Hard to Stop

by Wendy Byrne

  "I'm pretty sure those are Treno's guys. Nothing good is going to happen to him."

  "They wanted Jeff to bring him in for a reason. They aren't going to kill him, because he's valuable to them. Maybe they think he knows something."

  "What?"

  "We don't know yet, but damned if we won't find out." With the confident swagger she'd known him to possess, he hailed a cab. "Follow that black SUV."

  She hated having a partner. She never did play well with others, but for some reason working with Max didn't bother her as much as she would have expected. Or maybe it was not being in this alone that made her feel better.

  Morning traffic had them tied up for a period of time, but they kept up with the SUV. The cabbie deftly drove through traffic, still keeping a good enough distance to avoid suspicion. The SUV wove its way through the maze of factories until it stopped outside one of them.

  Seconds later, the men pushed Mick out the door and into a building. Gianna tried to exit, but Max wrapped his arms around her torso and held tight.

  "You go in there now, and you'll both be dead."

  She drew in a deep breath. Then another. And another. Until her heart rate was close to normal. He was right.

  How would they be able to get him out of there alive? The police wouldn't touch the case with all the red tape she'd have to go through. Mick had a warrant out for his arrest, which might work in her favor—except she couldn't be 100 percent sure he wouldn't be harmed in the process, especially if they thought he knew something.

  The only thing she knew for certain was that her brother was living on borrowed time.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  "It's been two days. I can't stand sitting around waiting for something to happen," Gia said as she paced the small hotel room even though it made the ankle she'd twisted hurt like hell. "I thought The Alliance place made things happen?" Inaction made her nervous. Nervousness led to mistakes. And that couldn't happen. They needed to develop a plan, and they needed to do it quickly.

  He lounged against the chair and typed on his computer. "There's nothing to be done until it's time. That's the only thing I can say."

  "There's got to be a way to break into that stronghold. You've led me to believe The Alliance is the Navy SEALs on crack. I need to see evidence of that about now."

  "Planning is everything. There's no police raid until everything is worked out. This shouldn't be any different."

  "It doesn't make sense. Why would they take him and not kill him? There's got to be something—" The final piece of the puzzle slid into place. "They want you. They want a trade. You for him, and you've known about it. You bastard."

  He held up his arm to stop her blow. Then held her arms captive. "You're right. And I'm working on something that will get him safely out and not get myself killed."

  "What have you done? Why do they want you?" A couple of scenarios clicked through her brain, involving him and that gossip about his being an assassin.

  "I have a six-million-dollar price on my head they're trying to cash in on. That's why I know they won't hurt your brother until they get me."

  "Rumor has it you were once an assassin, a fact which I don't even want to think about for fear I'll go mad. You know we put people like you in jail."

  "Last I heard, you didn't have jurisdiction in Europe. And I've done nothing in the US that is even remotely illegal, except for maybe the last few days with you."

  "I have some connections if you're on a wanted list overseas somewhere." Of course, she was bluffing. She'd never even been to Europe, but she had to take her frustration out on somebody, and he seemed like the likely target.

  He had the audacity to throw back his head and laugh. "Good luck with that. You're welcome to try, but it appears I have a couple of people right now who want a piece of me who are ahead of you in line. But keep on trying."

  She punched him in the shoulder. "Why do you do that? Incite me until I want to hurt you."

  "Because aggression makes you feel better. Why is that, Gianna?"

  She rolled her eyes. They both had their secrets. Maybe it was better that way. "I need to go for a walk. Since you've got the target on your back, I'll be fine."

  "Don't bet on it. They've been pretty much one step ahead of us all along. Let me come with you. Besides, you don't want to aggravate that ankle of yours that you're pretending doesn't hurt."

  "I'll be fine." Without another word, she lit out the door and started to run. "Ow. Ow. Ow." Mind over matter. "Ow. Ow. Ow." Maybe she should go a little slower.

  She wanted her old life back, where she only had to worry about Mick engaging in underage drinking when he went out at night. Getting charged with murder was something she couldn't even have dreamed about. Now he was being held hostage because of Max somehow.

  Who could she call at the department who wouldn't turn her in? Unfortunately, she hadn't made a lot of friends during her tenure at NYPD. Still, she didn't trust Max Shaw, nor would she ever, especially after what she'd just learned. He was the opposite of what she believed in. He killed people for a living. Right now he was a means to an end, since their lives were twisted together for the time being. But that didn't mean she shouldn't go off on her own. In a world dominated by men, she'd learned early on when to take a stand. And this might be her time.

  She charged up the hill and worked through the pain. Her phone buzzed on her hip, and she clicked on the message.

  Her heart went cold. For about five seconds, she thought about keeping this to herself. But in the end, she knew she couldn't. Instead, she limped back to the hotel.

  By the time she got there, the thudding of her heart had reached her ears, drowning out everything but its beat. When she burst through the door, Max was exactly as she'd left him.

  He jumped up and slid a reassuring arm about her shoulder. "What happened? Did you hurt yourself?"

  "I'm okay." She shook her head as tears rolled down her cheeks, and she buried her nose into his shoulder. Being self-reliant had always been her default. If the plumbing needed fixing around the house, she did it. If the tile needed replacing in the bathroom, she'd be all over that. But this…this she couldn't handle. Not alone.

  Finally, she gathered herself enough to hold up her phone and press the play button. Maybe she'd judged it wrong. Maybe he would be able to convince her that her eyes and head had seen something different.

  "We need to get him." She sucked in air that seemed to be in short supply. "They've made my brother a criminal. Look." Her fingers shook as she showed him the phone. "Mick's robbing a bank and carrying an automatic weapon." Bile rose in her throat. Her chest ached. How had this happened so easily? So quickly that she hadn't seen it coming? He'd left a sweet note for her about protecting her, and now he was one of those people she despised.

  "Maybe it's not what it looks like." He wrapped his hands around the side of her neck and tilted up her head. "They might have orchestrated this whole thing to get us to show our hand. To force me to turn myself into them, or to force you to turn me over to them."

  Hope sprang in her chest, and for the briefest of seconds she could breathe. But the heart hammering inside said otherwise. He'd become one of them. A statistic she'd known all too well to be true. Kids got caught in the life and then couldn't get out.

  She couldn't look at Max when she shook her head against his chest. To see the pity reflected in his eyes would put her over that perilous edge. "I've seen it too many times before. My brother has been lost. He crossed that line he'd been straddling for a couple of years now. Maybe he crossed it before. Maybe he was involved somehow in the murder of Damon Rice, for all I know." Facts were facts. "Now that I think about it, he didn't fight too hard when he got into that SUV." The hiccup of pain seared through her midsection and got caught somewhere in the vicinity of her lungs. For a second or two, she wasn't sure she would or could breathe.

  "Maybe we should try to find out where this is. There's got to be some clues on the video. I could send it to
Jennings for verification and maybe some identifiers." He smoothed his hands down her hair. "There's got to be some way of tracing this."

  She wanted to believe him. She also wanted to believe in the power of love, but that had failed her once again. He'd gone down the path of her uncle. She should have known this would happen. Uncle Frank had not been someone she wanted her brother to emulate.

  No, she wanted those happy thoughts of a ten-year-old boy who wanted to be a cop like her when he grew up. If she tried hard, she could still remember the sounds of his not-yet-changed voice when he talked about going to the academy after college. Of course, then he'd follow it up with his desire to become an NFL player. She missed those days.

  "What's Jennings's e-mail?" She drew her head from his chest, but not enough to look into his eyes. Pity was something she couldn't take at the moment.

  "Send it to me, and I'll forward it. It's a top-secret kind of thing. And he has more firewalls than the FBI. Pretty much every e-mail gets blocked unless it's from an already known address."

  "Who are these people your siblings work for?"

  "Good folks. The best. And if there's a way to figure this out, they will."

  Suddenly, she had a whole new respect for the man. Maybe this would all work out after all.

  * * *

  Max felt guilty that she spent the rest of the day staring off into space. If he counted how many times she replayed that video, it probably numbered into the hundreds somewhere. It was as if she thought she'd find something different when she watched. And each time she did, he felt like a bigger and bigger asshole.

  Finally, she fell into an exhausted sleep around midnight. While she slept, Max went to work. He needed to plan this perfectly, down to every last detail. If he didn't, there'd be no way to save this mission, save him, the kid, or Gianna. Everything would be one big disaster if he screwed this up. Now was the time to put the second part of his elaborate plan in motion. Do or die, as the saying went. And it had screwed him over on many occasions. He had to hope this wasn't one of them.

  At three in the morning, he went outside their hotel room and brought his laptop. For the time being, he was going to keep her in the dark on his insane plan. He didn't want to, but it was the only thing that made sense. He called Jennings first.

  "Max, what you're proposing is crazy. The whole thing is a disaster. You need to give us more time. We can get this done."

  "The video worked to convince her. We can't wait any longer. She's losing her mind and going to do something stupid. What other choice do I have?"

  "I could call in Jake and Sabrina."

  "Absolutely not. I started this mess, and I'm going to finish it. They've already given up enough because of me." Max gulped back the wash of emotion. He couldn't think about his siblings without guilt stabbing through him.

  "If something happens to you and Jake and Sabrina find out I knew about this harebrained scheme of yours, they'll kill me."

  "Your secret is safe with me. Besides, they're not going to find out, because I'm going to be fine. Just like always."

  Jennings hesitated. "Lucien and Angie are on the call as of now. Let's work on the timing of things."

  "Perfect. How about the kid? Is he good?" That was the one thing Max didn't have confidence in. The other players, Angie and Lucien, since they worked for The Alliance, he had complete faith in, but Mick was a red herring as far as he was concerned. He could fall either way on the continuum of trouble in this. Banking on his compliance was an issue. He could only trust Lucien and Angie's assessment. Putting faith in other people outside his brother and sister had been something he'd struggled with his entire life. Except for now, when he had absolutely no choice in the matter but to do what he had to do to make things right.

  "Let us know when you're ready, and we can set things in motion," Lucien said. "We've been around here long enough to see the writing on the wall. But a heads-up—they're getting paid more than we thought to make this happen. Last I heard, it was twenty million. Not sure who's pulling the strings, but I'm pretty sure it's a group of people, not just one."

  Holy shit. Sure, he expected as much, but could this get any worse? Max drew in a breath and tried to still his racing pulse. "Any idea when you'll get that information?" Max had to be certain and leave nothing to chance. Maybe they should wait.

  "No way to know, and time here is limited," Angie said. "It's your call. We can hold on and wait for the opportunity. But in my opinion, the window is closing on that. We might not be able to salvage this at the end of the day."

  "Are you saying the kid is expendable?"

  "I'm saying everyone is expendable right now," Lucien said. "There's a lot of pressure to find you, and if the kid isn't getting that done, then they'll figure out another way to get to you. Bottom line is, you or whoever makes that happen is the winner here." Lucien's words sealed the decision.

  Max drew his hands through his hair. This had gone from bad to cluster-F in quick order. He needed to change the power structure, and he needed to come up with a quick and efficient way to do that, or all bets were off the table.

  "For what I'm thinking about, it has to be well orchestrated. The kid has to be a viable piece of the puzzle, and we need to make sure the timing piece is perfect. She already believes her brother has gone over to the dark side. We have to confirm it."

  "Absolutely."

  "I was hoping you'd say that. Tomorrow it is." Max closed the laptop and walked back inside the room.

  Exhaustion finally pulled him in as Max lay next to Gianna on the bed and contemplated for the millionth time how it all began. How he became mother, father, and brother wrapped into one. The enormity of that responsibility seemed to hang on his shoulders like leaden weights dragging him down until he wanted nothing but a sense of relief for even a minute or two. He couldn't think about that without second-guessing what he'd done at the time. He should have paid more attention when the three of them were growing up. Maybe he could have helped without the aid of Petrovich.

  He was so scared. And tired. Overwhelmed by the responsibility well beyond his years.

  Sabrina had been whimpering nonstop for a couple of days, and he thought he'd lose his mind. Every other minute she asked for Mama and then kept repeating it like a broken record. She kept saying Mama had the magic powder to make her feel better. He didn't know what she was talking about, but he figured it was something their mother told Sabrina when she didn't feel good, or was scared, and wanted her to take medicine. After Sabrina stopped whining, she kept asking to go home, saying she was tired and wanted her doll. How could he explain death to her? Or the fact that their parents weren't coming home? Or why she couldn't stay in her bedroom and wake up and they'd be there? Death to her hadn't been permanent. It had floated in that in-and-out kind of way that made her believe any moment they'd walk through their door, and she'd be safe again. Each day the responsibility had worn on him, and twelve-year-old Max had fallen deeper and deeper into a depression. He understood that now. But back then, he didn't have words to explain what he was feeling.

  There was no way out of their situation. His parents were never going to come back alive, and he had to take charge of the situation.

  "Maxie, where did Mommy and Daddy go? I want to go back to my room."

  "We can't."

  Her eyes started to well. Crap. What a bad brother he was. Jake watched as if trying to decide what to say based on Max's lead. But he didn't want to lead anymore, even if that was how he usually communicated with his siblings. Telling them what to do was good until it all rested on his shoulders.

  Sabrina hiccupped. "Is Mommy mad at me? Is that why she's been gone so long?"

  Max shook his head and fought back the tears. He couldn't cry. He had to be strong for his family. "No, Mommy and Daddy are sick, so we've got to stay away so we don't get sick too."

  "But when will they be better?"

  "I'm not sure." He held the soup spoon up to her lips. "Take a drink, Saby. You'
re getting sick too."

  "Are you going to leave me like we left Mommy and Daddy?" Her large eyes glanced up at him, the fear and worry shining through like the words were imprinted on her eyeballs.

  "No, I'll never leave you." He glanced over at Jake. "Both Jake and I will always be here for you. No matter what happens, we'll never leave you. Ever. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Maxie." She yawned, the soft, innocent sound of a mere babe. "I'm so tired and cold. Will you hold me tight and rock me like Mommy does?" Her eyes fluttered closed.

  Then and there he knew what he needed to do. Once she'd fallen asleep, he handed her pliant form over to Jake as he did the work of the devil. Some killers were born, some were made. And some were formed by their circumstances. Although he'd tried to outrun it, his fate had been written in the wind since the day he was born. He knew that now. And he could never go back.

  He sat up in bed as the scene he remembered from so long ago revisited, and the fear resurfaced. As many times as he'd said he believed he'd done what he had to do to ensure they were all safe, he couldn't make it right within his head. The nagging questions and second-guessing wouldn't allow him to stop rehashing his decision that day. At the time, his twelve-year-old self couldn't think of a way around it. His thirty-five-year-old self sought a different solution, even if it wouldn't change the past and would only haunt him further.

  Sweat coated his body as he pulled back the covers. Those few minutes of tormented sleep were probably the only moments he'd get after having his own personal visit into hell. Once his mind had brought him back, there was no way of recovering outside of exercising or meditation. Either would work to bring about the necessary pain to wipe the scene from his mind, albeit temporarily. But that was all he could currently hope for. In fact, that was all he could ever hope for. Nothing would change what was to be. He knew that now. He knew that before as well, and it had been written long before he'd been born.