by Celia Aaron
A frigid raindrop landed on the back of my neck and scurried under my collar. I shivered and jogged up the game trail until I found the second snare. A large jackrabbit hung from the sapling, lightly spinning in the wind. The noose was looped around one of its furry hind legs. It began kicking furiously as I approached, bouncing around the sapling until it seemed almost comical.
“Hang on. I’m going to set you free.” I approached and reached for its long ears. It kicked out, but I managed to grab one of the silky ears and then looped my index finger around the other to get a strong hold. Though it was a bunny, it had enough strength in its hind legs to tear a gash in me if I wasn’t careful.
“Don’t bite me and don’t scratch me, and we’ll get along fine.” I reached for its snared leg, stilled it, and worked my fingers into the slipknot. After a few hard jerks, the noose went slack and the rabbit was free. I dropped him to the ground and he bounded off into the underbrush.
Another roll of thunder punctuated the rabbit’s escape. The fat drops had turned into a steady rain, and I turned to hurry back to the cabin.
I screamed and froze.
“Hello there, sweetheart.” A man with dark eyes, slicked back hair, and a crooked smile stood in front of me—an umbrella in one hand and a gun in the other, pointed right at me.
“Ramone, I take it?” He was about six feet tall, slim, and had a reedy voice that set my teeth on edge.
“My reputation precedes me? I like that.” His Boston accent cut through his vowels. “I’ve got someone who’s been aching to get reacquainted with you.”
“Berty?” I glanced to the snare where the sharp stake remained buried in the ground. If I could get to it and yank it free, I’d have a weapon.
“The one and only.” He glanced to the stake. “I wouldn’t if I were you. You’d be dead before you had a chance.”
My body chilled—whether from the rain or Ramone, I didn’t know—and I stared at the gun barrel. I’d read an article once that said victim’s memories were most often faulty when it came to identifying assailants, primarily because the victim couldn’t focus on anything but the gun. It rang true as I stood in the freezing rain and peered at the dark gunmetal. The black in the center ate up all the light around it, and I knew that a bullet with my name on it was waiting in the chamber.
“Let’s go.” He grinned. “You know, I’d usually give you the choice between me putting a bullet in you here or taking you to whoever wanted you alive or dead. But you?” He licked his thin lips. “The money is too good to leave your body out in these woods. Berty’s going to have fun with you.”
I tore my gaze from the barrel and focused on the bottomless pits of his eyes. “I’ll kill him.”
He laughed, the sound wheezing, though his gun hand remained unnervingly steady. “I’d pay to see that.” The chuckle died in his throat. “Let’s go.” He waved the gun, gesturing for me to go first.
I tried to calm the chaotic beat of my heart and look for a way out as I edged past him. My shoes slid on wet pine needles for a moment before I righted myself.
“Right now, you’re thinking you can make a break for it. Don’t. I’ll shoot you before you even take a step out of line. You’ll also be thinking about trying to escape later on—maybe when I have you in the car, or maybe once you get to Berty.” His voice had the same dead quality as his eyes. “You won’t make it then, either. But go ahead and hold onto hope. It’s only natural.”
As I stepped over a branch, it occurred to me that I may have left my pocket knife in the pea coat I’d thrown on. I focused on the pocket at my hip, hoping to feel the weight of the knife.
Step, step, step. There. I felt it, my skin registering the weighty metal. It wasn’t much when compared to the gun at my back, but the knife was something. I just had to wait for my chance.
He kept pace behind me, the rain thumping against his umbrella as he followed close at my heels.
“How’d you find us?”
“Does it matter? Walk faster.”
“I was just curious.” I chewed my lip. “Conrad said you were good.”
“He did, eh?” He snorted, an ugly sound. “I’m better than him, that’s for sure. All I had to do was put some lookouts on the county roads. When he drove that stolen SUV out of these bumfuck woods this morning, one of my guys spotted him. Didn’t take much to figure it out from there. Where is Connie, by the way? The cabin was empty.”
If he didn’t know Con’s whereabouts, then maybe he still had a chance to get away. I went for the Oscar and put a streak of bitterness into my words. “He’s an asshole. He decided to take off with Nate and leave me behind.”
He chuckled, satisfaction in each roll of laughter. “Sounds like Con. I always knew he was a coward at heart.”
“Nate convinced him that if you took me out, then problem solved, and Con could go back to your boss.”
“Is that so?”
“They took all the food and the guns. And said you’d be here soon.”
“Why didn’t you run?”
I stepped over a fallen log as the cabin came into view. The SUV wasn’t there, thank god. Con and Nate wouldn’t be taken off guard by Ramone.
I shrugged. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. No car. No way out.”
“A pretty little sitting duck.” His satisfied tone reminded me of a cat licking its whiskers. “Thanks for waiting around for me. The money on your head is going to pave my future with gold, sweetheart. But don’t worry. I’ll find Con and bring his head to Vince. I’ll even ask if I can take Nate’s just for fun. See? I’m not all bad.” His wheezy laugh had me curling my hands into fists.
We crossed the muddy road in front of the cabin and stepped onto the small front porch. It was now or never.
“I’m freezing.” I quaked, stuffed my hands into my pockets, and scooped up my knife. My icy fingers could barely feel the handle, and I tried to work the blade out with my thumb.
“Ah ah ah.” Ramone tsked at my back. “There’s a reason I’m the best, sweetheart.” He grabbed my arm and a fistful of my hair, then shoved me face first into the log wall. I crumpled and sprawled onto my back as he pulled zip ties from his suit coat pocket along with a handkerchief.
I tried to kick away from him. He watched with amusement. I scooted all of a few feet before he knelt and shoved the handkerchief against my face. The antiseptic smell seeped into my lungs, and my eyes closed, though I fought to stay awake.
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”
29
Conrad
“You think she’s just going to ride off into the sunset without putting up a fight?” Nate took a drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke out in a thin stream.
“That’s the plan.” I wasn’t looking forward to letting her go. She belonged with me. I knew it as surely as I knew that I’d have to answer for the two hundred and seventy-eight lives I’d taken when my time came. But she couldn’t live with a threat hanging over her—a threat I’d put there to begin with. I never could stay away from her. Even now, I craved the smell of her skin, the soft lilt of her voice.
“I’m just saying, the whole retreat thing?” He shrugged. “She doesn’t seem the type.”
“What do you mean?” I swerved to avoid a muddy rut. The cabin appeared through the trees, no smoke rising from the chimney. Odd.
“She’s got backbone. That day in her flower shop, I’m pretty sure she planned on gutting me with a pair of scissors. That’s some intense shit right there. And you said she went Green Mile on Ricky with a Taser? Turning tail and running doesn’t seem her style.”
I smiled, remembering the look in her eyes when I’d caught her with the scissors and the triumphant attitude she’d sported after helping me take down Ricky.
Nate chuckled. “Usually, I’m all for chicks scissoring in front of me, but that time… Like I said, Charlie isn’t a runner.”
I didn’t care for the way he said her name or the smile on his lips when he thought about her. About w
hat was mine. Nate was right. She was a fighter. But she was also smart. I’d played my trump card when I’d told her I needed to know she was safe so I could do my job and return to her. All of it was true, except for the part about meeting up with her later. My trip to Berty was a one-way ticket. We both knew it. And I couldn’t change it. Vince had too many men at his disposal for me to make it out of there alive, but I’d die a thousand times over if it meant she got to live for even one more day.
We pulled up in front of the cabin, and my hackles rose. I couldn’t pinpoint how I knew something was off. I just did.
“Something’s wrong.” I palmed my 9 mm.
“Fuck.” Nate stubbed his cigarette onto the dashboard and grabbed his pistol. “You see something?” He peered through the raindrops on the window and into the trees.
“No, just a feeling.”
“That’s even worse.” He checked the chamber.
“I’m going to look inside.” I opened my door and stepped onto the wet pine needles. “Keep an eye out.”
The front door was shut, but the house had an empty feeling. No one was home. Instead of going through the front, I cut around to the back. The stream flowed past, already swelling from its usual banks. I gripped the door handle. It turned easily, unlocked. Fuck. The fire was cold, and the greens and mushrooms Charlie had collected earlier still sat on the kitchen counter.
I swung the door all the way open. “Charlie?”
No response.
“It’s clear out here. Don’t see shit.” Nate’s voice rang out as I stepped into the cabin.
I didn’t smell the gas until my foot connected with the trip wire. By then, it was too late. I covered my face with my arms as a nightmare of sound and a bloom of heat became my reality.
“Wake up, asshole!”
Cold. Wet. Pain. Someone slapping me in the face.
“Jesus, you look like a fucking burned hotdog. Wake up. You have to see yourself.” Another slap. “Maybe like a marshmallow that caught fire.”
I opened my eyes.
Nate peered down at me, a smile on his lips but fear in his eyes. “Thought you were a goner there for a minute.”
“Ramone.” My voice was a croak as I tried to sit up.
The cabin burned behind Nate, the smoke rising into the rainy sky. It all came back in a vicious rush.
The explosion.
Charlie had been taken.
I must have landed in the stream, because I was soaked through and lying at the water’s edge with Nate hovering above me. The backs of my hands felt like they’d been stung by one set of bees who then took a smoke break while a fresh set of bees went to work.
I lifted them and stared at the red skin, blisters forming at their own pace. My ears rang with a high, sour note, and Charlie’s name ran on a constant loop in my mind.
“Don’t worry. The explosion didn’t touch me. My looks are intact.” Nate gripped the front of my coat and yanked me into a sitting position.
“Asshole.” I coughed as smoke wafted over us, the remnants of my few days with Charlie turning to ash.
She was gone. Stolen right out from under me. I’d fucked up somehow, led Ramone to her. I shook with rage at the thought of her in that fucker’s clutches. I’d promised to take care of her, that I’d keep her safe. I’d failed.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. She had to be alive. Berty wanted to play with his food. My throbbing hands balled into fists as I thought of her afraid, crying, hurting. No.
Nate snapped his fingers in front of my face. He’d been talking. I hadn’t noticed.
“So, Charlie?” He half winced as he said her name and glanced back at the smoldering cabin.
“She wasn’t in there. Ramone took her.”
“I see.” He nodded. “He must have bagged her, set the easy bake oven for you, and took off.”
I struggled to my feet with Nate’s help. “We have to go after them.”
Nate whistled, the sound like a bomb falling from a great height. “That mission has a one hundred percent chance of death.”
“I don’t give a shit.” I pulled away from him and slogged through the mushy ground toward the SUV. A slash of lightning split the sky and thunder rumbled, matching the angry beat of my heart.
“You’ll be walking into a trap at best, a meat grinder at worst.” His voice was reasonable. His words even more so. But none of it mattered. Ramone took Charlie. I would get her back no matter the cost.
I reached into my pocket for the car keys and winced. The back of my hand burned with renewed fire when the fabric touched it.
“I got it.” Nate fished them out for me. “Pocket pool always was my favorite game. Get in the passenger seat. We need a plan.”
“You don’t have to come with—”
“Shut the fuck up and get in the car.” He shot me a grin. “Lost causes always get me hard, and you know it. Count me in.”
I climbed into the SUV and leaned back against the headrest, the scent of burnt hair acrid in my nostrils. This was nothing compared to what I’d do to Ramone, to anyone who hurt my Charlie.
“I lost my suicide mission checklist, so I’ll just go off the top of my head here.” Nate pointed the car back toward the highway and slid down the mud and gravel road. “We’re going to need lots of guns.”
“Mine were in the cabin.”
“Figures.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ll collect what you have, then head to Vince’s. She may be there by now. I won’t let Berty hurt her.” The thought of Ramone manhandling her, of Berty even looking at her, sent my blood into another rampaging tumult. I would kill each of them before the day was out, even if I had to escort them to hell myself.
Nate navigated around a set of ruts we’d made on our way to the cabin. “If you’ll think back, my friend, all the guns you had were my guns. They just went kablooey. We’ll need way more if we want to storm the castle.”
“Sam.”
“The chop shop asshole?”
“Yes. Take me to Sam’s.” I glanced down at myself, my clothes singed and wet. Ramone had set that trap to kill me.
I was lucky to be alive.
And Ramone’s luck had just run the fuck out.
30
Charlie
“How is it you’re even prettier than I remember?” Berty circled me, his short, skinny fingers tapping his chin. “Doesn’t make sense. I mean, I fucked up your face. You still got some shiners, but there’s something about you.”
I lifted my head, my mind reviving as I took in my surroundings. No dungeon for me. Not this time. I was in some sort of a rec room, the walls lined with sports memorabilia. Ramone sat in a leather chair in a corner to my right, and two men sat on a couch to my left and watched a football game on a wide-screen TV.
Bile rose in my throat when I realized a plastic tarp was spread out beneath the wooden chair where I sat, my hands and feet bound in a vicious replay of my last run-in with Berty.
“Something in your eyes, maybe?” He trailed his clammy fingers across my neck. “Your skin?”
“Fuck you.” My tongue was thick in my mouth.
“We’ll get to that. Don’t be so hasty.” He stopped circling and grinned down at me. “Though I do appreciate your interest in me. Flattering, really.”
The man who had ruled my nightmares let his gaze trail down my body. I shook with a mix of terror and fury. I wanted to claw the eyes from his head and kick him in the nuts until having kids was off the table for him. He blinked, one eyelid moving more slowly than the other, as he finished his appraisal. Though smaller than he seemed in my nightmares, cruelty leeched from his skin and poisoned the air around us. I bit back vomit as he ran the palm of his hand over the bulge in his pants.
“You’re doing things to me, my little florist. And very shortly, I’ll be doing things to you.” He pressed his palm to his ribs, as if adjusting something under his shirt, and winced. “I’ve been wanting payback for Con’s bullet for a while. I’ll take it
out of you first.”
I pried my gaze from him and looked for any avenue of escape. The only door I saw was shut behind Berty. Ramone sat with his legs crossed at the knee, boredom in his expression. He splayed his fingers out and inspected his nails, my impending torture and murder not even interesting enough for a glance. The two men seemed engrossed in the game, comfortable with the idea of a bound woman only a few feet away from them. Wide windows looked out onto a landscaped yard barely visible in the rainy gloom. Even if I could make it to the glass, I’d have to somehow break it and crawl out—all before being caught.
“I’m afraid no one’s here to help you, Charlie.” Berty pinched my chin hard between his thumb and forefinger. “Just you and me.” He leaned closer, the white scar along his jaw coming into focus.
I bared my teeth. “When Con gets here, he’ll give you a matching scar on your other cheek.”
“Bitch,” he hissed, his spit flying onto my forehead.
I bit my cheek, but kept staring at him, willing him to get away from me. His narrow face and beady eyes reminded me of a cruel, starving bird. I wanted to put him out of his misery.
“You know.” His eyes widened. “I think I know what makes you have that sort of glow about you.” He sank down onto his haunches. “You’re in love.”
I didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. Did he know I’d lied to Ramone about Conrad and Nate taking off and leaving me?
“That’s it.” He nodded. “You’re in love with Conrad Mercer.”
“In that case, she has shit taste in men,” Ramone said. “Besides, I left a little ‘welcome home’ present for Connie back at the cabin. I expect a terrible accident has already befallen him.” He tsked. “I’ll ride back out there tomorrow morning, pick up an ear or a finger—whatever I can find—and bring it by for the bounty.”
“You’re lying.” My heart sank, everything inside me going cold.
“No, Charlie, you’re the one who lied. Claimed Connie and Nate rode off into the sunset and left you.” Ramone brushed lint off his pants. “Trying to play me for a fool.” He finally looked me in the eye. A cruel smile crept across his lips. “I’m sort of curious if there will be much left of him. A cabin full of gas plus a simple flame. Can you imagine the explosion?” He laughed.
