McConnell.”
“Mine, too, sir,” Luke said. A volume of unspoken words passed between them.
Randy broke eye contact first. “I’ll just... there’s a thing... debriefing... excuse me.” Randy walked off, shouting instructions to the clean-up crew, and generally getting in their way.
The cops looked at each other and shrugged.
Then just like that Dani and Luke were alone. And free.
Safe.
For the first time in weeks.
“So, that’s it?” Dani asked. The sun was beginning to set, great streaks of gold running into red blazed from the woods. It lit her hair like a halo of golden fire. “He just gets away with it?”
“Yeah,” Luke said, not liking it any better than she did. “And David gets help.” Luke reached out to caress her cheek, and she leaned into the touch. “Forget him,” Luke said. “He can walk for all I care.” He shook his head. “You know what? I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it, not tonight.”
“But...” Dani looked up at him. Her eyes seemed different somehow, under the deepening sunset, a soft cornflower blue, he decided. Moist, bright, quick, her eyes felt like they were taking him in, like he was falling and never wanted to land. “What about my father?” She hesitated, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “My... mother...?”
“There are a lot of people looking for your father now. With Benny dead, there’s going to be a vacuum in the power levels, half the people who ran away today are going to try to move in to take over his operation. Your father is the only one who’s a serious challenge to the underground after all this. From what I’ve seen, there have been some pretty serious arrests in the wake of this little party. They caught a whole slew of men just lying around with fairly minor injuries. The rest... that’s all just a matter of time. We’ll look for your mother. If she’s alive, we’ll find her. I promise.”
She nodded, needing to be content with that. Then she stopped cold and stared at him as the rest of what he’d said sunk in. “Wait... what are you saying? That my father could take over the Mafia?”
Luke shrugged. “It’s up to him. He could have a good claim to the head of the syndicate himself. He’s got the money, the manpower, the connections. You could literally end up being a mafia princess before this is over.”
Dani made a decidedly un-princess-like noise.
“Or not.” Luke laughed. “Or, he could turn evidence. He could probably do as much wholesale destruction of the who’s who of crime as that bomb Benny tried to use. He’s in a lot of danger right now, and the only one who can determine the extent of the trouble he’s in is him. Don’t forget that damn USB stick that’s supposed to have all the evidence in the world...”
“That stupid thing.” Dani leaned against him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Can I confess that I was happy Katie destroyed it?”
“Well...” Luke kissed the top of her head. “She destroyed a copy of it.”
Dani stepped back and stared at him. “I thought David said you couldn’t copy an encrypted drive?”
“Encryption mixes the device with the software, so the operating system sees them both as a single piece.” Luke nodded. “Except a version of Linux. That separates the two, allowing the file to be copied. Katie destroyed a copy.”
“So where’s the original?”
Luke took her hand, stuck out his elbow, and placed her hand on his arm. Like ancient royalty in tattered and filthy court attire, they strode through the wreckage of the chapel grounds, nodding to the commoners who ran here and there, most of them hauling dead bodies away.
“Right now, honey,” he said, emphasizing the word, and waiting for her reaction. “My goodness, what an elegant snort. Hey! Last time you hit me like that I went off prematurely.”
“You’re insufferable.” She leaned against him.
“And filthy,” Luke agreed. “I need a shower.” He stopped at Benny’s car and pulled the keys out of his pocket with a flourish. “And so do you.”
“I do, do I?” Dani’s eyebrow seemed to climb up her forehead.
“You do. Let’s split one.”
Dani’s grin grew wide, and she even giggled. “Do you know...” she whispered, looking around, “the house will actually be empty? That big place and just the two of us.”
“Good!” Luke held the door open. “I propose a game of strip tennis.”
Dani laughed. “I don’t care, just so long as you propose.”
Luke walked around and got in behind the wheel, not even deigning to give a response to that. “Just think. Tomorrow...” He turned and leered comically in her general direction, “or the day after that, you can meet my family.”
Dani blinked from the sudden change in subject. “Your...”
“It’s only fair.” Luke pulled the car out of the spot and drove over the grass, around the tow truck drivers trying to untangle the knot at the exit. “You have to give my family a chance to kidnap you and beat you up.”
Dani started to giggle.
“Besides, we need to decide, do we get kidnapped by my family for Thanksgiving and yours for Christmas, or just beat ourselves up for the holidays and send them all cards.”
Dani laughed. Luke decided it was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.
“Just our luck,” Dani said, stretching on the seat. “None of this is really over just yet, is it?”
Luke reached over and took her hand. “But it’s our luck. It’s up to us to make it good. It ain’t over. Not by a long shot,” he said, and pulled out onto the highway.
THE END
Coming Soon:
Unloved Blurb
JUST WHEN IT SEEMS like things are looking up, the darned USB stick has to go and mess everything up, proving that where Dani and Luke are concerned, they're just Unlucky all over.
Dani wants nothing more than to be free of her father - and from all the
mafia nonsense that has been dogging her ever since she got to the United States. Luke's career will never be the same until he can put his boss away once and for all.
The problem is, there's now two sets of parents intent on getting into the act. In a wild caper that takes Luke and Dani cross country with the last people they want to be traveling with, our favorite couple chases the USB to the last place either of them want to go: the Wedding Extravaganza of the year.
It's almost like the universe is trying to tell them something.....
Unlucky in Love Series
Unlucky in Love
Book 1
Unwanted Passion
Book 2
Unloved Forever
Book 3
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More by Lexy Timms:
FROM BEST SELLING AUTHOR, Lexy Timms, comes a billionaire romance that'll make you swoon and fall in love all over again.
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